Dominant Species (16 page)

Ridgeway was no tech, but he understood the process. Mnemonic reconstruction could redistribute material, but not replace pieces that had broken off. The paste provided a manageable supply of raw material that could be assimilated in the reconstruction process. Over the years, Ridgeway's armor had amassed several pounds of the stuff.

As though he sensed Ridgeway's stare, Merlin paused and looked up. The engineer's left eye was blackened but the swelling had not closed it completely. The damage gave Merlin a distinct squint on one side that made his walnut brown eyes seem even darker. The discoloration swept back under the line of his jet-black hair.

Merlin had taken woefully little time to rest as he fought to establish a stable baseline of heat and power. He exhaled heavily as he mopped his hands on the front of his badly-stained T-shirt. Blood, sweat and grime had collaborated to transform a swath of olive green to near-black. Merlin stepped over the motionless armor and limped to Ridgeway. With a remarkable level of professionalism, the engineer delivered his report.

"ReGen is running, but it's damn slow. The engine is cranking a lot of juice, but there must be a million shorts between the core and here. I've been fighting with the mains for a couple of hours now, trying to get the grid for this deck to reset. If I can get a solid line of power, things oughtta pick up. I'm close." Merlin's shoulders slumped, "I think."

Ridgeway nodded, one eyebrow arched. "Just don't do it by wiring yourself to any more panels."

Merlin blinked, then looked down. "I'm sorry Major, that was--"

"Stow it. You had the ball, you made the call. We're all alive because of it."

Merlin nodded, wincing noticeably at the word ‘all'. He held up his right hand, the first two fingers crossed. "I'm on the power, major. I'll get it." He turned and sidestepped across the slope in the direction of the open conduit.

While he gave no outward sign of recognition at the time, Ridgeway had noted Merlin's response to the word ‘all' and looked upslope to the circular room at the far end of the Sickbay. The room differed dramatically from the rectangle of soft grey. Its curved wall was made of a seamless piece of gloss black glass that stretched from floor to ceiling. A six-foot matrix of orange spheres hung from the domed ceiling, bathing the room in a fiery glow that pulsed slowly. Ridgeway was painfully aware of what lay beneath the throbbing lights.

A large metal-frame table sat center stage, thick cables draped from it's stainless-steel underbelly like dreadlocks. Darcy was stretched out on a plate of the same obsidian glass that made up the curved wall. Each of the table's four corners ended in what appeared to be an open, three-inch drainpipe. Tubes ran from each drain into the articulated pedestal that supported the table.

It looked more like an autopsy table than anything else, a fact that afforded Ridgeway no comfort. But a full-length IRA hung directly overhead and the dead would have had no need for infra-red therapy.

The array had proven to be one of the few devices in Sickbay that actually worked. Infrared therapy had long served as a medical standby for its ability to accelerate the natural healing process. A steady regimen of pulsed IR could cut down recuperation time for a variety of minor injuries, but it would be no replacement for surgery in the case of major trauma. At the most optimistic level, it bought them a little extra time. Very little.

Stitch hovered around the unconscious sniper, his face haggard. Eighteen hours had passed since the six Marines found themselves in the lake. The medic had stayed at Darcy's side since their arrival in Sickbay, taking only the barest time to shore up the team's other wounds as they were uncovered. What little sleep he had managed was done propped in a chair, his head against the cold table surface.

Stitch leaned unsteadily against the wall, eyes sunken into bruised-grey hollows. Dark red streaks crossed the front of the medic's T-shirt, although by now Ridgeway had little guess as to whose blood was where. He looked at the gaunt figure and wondered if the doctor would outlive the patient.

Not that Darcy was far from dead. She had slipped into a coma some seven hours before and thus far had shown no sign of emerging. The aggregate of injuries had been compounded by the delay in medical attention. The combination was proving to be a deadly mix.

Saving my ass in the turbolift didn't help, Ridgeway thought with a frown of recrimination. Even in the midst of dying, Darcy had been all Marine.

