War Angel: part thirteen

The waiting was beginning to get to Morrison. Earth had surrendered. The EAD had been ordered to stand down. Lives had most certainly been lost, both in space and on the ground. One of his own crew of students had tried to murder another, nearly succeeding in strangling the life out of him. And none of his crew was forthcoming about why the incident might have occurred.

Albert Morrison knew that Drake was trouble before he ever came onboard. The boy was connected, and that made him difficult to discipline on campus matters. His father had the ear of the administration office, which meant his poor behavior was overlooked far too often. Yet when Ben was assigned to the War Angel, Morrison had been pleasantly surprised to discover that he wasn’t a complete incompetent. He had a solid grasp of comm. technologies, and could at least make himself useful.

Sounder, a call sign that had grown on Morrison, had the makings of a decent EAD soldier.

Yet it was now clear that the rest of his young crew did not feel the same.

The sound of footsteps stirred Morrison from his reverie, and he swiveled his chair around to see Wilma walking onto the bridge. “Mr. Drake will survive, Captain, though he won’t be happy about it for a while.”

“How bad?”

She pulled out a biorecorder and examined Drake’s medical chart. “Cracked windpipe, but not broken. His voice will be iffy for a while, and his breathing will be painful. With proper equipment I could fix that and he’d be healed in a day. In our situation… call it two weeks.” Morrison grimaced. “Large bruises on the neck and throat, extending down into his chest area. I used the basic cellular stimulator we have onboard, and those should clear up in a day. Jaw has a hairline fracture, normally something I could fix and have healed within a day or two, but again in our current situation…”

He interrupted. “Bottom line?”

“Even with the cellular stimulator, it’ll be a few days before he can eat solid food.”

“He awake yet?”

She shook her head. “No. I put him under. Best thing to help the stimulator start working effectively.”

“I guess we should be thankful for sedatives, doctor.” He stopped. “Wait. Do we even have a large enough supply of sedatives for this sort of thing? Do we have large enough supplies of any sort of medicine? Holy hell.”

“Our supplies of medicines aren’t good, I can’t lie about that, Captain. We didn’t bring much as it was, thinking this was going to be a short trip and thinking we could get home reasonably quick if we needed to.” She set down the biorecorder. “The one thing we have going for us is the food supply. Sort of.”

“Explain, please.”

Wilma coughed into her hand. “We brought onboard some standard foodstuffs, enough for a couple of weeks. But we also have the hydroponic garden where Ms. Stinson did her preliminary work. Dozens of herbs and plants, stuff where we could conceivably begin growing food and soon. And as an added bonus, part of my background is in botanical chemistry.”

“Meaning?”

“I can make medicine,” she beamed. “In fact, I used a botanical sedative on both of our ‘patients’. I was bored a couple of days ago and used some sage to whip up a thujone-based sedative. Used to do it in college and sell it to students that had trouble sleeping. ‘Herbal cures’ always rakes in the bucks.”

Morrison allowed himself to laugh. “There’s a lot more to you than meets the eye, doctor. I like it.”

“Mind you, I got caught and busted, but the EAD got wind of it and offered me a job after I graduated. Better than spending time behind bars, right?

The older officer nodded grimly. “I guess so. Keen perspective, doctor. Keen perspective.” He paused to take a breath. “Now: do you want to tell me what’s really going on between our student charges, and why this particular incident happened?”

Wilma straightened her posture and adjusted her uniform. “I wouldn’t know, Captain.”

Exasperated, he snapped at his fellow officer. “Is everyone on this boat going to spend the rest of their days lying to me?”

“It’s entirely possible, Captain.”

He gave her a flippant wave and spun back around in his chair. “Dismissed, doctor.”

Nothing in an officer’s training prepared a man for what Morrison knew he was facing. There no section in the manual for being exiled in the outer reaches of the solar system. No protocol for how to react to a planetary surrender. Should he prepare to fight? With only students? Should they run? Would it be cowardice?

One thing for certain: he could not admit to them that he had no idea what to do. He had to be strong, show leadership. These kids were relying on him to lead them.

Morrison felt a sudden surge of energy. This was the opportunity he had been denied for his entire career, and he would prove himself. Once and for all, he would prove himself. Filled with confidence, he surged out of his chair and stormed off of the bridge. “Time to go inspire my troops.”

As he exited, the EAD hyperfrequency channel hummed to life and began beeping an alert. Someone out there wanted to talk to the War Angel, but they were going to have to leave a message.