Dana Cartwright Mission 1: Stiletto (19 page)

“Ready?” Francis questioned.

“Ready,” Dana called, stepping aside to let the men do the rest.

Security personnel swarmed them, jostling Dana along toward the exit.

She soon lost sight of the EMTs. Being so petite, she even lost sight of Francis Calagura.

However, she did spy a lavatory and dashed inside, washing her hands and face clean of the blood and stripping off her cloak, which was also blood soaked.

“Ruined,” she thought, staring at the stains, doing her best to calm the anxiety welling up within. Finally she had the presence of mind to tap the voice-badge on her collar, requesting, “Computer? MAT transfer me to MCE.”

However, nothing happened. She repeated the request, guessed she needed to be out in the clear, and stepped back out into the passage. She turned right into the path of Xavier Via and his accomplice. They were armed.

“King wants her alive,” Via said, tackling her.

“Can’t MAT out of here,” Skellar complained. “Grab her and let’s get to the main level.”

Dana fought them off, breaking free.

Via’s knife blade pierced her left side. He tried a second time to catch her, slashing her arm.
 

She recoiled, throwing her cloak over his eyes to buy some time, and then bolted for a group of cheering fans — pushing her way through, using them as interference, putting some distance between herself and the two men behind her. All the while, she felt hot blood running down her side, but couldn’t remember where she’d left her medical kit.

Via and his pal had on uniforms and, though she was small enough to hide amid the crowd, the bystanders parted for the two men, making a path, thinking they were security and were legitimately in pursuit.

Dana ducked down into the maze of corridors below the arena, where the locker rooms and
 
showers were located.
 

Like Puff, Kieran’s pet rat, she scurried along, corridor after corridor, hopelessly lost, stopping finally, trapped, at an apparent dead end.

Do you have it?
Kieran’s voice demanded.
Is it in your boot?

She obediently pulled out the Sterillian blade and, with a vise-like grip and masterful agility, slashed at Via when he came at her again, the tip of the stiletto slicing deep across his throat. He went down hard. Before Dana could recover, the second man came at her, attempting to wrestle the blade from her hand.

Kieran’s voice — his strength — seemed to course through her. She slammed the blade straight up into the man’s neck, behind his ear — up into his brain.

Red blood splattered everywhere as the second man sank to the deck.

Dana backed away in horror, holding her side where she’d been stabbed, staring at the stiletto in her left hand.
 

A gloved hand took the weapon away from her. She turned to see, weakly pleading, “Mister Ambassador?”

It wasn’t Cray.
 

It was Kieran Jai, dressed in the ambassadorial robe and cloak, with false white hair and a fake beard. He held the bloody blade in his left hand and slid his right up under her hair braid, telepathically linking to her.
 

Suddenly, everything seemed foggy. Her recent memory faded away. She felt faint and sagged against him, unable to stand on her own.

Kieran reached down into Dana’s boot for the sheath and moved it to his own boot, then slid the Sterillian blade in and out of sight before gathering Dana up in his arms, carrying her down the maze of corridors away from the scene, to the top of the vom.

Once in the clear, he knelt and lifted up her med-kit off the deck, and then touch her voice-badge, demanding, “Computer? Emergency transfer to MCE Intake!”

The MAT system locked onto them and whisked them away.

Kieran suffered through the decontamination chamber. The process at least vacuumed away the tears from his cheeks. He stood facing Francis Calagura, who stared with horror from the opposite side of the waiting coffin.

Though Kieran was dressed still in the ambassadorial robes and wearing the wig and beard, Calagura recognized him, probably from the anguish in his eyes.

“Bring her here, Colonel,” the Doctor ordered.

Kieran ever so gently placed Dana upon the tray, watching as two android nurses moved in, mechanically beginning the preparation process. He watched in horror as they stripped away her uniform and began to attach electrodes and sensors.

He looked away, finally, catching Calagura’s gaze. “Please save her!”

Calagura assured, “I will, Colonel.” The Doctor scowled at the preliminary readings. “She’s lost a lot of blood. I have none that’s compatible for a transfusion.”

