On Silver Wings (6 page)

Side effects were the lack of pain sensations, some loss in coordination, and complete lack of awareness of any sensation that surpassed the threshold setting. Which meant she could break her leg and not know it until she turned off the shunt, walking on the ruined limb until it was entirely beyond hope of healing and had to be amputated.

Of course, those weren’t the reasons the shunts had been outlawed. Psychological effects of being impervious to pain were profound, to the extent of causing wild personality changes in otherwise normal individuals. The affected people were often called Shunt Psychos or, more clinically perhaps, referred to as suffering from Superhuman Psychosis, and were known for doing insane things across the board. Earth entertainment dramas often made use of them as the villains of action pieces, because of the street mythos that had grown up around them.

“Let’s go,” she told him, jerking her head toward the jungle, in the general direction of the camp.

He nodded, shouldering his own pack, and they set off quietly.

“What happened last night,” he asked after they were well into the jungle.

She was silent for a moment, her face pensive.

“I’m not sure,” she admitted, “I’ve been thinking about it all night. I think it was some kind of automated defense system... It cut off almost as soon as I penetrated the jungle line... like it lost me. A human would have kept firing on visual for at least another fifty meters.”

“It was weapons fire then?”

She shook her head, “No. It was rocks.”

Jerry blinked, “What??”

She looked over at him as they walked, “That’s not what happened to you?”

“No... we told you, there were these explosions...”

“I didn’t see any evidence of explosives.” She said, shaking her head. “I don’t think there were any.”

“I’m telling you what I saw...”

She held up a hand, “Don’t get excited. I believe you, I’m just saying that what you saw wasn’t caused by explosives. There was no evidence of fire or scorching, and most of the damage I saw seemed to be all wrong for explosives. My best guess is that the explosions you heard were secondary, stuff like the crawler hitting the ground and what not.”

He let out an annoyed breath, “I don’t suppose you know what it was then?”

“No...” she shook her head, chuckling dryly. “I’ve never had an enemy throw rocks at me before... Well, actually, there was that one time in Pakistan...”

He wasn’t sure if she was joking or not from her tone, and just let the comment pass as he sighed, “You mind if I ask a question?”

She shrugged, catching herself against a thick tree as she stumbled when her ankle went out from under her. “Ask away.”

“Last night you said something about bacteria in your blood?”

She half laughed, “Yeah. Bugs.”

He raised an eyebrow, “Bugs?”

“You know...” She waggled her fingers in front of her mouth as she walked, “What’s up doc?”

Jerry closed his eyes, shaking his head slightly. “You’re kidding.”

“Naw,” she replied easily as they walked on, “but the official name is about eighty letters long and can only be pronounced after twelve years of university study.”

He snorted despite himself, though her joke was at least partially aimed in his general direction, whether she knew it or not.

“Just some gene altered bugs that radiate infrared light and do some other little tricks when they’re told to,” she told him, “You know the drill after that?”

He nodded without speaking. Near infrared radiation, along the right frequency pulses, could be absorbed by the cells of the human body and used as energy for mitosis. Application to many types of injuries speeded healing by several times, and in the right situations could even be used to power the body despite a lack of normal fuel, such as food. Of course the application of the technology was fundamentally limited, the body needed more than raw energy to properly heal and operate. Reed wondered what the other ‘little tricks’ she referred to were, though off the top of his head he could imagine a lot of fun things one could potentially pack into something like that.

It was the first time he’d heard of the idea being delivered by a biological source, especially from within the body, but it made sense. He was surprised it hadn’t been done a long time earlier, actually.

Then again, what did he know? Maybe it had been in use for decades, he wasn’t exactly up to date on modern medical treatments.

“Must be nice.” He offered after a moment.

“When it’s not trying to kill me with a hundred and six fever, sure,” she replied dryly.

*****

They stumbled back into camp well into the night, Sorilla having refused the suggestion to break for the night. Jerry was wiped out, but more worried for his companion than anything else. When she parted from him to head toward the hut they’d let her use, he made a straight line for Tara Steven’s shelter.

