The Signal; Shadow Raptors; Volume II by Sławomir Nieściur

Author:Sławomir Nieściur
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: space colony, alien enemy, space sleet, Oumuamua, attack on settlement, Epsilon Eridani, orbital shipyard, star wars
Publisher: Royal Hawaiian Press
Published: 2023-09-23T00:00:00+00:00

13

Mobile Medical Corps

Sigil moon orbit

"Well, well, well, look who it is. Colonel Dressler! And who did this to you?" a booming voice startled Ian from his nap. Ian, plastered with sensors, opened his eyes, but through the steamy lid he saw only a dark, bulky silhouette.

"Nobody... I did it myself," he croaked in response. "Larson?" he asked, then raised his hand and tried to wipe the glass of the lid. He only made it worse: his hand, covered in regeneration goo, left greasy, gray-green streaks of gelatinous slime on the glass.

"Yes, it's me, Greg Larson, senior technician, always at your service," the man laughed. "As soon as we found out you were here, we flew over. Unfortunately, that bitch at the decontamination airlock said that only one person could visit you, so I went in and the guys went back to the transporter."

"What are you even doing here?"

"Don't you remember? After all, we have the status of war veterans," Larson laughed even louder. "It's a pity you didn't see Zariba. I don't know where, but he got himself an infantryman's uniform and spits game to a nurses. Do you know that they immediately awarded us the rank of Senior Private and Simon the rank of Staff Sergeant? From zero to officer!"

The giant's laughter made Ian, though his fingers were stiff, reach for the internal control panel and turn down the volume of the intercom speaker.

"Brunnix survived?" he asked when Larson finally stopped cackling. All the time he had in his mind the image of a dying technician, sitting in a dark, stinking corridor of the habitat and supporting the intestines with his hands as they poured out of his abdominal cavity, which had been torn open by Skunian.

"He's a tough bastard, Colonel. We were at his place yesterday. They stitched it together elegantly. What couldn't be patched, they replaced with synthetics, put the guy in some experimental chamber, and then stuck him in a supporting exoskeleton. If I had known earlier what miracles they can do to people here, I would have applied for this job straight away, and not had to spend a pittance all over the place, preserving rusty junk. As I see, they did quite well with you, too," he leaned over the chamber. "Although it probably won't be possible without a skin graft," he said after a while. "Some fire?"

"Radiation," Ian explained, squinting at his feet. He could only see the tips of his fingers and part of his knee. The rest of the body was covered with a layer of regeneration mixture. "I had to make an emergency landing on the Oumuamua wreck. Earlier, our frigates bombarded it with nuclear warheads..." he paused for a moment to catch his breath. "Even earlier... there was a leak from the reactor," with that said, he raised himself on his elbows to look Larson in the eye. To no avail, because through the dirty glass he could only see the outlines of the other man's face. He fell back onto his back with a sickening squelching noise.

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