Phantom of the Wind (3 page)

“I intend to file a formal complaint against her with Fleet Command,” Kendall said. “Torturing prisoners went out with the shutdown of R-9 four years ago.”

“I put a line into his carotid, Doc. Just in case,” Andrews told her.

“Good work,” she complimented.

“All secure,” Parks said. “Engaging the TAOS.”

The unit into which Quinn had been placed was a state-of-the-art tool that cost more than the ship on which it had been placed. It was the future of space medicine and could mend injuries and cure a plethora of illnesses that had taken many a life over the span of history. Only two of its kind were in operation. The
Sláinte
had been the only med evac transport to win the bid to carry the ultra-expensive machine.

Shaped like a long, clear glass tunnel, wires so thin they could not be seen by the human eye formed a network grid like a fine mesh along the surface of the domed glass. Magnetic signals bombarded the patient from the mesh to read injuries within the body. Once the mapping was completed, the actual work of repairing the damage would be carried out by rapid energy pulses that could meticulously knit bones back together, disinfect, cauterize and close wounds, make minute sutures in flesh, tissue and arteries, and destroy any bacterial microorganisms that might later cause infection.

As the TAOS geared up, a pale pink light flooded the inside of the tunnel and spread over Quinn. As each sector of his body was mapped, it showed up on the three-dimensional diagnostic screen behind the TAOS.

“Man, oh, man,” Parks said as he glanced up at the screen. “He’s coming to.”

“Twenty milligrams of pairilis,” Kendall ordered. “I don’t want him awake any time soon.”

“Aye, aye, Ma’am,” Andrews responded. He reached over to his tray of meds, took up the inject vial of the high-powered drug and put it into the IV line in Quinn’s neck.

Kendall put a hand to her mouth as the diagnostic mapping began forming on the screen. Parks was speaking into the Vid-Mem so a transcript of the injuries could be recorded into the patient’s file. Although the med tech was giving each injury its scientific name, all Kendall heard was a list that seemed to go on forever.

Quinn had a severe concussion, a broken jaw, his right clavicle was fractured along with both wrists and each of his fingers. The rotator cuff of his right arm was torn. The palms of both hands had brutal scrapes on them as did the tops of his thighs. There was a fracture at his pelvis. He had four broken ribs and both kneecaps were shattered, the patellar tendons disconnected from each. His left ankle was broken. Internal injuries also included a lacerated liver, ruptured spleen and severely bruised kidney.

“They really worked him over,” Andrews said.

“I want everything fully documented with slides,” Kendall said. “If it’s the last thing I do, I’m going to have that woman thrown out of the Guardians.”

“That seems to be the extent of his injuries, Doc,” Parks said.

“Ain’t that enough?” Andrews countered.

“You ready for me to switch over from diagnostic to treatment?” Parks asked Kendall.

“Is there any internal bleeding?” she asked.

“Seepage from the liver and quite a bit from the spleen but no intracranial or pericardial,” Parks reported. “Nothing we’ve got to handle right off the bat.”

“Then cut his clothing off, start at the top and work your way down,” Kendall said, turning away from the table. She had to sit down else she was afraid her legs would give way beneath her.

“Doc, you want me to get you something to eat?” Andrews inquired.

“I’m not hungry,” she answered.

“Well, when you are, let me know and I’ll make a run to the duplicator.”

Kendall nodded as she pulled a chair out from Parks’ desk and sat down.

“You want me to keep him out if he should start coming to again?” Parks queried.

“Aye.” She looked away as Andrews manually pulled the sled upon which Quinn lay out from beneath the TAOS and carefully began slicing the prison uniform from his battered body.

It would take hours to repair the damage done to Rory Quinn’s body. The reconnecting of the kneecaps alone would require complex, time-consuming pulses of energy. EnergySurg would be needed to extract the ruptured spleen.

“How is he?”

Kendall looked up to see Breen standing beside her. “She did a lot of damage but nothing that can’t be repaired. We’re starting with a concussion and working our way down his body.

