John Ringo - Against the Tide

“I’d never killed anyone before,” Megan said, leaning against him suddenly.

“Killing is a bit like sex,” Herzer said, gently. “You always remember your first. After that it tends to blur a bit.” He stopped and shook his head. “I’m sorry if…”

“I hope I never get to the point that it blurs,” Megan said, leaning back and looking up at him. “But I’m glad that there are good people that can do the job when necessary.”

“Good is a relative term, ma’am,” he said with a shrug.

“I told you to call me Megan,” Megan said watching his face. He was half turned away from her, watching the approaching ship.

“Good is a relative term… Megan,” he repeated, working his jaw. “Most soldiers that are good at what they do are stone bastards. And I’ll happily add myself, and Duke Edmund, to that category.”

“Then for the time being you’re my stone bastard,” Megan said, suddenly laughing. “Thank you for coming to pick us up. What’s with the dragons?”

“There are New Destiny forces nearby, ma… Megan,” Herzer said, gesturing to the coxswain. “If it came to blows I wanted my dragons up. By the way, we should have loaded you last. That way you would be first to disembark. As it is, we’re going to have to do some shuffling around.”

“Your dragons?” Megan asked.

“Commander Gramlich’s, actually,” Herzer said, frowning at the bodies in the way of getting her to the front of the boat. “I’m the XO of the dragon contingent.”

“I thought you were a Blood Lord?” Megan said as the boat pulled up alongside a floating platform. There was a short set of stairs up to the ship’s maindeck and she could see a group of seamen formed up in a double line.

“Oh, I am,” Herzer said, frowning. “But Blood Lord is a state of mind rather than a job description. Right now I’m the XO of the dragon contingent. Ma’am, would you mind if I got somewhat personal and just lifted you over the side? That’s going to be the easiest way to do this.”

“That’s fine,” Megan said, standing up carefully in the rocking boat. Now that she had time to notice it at least part of her internal distress was nausea. She really hoped she wasn’t going to throw up in front of everyone.

Herzer put his hand and prosthetic around her waist and lifted her as if she was a feather over the side of the boat and onto the small platform. As he did the bodyguard scrambled past some seamen and took up station behind her.

“Ladies, if you could exit at the front,” Herzer said, gesturing to the dock.

Bast boarded the last boat out with Mirta and one of the other women. She slapped the seamstress on the arm and shook her head.

“I can’t believe Paul Bowman would be stupid enough to take you for some sweet young thing,” Bast said, grinning.

“I can play the game as well as you, ancient one,” Mirta grinned back. “By the way, did you see Megan? She looked as if someone hit her between the eyes with an oar.”

“Herzer was just as bad,” Bast said, shaking her head. “It’s like the first time Edmund saw Daneh. Sheida had just been killing time, but her sister, wooo-hoo! Going to have to break in new boy-toy.”

“They’re both trying so hard to play like nobody notices,” the other girl said.

“Bast, this is Ashly,” Mirta said, her mouth working. “We’ve had our times, but right now we’re in a state of armed truce.”

“Mirta,” Ashly said, shaking her head.

“Oh, can see this is going to be a lovely voyage,” Bast said, chuckling. “If it comes down to cat-fights, though, putting money on Mirta.”

“I’ve spent a lot of time building up a reputation for harmlessness,” Mirta said, frowning. “I’m not sure I’m up to changing that now. So are we going straight to Norau?” she continued, looking over at Bast and ignoring Ashly.

“Don’t know,” Bast admitted. “Think not. Large battle going on. Invasion force reaches Norau… today, maybe tomorrow. Will need the carrier.”

“So we’re going from captivity to a battle?” Ashly snapped. “That’s insane.”

“Whole world insane,” Bast said with a grin. “Did you not know?”

“This is just insane,” Rachel muttered tiredly.

She still was the only doctor in the hospital and as the enemy fleet approached, the injury rate had just gone up. She had taken to sleeping on the ward rather than in the rather nice suite that had been set aside for her quarters; since she knew she was going to be called in just about every night it wasn’t worth the fifty-meter walk.

In addition to the injury cases, the legion had been sending over their post-op patients. On one level it made sense; the hospital was far better quarters than a leaky tent. But, on the other hand, she didn’t have the staff to handle the soldiers as well.

During the day, between one crisis and another, she had been training her staff, most of the time, unfortunately, in practical exercises. The two PAs were barely adequate as nurses and the nursing staff was only up to simple instructions. She had finally had to open up the internal injury patient but by the time she did it was too late and the experience was nauseating. The nurses didn’t even know the instruments or internal structure; expecting them to assist in a difficult operation was clearly a bad idea. But even with the best nursing staff there was no way she could have saved the patient. His spleen had been ruptured and there was damage to the liver. He’d survived the operation but he’d just… gone during recovery.

She’d set the two best of them to memorizing internal diagrams and had them assist on two “easier” operations, putting together comminuted fractures.

On a larger level she felt totally out of her depth. She was far superior in training and knowledge to the rest of the staff but she knew she was still a rank tyro. Every time before when she had a major question she had been able to fall back on her mother’s enormous level of knowledge. Here it was only her.

Furthermore, she wasn’t getting nearly enough sleep and neither was the staff. And now, with the invasion force only a day or so away, half the staff, including both PAs and one of her “trained” surgical nurses, had disappeared. It was just insane. There was no way to provide decent, or any, care under these conditions.

“None of them are in their quarters,” Zahar said, shaking his head. “The whole town is evacuating; I don’t see where I can blame them.”

“I can,” Rachel said, bitterly. “You don’t just leave patients!”

“The word is that the legion won’t be able to hold them,” Zahar said, unhappily. “They’re outnumbered almost four to one and there’s too long of a line to hold. And who knows where the fleet is?”

“The fleet, which is under my father,” Rachel noted, “is doing what it has to. I think you can be sure that Balmoran is in the forefront of his mind. And that, whatever it is doing, it is effective.”

“Doctor Ghorbani,” Keith said, sticking his head in the door to her office, “there’s a patient from the legion on the way. Severe head injury. The legion physicians say they aren’t qualified to handle it, so they sent him to you.”

“This is just insane! What next?”

“What’s going to happen next?” Edmund said, unhappily. The fleet was pitching through a heavy storm, groping northward for the remaining New Destiny carriers and hoping that the UFS fleet would find New Destiny before New Destiny found the Hazhir .

“Unfortunately, what is going to happen next is even worse winds,” Shar said. “Reports from the back side of the storm are high winds from the northeast then a large high-pressure system.”