“That’s kind of like murder,” Isham pointed out.
“I’m kind of past caring, Jack,” Steve said. “I’m going to send my daughters out on another ugly mission to help save the world, and I really don’t give two shits about people too lazy to help.”
“You warmed up enough, Lieutenant?” Fontana asked as Faith pounded the bag.
“Warmed up enough to kick your ass, Lieutenant,” she said to the hulking former SF NCO.
“So the student shall defeat the master?” Fontana asked, humorously, putting in a mouth guard.
“What student?” Faith said, directing a light snap-kick in his direction. “You think I’m your student?”
“How’s the new platoon?” Falcon asked.
“Honestly, I can’t really tell,” Faith said, blocking his punch and going for a wrist bar, which he evaded. She feinted a punch and tried another snap-kick. You had to be careful with Fontana; he’d put you on your ass if he caught your kick. “I know I have to let the new staff sergeant handle shaking them down. I know that. And I need to just let her do her job clearing the base. But I want to get out there picking up weapons and stuff. Hell, I want to go beyond the cleared zones and do some zombie hunting.”
“You at least are going zombie hunting,” Fontana said. “I am stuck here playing catch-up on being a baby doctor. I have dealt with more insane women and looked at more vaginas in the last week than I ever wanted to see in my life.”
“TMI, Falcon,” Faith said. She attacked with a blurring combination of kicks and punches, then backed off. As usual, she couldn’t break through his defenses. She’d taken a couple of different styles of martial arts since she was a kid, but Fontana had been a hand-to-hand instructor in the Special Forces. It had been noted almost from 9/12 that occasionally soldiers, especially people like SF who were out on or beyond the front lines, had to actually, you know, fight for their lives and occasionally that got down to hand-to-hand. Which was why, eventually, SF had gotten serious about hand-to-hand training. It was Fontana’s training as much as anything that Faith had used when it got down to “scrums.” Not that it had in a while.
“Two thousand four hundred and eighty-three women in current manning in the squadron,” Fontana said. “More women survived than men. No clue why. Of those, eighteen hundred are pregnant. With most coming to term within a month of each other. And when one woman in a confined group goes into labor, it tends to cause a ripple effect. We’ve already had twenty-six premature births. One looks like he might survive. We’re going to have more and more. God help us if we have a storm or something. Any sort of global stress, even a big weather change, can trigger premature labor.”
“Well, I’ve made up my mind,” Faith said. “Sex, maybe. Babies, never.”
“One does tend to follow from the other, Faith,” Fontana pointed out.
“Every time we do a sweep, I’ve been picking up birth control pills and stashing them,” Faith said. “So there.”
“I wouldn’t place my…trust in birth control pills that are probably out of date and for sure have been overheated,” Fontana said. He managed to get a punch through that rocked her back on her heels.
“Better than the alternative,” Faith said, dropping back. “I’m considering losing my virginity. You up?”
She attacked like lightning as he froze for a second and managed to get in a hard blow on his head that stunned him for a brief moment. One roundhouse kick and he was down.
“Hah,” Faith said, holding up her hands in victory. “Treachery wins again! And, sorry, I wasn’t actually serious. I’m looking for somebody a bit closer to my own age.” She held out her hand to help him up.
“Well, just be careful, okay?” Fontana said, rubbing his jaw. “You realize if you do get pregnant I’m probably going to end up looking at your twat and that would just ruin our relationship. Now prepare to have your ass kicked…”
CHAPTER 11
“…if anybody has a doctor, we sure could use some advice…”
Thomas Fontana entered the curtained alcove and picked up the chart.
“How’s it going, Tina?” he asked.
“Fine, Lieutenant,” Tina replied, moving the ultrasound wand around.
They were still in the process of stripping both base hospitals. High on the list was anything obstetrical related.
“Hi, Missy,” Fontana said, looking at the chart and the ultrasound. “How’ve you been feeling?”
“Ready to get done,” the girl said. She was nineteen and had been on a cruise with her parents when the plague hit and the captain ordered abandon ship. The inevitable had occurred on the lifeboat which, fortunately, had also managed to contain no infected.
“How’s the morning sickness?” Fontana asked, pulling out a stethoscope.
“Morning, noon and night,” Missy said, dimpling. “But at least I’m not throwing up sushi all the time. It tastes better going down.”
“Lemme listen in on junior,” he added, putting his stethoscope in his ears. He straightened up after a moment. “Nobody, including the doctors in the CDC, have any clue if there’s going to be effects from things like being castaway, okay?”
“Okay,” Missy said unhappily. It wasn’t like she hadn’t heard it before.
“That being said, looking at the ultrasound, listening to the heart, this appears to be a nice normal, healthy, active baby,” Fontana said, sort of smiling. His face wasn’t really made for it.
“I hope so,” Missy said. “I just want him…her to be okay, you know?”
“I know,” Fontana said, scribbling in the chart. “We all do. We are so few. Keep up the prenatal vitamins, try to keep them down for that matter, but it’s all looking good…”
“Lieutenant,” one of the nurses said, sticking her head in the cubicle. “We need you in exam six.”
“It’s going to be fine,” Thomas said, smiling and waving as he walked out.
“What’s up?” he asked the nurse.
“Patient is presenting with abdominal pain,” the girl said carefully. She was obviously trying to remember the lingo since “nurse” was a stretch. “She has a fever of one oh one and her BP is lower than her last visit.”
“Okay,” Thomas said, taking the chart and entering the cabin. “Hello…Cathy.”
“I’m sorry to take up your time, Lieutenant,” the woman said unhappily. “I wasn’t supposed to be in until next week. But I think something’s wrong.”
The woman’s pregnancy hadn’t been as easy as Missy’s. She’d had bouts of high blood pressure and the fetus had never been terribly robust. He would have put her on daily checks if he had the time and people.
“Let me do a quick check,” Thomas said, pulling out his stethoscope. He listened for a moment, then said: “I’ll be right back.”
He stepped out into the hallway and down to the nurse’s station.
“Start prepping the OR,” he said.
“Problem?” Lieutenant Fallon said.
“Pretty sure that fetus is dead. Please tell me we have some Keflex left. ’Cause I’m also pretty sure it’s necrotic.”
“You guys look like you could use a drink,” Steve said, waving his tray at the table. “Mind if I?”