Breen looked up at the diagnostic screen and winced. “Merciful Alel,” he whispered. He wasn’t a healer but it didn’t take a medical degree to understand the injuries showing on the 3-D screen.

“I want her badge,” Kendall said.

“And you’ll get it,” Breen promised. “There was no call for her to do all that to him.”

“She was trying to get him to tell her where the crew of the
Lhong Shee
is,” Kendall reminded him.

“I’d venture to say she found out you don’t get anything out of a
Scaan
when he doesn’t want to give it to you,” Breen said with a snort.

“Phantom,” Andrews translated. “That just about says it all regarding Quinn, doesn’t it?”

“Concussion healed and we’re moving on to his jaw,” Parks said.

“The doc hasn’t eaten, Captain,” Andrews said softly.

Breen glanced at Kendall and found her staring intently at Rory Quinn. “Leave her be,” he ordered in a near whisper, “but if you get the chance, make sure she eats and then ease her down if possible. She’s had little sleep.”

Andrews nodded.

Kendall’s attention shifted to the two massive cybots stationed across the sick bay. They were hulking creations and their very presence made the hair stiff on the back of her neck. Staring into the twin red lights that pulsed from the main processing units on what passed for their heads, she knew the Amazeen was watching her. The healer bent all but her middle finger toward her palm then saluted the Riezell Guardian with the megaversal sign.

“Way to go, Doc,” Parks said softly as he scanned the vital signs of his patient.

Somewhat appeased at flipping off the Amazeen, Kendall sat back in the chair and stretched her long legs out in front of her. It was going to be a long afternoon and longer night. Full repairs would not be completed on Quinn until the wee hours of the morning. “You never met him, did you, Parks?” she asked the med tech.

“No, Ma’am,” Parks replied. “I didn’t come onboard until after the peace treaty with Stori was signed.”

“You’ll like him, Parks,” she said, reaching up to rub her eyes with the heels of her palms. “He’s got a truly wicked sense of humor.”

“I’ve heard quite a bit about him from the crew,” Parks told her. “I guess most of them were here during the war.”

“I guess they were,” she said then heaved a long sigh. Since the news had reached her early in the morning two days ago that Quinn had been captured, she’d had little sleep and no appetite for anything other than an occasional power shake and even those she hadn’t managed to keep down. Her head was throbbing and she recognized all too well the signs of an impending migraine.

“He has some loose teeth I didn’t notice on the original scan,” Parks said. “I’m programming TAOS to take care of that.”

“Do whatever you need to,” Kendall replied. She twisted in the chair and laid her head on her arms on the top of Parks’ desk.

“Headache?” Andrews inquired as he came over.

“A real whopper,” she answered.

“I’ll get you some tenerse, Doc.”

Closing her eyes, Kendall tried to block out the pain thudding through her temples. She barely felt the sting of the vac-syringe needle as Andrews injected the drug into her neck but she felt the fiery potency of the liquid as it flowed through her veins. Sucking in a breath, she had to clamp her fingers on her folded arms to keep from crying out, the med hurt so badly coursing through her.

“Never gets any easier, does it?” Andrews asked.

“No, it does not,” she said, and realized he hadn’t inquired how much tenerse she needed and that he’d added a little something extra along with the tenerse. She lifted her head and glared up at him. “Don’t do that again.”

Andrews shrugged. “You need to rest, Doc, or you won’t be any good to anybody.” He glanced around at the patient. “Especially him.”

Already feeling groggy, annoyed with Andrews for shooting her up with enough tenerse and avatane—a potent beta blocker—to make her sleep, Kendall could do nothing but put her head back down.

“Sweet dreams, Doc,” Andrews said, and patted her shoulder.

Sweet dreams were the last things Kendall knew she’d have. Nightmares would be more like it. Tenerse and avatane mixed together never failed to give her vivid and disturbing dreams that bordered on hallucinations. Memories she had tried desperately to keep at bay always surfaced after a strong dose of the drug combo.

