There was no automatic disengagement under a late disengage.
…
His whole body convulsed with the shock. Then, he could feel his lungs laboring in the
darkness. He’d stopped breathing for a few moments.
His breathing slowed. His poopsuit was soaked, his back stuck with sweat to the sensie-seat, and he stunk with fear-sweat as he eased off the mesh linkcap.
All he could do for a time was sit and breathe.
No one even looked in his direction in the dimness, even as bodies rushed past him. He shook his head and looked to his left. Suares lay limp in the sensie-chair—scarlet-flared. He wasn’t breathing. He wouldn’t, not ever, deJahn knew. Brain-fried.
Meralez was kneeling beside Vielho, but her words made no sense to deJahn. Vielho’s body kept twitching, and he screamed silently, as if his vocal cords had been ripped out of his throat.
A medtech appeared with a porta-gurney, moved around Meralez, and slapped a trankmask on Vielho. The medic never looked around as he strapped Vielho into the gurney, ignoring the other techs.
“Techs…” said the major from the ops station.
DeJahn knew what DiLayne meant. He stood, moved toward the pod exit, then touched the pad.
Tech deJahn… released, duty status green.
He followed Esquival out into the passageway. She didn’t look back. Neither did he.
Suicide mission.
VII.
Specialist biofeedback is required for optimal efficiency in special operations. Incomplete or null feedback impairs biounit response and efficacy in direct relationship to the total number of discrete units under operator influence and the neural complexity of the individual unit…
VIII.
What could he do? DeJahn didn’t know. Maybe nothing. Looked around the techs’ mess. He was the only one there. Coffee, ersatz shit… it was cold. Nothing worse than cold, bitter, pseudo coffee.
He took the longer passageway. Softboots scuffed on the deck, almost silent. Everything was muffled and damped in the station. Missed real sunlight. Missed lots of real things. Sickbay was at the end, south end, he’d heard. Who knew when you never saw the sun?
He stepped inside sickbay. Duty medtech just watched. Watched close.
Vielho lay in the second bay, in a medsack that surrounded all of his body. Only his face was exposed. His eyes were open, and his chest rose and fell.
A long moment passed, before deJahn spoke. “You’ll be all right. You did a good job.” Was that right? Who the frig knew? “Vielho… I’m here… deJahn.”
There was no response. The blank eyes did not move, did not blink.
DeJahn looked around the cubicle, located a stool. He pulled it over and sat where Vielho’s eyes could see him, if they could see.
Finally, after another ten minutes, the silence pressed in on him. So much that he had to say something. Anything.
‘Vielho… you know … you remind me of my brother. He’s younger. Not much, two years. He’s a teacher… some out of the way place, Escalante… he’s like you, always had something pleasant to say… That’s why I asked about the tea. He drinks tea. You know, one time, when we were moving the herd… yeah, the old man still handles sheep the old way… Casimir found one of the ewes had dropped twins late… never found their mother… he bottle- nursed ‘em until they were old enough to go with the others….” DeJahn didn’t know why he’d told that story, or the one after it.
Finally, maybe an hour, maybe two, later, he got up from the stool, and leaned over and put two fingers on Vielho’s forehead. “Hold tight…”
Outside sickbay, he thought he saw Meralez in the passageway ahead, and he took the one to the left, that went back to the mess, not that he was hungry. Most times, he would have been glad to see Meralez.
Not this time.
IX.
Major Delles surveyed the techs seated at the tables in the mess. This time, more than ten chairs were empty. One would have belonged to Suares, another to Vielho… and Chihouly.
Meralez had seated herself at one end of the single long table, with Castaneda on the other side.
DeJahn hadn’t tried to get close on the other side. He’d just taken the last seat near the bulkhead table.
“This is the big push.” Delles smiled enthusiastically. “What we have planned here will upset the Seasies’ economy for a decade or more, not to mention crippling their efforts to match us in biowar capabilities. What we’re doing is just a small part of an overall coordinated program…”
“…it’s taken some time to identify the critical targets, and not all of them are obvious, but all are critical to the sectoral economy…”
“…Lumut is critical to the development of the next wave of warm-water bioconversion systems
…Targets will be the power systems, the membrane formulation complex, all comm links, and the potable water system, as well as all humint armed units…”
“…all the biounits are in place and registering green…”
“…We’ll be using the main pod for the heavies, and two and three for the aux bio-units. Here are the pod assignments.”