The redheaded nurse was blinking away sleep when he got her up, looking confused as she tried to wake up with little success. “Jerry? You’re back?”

He smiled a little at the dumb question, but cut her some slack due to the time. “Yeah. Look, I think that Sergeant Aida needs to be checked out.”

Tara wiped her eyes, planting her feet on the dirt floor. “Alright... she’s in her shelter?”

“Yeah, I saw her to her door a few minutes ago.”

The nurse smiled, “Chauvinist.”

“Cut me some slack, Tara,” Reed said, rolling his eyes, “I’d be after you to check up on anyone I thought was hurt.”

“Yeah, but you wouldn’t walk them to their door,” She smiled, pulling a light jacket on over her night shirt. “Go get some sleep, Jerry. You look like hell.”

“Wait ‘til you see her,” he sighed, nodding.

Tara chuckled softly, “I’ll tell her you said that. Go.”

He shot her a look of mock horror, but let himself be pushed out ahead of the nurse as she grabbed her medical bag and turned off the battery powered lamp. She was right, he knew, he was running less than fumes. He didn’t know where Sergeant Aida got the energy to keep moving, especially since she’d been injured, unless it was from that ‘bugs’ bacteria of hers, but whatever well she drew her energy from, his was dry.

“Alright, alright, I’m going...” Jerry told Tara with a weak smile. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

She nodded, patting him on the shoulder as they separated and she went back toward the Sergeant’s hut. He watched the nurse go for a moment, his face darkening a little as he thought about what Sorilla had told him, then shook it off and headed for his own bed, such as it was these days.

For her part, Tara knocked softly on the door when she arrived at the Sergeant’s hut, seeing from the light pouring out through the cracks in the door and wall that the occupant wasn’t sleeping. There was no response for a moment, then a tired voice spoke out, “Come in.”

She pushed the door open, not really surprised to find that Sorilla had her vest and boots off, her pants the only clothing she still wore. What did surprise her, however, was the extent of injuries she saw on the soldier’s torso.

“My God...” The nurse whispered, “What happened?”

Sorilla looked up, her lips twisted in some emotion Tara couldn’t quite place, “Someone thought that throwing rocks would be a laugh riot.”

Tara winced as she moved closer, eyeing the injuries. There were multiple gashes along the sergeant’s arms, blood stains coating what skin was left unmarred. Bruises covered her breasts and hard abdomen muscles, some of them quite obviously deep in nature. Sorilla remained in place as Tara stepped behind her and waited as the nurse hissed.

“Bad?” She sighed.

“Could be worse,” Tara admitted after a moment, “But not much worse without killing you.”

“Missed the kidneys then.”

“Just.”

Sorilla nodded, “I was pretty sure they had.”

Tara shook her head, then gently took the sergeant’s shoulder and pushed her back. “Let me check you out.”

The soldier didn’t argue with her, and just lay back slightly, hissing as the pressure was put on her bruised back. Tara winced in sympathy, but just went on with a quick examination that focused mostly on finding anything more serious than the bruises and lacerations that were already healing.

She didn’t find any broken bones, but a quick glance at the Sergeant’s feet were enough to tell her that the woman wasn’t walking anywhere for a while. Both feet were swelling up nastily, now that the pressure of the boots had been removed, and the right ankle looked really bad.

“How does this feel?” She asked, gently prodding the ankle.

Sorilla smiled ironically, “It doesn’t, which isn’t a great sign.”

“I wish I had more advanced tools...” Tara said, shaking her head.

Sorilla pointed to the coffin shaped kit on the floor, “Open that up and pass me the kit with the red cross on it. My armor would do better, but there’s no point wasting its power reserves.”

Tara located the kit easily enough, the dark brown-green case didn’t exactly identify it well, but the red cross centered on it did. She opened it as she brought it back and raised her eyebrows as she saw the equipment inside.

“That has to be about twenty thousand dollars’ worth of equipment,” She said as Aida took out a compact diagnostic scanner.

“Try eighty,” The Sergeant smiled, eyes glowing a faint green as she accessed the device’s computer through her implants. “though you can get better on the open market for fifty. We pay a premium for the ‘ruggedized’ version. It does the job, though.”

