A Promise Made Page 4

  Symon and Bethan ran around giving orders and assessing the damage. One group gathered around Bethan, some already armed with fire extinguishers, who she put to work to fight the blaze. Symon assigned another group to move fighters away from the area where the flames were the worst and create a fire break. Initial panic faded into grim determination on the Gaian faces as order began to be restored.

  From the corner where the blast had occurred, I heard cries of pain, and those I headed for, glad I still carried the medical kit I’d brought from the Hope.

  The General stepped into my path and grabbed my arm. “Where do you think you’re going?”

  I returned his glare. “There are men needing help.”

  “Not your help.”

  I broke his hold by grabbing his elbow and pinching the nerve the way my self-defense instructor had taught me. The General’s grip loosened immediately, and as I pulled away I saw the look of shock on his face.

  Ignoring that, I ran to one of the cartons of bandage rolls, which had not been loaded in my absence--another reason to wonder what had happened to my companions--and flipped the lid open. Grabbing a handful I threw them at the General. He caught them with the hand I hadn’t temporarily paralyzed. “If you want to keep an eye on me, make yourself useful. I’m a doctor, I’m trained to help people, and that’s what I intend to do.”

  I wondered when the last time anyone, much less a woman, had stood up to him. He opened his mouth, stared, then closed it and frowned. “Most of those men are unmarried. You can’t get close to them.”

  I rather doubted any of my would-be patients were in any shape to attach, but there was no point in arguing. The carton of emergency respirators caught my attention and I tore it open, snagging several.

  “Attachment is through smell, right?” I didn’t wait for his answer--Jeffrey had gotten close enough to smell me before he’d attached so that had to be right.

  I held up one of the masks. “These should filter out whatever it is that causes attachment, and the extra oxygen won’t do them any harm either.”

  A wave of smoke hit me and left me coughing, and I quickly donned the mask in my hand. My breathing sounded funny, but the respirator worked perfectly. “One of these will keep the smoke out of their lungs, too,” I told him, my voice tinny in my ears.

  He must have finally seen the sense in what I was saying. The General didn’t argue further but grabbed several of the masks, including one for himself. He put it on as we headed to where a dozen or so men lay sprawled on the deck.

  I did a quick triage, figuring out which men were the most hurt and which could wait. The first man was one of the latter so I passed him for a man more seriously hurt.

  The General grabbed my arm. “Why aren’t you helping this one?”

  “I need to see what other injuries I’m dealing with. This man is in pain but he isn’t going to die. If you want, go ahead and put bandages on his obvious wounds.”

  He stared at me for a moment, and I could almost see him thinking about it. Then he nodded and tore open one of the bandage rolls he carried, unrolling it and attaching it to the bleeding wound on the man’s arm. I left him to work on that patient while I examined the next several, putting masks on all of them before getting too close.

  One was very quiet and that worried me more than those making noise. After a quick examination, I discovered, buried in a pool of blood, a large piece of metal protruding from his belly, probably from one of the exploded fighters. I took two of my bandage rolls, opened them, and put them on either side of the metal.

  “Why are you doing that?” The General’s voice came from over my shoulder.

  “I can’t remove the metal here. He needs surgery for that, but I can stabilize him so we can move him.” Looking up I stared at the man through smoke. “This will keep him alive until the EMT gets here.”

  “EMT?”

  “Emergency Medical Team. A medical team that can handles field problems until they can be moved to a medical clinic.”

  “This is a ship, not the field.”

  I shook my head. “It isn’t sickbay, so technically this is the field.” I snapped at him. “Don’t you have a team of medics that can head out to an area of the ship where there is need?”

  General Garren’s face took on a speculative look. “No,” he admitted. “It’s never been necessary before.”

  “It’s necessary today and will be in the future. You should be more prepared for this kind of thing, General.”

  I headed for the next man needing treatment, but I caught the look of surprised respect on his face. He followed me, following my instructions as to how to treat the least wounded while I dealt with the more severe. At least no one seemed to have died in whatever had happened here, something I was most grateful for.

  Years ago when I was still an intern, I’d handled the aftermath of a p-tran crash with twice this number of injuries and several of those I treated had died. Weeks later I’d still had nightmares about it.

  That these men continue to live became my prime focus. By now other members of the ship’s medical team had shown up and were working alongside me, or helping to move the now stabilized injured to sickbay.

  I even saw Jeffrey at one point, wearing one of the masks. We stared at each other for a brief moment.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked.

  I raised my chin. “My job!” I told him, daring him to argue with me.

  For a moment he continued to stare. Then he ducked his head and went the other direction. I tried not to think about what I’d given up with respect to him. We weren’t meant to be together, that was all there was to it.

  Turning back to my patient, I let the rest of the events of the day fade in importance. I was a doctor, trained to help the injured, and here were men who needed my help. Nothing else mattered. Not even the state of my heart.

  I’d strapped a bandage on the last man when I heard a noise on the other side of one of the destroyed ships. In spite of the efforts of the men with the fire extinguishers, flames still bloomed from the remains of two of the fighters, fed by propulsion fuel that fortunately tended to burn rather than explode.

