Dana Cartwright Mission 1: Stiletto (4 page)

“Hello, Doctor.”

“Grant? Why the suits?” She demanded.

“Leaking fuel rods,” the oversized, young EMT answered.

Dana scowled. “I’ve run the tests.”

“You’re under the shielding.” He did a quick scan on her. “You are now testing positive for exposure.”

“I’m not staying long. It’s freezing.” She pushed his hand with the scanner aside. “I need a medical cutting laser and a spinal immobilization backboard with lev and straps.” She motioned him away then turned to Rocky and pleaded, “You have to give me an estimate.”

The Chief shrugged. “I can see the torch light. Not too much longer to get to you. Blasted fuel rod leak slowed us down.”

“I’ve got a beam that has to go… Wish I could just tag it.” She shivered from the cold night air.
 

“Might all come crashing down on you,” Rocky warned. He hadn’t stopped tagging or recording.

Dana nodded. She knew the routine, the rules, and procedures. What’s more, he knew she knew. They’d taken just about every required training class together and even joined up for coffee afterwards. Dana would go so far as to name him a friend. “Temps are dropping, Chief.”

He understood.

The EMT handed her the medical laser. “What’s this for Doctor C?”

“May have to amputate his left hand.” Dana wasted little more time on chatter. Another EMT from the med-evac shuttle was prepping the C-FIIN bed. The Custom Flight Immobilization Infirmary Nodule, often called a coffin, required significant pre-programming.

“I’ll transmit more stats later.” Dana rattled off some statistics. “His height: 1.88 meters. Weight: I can’t say, but set for average. Age: approximately thirty-five. Race: Alphan. Diagnosis: Complete spinal trauma at T-6, 7, and 8. Laceration to dorsal right hand and all four digits. Digitus medicinalis and digitus minimus show proximal phalanges injury requiring further surgical restoration. Not sure of the left hand yet. I’ll have to advise.”

The EMT began the coffin program, nodding and repeating her orders for the voice recorder.

Dana stooped and dove back into the darkness, almost glad to get out of the chill wind. As she got closer she crawled faster. “Kieran, no!”

He had the Sterillian blade in his gloved right hand but was struggling to remove the sheath with his teeth. Fortunately, the low ceiling was limiting him. In the dimming light from the torch, she guessed he was contemplating suicide by slitting his left wrist.

“No!” She used all her strength to overpower him and wrestled the blade from his grasp. He then fought off her attempt to press the DIA-dermal injector against his neck. Because of the truly awkward way his body was pinned, she had the advantage and was able to administer the sedative.

Dana heaved a sigh as the medication caused his body to go limp. She saw the blade safely back into the sheath and this time secured it to the inner rim of her boot. It fit snugly, as if it belonged there.

With him now very relaxed, she slid up above his head and used the torch to assess the beam above and the panel below his crushed left hand. “Maybe if I can cut away the panel below it might free you.”
 

By tapping, she realized the panel had a hollow square. The medical laser, designed to cut through bone, easily sliced through the thin metal. She made a shallow incision on each side of his arm, but there was really no way to cut under his elbow.

“Improvise, DD…” She took her reader and wedged it beneath but it was only five millimeters thick. She needed at least four centimeters. The only thing of that approximate depth was the torch. She tugged back the sleeve of his robe and carefully wedged the light with the rays pointing toward where she was working. The cut on the lower end of what would be the square she accomplished easily. Cutting nearer to the beam was next to impossible — without cutting his wrist.

Then it dawned upon her!
 

“The beam…” By cutting a semicircle out of the beam, she could ease his hand free without additional trauma. Even for her agile fingers, the process proved difficult because of the limited crawlspace.

Kieran came awake as she worked, demanding, “What are you doing?”

“Using a laser to cut away the beam to free your hand.”

He craned his neck, trying to see, but it proved futile. “I’m sorry if I hurt you.” When she didn’t answer, he whispered, “You shouldn’t have stopped me.”

“Suicide is never the answer.” She then ordered, “Roll your head to your right, please.”

She put aside the laser and gave his arm a gentle tug. The cut away metal fell aside and his hand was free. She backed away and centimeter-by-centimeter eased his arm down to his side, finally resting his hand upon his chest.

