Crawling out of the wainscoting meant that we had almost certainly triggered one of the ship’s sensors. The ship and her big red robot would know we were there. I closed and locked the door to the corridor, jamming the lock so it couldn’t be opened from outside. The robot’s cannon could probably blow the door and most of the wall away, but the locked door would buy me at least a little time.
The fact that I have no medical training was a bonus. If I had known what I was doing, I wouldn’t have attempted it. I sorted through the medicine lockers, finding vials of antibiotics. I didn’t know whether they would have retained their effectiveness, so I planned to give myself a megadose just to be sure. I filled the syringes ready. I also found some iron that I could inject into my flesh to replace some of what I had lost.
On a couple of occasions, I had seen medics working on injuries in the battlefield, so I knew what I had to do and which piece of equipment I needed to use. There were several on-charge in the medical bay, all showing ninety per cent charge.
I removed the blood-soaked shirt and then took off my jeans. My right thigh looked a lot bigger than the left one. And it looked like something from a horror movie. I used bottled water and a handful of fresh bandages to clean the gash as best I could.
The device in my hand was a military-issue meat welder. They fetch good money on the black market. In the hands of a skilled medic, they can knit tissue back together without leaving a scar. In the hands of someone like me – well, I’d probably end up looking like Frankenstein’s monster.
The problem with this sort of apparatus is that it isn’t intended for self-administration. Normally the patient is sedated and given a local anaesthetic before being operated on. I assume they did this because the procedure hurts. There was anaesthetic in the medicine locker, but I didn’t know how much to inject. I might have to run at any moment, so didn’t want to risk having no feeling in my leg. And I had to be absolutely sure the anaesthetic didn’t spread in my body – if my arms went numb I wouldn’t be able to perform the operation.
I rubbed some anaesthetic gel into the skin around the wound, knowing it wasn’t going to be enough. I took the belt from my jeans and folded it in half – I could bite down on it if I needed to. I’d also found a proper aluminium crutch in one of the storage lockers and set this down close to hand. With the preparations done, I couldn’t put off the evil deed any longer.
I sat on one of the treatment beds and held the welder as steady as I could. Deep breath and bite down on the belt. Thumb the switch to activate the device. Oh, hell, that hurts!
It was like having your flesh shredded by burning knives and then pinned back together with white-hot hooks. I had to use both hands to drag the tip of the welder along the full length of the wound. My vision blurred and I passed out.
I opened my eyes, trying to focus them. The drone was making its annoying buzzing sound and bobbing up and down over the syringes. I must have given it instructions to wake me and remind me about the antibiotics. I jabbed the syringes into my skin and the pain was nothing to what I had just endured. I injected the iron too. Just call me Doctor Randall. I grabbed a couple of the bottles of water and drank them down. Then I rubbed some more anaesthetic gel into my thigh. The pain had subsided a little, but it still felt like someone was pouring boiling water over my leg.
In comparison to this, the pain in my left hand was almost nothing. The two knuckle joints were a little swollen and felt warm, but while they were painful I could still move them fully, so I didn’t think there had been any kind of fracture. I used medical tape to bind up my hand, leaving only my index finger and thumb to move freely. Ideally, I would have had the hand in a bucket of ice for a while, but circumstances weren’t even close to ideal.
I had given the drone instructions not to let me go to sleep. The urge to countermand that order was very strong, but I knew that would be detrimental to my long-term survival. It could only be a matter of time before Howie Howitzer was hammering at the medbay door.
I needed fresh clothes. If I was going to die, I didn’t want to die wearing just my underpants. I had hoped there might be sealed packs of sterile surgical scrubs in one of the lockers, but I didn’t find any when I was doing my search for equipment. I was going to have to go down the corridor and see what I could find in the crew’s quarters. And while I was there, I could pick out a couple of the biggest guns I could find in the sergeant’s gun locker.
I swung my legs off the side of the table and lowered my feet to the floor. The level of pain in my right leg didn’t increase substantially when I tested my weight on it. I’d take the crutch just in case. I could always hit the robot with it. Wearing only briefs and a gun belt, I set off on my mission.
Chapter Nineteen
“Attention unidentified intruder!”
The synthesized voice blasted out over the ship’s intercom
