Extinction (13 page)

“Do you think he’ll make it?” Emily said,
not even looking towards Davies. She couldn’t take her eyes off the floating
platform before her.

“If he’s got a chance, Daria will make
sure that he comes back. I sure hope so, though. I’d like to know what happened
here.” Davies didn’t mean to sound too cold but he’d rather know what happened
than to find out when it happened again but to him instead.

A medic rushed out of the suite and
began looking around the area. Davies knew what he wanted so he went over to
the leg and handed it to the medic. He took it like it was a handed off
football and rushed down field towards the end zone with a secondary “Thanks!”
over his shoulder.

Inside, the corpsman began prepping the
leg by cleaning it and testing neuro functions with an electronic nerve
stimulator. If the nerves were trashed due to shock or other metabolic reasons,
there was no point in attaching it. After the test was done, he reported that
the leg was ready when they were. At Daria’s periphery of consciousness, she
heard the report and continued to cauterize lung tissue surrounding the
invading piece of metal.

After an initial two minutes of
cauterizing, one of the doctors decided to speak up. “It’s a valiant effort to
try to save his right lung, but I don’t think that it’ll work. He can live on
just one lung and with only one leg, he won’t really be missing out on that
much oxygenation anyway.”

“If I can’t stop the bleeding in thirty
seconds, we’ll perform a lobectomy. Do we have a pulmonologist here?”

“I’m a cardiologist but I’ve done these
before. His blood pressure is rising but he also has a subdural hematoma. We’ll
need to get that lung out and stabilize his cardio-pulmonary functions before
we reduce the intracranial pressure.”

In the time it took for Daria to get a
report, her thirty seconds were up and she knew it. “Doctor, please take over.
I’ll get all the equipment set up for the cranial procedure.” Again Daria was
giving orders as the cardiologist began removing the right lung. The patient
miraculously held on to his vital signs during the procedure and before long
was ready to have his head worked on.

A neurosurgeon had been preparing the
leg for reattachment and stopped to start the procedure to relieve the pressure
building up in the man’s skull from an internal bleed. Daria went to work on
cleaning and closing the side of the amputated leg that could not be found.

After an hour or so, the neurosurgeon
returned to the leg and continued to put the patient back together again. He
spoke to Daria without looking away from his work. “Very impressive, young
lady. Why don’t you stop by my office later and we’ll talk about getting you
into medical school? Not that you seem to need any more training, but the
degree helps you to actually practice medicine.”

“Sir, why would I want to be a doctor
and make more money, not get shot at, and have to live in a big house with
servants and money and stuff? That’s not for me; I need an easier life.”

Although prodded many times by doctors,
Daria had no desire to give up her current life. She enjoyed doing the work she
did and although she at times helped people she didn’t know, as with her
current patient, she got more satisfaction out of helping her friends or fellow
marines. Although she didn’t like the idea of them getting shot or blown to
shreds, it was the only type of medicine she felt good about.

The doctor smiled. “If you change your
mind, please don’t hesitate to call me. I think we can finish up here. Thank
you for your help. Your patient is going to make it. We’ll keep you apprised of
his condition.”

When Daria left the surgical suite, the
sun was already starting to set. Almost five hours had passed and it seemed
like only a few minutes. It was a nice change of pace to be able to take your
time and really do a job right. Usually you had to duck bullets and bomb
fragments to work on someone in the field. And you only had about ten or so
minutes to stabilize them for evacuation before you had to move again.

Emily was going over data with Davies
that had been sent back from the site. They both looked at Daria who, in her
groggy state, hadn’t removed her blood-soaked gown and gloves. “He’s going to
make it”, she said as she sat on the tailgate of the car. “He’ll need a lot of
reconstructive surgery to make him have a face again, or even talk for that
matter, but he’ll live.”

“I ordered all excavation to stop and an
immediate evacuation from all sites”, Emily stated. “Let’s get you home and
we’ll all come back when it’s light again.” She and Davies began to load equipment.
Daria realized her gown and gloves were still on and went back into the suite
to dispose of them. When she returned, the car was loaded up and already
pointed towards home.

She climbed aboard. “They got his leg
almost all the way back on and his head wound is stabilized. They’re going to
finish the operation out here and then take him back. I figure if we’ve been
here for this long and nothing else has happened, nothing else probably will.
It’s safer to move him after he is completely stable. Maybe four or five more
hours.”

“Sounds good to me,” Emily said as she
started the car towards home. “I hope when he wakes up that he’ll have some
good info for us.” Emily wasn’t the highest-ranking officer by far on this
mission but she had gotten to be quite an authority figure around the site.
Daria figured that it was her expertise and the fact that she seemed to take
command when no one else would. Of course, it only took about two seconds of
other people’s indecision for her to take over, but hey, “you snooze, you lose.”

Although not much older than Emily and
never being very maternal herself, Daria almost wished now that she and Mike
had had children of their own. Emily was just the type of woman that she
would’ve wanted her own daughter to grow up to be.

That thought faded into a dream of her
and Mike standing in the doorway of a small house, looking out over a green
meadow, with children playing. Then suddenly a huge explosion engulfed the
meadow and her children disappeared in a flash. She began running towards where
they stood just seconds ago, when she turned just in time to see the house
explode as a training fighter crashed into it, sending Mike into oblivion.

She awoke to find Davies half carrying
her to her quarters. She awoke fully and with a start, looked wildly around for
the children she never had and the husband she no longer had.

