Two days later
Amelia was sitting in the sickbay aboard the Crystal Seer, watching the scientists work furiously to try and save Ivan. Harlan had been the first of the Seekers to arrive, and had started the scientists to work. The prognosis wasn’t good. Harlan’s face had told her a very unkind story while she waited. He put on a brave face for her when he sat down.“What’s wrong with him?”
“Well, Ivan has been taking larger and larger doses of Necrosia for a while. The Scientists have never seen this high a saturation in a living person. They are putting him in a medically induced coma for the immediate short term, but it’s a remarkably serious problem.”
“He overdosed? I didn’t think that was possible.”
“Normally it wouldn’t be, but the amount of Necrosia in his system means he’s been taking a large enough dose habitually to kill a sperm whale. I am honestly surprised he’s been lucid this entire time.”
“What do we do?”
“Inform the Ilkhan of the medical emergency and head towards clan space at our best possible speed. We don’t have the medical supplies on hand nor the specialized equipment needed to treat this.”
“What’s the prescribed treatment?”
“Honestly, Ma’am, there isn’t one. This is about as theoretical as our people get for Necrosia treatment. I suspect that the Khans will come running or send a Keshik with their personal doctors. What Ivan’s doctor has told me is the best option is aggressive gene-therapy.”
“What does that mean?”
“A combination of retroviruses and other treatments will literally strip the Necrosia from his system and hopefully rebuild the damaged areas from the ground up. Unfortunately, it means he won’t ever be able to take Necrosia again. The doses he is currently taking will kill a first time user, and to be honest, i am fairly certain that dose would have killed me and the rest of the Seekers on board. If he wakes up, i am not certain what condition he is going to be in.”
“But he is going to wake up?”
“Our current plan is to link up with the Falcons on Apollo, and go from there. We do have one matter of business to take care of first.” Harlan slid the small rank badges out of his jacket. “These are yours.”
“What are they?”
“Your rank insignia, Star colonel.”
“What?”
“Ivan’s been working you up the ranks as his personal executive officer for years. You are going to need these in order to interface with the Falcons.”
“I don’t fucking want to interface with the Falcons. I want them to fix Ivan and get him back on his fucking feet.”
“And as his Executive officer, in the event of a medical emergency, you assume his rank and his responsibilities as the Commander of Delta Galaxy until relieved of those duties by the Khans of our clan or successfully removed from office by a valid challenger in a trial of position.”
“What?”
“Damn it, Amelia, you know how our society works. I know Ivan trained you in the ways of the Clans. You’ve been using it to prank us for years. Now i need you, He needs you to suck it up and run the unit until such time as we get him back.”
“Challenge me, take the job.”
“I promised Ivan I wouldn’t.”
“What possessed you to make a promise like that?”
“Because Ma’am, a trial of position can quickly turn into a fight to the death, and I am certain to my bones that if i killed you, Ivan would come tearing out of hell as some soulless revanant and haunt me until my last breath.”
“You think you’re that good?”
“Ma’am, i am that good, no thoughts needed.” Harlan smiled softly at her, but it didn’t put her at ease.
“Isn’t there a uniform that goes with this?”
“Ivan had one prepared for you in case of a situation like this.”
“Of course he did.”
“Ma’am, the most critical part of our situation is that i don’t know what plan Ivan was following. He didn’t write anything down, and beyond ‘Get to Radstadt’, i honestly have no idea what his larger plan was.”
“How many units do we have out in the field?”
“About 15 that are operating in this half of the Inner Sphere, the rest are operating in the Free Worlds League, the Capellan Confederation, and the old Federated Suns.”
“How many are close enough to help us immediately?”
“Two.”
“Issue orders to everyone we can. I want a situation report on what they are doing and what part of the plan they are working from. Inform them of Ivan’s emergency, and have the units that are close to us to render assistance to meet us at Apollo.”
“Aff, Ma’am.”
“Oh don’t start with that bullshit. Inform the Ilkhan of our situation and see if we can’t convince the Green Parrots to get off their lazy assses and render assistance.”
“All right, Ma’am. Anything else?”
“I’m going to need a volunteer to babysit, and a giant bottle of scotch.”
“You can handle this, Ma’am.”
“Oh, you’re suddenly a fucking expert?”
“Any person who can manage the schedules of a dozen children can handle the day to day operations of a Galaxy.”
“You sure about that?”
“Ivan was willing to bet you could. I trust his instincts.”
“Oh good, go get me the volunteer and the scotch.”
“Yes, Ma’am.”
No comments:
Post a Comment