Stranger Desert (Stranger World Book 4) by Jack Castle

Author:Jack Castle [Castle, Jack]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2021-08-16T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 19

Wake up, Corporal

The Captain still had his ear to the corpse’s mouth when he said, “He’s still not breathing.”

“Of course not, what little knowledge I do possess of such procedures, it can take Corporate days, sometimes even months to accomplish the task of bringing a biological back to life, and that is, if they are able to complete it at all. Even then this task is usually accomplished with an entire subcomplex of hospital staff and equipment at their disposal. It’s foolish to think that one injection of an unknown substance is going to accomplish the same thing after only a few hours. If you were to ask me, and you didn’t I might add, this is a complete waste of time. Why, if it were up to me ….”

The Corporal’s corpse took in a giant sucking breath. Understandably, the Captain yanked back his face as if scalded.

Spotting the Corporal’s Springfield rifle leaning against the window, the Captain grabbed it, checked to make sure it was unloaded, and passed it to the Leftenant. “Here, put this somewhere out of reach.” He also removed the Navy Colt from the Corporal’s holster. “This too.”

Taking both rifle and pistol in hand, she said, “A wise precaution, sir. A wise precaution indeed.”

The Corporal began to awaken, a slow process in which his eyes grew alive, more focused. Staring up at the Leftenant, he said, in a raspy voice an Egyptian mummy might use, “Lisa?”

Lisa? The Leftenant repeated in her mind. Is he talking about Lisa Burton, our Creationeer?

Before the Leftenant could respond, the Corporal abruptly vomited all over his clothes.

The Captain, leaping into action as he was prone to do, stepped forward and helped the Corporal stay upright in his seat.

The Leftenant lifted the back of her hand to her nose. “Oh, well, that’s lovely. As if it didn’t smell bad enough in here already.”

Captain Stapleton, switching his voice to rescuer mode, “Even under normal circumstances, nausea often happens when a man has been unconscious and wakes up for the first time.”

The Corporal, hearing these words, glanced up at the Captain, and vomited again. The third time, nothing came except for dry, retching, heaving sounds.

The Leftenant, seeing Dawson in obvious pain, felt bad about her earlier comment and suggested, “Perhaps we should give the Corporal some water?”

“No, he doesn’t have control of his airway yet. We don’t want him to aspirate. It would be nice if we had saline and a drip set so we could give him a bolus of fluid via IV.”

Corporal Dawson lifted his gaze up at them, glassy-eyed and groaning. After several attempts, he finally managed, “Hello, Leftenant.” Then he wiped his mouth on his sleeve.

“He definitely remembers you.”

This seemed to irritate the Corporal. “Of course I remember who she is! Now, git outta the way, old man.”

The Captain’s tone suggested he seemed hurt by this. “Corporal, it’s me, George.”

Interesting. The Leftenant thought. Captain Stapleton has obviously met a similar biological before. Silly of him to think it might be the same one.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.