Dauntless (Hellcat Released Book 1) by Michael Anderle

Author:Michael Anderle [Anderle, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9798885412995
Publisher: LMBPN Publishing
Published: 2022-05-04T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Dante

Dante somehow became aware that he lay beneath a flickering electrical light before he opened his eyes. Something about the dim red illumination it cast through his eyelids and a faint memory of primitive lights from when he was a child registered in his mind as his body remained half-dormant and slow to recover.

He was lying in a bed or something close enough to a bed. It was surprisingly comfortable, in any event. Not what he’d expected. A faint humming sound surrounded him, ambient and sourceless. It was probably the electricity used to power the overhead lights pulsing through hidden wires all around him.

Steeling himself for whatever revelations might await, Dante opened his eyes and took in the sight of his new environment.

As he’d been nearly positive was the case, he was indoors. Specifically in a dingy room on the smaller side but not quite cramped. It had a strange quality of being comfortable and antiseptic, old and worn-down, yet showing the signs of extensive human use and care. The air was thick. He couldn’t tell if the room was above ground or below the surface.

His gaze turned down. He was lying on a hospital bed or something that closely approximated one. Like the rest of the room, it was old and worn, but someone had made a legitimate effort to keep it as clean as realistically expected. Wiggling his hands and feet, he determined that he was naked but covered by a sheet to his chest.

Off to the side in the corner were his clothes and all of his gear and equipment, everything he’d had when he collapsed. It looked as though his clothes had received a cursory cleaning. Unless he was mistaken, none of his valuables were missing. Whoever had put him here was simply storing his things and getting them out of the way for the moment.

It was puzzling. Theft, whether from the living or the dead, was a way of life on Earth. He wondered if he was still on the planet. Someone might have rescued him, and he was now on a ship or perhaps one of the more peripheral backwater Stations.

Space and the Stations had a different feel than Earth did, though. A different smell. An indescribable quality of the air. Impossible though it would seem, he must still be Dirtside.

He was right about the light. It was an old-fashioned fluorescent tube flickering in a highly annoying fashion.

“Fuck me,” he muttered in a low, breathy gasp. The pain of his wounds was coming back to haunt him. He’d almost forgotten about the spear cut along his chest and the potential jab he’d taken to the leg.

He pulled the sheet away from his torso and looked down at himself, raising his hands to prod things if necessary and trace along. Bandages encircled his upper torso and shoulder. They were clean and applied by someone who knew what they were doing. He also suspected, based on the nature of the dull but growing pain, that whoever tended him had stitched the wound.

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