Dana Cartwright Mission 1: Stiletto (5 page)

“Alone?” Calagura teased.

“Well, except for some security tubs.” She stifled a yawn. “What are you doing on the night shift, Francis?”

“Traded with Doctor Kenton. I think he was going to that lecture, too. No, wait, he was going to the pre-meeting for the event at the stadium that starts tomorrow.”

“That’s more like Kenton. He hates Cray’s theories on triple star systems,” Dana mumbled finishing her coffee. “We’ve argued the point about a dozen times.”

“He hates all Alphan theories,” Calagura said.

“Doesn’t everyone?” Dana quipped, and Francis had to chuckle.

“You’d think a Republic distinguished member delegation would command more respect. Oh, well…”

Over the COM system came instructions, “Doctor Calagura to patient intake: code green. Doctor Francis Calagura: code green.”

“Busy night for you,” Dana sympathized.

He nodded. “One after the other… They never warned us about this in medical school.”

“Everyone would change majors,” Dana taunted, munching the last of her snack cake.

“Many do, even after getting their MD’s. Can’t take the hours. I’ve thought about it myself.”

“I have, too,” she admitted.

“You? Dana, you belong aboard a starship. You’d make a great science officer.”

She scoffed, “Like DOC would ever let that happen!”

“You off today?”

“No, day shift.”

“Better get some rest then. Doctor’s orders.” He winked.

She nodded. “Yes, sir, Doctor. I just want to check on my patient before I do.”

He gave her a mock Galaxean salute, right hand over his heart.

Dana Cartwright watched her friend
 
through the clear panes of the scrub room wall, as he once again washed and sanitized his hands. She left in the opposite direction, going to find patient Kieran Jai’s room on the Medical Center East - Critical Care Ward.

She entered without knocking, went to the sink there to wash and then pushed past the AN? “Vitals?”

The device called out several key statistics, all within parameters for an Alphan male Kieran’s height and age. She was satisfied with the situation and could leave confident that his condition was stable. Still, she programmed the AN to page her if anything changed.

Tempted to linger while looking down as he slept, she recalled his loving kiss and the lovely memories he’d shared with her. No one had ever touched her soul so deeply. Was it an Alphan thing? The anatomy and physiology text barely touched on the incredible psychic powers Alphans possessed.

The kiss, however, certainly crossed the ethical line between patient/doctor relationships. Conflict of interest? Maybe more... She didn’t dare let it happen again! He faced some complicated surgeries and a great deal of physical therapy, none of which were her specialty — although she knew more than most about Alphan physiology. Perhaps assisting on his surgeries would be acceptable.

Dana gently rested her hand on the clear coffin lid, wishing him a good night before she left the patient room heading down the corridor toward her office.

Her heart was heavy as she finally lay down to rest on the settee in her small office, still wearing her scrubs. Exhausted, she put all her worries over neuro scans and vital signs aside and shut her eyes. In minutes, she was flying — soaring over a red rock canyon with the wind caressing her face and the beauty massaging her eyes.

The hang glider obeyed her gentle commands as if they were one. She’d never known such freedom. Never.

This was Kieran’s memory and what a wonderful gift it was — truly a treasure.

Chief Rocky walked the crash site one last time as the sun was rising in the East, to make certain with his eagle eyes that no piece — however tiny — escaped.

“What a night!” He finally got to remove his helmet and switch off the transmitter. The still image counter read 186,284. “Well, shoot, that’s the speed of light per second.” He chuckled, sighed, and then used the visor of the helmet to scratch a persistent spot between his shoulder blades.
 

“Glad I’m not on the inspection team!” His guys were already wrapped, heading for the showers, a meal or to be — or maybe for a stiff drink at the local pub. “Yeah, that’s what I need… A few tall ones with a whiskey shooter or two.”

He dusted off his overalls. “Need a decon-crew here though.” He called to maintenance to send up the sweepers. A quartet of big ass vacuum cleaners flew up from the lower level storage garage and began a grid pattern to suck up all the residual dust that the Northwest wind hadn’t already dispersed.