With a low groan Ridgeway stood from the chair and pulled himself laboriously upslope to climb the short flight of stairs that led to the unconscious sniper.

Darcy lay motionless in the oscillating orange light. The Martian glow exaggerated the bruising along her face and neck. Swollen flesh distorted her features, one eye and one nostril completely closed over. Her blonde hair hung limp and matted with blood.

She looked dead already, Ridgeway thought grimly. If they didn't come up with a miracle soon, that appearance would become a reality.

A portion of Darcy's Kevlar-fiber shirt had been cut open and pulled back to reveal the gaping wound in her ribcage. Over the last nine hours Stitch had made three attempts to close off sources of blood loss. In spite of his efforts, her condition continued to slide.

Air seeping into her chest cavity had allowed one lung to collapse, aggravating the fact that the other was half-full of clotted blood. Besieged with such a wide variety of injuries, Darcy's white blood cell production had kicked into overdrive. The monstrous flood of white cells was choking out any room for red cells to bring life-giving oxygen. Darcy was sinking under an endless chain-reaction of medical failures as her shutdown became increasingly systemic.

Ridgeway looked up as Taz limped across the pitched floor. A grey pallor sapped the hue from normally tan skin. Amidst the undressed contusions that sprawled across his frame, a small gauze patch clung to his left arm just below the black tattoo that read ‘Oz'.

Taz drew up alongside the medic and leaned close. "Listen mate, I'm not mucking about here. You know we're the same blood type. If the LT needs more then let's have another go. I can run on a half a tank."

The medic was deadpan. "You're already down to half a tank."

The Aussie's cadaverous tone testified to the recent drainage. Taz shouldered closer, his voice a forced hush through clenched teeth. "Then bloody well run me to a quarter dammit, run it dry. We're not losing anybody."

Ridgeway saw Stitch flare for an instant before just as quickly deflating, too exhausted for anger. The medic said with a weary sigh. "Taz, if I thought I could save her by cutting your heart out with a dull spoon, you'da been on the table already."

"Too right!" Taz spat out. He blinked once, then his gaze fell to the table. His amber eyes had dulled to a shade of burnt copper. The Aussie ran a scarred hand across the veneer of stubble that covered his skull and added with a solemn nod, "If it comes to that, you let me know, right?"

Stitch gripped him coarsely on the shoulder. "Count on it."

Ridgeway saw the medic grin just once, a feeble attempt that did little to ease the suffering that smoldered in both men's eyes. Then the moment faded and both faces fell back into furrow.

Taz looked once more at Darcy and sighed, his grey skin losing yet another shade. With a slow shake of his head he turned and limped away.

Stitch yawned heavily and backed away, rubbing his bloodshot eyes. He abruptly slipped on the angled deck and dropped hard to one knee. "Shit!"

Ridgeway grabbed a flailing arm and hauled Stitch back to his feet. Ignoring the weary protests, Ridgeway manhandled him to a chair. The medic fell into it with a huff.

"I'm running out of fixes Major," Stitch slurred. "She's in a spiral. I don't know what kind of Sickbay this is, but it hasn't got shit in terms of equipment. The supply lockers have been stripped. The fucking walls have more computer screens than an air traffic control center, but there's nothing for them to display. If there's something here that can help, I'll be damned if I know what it is."

"What are her chances?" Ridgeway's question bordered on the far edge of optimism.

"Of surviving the next ten minutes? Half decent. Push that to an hour and they drop to zilch."

Ridgeway caught the note of resignation in Stitch's voice and fought his own growing sense of hopelessness. He drew a deep breath and groped for answers. The frigid air smelled of antiseptic, blood and old sweat.

"Any chance we can gut this pommy bastard for parts?" The unexpected question cut in from the left side of the room, laced with derision. Both Ridgeway and Stitch turned towards the sound.

Taz stood over the battered figure in Alliance coveralls. The orange survival suit had been cut away, strips of the material used to fashion splints for one arm and both legs. Hands and feet were swathed in bandages, but the coal-black stumps of fingers and toes stood testament to the brutal effects of frostbite. The lapel tape on the stained grey coveralls read JENNER.

