Miranda's War by Eric S Brown

Author:Eric S Brown [Brown, Eric S]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Theogony Books
Published: 2018-12-18T07:00:00+00:00

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Chapter 23

Rachel didn’t remember losing consciousness, but she must have, because when she opened her eyes again, she was in Strider’s medical bay. Her fingers shot up to the wounds on her neck to find them closed. There was scar tissue left from the monster’s cold, burning touch, but the wounds themselves were healed. The ship’s auto-doc had worked wonders.

Lee stood at the foot of her bed.

“Glad to see you made it, kid,” the old man told her. “We didn’t think you would there for a while. That thing’s touch had some sort of poison in it. Took the auto-doc a bit to get it sorted out.”

“Flynn’s dead,” Rachel croaked, tears welling up in her eyes.

“Yep,” Lee said in a flat, unemotional voice. “I’m going to miss him.”

“What about…?” Rachel started.

“The little girl?” Lee grinned. “She’s fine, thanks to you. Miranda got her out and placed with some folks who are going to look after her, since her father’s dead.”

“What was her name?” Rachel asked, still trying to shake off the aftereffects of the auto-doc’s treatments.

“No was to it,” Lee said. “Like I told you, she’s alive, and her name is Gabby. You did good keeping her that way.”

“And the monster?” Rachel sincerely hoped Miranda had found and killed the thing.

“Gone,” Lee sighed, “but you can bet it’ll be back tomorrow night. There’s no chance in hell we scared the thing off.”

“Oh,” Rachel said.

“Don’t you worry none,” Lee assured her. “We’ll get it. You, though, you’re not going back out there again. Saving the kid has already made you a hero to the folks here, and Miranda doesn’t want you playing the part of that kind of hero again. You remember what I’ve always said about heroes, don’t you?”

“That being one will get you killed.” Rachel frowned.

“Exactly,” Lee told her, with no trace of humor in his voice this time.

“Hey, where’s Miranda?” Rachel asked, realizing for the first time that she wasn’t there with the old man.

“She’s meeting with Shelley. The two of them are coming up with a better plan for when that thing comes back,” Lee told her. “But that’s not your concern. All you need to be doing right now is recovering from what you’ve been through. And before you start barking at me about it, that’s an order from Miranda herself, kid.”

Rachel nodded that she understood as he started for the door.

“That thing, Lee…it really was a monster,” Rachel called after him.

“I know, kid. Trust me, I know,” the old man said and left her alone to rest.

Rachel was thankful he hadn’t turned out the lights as he left. She wasn’t sure she could have handled it if he had.

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