She used the medical scanner to sanitize the lacerations, and then very gently eased the left glove onto his badly smashed fingers. “We’ll have to wait for bone scans. I can’t do anything more here in the field.”

His eyes were upon hers as she worked. “Your eyes are beautiful, Dana J.”

She ignored the compliment until the glove was in place. Then her eyes met his. She felt a deep pang of emotion and very nearly burst into tears. He looked so young and so scared. “It’s going to be all right, Kieran. I promise.”

He blinked. “I have another memory to give you,” he whispered, “come closer.”

She remained aloof. “It will have to wait until we’re at the medical center.”

“It might get lost,” he protested and a tear rolled down his cheek.

Before she could answer, the decking above her head dematerialized.

They both cringed at the sudden brightness from the spotlights.

“Thank you, Chief Rocky!” Dana called; glad to be able to sit up and to breathe deeply, although she shivered from the cold blast of Rocky Mountain air.

She patted Kieran’s shoulder reassuringly. “Won’t be long now.” She collected her medical kit and stuffed the reader and medical laser inside then readied another DIA-dermal injector. “I’m going to let you sleep through the transport and the flight. You’ll wake up in the coffin at the Medical Center.”

“Coffin?” His face contorted in abject terror.

“Relax… It’s just a transport nodule,” she assured. “It protects you from getting jostled during the flight.”

“Will you be with me? Please stay with me?” He pleaded.

“I’ll be there,” she assured, touching the injection device to his neck and watching carefully as he drifted off into a deep, drug-induced sleep.

The two EMTs moved in after Rocky tagged the strut pinning Kieran’s legs.

Doctor Dana Cartwright gave orders and supervised the strapping on of the backboard, except they had to do it to his front. She unclasped his Ambassadorial cape and took off his boots, carefully checking for other lacerations, and broken bones.

Finally, when she felt it safe, they levitated the board and eased it very slowly toward the C-FIIN. It hovered there just two centimeters above the tray.

Dana watched as the two EMTs took it from there, painstakingly hooking up all the sensors, cutting away his upper body clothing to do so. Once they had satisfactory readings from all the sensors, they lowered the backboard so that his body rested on the waiting tray of adaptive foam that molded to his body, forming a protective cushion.

Dana Cartwright nodded approvingly as the straps and backboard were removed. “Leave the gloves on. His hands are seriously injured.” She asked the C-FIIN, “Vital signs?”

“All vitals within parameters,” the coffin responded.

Dana sighed. “Okay to transport.” The sides of the unit slid up and over, protectively encasing Kieran Jai in an air-controlled and safe environment.

One of the EMTs began pushing the coffin toward the waiting med-evac shuttle. The other, her friend Grant Jeffries, held up his hand to check her over with a scanner. “You need a decontamination chamber.”

She realized how much of the fire extinguisher dust coated her uniform. “Indeed, I do.” She returned to collect up her medical kit, Kieran’s cloak, boots, and the torch. The latter she gave to Chief Rocky. “I owe you a pair of gloves.” She said with a smile. “Those will be haz-mat contaminated.”

He just chuckled. “No problem, Doctor Dana. I’ve got plenty.”

Rocky Antonio tagged the beam that had pinned Kieran’s hand and it dematerialized. He used another tag to quickly remove the section she’d cut out with the laser and nodded to her. “Good idea.”

She shrugged. “Sometimes you just have to improvise.”

One of Rocky’s team members brought her multicolored cloak and gently wrapped it about her shoulders.

“Thanks.” She smiled but then took a good look at the scene. “What a mess, Chief! Did they catch it all on the recorders?”

“Not sure yet,” he responded. “Somebody up in the control tower is in deep doo-doo.”

Dana looked up.

The full harvest moon was nearly overhead now and she recalled the vow she’d made as it was rising. “Never, ever should have become a doctor,” she repeated. Then she touched the voice-badge on her uniform and requested of the controller, “MAT transfer me straight to decon at MCE.”

“Aye, Doctor Cartwright. Stand by.”

Rocky and his team gave her a standing ovation. “She is one brave lady,” the Ground Control Chief offered, pausing in his tagging to record the moment as the MAT system energized.

