Bloodstar: Star Corpsman: Book One by Douglas Ian

Author:Douglas, Ian [Douglas, Ian]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Harper Collins, Inc.
Published: 2012-08-27T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fourteen

The Qesh flier had a cockpit section that had broken free from the wreckage. As we steered past, I could see two Qesh strapped belly-down to what looked like narrow benches. One was motionless, but the other was thrashing about, trying to get free. The main body of wreckage was on fire close by, burning fiercely in the planet’s high-oxygen atmosphere.

“Gunny!” I called. “I’m going to help them out!”

“Colby!” Hancock said. “Give Doc a hand!”

“Aye, aye, Gunnery Sergeant!”

I hadn’t really thought about the pros and cons of helping the aliens. Corpsmen have a long tradition, though, of helping anyone who’s hurt in a war zone, even the enemy. Your own people come first, of course, and you’re not supposed to jeopardize the mission with heroic gestures—but damn it, I didn’t want to see those Qesh burn.

“Watch for boobies, Doc,” Hancock warned me.

“Roger that.”

Boobies—booby traps—were always a threat. In this case, the danger went a bit deeper. We knew pathetically little about the Qesh, and there was every possibility that they wouldn’t mind triggering an explosion and killing themselves if it meant taking a couple of us with them. Marines—and the Corpsmen who were with them—have faced that kind of insanity before, and not always with alien species on alien worlds.

I let the AI probe the cockpit wreckage before I got close. It reported no electrical activity, which wasn’t a sure-fire guarantee, but it reassured me a little bit. I jumped off my flitter and jogged up to the wreck.

Neither Qesh was wearing much in the way of armor, and this was the first time I’d seen one in the flesh, as it were.

I’d assumed, based on the armored Jackers I’d seen already, that they had huge heads. That wasn’t quite true. Rising from the anterior end of each of their bodies was a pair of massive horns, one curving up to meet the other, which curved out and forward. The structure looked vaguely like an immense claw, a meter or more across. Below and to either side were armored turrets like those possessed by African chameleons on Earth; there were two eyes to a side, four in all, each of them large, deeply set, and jet-black. And as with the chameleon, they appeared to track separately. The thrashing one settled down and watched me as I approached, but there was no way to read the emotion behind that gaze.

“Take it easy there,” I said. I had no way of knowing if they understood English, nor did I know whether what for me was a soothing tone of voice would be soothing or calming to them. I got close enough that I could reach the leg of the motionless one and slap on a blank nano patch. Then I stepped back and pulled out my N-prog. There was a lot of blood around the motionless one, pale-green but turning darker.

After studying the readouts for a long time, I slapped a second nano patch on the active one.

Okay. This was more like it.

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