Zubrin Town, Arabia Terra
‘Two breach wounds,’ said Robert staring at the display that hovered above the bed, ‘the left thigh and torso. Three broken ribs and the left shoulder is dislocated.’ He magnified the images of the wounds. ‘The wounds are superficial, but swollen and severely bruised.’ The images focussed on bright blue shards sprinkled over black and purple tissue. ‘Solidified Polyskin sealant in both wounds. Patient is unconscious.’
‘Have you applied anti-inflammatory and pain-killers?’ a nearby medic, himself dealing with a patient, asked. ‘Move on to the next one,’ he said when Robert nodded.
‘What about the shoulder?’ Robert asked. ‘There is sealant in the wound.’
‘That’s good,’ the medic said. ‘It’s a new kind of sealant that melts into the wound. It contains nanocules that will bring the swelling down. I’ll reset the shoulder. Move on, there are more wounded coming in.’
The sickbay would not accommodate more patients. A wounded guardsman filled every bed and those that had been treated, lay on the floor. Robert’s patient was Captain Ramjas who had insisted, prior to succumbing to sedatives, that he be treated last. Wounded male patients surrounded him. The female guardsmen, indistinguishable on the battlefield but preferring segregation in the infirmary, occupied the room’s opposite side. Apart from Robert, only two medics were on duty. ‘Two of our qualified medics are now patients,’ the senior medic, a corporal, explained.
‘Medics fight too?’ Robert asked.
‘We all fight,’ the corporal replied. ‘We’re fighters first and medics, engineers, pilots second.’
‘Flying is secondary to fighting?’
‘Indeed everything is secondary to fighting,’ said a new voice. The corporal snapped to attention and saluted, some of the casualties saluted from where they sat or lay. ‘Give me the butcher’s bill, corporal.’
‘Seven dead, thirty-eight wounded and rising, major.’
Robert turned to Major Hameed. The officer smiled despite hearing the number of guardsmen he’d lost. ‘How is your patient?’ he asked. He checked the patient’s chart, flicking a figure casually across the display and nodding.
‘In need of rest,’ Robert said.
‘So are you, Mr Pauly,’ Hameed answered. ‘Thank you for caring for my men. Is there nothing you can’t do? But you must desist. I have brought a doctor and more medics. Please walk with me. We’re going to the airfield where I will personally escort you onto a flight back to the City.’ Hameed took Robert’s arm. Robert felt the raw strength in Hameed’s stout limbs as he was guided to the sickbay’s door.
‘It’s a shame about your captain,’ Robert commented as he stepped over a guardsman’s prone legs.
‘He will recover,’ said Hameed. ‘He was overzealous, too eager to prove himself, but I yet hold high expectations for him.’
‘He won’t be fit to fight, for some time,’ Robert said. They stepped through the door. ‘So you’ll be reinstating Captain Arundel to this unit?’
‘Are you meddling, Mr Pauly,’ asked Hameed, ‘or simply putting in a good word?’
‘I’m not the foremost expert in meddling,’ Robert replied. ‘But it seems that this unit needs a captain.’
‘This unit has a captain,’ Hameed swiftly replied.
Robert turned and pointed to the sickbay without slowing his pace. ‘Do you mean the severely injured patient in there?’ Someone in the sickbay let out a series of painful hacking coughs like shots from a bolt-gun. Robert felt the each shot at as stab of pain in his own chest. He stood aside to allow a Cydonia Corporation doctor to pass. Hameed, somewhat redundantly, pointed to the sickbay door.
‘You work for me, don’t you?’ Robert asked the doctor.
‘I work for Cydonia,’ she replied without stopping, ‘and I am needed.’ Two medics followed her through the doors. ‘Doctor Cossu is one of our civilian volunteers,’ Hameed said. She nodded and followed her medics into the sickbay. A wheeled case, green and tagged with a white cross, slid past almost tripping Robert as he watched the doctor disappear through the doors.
‘How many more of my people are you going to enlist?’ he asked.
‘She’s a volunteer,’ Hameed said, ‘just like your Sarah.’
‘Yes,’ Robert said, ‘you’ll accept help because you need it. You’ll need more of my doctors if iMicor attack here again - especially if there is no captain to greet them.’