Rocky started down the ramp to the lower level, to his gear locker, to stow the hardhat and his tools, mechanically going through a basic inventory. “Missing a pair of gloves… Right, Doctor Dana nabbed them.” He checked the torch. It needed recharging, so he plugged it into the base station. He stepped out of his boots and stripped off his overalls. Then he gave the basic uniform pants he wore underneath a quick tug up, and the shirt a tug downward. And from the shelf in the locker, he pulled down his well-weathered pair of all-purpose leather boots — the really comfortable ones. His feet deserved a break.

“Sure was brave of her to crawl under there to save the Ambassador. I must buy her a drink next time I see her. Lucky she was on deck and trained for evac. Not many of the Docs over at MCE would take such a risk.”

Just for the hell of it, Rocky took a stroll over to the control center to pull up the recordings of the crash. It should prove entertaining.

“Oh, excuse me,” the Chief mumbled, seeing Inspector Regis already at the station computers. He knew the Kentorian from previous encounters as a tedious but meticulous sleuth. That’s what it took to be an investigator. Rocky grumbled under his breath. “I don’t have the patience.”

“Chief Antonio, good to see you again.”

“Aye… Too bad it’s under these circumstances.” Rocky surveyed the look on the investigator’s face. He wasn’t at all happy. “What’s up?”

“All the surveillance tapes are blank,” Regis announced. “Every last one. Up in the tower and down here. Can you explain that?”

“Explain? Only one explanation, Inspector, somebody didn’t want it recorded.”

“Is that conjecture?”

“Yeah! It’s called an educated guess,” Rocky snapped. “It’d take a programming genius or a Star Service admiral to bypass all the security fail-safes.”

Inspector Regis reluctantly nodded in agreement. “I assume you and your team took post-event images and recordings?”

“Of course, already transmitted to FIT,” Rocky groaned. Regis had to know that already. You don’t get to be a Ground Control Chief by being sloppy.
 

“After I review the images, I should like to ask a few questions of you,” Regis stated.

“I’ll be around,” Rocky said, forcing a toothy smile. Then he turned to go, suddenly in need of a drink a whole lot more urgently than before.

“What if Cray survives?” Skeller demanded the moment his form solidified after MAT transfer and he spotted Xavier Via.

Via ignored the statement and grabbed the box from Skeller’s hand. “You fool! You were supposed to get rid of this!”

“With all those tubs and the Chief’s men… There was no opportunity.”

Via returned to the computer station. “Do you realize who that woman was and why the tubs granted her access?”

“Doctor Dana J. Cartwright… She knows the Chief,” Skeller answered.

Via hacked into the SSID computer using the new codes and pulled up Cartwright’s personnel file to show Skeller.
 

“Well, well, well…just look at these credentials. Works at MCE, where they took the Ambassador.”

Via grimaced. “Isn’t this a treat? An Enturian/Galaxean hybrid, smuggled in as the adopted daughter of Doctor David Cartwright.”
 

Skeller found the file impressive. “She’s no lightweight.”

Via nodded. “I’m going to need something with her DNA signature.” He pointed out some personal facts about Cartwright to Skeller. “Here’s the location of her home. Get over there with a DNA scanner. Get something with her fingerprints, too, but most importantly, something with hair or saliva. Don’t trash the place. Don’t leave any evidence anyone has been there,” Via ordered. “I’ve overridden the access key pad. The door will open only once. Don’t blow it!”

Skeller groaned. “I won’t.” He took a few steps away from Via and then the MAT pod effect engulfed him and energized.
 

“All it takes is one,” Via complained, going back to the terminal. “One little snag and it ruins the whole game plan.”

He needed just a little more time to finish hacking the Medical Center East computer network; not too difficult a task since he and his twin brother, Xeres, had designed the system of Android Nurses not all that long ago. ANs were about as useful as the proposed android doctor programs destined for future ships. “ADs are a waste of time,” Via grumbled.
 

“Men like Cray would vote for anything that eliminated the human element and put hard working people out of jobs.”

He scoffed. “Men? Cray? Hah! Cray and his Alphan delegation were dogs. An obscure sulfa-based antibiotic should do the trick. Lethal to Alphans. Yes, Cray is a dog. And this one needed to be put down.”

Skeller’s signal came through; the DNA and the fingerprints lifted from a padlet. Perfect.

That was all Via needed.

He went to work in earnest.