Kieran admitted, “No wonder DOC was always so protective of her.” He stifled a groan. “It’s all my fault. I should never have allowed her to become involved in this mission. All my fault…”

Calagura was too focused on the wound. “The puncture is deep.”

“A five inch blade…” Kieran told him.

Calagura snarled. “If she were human…”

“They won’t harm anyone else,” Kieran answered.

Calagura glanced his way. “Colonel, you’d better leave. I’m going to call DOC for a surgical assist.”

Kieran nodded. “Don’t tell her it was me. Tell her Ambassador Cray found her.”

He petted Dana’s hair braid and leaned over to kiss her forehead; then he backed away, touching his voice-badge and requesting a transfer.

Dana awoke in the coffin, staring up through the clear top and sides, unable to move, vaguely aware that she was naked, but for a thin diaper. Her left side hurt, just below the ribcage. Strangely enough, she didn’t feel at all claustrophobic; rather, she felt incredibly calm.

She even smiled, seeing Francis Calagura
 
looking down on her as the top opened.

“Dana, dear…you had me worried.”

She blinked, too dazed, and confused to answer.

“How are you feeling?”

“Cold…”

He chuckled and fetched a thin blanket, tucking it around her torso as she had done for patients so many times.

“The knife missed your vital organs. Being a hybrid was a distinct advantage. A human would surely have died.”

She blinked again. “It’s all… foggy.”

“You’ve lost a lot of blood. Fortunate that Ambassador Cray found you when he did.”
 

“I don’t remember,” she whispered.

Calagura patted her shoulder. “DOC is here. He’s been fretting over you since we finished the surgery. Are you ready for…”

“No. No visitors, please…”
 

“All right… Hard to keep staff colleagues out, but I’ll try.” Doctor Calagura looked at the readings. “I think you’d better stay in there for awhile longer.”
 

“Okay,” Dana answered, “but let me sleep.”

He programmed the coffin and gave orders to the android nurses to transfer Dana to a diagnostic bed after she awoke.
 

She forced another smile. “I’ve never been in a coffin before. It’s rather cozy.”

Calagura laughed outright. “You’re so tiny…lots of room in there. Most men just can’t tolerate being confined.”

She chuckled and slowly her eyelids closed and she drifted off.

He watched as the sides and top of the coffin closed up over her.

“Sleep well, my dear. Doctor’s orders…”

Doctor Calagura decided the following morning that twelve hours in the coffin was probably enough for Dana. He oversaw the process as the android nurses began the levitation and the transfer and took a long time reviewing the diagnostic panels.

“Welcome back, Dana dear…” He said to her.

She answered him with a yawn and a sigh.
 

“Better?”

“Just a little discomfort in my side…”

Francis nodded.

She blinked a few times and came fully awake, at least cognizant enough to ask, “How’s Colonel Sierra?”

“Still in a coma. The Galaxea embassy is sending Ambassador Solon’s personal physician to tend him. Apparently, they’re brothers. I had no idea he was related to the royal family.”

Dana just stared.
 

She’d meant to ask for Kieran. She closed her eyes and tried to link to him, but sensed no connection. “I’m never going to an arena again.”

Francis chuckled and patted her shoulder. “You know, I feel the same way, now that you mention it.”

He fussed with a few more computer orders. “I’m going to give you a mild sedative. Don’t want you up and about just yet. So, rest. Doctor’s orders. Have one of the ANs assist if you need anything.”

She knew the routine as well or better than he did. “I’ve never been on the receiving end of the advice before.”

“It’s not easy being a patient.”

“It’s the diaper…” She mumbled.

Francis laughed then patted her thigh. “I called in Doctor Norton Dengali. He’s a genetics specialist. You lost so much blood; I was worried that we couldn’t give you a transfusion. He ran a full evaluation. I’ll see that you get the report. Turns out, we can give you T-negative Galaxea blood.”

“That’s very rare, even for Galaxeans.”

“True enough. The Enturian elements will not reject it,” Francis said.

“Good to know…”

He nodded. “He thinks you could mate with a Galaxean and suffer no consequences. There’s something else you need to know.”

Dana blinked up at him then focused with her brown eye. “What’s that?”

“The blade pierced your left ovary. We had to remove it. That only leaves you one.”

