The Refugee (The Korvali Chronicles Book 1) (15 page)

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Authors: C. A. Hartman

Tags: #Science Fiction

BOOK: The Refugee (The Korvali Chronicles Book 1)
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The doctor led Catherine to a medical bed. “Lieutenant, what day is it today?”
 

“Day Two of the fights,” she replied absentmindedly. By then, her face grimaced in pain.
 

Eshel stood aside while the doctor scanned Catherine, retrieved a small tube from a drawer, and gave her an injection. He gave orders to the nurse, who treated her and cleaned her up. After they finished, Eshel approached her again. To his relief, her grimace had faded and she looked better.

Catherine looked at him and smiled. “You’re so handsome, Esh,” she said, her words somewhat slurred.
 

Eshel, surprised, found himself unsure of how to respond.

“I think they were watching me on the train,” Catherine went on, seeming almost pleased with herself.

“Who was?” Eshel replied, amused at Catherine’s altered state.

“Those two Korvali,” she said dreamily.
 

Eshel stared at her. “What do you mean, Catherine?” But before she could offer any response, she went unconscious. “Doctor.”

The doctor turned, a smile on his face as he glanced at Catherine. “She’s fine. It’s the medication. She’ll be in and out for a while.”

Eshel heard the doors open. Tom and Snow walked in.
 

“How is she?” Tom asked. “Is she unconscious?”
 

“The medication has sedated her,” Eshel said.
 

“Let me guess,” Snow said. “Concussion?”

Eshel nodded.
 

Tom walked over to the doctor and spoke with him for a moment. When he returned, he said, “Looks like Vargas will be in later, so we should get her out of here before then. We’ll all get redeye duty forever if Vargas finds out she willingly submitted herself to the CCFs and is using his resources for treatment. We can look after her. Doc will contact us when it’s time.”
 

Eshel nodded and they left sick bay.

When Eshel received the doctor’s page and returned to sick bay, Catherine was sitting up while the doctor scanned her head wound.
 

“The swelling has gone down quite a bit,” the doctor told her. “Your injury could’ve been much worse, but you seem to have a hard head.”

“So I’m told,” she replied.

The doctor chuckled. “Rest for two days before resuming any work, and no training until the wounds heal and the symptoms are completely gone. That’s an order,” he added. Catherine nodded and thanked him for his care. He turned to Eshel. “So, Handsome, you know what to look for, right?” He handed Eshel the scanner.
 

Eshel nodded, ignoring the jest. “I… must thank you, Doctor. For your assistance.” The doctor’s expression turned to genuine surprise. Eshel turned his attention to Catherine, who seemed more coherent than before.
 

“Hey Esh.”

“You’re smiling.”

“It’s the painkillers.”

“We need to leave,” he told her. “Dr. Vargas will be here soon.”

Even in her haze, Catherine understood. She slowly sat up, grimacing in pain, and turned until her feet touched the ground. Eshel put out his arm to help her up.

As they left sick bay, Eshel’s contactor chirped. “I have her,” he said to Tom.
 

“Sorry, I got hung up,” Tom’s voice said. “How about bringing her here?”
 

“I will take her to her quarters. I can care for her there.”

There was a pause. “Are you sure? You know what to look for?”

“Yes,” Eshel replied.

Once at Catherine’s quarters, Eshel explained that, per the doctor’s suggestion, he must stay with her to monitor her concussion. She didn’t argue. Instead, she began fumbling around, looking for something.

“What are you looking for?”
 

“Tea.”

“I will make it,” Eshel told her. “Lie down.”

Catherine gave up her search and proceeded to her bed. “Don’t turn around,” she said.
 

Not understanding, he turned toward her. She’d begun peeling off her dirty, bloodstained uniform, revealing bruising on her pale skin. He turned back around to make tea. When she gave him the okay to look, he watched her grimace as she got into bed, propping herself up against the bulkhead. Eshel set her tea down on her small bedside shelf. He moved a chair near her bed and sat down, removing his cold-water container and taking a drink from it.
 

“How are you feeling?” It was an expression he’d learned during his sick bay duty. He still found it strange to ask such a question.

“Better,” she said, blowing on the hot tea and taking a small sip.
 