‘I put Captain Ramjas in command of this company,’ said Hameed. ‘He may have been remarkably enthusiastic to lead from the front but now he must learn to command from the back. As we all eventually must. On that theme, let’s go to the docking field.
He took Robert’s arm, not violently but firmly enough to imply that he would not easily release it and started down the corridor. Both men stood aside to allow a convoy of guardsmen carrying field stretchers to pass. A wounded body lay on each board. Robert wondered where they would find room in the sickbay. Hameed pressed on. They walked for a time through Zubrin’s old, narrow tunnels until a staircase brought them to the surface level. A guardsman stood watch outside a pair of doors above which softly glowed the simple kneeling icon for the prayer room.
Hameed stopped and nodded to the guard who stood aside as the door’s silently slid open. Hameed released Robert’s arm and invited him to step into the darkened room.
Robert leaned against the open door frame. ‘I don’t worship,’ he said and grinned, ‘unless you count myself.’
Hameed nodded towards the room in encouragement. ‘Have a look.’ Flame-coloured light filled the space as Robert entered. Prayer rooms normally provided chairs arranged against the walls, making a space around a cushioned mat in the floor’s centre. Robert referred to this area as the “grovel-patch”. Prayer rooms were, under UN Law and despite almost none of the firm’s employees being religious, mandatory. Most sites had complied with the regulation by fitting prayer rooms that barely met the demanded dimensions. Others like Zubrin Town had more cynically made the prayer rooms far larger than would be required even if thirty staff members spontaneously found god. These massive chambers, despite the rule of exclusive use, fulfilled whatever utilitarian purpose demanded of them. Today, the prayer room served as a mortuary. The bodies were laid out on the mat, each an arm’s length from each, each covered in a translucent sheet.
Robert breathed swirling vapour in the chilled air. ‘I thought it was seven Redbourn dead,’ he said.
The guardsman at the door spoke. ‘Another one just came in – one of the iMicor wounded. He didn’t survive.’
‘Why are you showing me this?’ Robert asked. ‘I’ve been out there; I’ve been in the sickbay. I’ve seen the dead and wounded first-hand.’
Hameed stepped into the room, the door behind him hissed shut. ‘Back at the City, you said that sol was the beginning of humanity’s evil on Mars. I rather think that occasion is today. After our doctor completes the post-mortems, we will immediately send these bodies to the City. There, they will be cremated. We will seal up the ashes and return them to Earth. Today is their last day in Sarissa Company. So, I thought you might say some words for these guardsmen.’
Robert stared at the shrouded forms, the vague shapes of dead arms and dead legs and the breathless faces that pushed at their wrappings. ‘It’s not right,’ he said. ‘It should come from someone who knows these guardsmen – one of their officers, one of their friends.’
‘Better it comes from you,’ said Hameed, ‘this company has lost two captains.’
‘That could have been avoided,’ Robert cut in.
Hameed went on, not perturbed. ‘You’re not here to investigate asset loss. You’re here to lead.’
Hameed kept tilting his head towards the bodies as he spoke, as if they reaffirmed his every word with their lifeless silence. The prayer room doors hissed open to admit Lieutenant Okan's hulking form. The big officer began to speak but clamped his mouth shut when he saw the bodies. He instead saluted to Major Hameed and then crushed Robert’s right hand to the wrist in a handshake. ‘Dino’s boys,’ Okan said seriously. He patted Robert’s chest with the meaty part of his closed right fist, almost knocking him over. ‘You shared the field with us today. I hope you will say a few words for them, Deputy Director General,’ he said.
‘I will,’ Robert replied immediately. Hameed made no attempt at hiding his triumphant, mischievous grin.
Okan nodded with approval and turned to his major to deliver his brief report. ‘Dino and Barnsley are still on the field,’ he finished. Hameed nodded and dismissed the lieutenant. The big man dipped his enormous sphere of a head and for a moment remained silent, apparently in respect of his dead comrades, and then he turned and exited the prayer room. The double-doors slid apart and closed behind him.
‘Even for you, that was low,’ Robert said.
‘Like it or not, Mr Pauly, or play as if you never asked for it, you’re part of the war effort now.’ Hameed’s pale yellow eyes were those of a stalking wolf, certain of its easy prey. His lips curled into his natural, ever-present grin.
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