“Don’t do it again,” she repeated as Andrews walked away, annoyed her words were beginning to slur.

“You’re braver than I am,” Parks told Andrews.

“You have no idea what this is doing to her,” Andrews said. “She blames herself for him getting caught as surely as we’re standing here repairing the damage done to him by that vile Amazeen cunt.”

“How can the doc blame herself?”

“There is an old Cengusian saying that goes
Ná glac pioc comhairle gan comhairle ban
. It means never take advice without a woman’s guidance. Unfortunately, Rory Quinn didn’t listen to that proverb. He listened to his crew and not the woman he called his own. If he’d listened to the doc, he would have struck for amnesty when it was being offered him and wouldn’t be lying on that sled half-dead right now.”

From a numb distance Kendall heard the voices of her med techs but she couldn’t make out the words. She was drifting—listless and sinking under a darkening layer of soft insulating mist. Flashes of reddish-orange light tracked beneath her closed eyelids and she sat there with her head on her arms and watched the pulse of blood making sweeping, flowing, stitching patterns that drew her ever deeper into the realm of sleep.

“Don’t do it again,” she said one last time then sank beneath that soft mist and into the dominion of dreams.

* * * * *

“
Graih my chree
,” he said with just a touch of frustration. Translated in his native Cengusian High Speech it meant love of my heart.

“Why won’t you listen to me, Quinn?” she asked.

“I am listening,
Lhiannan
,” he responded. “I hear every word that comes out of your pretty little mouth.”

He always called her his
Lhiannan
, his sweet lover, and when he spoke to her in his sensuous Cengusian brogue—no matter what he said—she melted, all resistance gone. The only Cengusian she had managed to master up until then was
ta graih aym ort
which meant I love you. That phrase and the one that named him what he was—
Scaan
.

“The Burgon has offered amnesty and you took that. Why won’t you take the amnesty offered by the Coalition?” she asked.

“Because the offer is bogus,” he answered. “The minute I walk into Fleet Command, they’ll arrest my Cengusian ass and throw me to the wolves on the High Council.” He tweaked her nose. “I’ve no desire to have my neck stretched,
Lhiannan
. Thank you just the same.”

“You can’t know that, Quinn,” she grumbled.

“Donal Brell took them up on their offer and he and his crew were arrested on the spot and thrown into prison within the hour,” he stated. “That was a year ago and they’re still sitting in prison—where they’re likely to be until the Gatherer swoops down to claim them.”

“Donal Brell and his men were murderers. They weren’t just pirates,” she said. “They were rapists too if memory serves. If you’re that concerned about the Coalition playing you false, contact King Gabriel Leveche of Stori and get him to vouch for you. Or what about Prince Cair Ghrian of Amhantar?” She flung out a hand. “Or better yet King Ruan Cosaint of Gaelach. You’re all High Warriors in the WindWarrior Society and aren’t you also in the Order of Taibhse with King Ruan?”

“Aye, wench, but I’ll not trade on my relationships with such men,” he said with a deep frown.

“Why not? They’d help you,” she said, annoyed with the whine in her voice.

“Aye, but at what cost?” he inquired. He shook his head. “I won’t do it, Kenni. Just let it go. Besides, Leveche may be a friend, but he has no love for pirates. I doubt he’d help me.”

“Merciful Morrigunia! You are an idiot!” Kendall threw her hands up in the air and stalked off. Some days the man could be more stubborn than a Diabolusian jackass and today was one of those days.

He jogged behind her then reached out to tug gently at her long red gold braid. “You’ve got your dander up, haven’t you,
Lhiannan
?”

“You’re impossible, Rory Quinn,” she accused, jerking her waist-length braid out of his hand and over her shoulder.

His midnight blue eyes twinkling, Quinn snaked an arm around her waist and pulled her against him. “I can be, aye,” he agreed, “but I’m lovable.”

“Not to me,” she groused. “Not at this particular moment.” She tried to wriggle out of his hold, but he tightened his grip.