The AN at Cray’s bedside was about to go into overload, with Dana J. Cartwright’s signature. He thought it particularly cute that they had used a pseudonym for the Ambassador. “Kieran Jai… Very cute. This lady certainly has unusual DNA. And weird eyes…like King’s,” Via mused, “maybe I should send him a coded message? Yes, I think I will. He should find her file very interesting.”

When Dana awoke, after just two hours, the heaviness had lifted and her lips again held a gentle smile. Before going in to scrub, she undid the braiding of her hair and let it fall loose and free, the feathery ends reaching her thighs, curling and swirling.

“More coconut oil,” she decided, since the decontamination had stripped it all away.

The doctors’ lounge bustled with the day crew, all watching the clock and waiting for the 0700 shift change. She nodded to a few as she ordered a small breakfast from the digitizer and took the tray to a corner table. The chatter centered on an industrial building explosion and fire; the solo shuttle crash from the night before forgotten on the sliding scale of thousands injured. MCE processed twenty in the emergency room. Francis Calagura certainly did have a busy night and morning.

“Get your hair cut.”

Dana looked up from her toast into Doctor David Cartwright’s scowl.

“Good morning to you, too, Doctor.”
 

That he was her guardian for twenty years seemed irrelevant now that they were staff colleagues.

He hovered, an aging relic among the young guns normally taking the early morning shift. Dana squinted with her blue eye. “Something wrong, DOC?” She dared to use his nickname as the other surgeons often did.

“I was just informed you were first responder at the Observatory incident last night.” His beard and mustache twittered as he spoke, a known indication of his anger or, at the least, displeasure. “You are never to do such a reckless, foolhardy thing again.”

Dana chuckled right to his face. “Your authority stopped when I came of age, DOC.” She resisted the instinctive need to justify herself in the face of his criticism, especially in front of all their colleagues.

“I should never have authorized you to take those emergency responder courses. It’s foolishness!”

“Best money you ever spent on me. I saved a life last night,” she told him.

He scoffed.
 

“Not my first, but…”

“You put yourself at risk. You are never, ever to do that again. Leaking fuel rods! All sorts of exposure to radiation! Dana, you are far too valuable to be exposing yourself to such danger! Leave it the men who are properly equipped and capable of such things.”
 

“That pilot would be dead! It was hours before the crews could get to him. Besides, I am trained for exactly such things!” Dana stood, glaring, her egalitarian beliefs contradicting his sexist tirade. She barely reached the middle of his chest. He was still in street clothes, a charcoal gray three-piece tailored suit, with a starched white-collared shirt — a relic of a bygone era that dated him like an ancient sculpture from the twentieth century and hinted at his professorial cobwebs.

The COM called, “Doctor Cartwright to East Ward: code red. Doctor Dana Cartwright: code red.”

She abandoned her food and her guardian, setting a personal best for the 100-meter dash.

Kieran’s face held a tortured scream; his skin was blue. Both hands were above his chest, pushing against the clear lid of the coffin.

Dana smashed her fist against the emergency release and then against the android nurse administering an order change into the coffin keypad. “Sulfa! That’s toxic to Alphans!”

Kieran was hyperventilating, gasping.

Dana clawed for a DIA-dermal injector on the tray behind her, while reaching into the coffin and massaging Kieran’s chest with her left hand, cooing, “Easy, Kieran! Breathe easy.” She programmed a counter agent to the antibiotic and added a mild sedative, administering it the moment the sides of the nodule cleared a height permitting access.

Because of his agitated state, the medication took longer — or so it seemed — to calm him.

He whimpered, like a child. “Please, Doctor Dana… Please get me out of here. Please, please, please, please, please…”

“Shh, Kieran. You’re safe. Shh…” Dana assured, continuing her massage of his bare chest, leaning over him to keep his left hand at his side.

“I couldn’t breathe… I can’t breathe!” He tried to hug her but settled for burying his face in her hair. “Please get me out of this thing.”

“Shh!” Dana gently coaxed him to relax and to breathe normally. Then she patted his shoulder. “Rest now.”

She checked the C-FIIN data record and turned on the android, “Who entered this medication change order?” She pointed to the text recorded on the screen. “Sulfa drugs are deadly to Alphans, Enturians and Galaxeans! Who entered this?”