Dana frowned.

“I think you should donate to an egg bank; that way they can cryogenically freeze and store them, just in case something should ever happen to your right ovary.”
 

Dana nodded. “Yes, good idea.” She wondered, “Did Dengali comment at all on my DNA mutation?”

“It’s all in the report. After you read it, he suggests you have the record sealed.”

“That bad?”

“Well, just like your birth records… Better that they not be made public record.”
 

“And you concur?”

Calagura nodded.

“Thank you, Francis.”

He gave her a smile. “I’m just glad Cray brought you straight here. Any other medical center might have… Well, you just rest for now.”

Dana closed both eyes, pulled the blanket a little higher up under her chin and calmed her thoughts. Soon, she was dreaming.

Late in the afternoon, Francis Calagura came to Dana’s patient room for a visit at the end of his shift. He brought a box with him, a sizable one, needing both hands to carry it. He also had a med-kit slung over his shoulder “I have your kit with your padlet, so you can catch up on your reading. And this package came to your office by courier. Were you expecting it?”

Dana shook her head, “No. Wonder what it is?” She motioned for him to bring it and made room beside her on the bed for him to set it down. She struggled to open the lid.

“Let me,” he offered, having the advantage and the strength he easily pulled the top free.

Inside were three marvelously well-kept antique books. “William Shakespeare tragedies,” Dana announced. “
Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet and Macbeth
!”

“Collectors editions,” Francis guessed, “From DOC?”

“I doubt he would part with his.” Dana lifted the last volume and recited from memory, “Double, double toil and trouble… Fire burn and cauldron bubble…
Macbeth
! One of my favorites!”

Calagura laughed with her. “Seems a perfectly reasonable gift for a medical doctor. Lots of blood and…”

She chuckled, “Only a surgeon would think that.” Dana sighed and fingered the binding and the brass clasp. “In amazingly good condition...”
 

“Incredibly valuable, I would guess,” he said with a grin. “Is there a note or inscription? Who are they from?”

She carefully opened the front cover to see. She didn’t show him what she found. “No inscription,” Dana said, shaking her head, but she knew, instantly, who’d sent the gift. The inside of the book was actually hollow and secreted in the space was the Sterillian blade in its sheath — the blade that Kieran had given her. The book set served as a hiding place.

Francis watched her close the cover. “Well, I shall leave you to your reading, Dana dear. Perhaps tomorrow I’ll send you home. Do rest. Doctor’s orders.” He headed for the door.

She called, “Thank you,” before the door slid closed after him and was, indeed, thankful; she didn’t want Francis to see her tears as she opened the book again and fingered the hilt of the Sterillian blade.
 

“How did Kieran get the stiletto back?” She tried hard to recall what happened down in the maze of corridors below the arena. “Maybe they took it from me, and since it was registered to him… Oh!” She realized, “No, it wasn’t Cray that found me down there. It had to be Kieran impersonating the Ambassador.” It all began to make sense. “He must have taken the blade…to protect me.”

Beneath the stiletto was a handwritten note on antique parchment, in a lovely, cursive hand.

“D, I have new orders. So very sorry I can’t be there with you. My heart is yours. Never forget the memories I gave; or that I love you. Keep this with you. Always, K.”

The memories: Soaring above the canyon at Forever Pointe…Little Puff in the labyrinth…and one more…

Dana wept.
 

The most beautiful memory of all — the one sealed with a kiss — was the image of The Triple Star System of Centauri from the viewport of a Blade Class shuttle on approach to Centauri Prime Spaceport.

“Breathtaking!” She smiled, though tears streamed down her cheeks, as she tucked the note back inside the book and that inside the box. “I will never, ever forget you, Kieran. Never!”

Kieran faced Admiral Barrett Cartwright and Inspector Regis. Both men sat in high-backed chairs, on a dais, before windows that looked out on Coronado Bay. The room doubled as a courtroom on occasion. Fortunately, that wasn’t Kieran’s problem today.

“You have some explaining to do, Colonel,” the head of the Star Service commented.
 

Kieran Jai lifted his chin, facing the Commanding Admiral of the Star Service. “It’s all my in report, sir.”