The scanner was a small instrument package that resembled larger ones Tara herself used in the clinic back before they had been forced out of the colony, but appeared to be more advanced. The Colony’s equipment had been top of the line when it was founded, but new upgrades, even to medical equipment, were slow to come.

“Nothing broken,” Sorilla sighed after a moment, passing the instrument over to Tara and turning on the built in display so the nurse could see for herself.

Tara looked and nodded. “Bad sprain, and you made it worse by walking on it, I’ll bet.”

“You’re not winning any suckers bets tonight,” the weary soldier sighed, smiling slightly. “But it’ll heal.”

Tara nodded, “With proper care... three days.”

“I’ll be ok by tomorrow evening, if you’ll just help me splint it up properly.” Sorilla motioned.

Tara raised an eyebrow, but did as she was asked, using the plastic splints from the pack to lock the injured joint in place, wrapping it with straps, and then pinning them off. “There. Now let’s do something about those cuts before you get an infection.”

Sorilla nodded tiredly as the nurse began to treat her, catching something in the woman’s eyes. “What?”

“Could I... Would you mind if I used this?” Tara asked, holding up the medical gear, “There are some people...”

“By all means,” Sorilla said, nodding with a weary smile. “That’s what it’s there for.”

*****

In the morning, Samuel Becker looked up as the shadow fell over his table, and smiled as he recognized the newcomer to their little jungle hideaway. “Sergeant Aida, good morning.”

“Morning, sir.” She responded, coming to a stop near his makeshift desk slash table.

“Please,” he said, still smiling, “We’re not formal here. Call me Samuel.”

She just nodded, looking down at the things he had spread over the table. “Inventory?”

“That’s correct,” he sighed, “We’re low on supplies. We’ve been living off things taken from the outlying farms... there’s nothing in the jungle that we can properly digest, you see.”

She nodded, that had been in her briefing. “There was a series of supply drops made just before and after my team’s insertion. Some of them might have made it down.”

He looked up, hopeful, “You think they weren’t hit like...”

He winced, and she nearly did too, but she just tilted her head as her eyes chilled slightly.

“It’s possible. I made it down, after all.”

“How can we find them?”

“I have a variable strength riff system,” She replied, hesitant.

He caught her hesitation, his own face darkening. “Do you think that’s safe?”

She shook her head, “I’m not sure. I think maybe it is... When I reached the jungle line, whatever it was that attacked me seemed to lose track of me. It might be that they’re confined to the colony sites.”

“I understand. I’d really like the supplies but I’m not sure that we can afford the risk.”

“Sir, we can minimize it if I go with a team and we hike some distance from the camp before I use the riff pulse. If it’s picked up, it won’t lead back to the camp that way.”

Samuel thought about it for a moment, slowly nodding. “Do it, please Sergeant, and thank you.”

*****

“You’re one crazy b... lady, you know that right?”

Sorilla didn’t look up as she finished the final check on her armored suit, “Go with your first instinct, Jerry... it’s more accurate.”

“Christ, you barely limped in here last night under your own power!” The pathfinder growled, digging his right foot into the ground with a sharp kick, “You’re never going to heal if you don’t take a couple days...”

“Don’t have them.” She replied, “Fleet’s not going to wait forever. I’ve got to get to those supply cases, if any made it down, just as badly as you and your people do.”

“What could possibly be so important??”

“Each case was packed with a backup long range laser transmitter,” She replied, “we left retransmission satellites in orbit around your second moon...”

“We’ve got tight beam radio transmitters!”

She shook her head, “Won’t work. This planet is a black hole right now, except for light. The fleet tried all their active and passive scanners before my mission got the green light... There was nothing but visuals coming off the entire planet. No radio, no Casimir radiation from the FTL transmitter, there wasn’t even any radiation from the particulate belts in orbit.”

Jerry, the jungle biologist turned pathfinder blinked, practically crossing his eyes. “Is that even possible??”

“No.” Sorilla shook her head, “Which, combined with the insanity at the colony a couple nights ago, makes me very anxious to contact Fleet.”