  I ran to it and the heat nearly threw me back, but I heard the sound again and recognized it this time as that of a man shouting from behind the wreckage. Whoever it was needed help.

  I pulled off my dark-grey uniform jacket and threw it over my head, then jumped through the flames, hoping the flame-retardant in the material would hold up.

  It did, and I only got a little toasted running through the fire jetting from the side of the fighter. Behind it was a open space and two people, the man I’d heard shouting, and a woman, lying on the floor, pinned by a piece of fallen metal. Her Gaian-blue one-piece uniform was streaked with bright orange stripes, which I guessed meant she was one of those assigned to maintain their ships. We did similar bright colors in Earthforce to make people more visible on the flight deck.

  Outside of Bethan she was the first woman I’d seen on the ship. The man with her wore a pilot’s uniform and was bending over her, obviously distraught. Both of them wore narrow wristbands, same as I’d seen on Bethan and Symon, and I jumped to the conclusion they must be married.

  His eyes widened when he saw me, and he crouched protectively over the woman. He picked up a long metal tool that had been lying on the floor and brandished it.

  I held up my hands. “I’m a doctor. I’m here to help.”

  “A doctor?” He looked at me dubiously until I pointed to the symbol on my jacket shoulder, the caduceus, Mercury’s staff with entwined snakes, which has represented military medical corps from the dark ages.

  “Please, I’m only here to help her.”

  Just then my faithful shadow, General Doranth, came through the flames and stood behind me. At the sight of his commander the man lowered his makeshift weapon.

  “Let her help, Marc,” the big man said, and at his words the man moved aside and let me proceed. She was unconsciou
s as I put a mask on her. The metal pinning her to the deck lay across her upper legs, and there were signs that she’d been struck in the forehead by something. A quick exam with my stat-reader told me she’d suffered a concussion, which was why she wasn’t conscious. The condition of her legs weren’t that bad, but we needed to get her free and to sickbay as soon as possible to deal with her head injury.

  I grabbed the end of the metal bar across her legs. “Maybe we can bend it up and slide her out.”

  The General grabbed the end as well and together we pulled, but even with his obvious strength we weren’t able to budge it.

  From behind us came Jeffrey’s voice, tinny through the mask. “There’s something I never thought I’d see. Garren working with an Earthforce officer.”

  I turned to glare at him. “Why don’t you get over here and help?”

  He slid his arms back into his jacket, which he’d used like us to protect himself from the flames, and I had a moment to admire his shoulders. No, he wasn’t quite as wide as General Doranth was, but he was built in a most appealing way.

  Not that I should be noticing that--but I noticed anyway.

  He grabbed the end of the bar opposite me, and all three of us pulled. The bar held for a moment, then bent upwards. As we held it, Marc seized the woman’s shoulders and eased her carefully into the clear.

  The skin on her legs wasn’t broken, but I slapped bandages across it anyway. The pressure would keep down the swelling, and pain relief would still be welcome if she gained consciousness before we got her to sickbay.

  A crewman in another blue jumpsuit with orange stripes and brandishing a fire extinguisher showed up. “We’ve got this side clear, General.”

  “We need a medical transport, stat.” Jeffrey and I spoke at the same time, and I felt the same tension between us as when he’d found me helping the wounded.

  It occurred to me that the man who’d once attached to me didn’t seem to care for the idea that I was a doctor and as capable as he was. I, in turn, didn’t like his attitude. I hadn’t liked it when I’d encountered it before in male doctors, and I certainly didn’t like it coming from him. Even so, he was the chief medical officer here and thus in charge.

  As he continued to narrow his eyes at me, I nodded. “It’s your ship. You make the decisions.”

  “Thank you for remembering that,” he said testily.

  I bit back a response and let him take over directing the transport of my patient.

  As I followed the rest of them through the now flame-free gap between the broken ships, I caught the General watching me with an odd expression on his face, and it occurred to me that I must have actually gotten the man’s respect.

  Too bad the one man I was interested in didn’t have a similar opinion.

  As we got to the scene of the disaster, I was happy to see that most of the wounded had been removed to sickbay. There were several men talking to Bethan and Symon over where my shuttle should have been, and General Doranth went to join them.

  I started to follow Jeffrey as I figured he was going to sickbay and that’s where I’d be the most use, but instead I heard Bethan call to me.

  “Over here, Dr. Masters.”

  Jeffrey turned and stared as I went to the group, whose expressions I realized were anything but happy.

  Symon held out a piece of metal to me. “Would you care to explain this, Lieutenant?”

  As I took it, I recognized it. One side was burned but the outer edge still held color and a few numbers. The numbers were Earthforce serial numbers, like those you’d find on one of their small ships.

  “It seems to be part of the shuttle I was on.”

  “That’s right.”

  Looking around I realized that there was more of the scrap metal on the floor of the hangar, bits and pieces everywhere. Evenly distributed bits and pieces as if something in the middle had been blasted apart.

  Not just something. “You’re saying my shuttle exploded?” A deep ache appeared in my heart at the anger in Symon’s voice and the disappointment on Bethan’s face.