“I did research; it is possible to get your opponent banned from competing.”

She shook her head. “We’ll both be penalized. We were both angry little idiots. Yamamoto will be so proud of me.” She sighed with a bit of laughter. “He’ll be so proud of the example I am for you!”

“I don’t understand.”

“I lost my temper, Eshel. People in our discipline aren’t supposed to do that.”
 

Eshel gave a small scowl. “What other solution is there? You cannot let a coward harm you and still respect yourself. He must be punished.” Catherine, appearing surprised by his remark, only smiled. “Your opponent used two of the maneuvers that you and Ensign Holloway demonstrated,” he said. “I recognized them.”

She nodded in approval. They discussed the details of the fight for a while, until Eshel noticed that Catherine’s face no longer looked happy, that she said little.

“You are experiencing pain again?”
 

She nodded.

Eshel got up and retrieved her small container of medication. He handed her a pill, which she drank with her tea. He quickly scanned her with the medical scanner the doctor had loaned him. Her readings had improved slightly, but still weren’t acceptable.
 

“You don’t have to take care of me, Esh,” Catherine said. “I’m fine.”

“You are not fine.”

“I am. I feel much better.”

Reminded of Tom’s failed attempts to persuade Catherine when she was resolute, Eshel, despite knowing he was in the right, tried a different tactic. “Perhaps. But it is better to be cautious.”
 

She argued no more, only resting with her eyes closed for a few minutes.
 

“Catherine.”

“Mmm,” she replied, her eyes still closed.

“You said you saw two Korvali on the train.”

She opened her eyes and blinked a couple of times. “That’s right. I did see them.” She cocked her head. “When did I say that?”
 

“In sick bay. What did you see?”

Catherine recounted what she saw.
 

“Did you take an image?”

“No.”
 

Eshel looked at her. “Catherine, if you see any Korvali again, do not speak to them, do not let them near you, and never let them isolate you from others. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” she said, her expression curious. Her relaxed look returned as the medication began to work. “How is Commander Steele treating you, Eshel?”

Not expecting the question, Eshel hesitated. “He is… it is fine.”

“Good,” she replied in a soft voice, her pace of speech about half its normal speed, a faint smile on her face. “When he became your genetics liaison, he was so concerned… so concerned about you and me. He wanted analyses I’d done… scans… emails between you and I… the file with your genetic material... I told him I had none of that, that we hadn’t talked after that morning in sick bay… but he didn’t believe me. He even threatened me, saying that if I were lying, or if I or Holloway or Varan ever questioned you, he’d send me back to Earth!” She didn’t sound angry, but merely relayed the information as if it amused her. “Nystrom incident, my ass. It was almost as if he wanted that information for himself… not that he’d know what to do with any of it…” She looked at him, a gleam in her eye and her smiling broadening. “I have permission to be mean about him, you know. He’s mean to me. After catching us at the lab that one night, he banned me from going to the lab after hours. I was working on an exploratory epigenetics project… it’s your fault for inspiring me…” She smiled at him. “Don’t tell him I said that. I have a concussion, fractured ribs, and pains in places that shouldn’t hurt… I don’t need more trouble.”
 

Eshel did not respond.

“Did I stumble onto the wrong topic again, Eshel? You looked away… like the time I mentioned Othniel… your father… when we first met. I’m not in everyone’s business, like our good friend Tom. I just want to know more about you, whatever you want to share.”

“You may ask me anything.”
 

She giggled. “You said that too, when we first met.”

Surprised, Eshel said, “Your memory is very good.”

“It’s not like yours… but, yes, it’s good. When Tom and I argue about past events, he always believes I’m being stubborn. But it’s not stubbornness… I just remember everything better than he does.” She paused. “Did something happen to your father, Eshel, on Korvalis?”

Eshel was silent for several moments. “Yes. He was murdered.”
 

“By whom?” Catherine asked, her sleepy eyes narrowed.

“By someone powerful.”

“Someone from your own clan,” she surmised.

Eshel nodded.
 

“Does this powerful person know that you know?”

“He does not,” Eshel replied. “But he will.”