Doctor Dana Cartwright went through the same decontamination process as Kieran Jai and the two EMTs that had accompanied him. Every loose hair, eyebrow, eyelash, particle of dust from clothing, skin follicles from under fingernails and even things in the throat and lungs deemed nonbeneficial, was vacuumed from their bodies. The process also stripped the healthy coconut oil from her hair, the lipstick from her lips and a good deal of the moisture from her eyes. She hated but tolerated the process.
 

Afterward, she stripped off her boots and stowed her gear in her locker, including the Sterillian blade, which Kieran had given her, the ambassadorial robe, and his boots. Then she disposed of her uniform and slipped into a sterile back closure scrub gown and drawstring tie pants provided for doctors. They were always two sizes too big, but didn’t come in extra small or petite versions.

She put a few saline drops in her eyes to soothe them and drank down ten ounces of purified water, before going to meet her colleagues in the clean room.

“Rough one,” her best friend, one of the Star Service’s finest surgeons now retired to the Department Chair at MCE, Francis Calagura, commented in passing as she was tucking her hair up into a regulation sanctioned hair net.

“Very,” Dana echoed as she stepped from the dressing room into the clean room and went up to the glass where she could watch the last of Kieran Jai’s prep. The EMTs were gone, replaced by two android prep nurses.

Fortunately, he wasn’t awake for the stripping off of his remaining clothing, the attachment of tubes and sensors to the lower body orifices, nor the indignity of the one-size-fits-all diaper. No one ever wanted to be awake for that.

One of the android prep nurses showed Dana the wig and false beard Kieran had worn and requested instructions. “Recycle?”

“Negative. Bag it — consider it evidence,” Dana warned.
 

Doctor Calagura personally supervised the removal of the gloves from Kieran’s hands. “I’ve seen worse,” he commented, disposing of the gloves in a hazardous materials disposal chute. “May take several surgeries.” He replaced the gloves with clear balloons, taping them in place at the wrists, before returning each hand to Kieran’s side, inside the coffin.

Calagura started the full body bone scan and directed the neuro-resonance scan, motioning for Dana to come into the exam room to see the results.

Using healing strobes and ultrasound, she and Doctor Calagura mended the fracture in Kieran’s leg and even corrected a bone spur in his heel from a childhood break.

“DOC will need to work on his fingers,” Calagura decided. “It takes tremendous patience.”

“We may need to bring in an Alphan neurosurgeon for the spinal restoration.” Dana fretted, “I’m not sure I can handle that long a surgery.”

“There are few on Earth with that specialty,” Francis reminded. “Maybe one of the Star Service Academy doctors… Or one aboard a starship…” He didn’t finish the thought, already focusing on the numbers.

Dana worried over the scans. “I read a refresher text but have never performed a spinal weave.”

“Sometimes takes a whole day,” Doctor Calagura commented. “Let’s keep the patient sedated and in a nodule overnight until we can have a care conference to review the stats.”

“Agreed.” Dana programmed new instructions into the C-FIIN and the levitation units slowly lowered Kieran’s body back down into the air-soft environment. The clear sides and lid slid up and over, forming a cushioned cradle that floated above the deck at exactly the correct height for the doctors and nurses to have access.

Kieran looked so peaceful, and so very different, without the wig and the oversized Ambassadorial garments. More handsome, if that was possible in the dramatic white lighting in the exam room, and so much younger. Dana couldn’t help but smile. She patted the top of the coffin and used a wall com-station to order, “Patient Jai, first name: Kieran, Admit ordered today by Doctor Cartwright, Dana J. Staff code: MCS00779.”

After the two android nurses floated the C-FIIN down the hall to the East Ward, Dana joined Doctor Calagura in the doctors’ scrub area. They used the old fashioned method of soap and water, but remained in their scrubs, entering the lounge for a cup of coffee from the digitizer. Dana ordered a small donut from the machine as a snack.

“So, who is he?” Francis asked as he settled down at the corner table, his favorite quiet spot, off the traffic path.

“The pilot of the Alphan Ambassador’s shuttle.” Dana remembered how Kieran had pleaded she not tell anyone his identity. It would all become perfectly plain once the investigation team took charge. “He told me his name is Kieran Jai.”

“Oh… So he was cognizant of what happened?”

“Cognizant, but not always lucid,” she answered. “Ambassador Cray was scheduled to lecture at the Observatory. I happened to be out on the landing level watching the moon rise.”