Trial by the Gods by D.T. Read

Author:D.T. Read [Read, D.T.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Theogony Books
Published: 2024-05-14T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-Three

The shock of it paralyzed me for a few heartbeats. Tiny lights like sparks swirling above a fire pit zipped across my vision while I sat, gasping.

Before the shattered sensation had time to subside to sharp throbs, the clatter of my team scrambling down the wall above me penetrated my pained daze. With my breath rasping through clenched teeth, I managed to roll clear of their mud-packed boots. My first two teammates paused when they touched the ground, but we were halfway around a timed run-and-climb-under-fire course. I waved them on.

Alerted by the beep in his earphones due to the sim hit I’d taken first, Lansu arrived and dropped to his heels beside me, his datapad in his hand, and a glitter in his eye. “Your fifteen minutes start now, sir, but you’d better get out of the way first. I’ll wake you when your time’s up.”

“Not a sim,” I said between gritted teeth. “Left knee hit a rock. Think it broke something.”

His eyebrows drew together. Without another word, he jammed his datapad into a thigh pocket, shifted behind me to get a good hold on my rucksack, and dragged me a few arm-lengths onto long grasses flattened by the pelting rain. “You’ll need to lie down when we get this off you, sir,” he said while he helped me shed the rucksack. “Then I’ll have to cut the leg of your sensor suit to examine your knee.”

I complied, still drawing pain-quickened breaths through my teeth, and closed my eyes because of the raindrops splattering my faceplate. I couldn’t prevent a couple of hissed intakes of breath when Lansu cut my trouser leg along the side seam and probed my throbbing kneecap with skillful fingers.

“It’s a fractured patella,” he said through my earphones. “I can feel the displaced fragments under your skin. It’s already starting to swell.”

I opened my eyes to meet his. “Just the bone this time, no ligaments or tendons?”

Puzzlement creased his brow, visible behind his faceplate. “Yes, sir, it’s a simple fracture. Why?”

I released a shaky but relieved breath and said, “About a year ago, my patellar tendon got torn when I had to eject from my damaged fighter. The flight doc said it would’ve been better to break my kneecap than dislocate it because soft-tissue injuries take longer to heal.”

Lansu arched an eyebrow and shifted away to dig into his healer’s pack. “That’s true, sir, but it’ll still need recovery and rehab time.” He placed something heavy and floppy over my knee, like a miniature bag of maize, except icy cold.

Before I could ask how much time, he continued, “They’ll do a scan once you get to the mainland hospital, to see if it needs surgery. I’ll add you to the medevac roster when I finish up here.”

“Medevac me now?” My heart seemed to stop in my chest. “Can’t you wrap it up tight enough so I can finish Demon Phase tomorrow?”

“Only if you want it to permanently eliminate you from training, sir,” he said in all seriousness.

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