Catherine looked away, staring up at the ceiling. “Hard to say which is more unjust,” she mused. “Losing a parent at the hands of a horrible person, or losing a parent at the hands of a horrible disease with a genetic origin.”

Eshel, not understanding what she meant, waited for her to elaborate.

“My mother,” she said. “She died, during my first year at the Academy. Breast cancer.” She briefly touched her left breast. “I can tell you which therapies they tried and recount every protein, chromosome, locus, and nucleotide they targeted… but I don’t want to put either of us in jeopardy, or anger the old man who controls my every move as a scientist.”

“You may tell me,” Eshel said. “I will say nothing to the Commander.”

Catherine told him the details about her mother’s cancer, from the initial genotype screening to the failed attempts at gene therapy. Eshel listened, Catherine’s story making clear sense, even in her current state.
 

As afternoon moved into evening, and evening into night, they talked. At some point during a conversational lull, Eshel saw that Catherine had fallen asleep. He scanned her, used the head, and lay down on the deck. He nodded off, waking every few hours to scan her and ensure she was recovering. At 0400, satisfied with the scan’s results, he returned to his quarters.
 

As the starting time for the Day 3 fights grew near, Eshel hadn’t heard from Catherine. He knew she’d prefer attending the fights to sleeping, no matter how tired, so he went to her quarters to wake her. When he walked in, she was dressed in her personal apparel and she had wet hair. She must have just finished bathing. He looked closely at her; her face appeared worse than it had previously, as the bruising had grown darker. And while she seemed more lucid than she had, she looked tired. He pulled out his borrowed medical scanner and scanned her.
 

“Am I all better, Doc?”

“You are improved, but not yet well. What do you feel?”
 

“Foggy. The shower helped. I ran over my allotment, which means no shower tomorrow, but it was worth it.”
 

“Do you have your ticket?”
 

“Ticket?”

“For the fights.” He noted her forgetfulness, making sure to monitor it over the next several days.
 

“Oh. Yes. It’s stored on my contactor. But I need to eat, Esh. I’m starving.”

Eshel hesitated. “We will be late.”

“I’ll grab something at the arena.”

On their way out, they saw two male crewmen heading toward them. One struck the other with his elbow and pointed at them. Eshel ignored it, until he realized they pointed at Catherine, not him. One crewman flashed a sign that Eshel did not understand, while the other said, “Nice fighting, LT,” as they passed. When Eshel turned to observe her reaction, he saw that she smiled.
 

Once on the train, Eshel scanned the area carefully before finding a corner in which he could kneel down. He saw nothing of concern. At the arena, they joined 30,000 others as they filled the seats surrounding the circular ring. Higher up in the stands, several very large screens projected a larger image of the ring to the audience.
 

When they found their seats, Catherine looked at him. “They’re in awe of you.”
 

“Who is?”
 

“Everyone. They’re staring.”

“Today, they stare at you, not me.”

When Tom, Snow, Middleton, and Zander arrived, Eshel and Catherine stood up to let them pass. Tom smiled at Catherine, shaking his head and putting his arms around her in what Eshel had learned was a “hug.”

She cried out. “Watch the ribs!”

“Ah, quit your whining,” Tom chided, as he sat down in the seat next to hers.
 

“Nice shiner,” Snow said.
 

Middleton gave him a wary glance and nodded at Catherine as he passed by. Finally, when it was Zander’s turn to pass them, he spread his arms out.
 

Catherine smiled. “Not too hard, Z.”
 

Zander gave her a gentle hug. “Nice fighting, Dr. F. When you took that Neuter to the mat… that was awesome!” He looked at Eshel and grinned. “You want a hug too?”
 

Eshel only smiled.

“Hey, C,” Tom said. “You made the news!”

“What?” she said in disbelief.

Before he could finish, Zander had pulled Tom’s attention elsewhere.
 

After numerous rounds of fights, some exciting and some very exciting, Eshel waited until much of the crowd had dissipated before leaving the arena. The others assumed he did so because he disliked crowds. While that was true, he had a more compelling reason: smaller crowds meant fewer people to keep track of. Tom and the other men waited as well, to honor the Captain’s wish that he be protected, especially on that particular day, when Catherine was unprepared to do so.

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