“You all right? You’re so tired that
your body just kinda walked when I urged it to but you never really woke up. So
I thought that I’d get you to your bunk without completely waking you up if I
didn’t have to.” Davies had relinquished his hold on her shoulder and Daria
stood on her own accord, more or less.

“Thanks. But I can make it the rest of
the way. If,” she didn’t even know his name, “if that guy wakes up, let me know,
even if I’m asleep, OK?”

“No problem, Doc. Get some sleep and if
you need anything, let me know.” He tapped his comlink even though Daria didn’t
need reminding. Although it wasn’t permitted, many marines adjusted their comlinks
to have an illegal frequency that allowed them to talk to others who had
similarly adjusted theirs. Usually friends did this so they could always be in
communications with specific people and no one else could hear their
conversation.

Daria, Davies, and Mike had a secret
frequency for themselves that now only two of them shared. When the command
post issued orders, the comlink automatically detected the frequency and
shifted itself to the proper channel. So they were never in danger of missing
orders. But if all hell broke loose and the field command structure went to
shit, the three friends could find each other more easily by cutting out all
the garbled screams of other soldiers, and get themselves out of the fire.

That’s why it was a court-martial
offense to rig your comlink; they didn’t want marines to do an “every man for
yourself” operation. But with the touch of a button, the secret channel would
automatically short-circuit itself and no evidence would be found. It had come
in handy more than once and Daria would risk the court-martial rather than give
it up.

Morning came and never bothered to let
Daria know it had arrived. She awoke to her room buzzer instead of the sun and
pushed a button on her nightstand to open the hatch. Emily and Davies stood
there with a tray full of food and a glass of orange juice to boot. Not just a
glass, but a huge glass. That was a week’s worth of OJ rations for two people.

“Hey, where’d you get all that juice?
You guys better not have used up your rations on me”, she said groggily as she
got out of bed.

Emily blushed and Daria remembered that
she was naked. Not that she had forgotten, but there wasn’t much modesty in the
real Marine Corps.

Davies didn’t even think twice about it
and walked to hand Daria the tray. “No, the doctors put together their rations
for today to thank you for the great work you did. They said that if you didn’t
take it, they would feed it to you by IV.”

She took the tray and set it down on her
bed but decided to shower and dress before she ate. She could tell that Emily
wouldn’t be able to get comfortable until she wasn’t showing in all her glory.
Of course, it would probably take another marine to appreciate “all her glory” considering
it was laden with scars and a roughness that only a marine could love.

Davies always kidded Mike about how he
would “take care” of Daria if anything happened to him. Mike always said that
he would reach out from his grave and rip Davies’ dick off if he even got it
near his wife.

But Davies was a marine and did consider
Daria’s scarred flesh to be absolutely full of glory. In fact, although Emily
was as beautiful as any woman he had ever seen, she didn’t hold a candle to the
one who was now taking a shower. He hated himself for even feeling that way.

“Any news from the site?” she called
from the shower.

“The teams arrived at the rim about an
hour ago”, Emily began, still a little flustered from the sound of her voice. “The
data from last night and today suggests that the canyon was fabricated by
someone and the blast originated from two kilometers below the surface. By the
time we get out there, they will have performed enough of a scan that we will
be able to descend into the hole without fear of deadly gasses or radiation.
None have been found yet but I don’t want to take any chances.”

“You, the lieutenant and I, along with a
recon team will rappel into the hole to scout the bottom. If the site is
suitable, we’ll set up a hoist system for the surveying teams.” He stole a
piece of Daria’s bacon and continued, “Your patient hasn’t woken up yet so we
haven’t got any more information. But they say he’ll be just fine with the
exception of his missing leg and facial reconstruction.” He shoved the second
piece of bacon he stole into his mouth as Daria rounded the corner.

“Why don’t you ever just eat more instead
of always taking my food?” Turning to Emily, she said, “I bet he drank most of
the orange juice on the way and then filled the glass with water.”

Emily wasn’t too surprised how well
Daria knew her friend, but it was funny how she knew exactly what Davies had
suggested. “I wouldn’t let him. He said that you would never even know because
the stuff is so watered down anyway. Big bully is what he is.”

With a sheepish grin that was out of
place on a man so big, Davies swallowed the rest of his stolen goods and wiped
the greasy evidence from his mouth with the back of his hand. “I’m a growing
boy! I need my nutrition. You want me to starve or something? They should give
out rations by size and not standardize it for everyone.”

“If they did that, your size would get
bigger than what they’d have rations for. Besides, being planetside for so
long, you’ve put on a few. You need to get with Emily and me sometime for a
workout.” Daria finished her breakfast with the ferocity of a Grizzly bear and
got geared up for the survey. Not knowing what they’d encounter, she loaded up
everything she could think of.

She decided on a small med pack for this
trip. If yesterday was any indication of what they might find today, she’d only
need stuff for small scrapes or cuts. If anything else happened, being at
ground zero would leave nothing behind for her to patch up. So why take the
extra weight?

“We have a little something for you”, Daria
said to their CO. “It’s not exactly legal, but if you won’t tell, neither will
we.” She handed Emily a comlink.

“What’s not legal about this?” Being
part of the scientific corps, Emily didn’t know about the outlawed links.

“It’s a special link that has a secret
frequency that only you, Daria, and I can listen to.” Davies showed her the
termination button that would destroy the outlaw channel in case of a surprise
inspection. He then explained why they used it.

“Thanks, guys.” That’s all she could
think to say. For these two marines to trust her like that was more than anyone
ever had in her life. Except for her brother. He would be proud of her to know
what she had done with her career.

With that, the three friends left the
barracks and headed towards the site.