Station III - The Neolyte Station

Painful Wakening

by Michael G. Crawford

"...Captain. Captain. Ah. There. Now don't try to move. I have given you a low level stimulant and your limbs and torso should be quite paralyzed still. It is temporary. Some movement will come back shortly, and you will be able to speak. However, there will be some great pain. I want you to prepare yourself for that pain in a few minutes. Be tough now."

Jennie could see the doctor's face in a blurry movement as it receeded from over her, and then a slow dull throbbing began down in her groin. And her back started to hurt and then her hands began to burn, hot, fiery pain.

"Aghhh" she gritted her teeth and exhaled heavily.

Tenson leaned into her vision.

"General Order Thirteen Captain. Don't speak for a moment now. Just remember General Order Thirteen, and get ready to make a quick statement to us and we'll let you go back to sleep..."

Jennie forced her unwilling lips to spit out a blurry "No...no sleep".

"See Doctor. She's a trouper, like I told you. Okay, Captain. For a few minutes only or the Doctor will have my head."

Jennie grimaced, and resisted, with some effort, the impulse to move her head and her arms. She didn't have to worry about her legs and torso, they were out in limbo-land somewhere, and that fact worried her through the fog.

The doctor spoke again, but was just outside her vision, "you are in serious condition, Captain, you have multiple injuries. They are no longer life threatening, and you should recover. However, there is a crisis and we need to get some questions answered...that is why I have woken you up a bit early from your healing sleep. I have given the commander 15 minutes tops."

Tenson leaned in again. "So Captain, here is a quick brief. An explosion took out a passageway. Trang survived only because he was at the far end of the passage. Unfortunately the explosion forced him into a mount-ring railing and he has an extremely serious concussion. He is in a coma, and that is why we had to wake you up. We need to know if you saw or heard anything that would help us in our investigation."

"Hissing...sound"

"You heard a hissing sound. What else?"

"Turned, ran...got me...back...not hot."

"Not hot. What's that mean?"

"Flash-bang...not hot, big air move...ment."

"Got it. Okay, so what about Trang, did he set it off? He was on the other end of the corrider. Bad luck threw him into a rail. Air door saved him though."

"No! Trang good man. I pushed him. Glad he made it."

"Good. Glad to hear that, Captain. We weren't sure, it looked bad. Okay now is there anything else you want to tell us?"

"Station Okay?"

Tenson smiled at the Captain's dedication. "Yes Sir. We've had a few more incidents, and are under Martial Law right now. When you are feeling a bit better you'll be going home."

"No!"

The Doctor leaned in, "Sorry Captain but WSC and Space Command both are insisting and I have to agree. But we won't send you until I'm sure you can deal safely with reentry and gravity."

"No! That's Order"

Tenson leaned in again, his face next to the Doctor's. "I don't have to take that order, Sir, but I will. You've got to get better though, and we have to be able to talk about this before I stand up to the powers that be. Okay?"

"K" was all Jennie could manage to get out through the deepening fog. Damn doctor must have slipped her something...the darkness closed in.

The doctor looked Tenson in the eyes and saw that the steel had dimmed quite a lot, the man obviously relieved to have the onirous duty completed, and happy to oblige his Captain's request. "You got it, Commander."

Tenson nodded, the worry totalling absorbing any desire to smile, a straightening of the lips as close as he could come to that. He spun on his heel and heeded out of the medical area, already calling up his assistant to inform the staff that he was on his way to the meeting he had called.

Signing off, he moved throug the airlock and nodded to the young Marine standing at the corridor junction. This addition to Martial Law was a comfort only to the military people on the station, just about everyone else had complained. He had quite quickly told them all to go to hell. Until he had a handle on what was going on at Station III, he was not giving in to the liberal bullshit until ordered to do so. And right now, fortunately, few folks were trying to second-guess him. At least not directly. That wouldn't last long, especially if any other nasty surprises happened.

Rounding the corner, he stepped through the airlock into the command bay and sat quickly at the Captain's position. Looking at his small staff, he realized that these people were all pretty new, and unlike himself, not at all comfortable yet at Station III. The current situation made the feeling of unease one helluva lot more worse. And the tension was getting to him too. He exhaled a huge breath of air and began to give orders.