  “That’s right. What happened to our flight deck, Lieutenant, was apparently you.”

  Chapter Six

  I sat in the Promise’s brig and contemplated that here, as well as in the other parts of the ship that I’d seen, the accommodations were pretty nice. It was, in fact, the nicest cell I’d ever been in.

  Not that I’d spent very much time in a brig--just once when I’d managed to totally piss off my captain and spent a night there for insubordination. Yes, it had been over the bandage rolls, when I’d said something unwise after he’d accused me of selling the missing ones, and I’d compared his brain to that of a donkey.

  Which was a bit insulting to the donkey as I now realized.

  The Hope’s brig was cold and the bed hard, but here I was comfortably warm, and the soft bunk I sat on even had clean sheets, a pillow, and a fluffy blanket.

  Unfortunately the Promise’s brig still had bars, and in that it was just like the brig of the Hope.

  At least I had company. Bethan sat in a chair outside my cell. “We need to know what happened to your men. One we found.” She hesitated. “He apparently wasn’t able to escape the blast, and we found his body, identifiable by his uniform.”

  I flinched at that. I hadn’t realized anyone had been actually killed, much less one of the men who’d been with me. For a moment I wondered which one it was, Anders or Brant. “What happened to the other man?”

  “The other one is still on our ship somewhere. What orders did you give them?”

  “Orders?” I tried not to laugh. “The only orders I gave were to load the shuttle with supplies, and they didn’t do that. I’m afraid I wasn’t the one in charge of this misadventure.”

  Bethan frowned. “A man is dead and we have twenty crewmembers injured, Lieutenant Masters, some severely as a result of this ‘misadventure’ as you put it.”

  “And many of them are alive because I helped them, Chief Bethan!” I took a deep breath and tried to maintain my calm. “I assure you I was not aware that my ship had been booby-trapped. I’m not even sure that the crewmen with me knew. After all, one of them is dead.”

  And one was alive, which was suspicious. They should have been together, and I wondered if the one killed had died because of the blast or had been dead ahead of time. “As far as I know, this was one of my asshole captain’s bright ideas. The bomb on board could have been armed and set to detonate after a period of time.”

  “Why wouldn’t he tell you or the others? He wouldn’t endanger his own people.”

  Now I did laugh. “I’m afraid you don’t know my captain.”

  A crewman came in and whispered something to Bethan and she rose. “I’ll be back in a little while.”

  “Take your time. I’m not going anywhere,” I said ruefully.

  A few moments later another visitor entered the room and stood outside my bars. Jeffrey watched me through the bars, an uncertain look on the part of his face I could see around the respirator mask. I stood and stepped towards him and put my hand on the bar nearest him.

  “You came to see me?”

  “Yes.” For a long moment we simply gazed at each other. Then he pointed to the mask. “This was a good idea you had. It will be a big help when we have to let unmarried people near each other.”

  “To keep them from attaching,” I said, not liking the bitterness in my voice. What did I care that he no longer wanted me to be his wife?

  “That’s right. I wanted to tell you all of our crewmembers will be all right, even the one with the shrapnel in his belly. He was touch and go for a while, but your fast work saved his life. We owe you a lot for that.”

  I found myself checking the fingernails of my hand on the bar, not wanting to look at his face. “I’m just glad I helped.”

  “How are you doing?” he asked.

  I shrugged. “I’m not crazy about being locked up. I didn’t do anything wrong.”

&nbs
p; “Your ship blew up.”

  “I’m well aware of what my ship did. I also know that I didn’t have anything to do with it. I mean, do I look suicidal?”

  He muttered something, the sound distorted by the mask.

  “What did you say?”

  Putting his hands on his hips Jeffrey turned to me and glared fiercely. “To be truthful, the way you charged in this afternoon and put your life at risk, I don’t know how I should answer that question.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I’m talking about going to a blast site and finding you surrounded by flames, treating the wounded--and they aren’t even your people! I’m talking about you running through burning fuel as if your life has no value. If that isn’t suicidal....”

  “You were there, too. You did exactly what I did. So did the General.”

  “We’re men!”

  “And that means what? That you can risk your lives and I can’t?”

  “It means you shouldn’t take chances like that! You should be protected, not risked.”

  “But I’m in the military, Jeffrey. That’s what I signed up for. That’s what all the women in Earthforce signed up for, to risk our lives and fight for our people.”

  “It’s wrong. What about those who care for you?”

  I sighed. “My folks died a few months ago. I have few friends and otherwise no one cares that much what happens to me.” That wasn’t entirely true. My friend Sarah had been more like a sister, and she’d mourn me.

  He shook his head. “You’re wrong, Karen. I care.”

  My heart pounded harder. “You aren’t attached to me anymore.”

  “True, but there is more to the way a man feels about a woman than just the physical. Maybe I don’t get an erection when I’m near you, but that doesn’t mean I don’t think about you. I still remember what it felt like to hold you, and to kiss you. When I saw you run into those flames, I was so scared for you that I wanted to chase you down and swat you for endangering yourself.”

  I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “You did chase after me, risking your own life.”