The trucker looked up from the floor through eyes dull with pain. Another weary moan rattled in his chest.

Taz slid a combat knife from his boot as he expanded on his offer. "I'd be happy to fish you out anything you need; lungs, liver, you name it." The razor-edged blade glinted as the Aussie rolled his wrist as though making the first brutal incision.

Jenner's eyes widened, either the sight of the knife or the tone of Taz's voice piercing the shroud of his limited consciousness. A ragged sucking sound rose from his throat as his limbs wriggled aimlessly.

Ridgeway glanced at Stitch, their eyes locked for a brief instant. They replied in unison.

"NO!"

Taz slumped at the rebuke while the Rimmer flopped like a fish trying to walk. Ridgeway could see the Aussie's thumb flick absently across the blade's edge. The copper eyes didn't blink, fixed with a shark's malevolence on the figure at his feet. Alarm snaked its way up Ridgeway's spine as the blade lingered outside of its sheath.

The moment was shattered by a sudden electrical thrum that surged through the walls. A hoarse yet defiant shout broke sharply from the next room. "OORAH!"

Ridgeway spun as a flood of activity rippled across the walls. Computer monitors everywhere flickered to life and data spooled out in volumes too great for the human eye to track. A torrent of clicks and whirrs resonated from within the walls as countless systems initialized. Overhead, a gush of stale air belched from the grated vents near the ceiling. The steady breeze that followed was decidedly warm.

Merlin appeared in the doorway, holding a charred metal box like a trophy. Strands of blackened wire splayed from the component like the shriveled legs of a dried insect. "Friggin phase inverter. I replaced it with one from the--"

A harsh, steel-guitar spang stopped Merlin in mid-sentence. In the midst of the round room, a cube of blue energy shimmered around the steel and glass table, and the unconscious form of Darcy Lonigan.

CHAPTER 17

Monster exploded from his chair, shifting from seemingly dead-asleep to full charge in the blink of an eye. Launching himself up the short flight of stairs, he slammed into the radiant pane like a fullback hitting the two-hole on a quick opener.

Ridgeway winced at the sound of impact; Monster might as well have hit a steel bulkhead. With a stunning concussion, the force field bounced him like a rubber ball, catapulting the massive figure back across the room. The big man covered nearly two meters before he slammed into the floor with a crash and tumbled down slope into the tangle of debris, arms flailing, eyes ablaze and a vicious snarl deep in his chest.

The whine of high-powered weapons spun up around the room as CARs and exothermic pistols snapped to bear at the ceiling just above the force field. A lone voice broke sharply against the lull.

"Hold it, HOLD IT!"

Ridgeway turned to the sound of the medic's voice. Stitch stared at what until now been a bare wall of curved black glass. The entire surface was alive with text and graphics. Columns of color-coded numbers and symbols washed down the screen at a breakneck pace.

Stitch was fixed on a portion of the display but Ridgeway drew nothing from the symmetrical blocks of data. Information slid across the screen in color-coded pairs, descriptors and numerical values in side by side columns. The ones in red rapidly diminished.

"Some kinda sterile field," Stitch concluded as he reached out in a palm-down waving motion. "Bacteria's dying off, dust particles--"

With a caustic snap, a blinding bar of light flared to life within the head of the table, shining up through the smooth black glass. The harsh white plane began to slide down the length of Darcy's body, traveling at a smooth and even pace. As it did, a translucent apparition of a human skeleton resolved in the air above her.

The sweeping obsidian screen exploded with light and color. A huge schematic of Darcy's skeleton splashed across nearly five meters of wall. The ribs flexed almost imperceptibly with the sniper's shallow breathing. Details ranging from breaks to old fracture seams blossomed in magnified call-outs, injuries taking on artificial tints of varied intensity. Color-coded text appeared along the skeletal outlines, matching those in the floating phantom. Linked to each point of injury, data spooled out in rapid bursts.