I was lying there in a surreal daze. All I could think was, time to pay for getting missed all those times. My dead comrades came back to me from my memories, saying, "Welcome, brother…we have kept a place for you."
I was still awake, at least I thought so, but I couldn't see or even feel anything. I couldn't move at all; my armor's power plant must have gotten scragged. Battery power could run trauma and life support systems, but it couldn't move several tons of high density iridium-steel-polymer hybrid buried under more tons of shattered rock.
Code Orange. Nuclear attack. Everything was hazy, but I knew it had been an atomic explosion. The colonel had tried to warn me, but we both realized too late. This was a huge escalation. Neither side had used nukes yet, not even during Achilles.
None of it mattered. I felt the darkness start to take me. At least I was spared the slow agony the rest of our forces were facing. I slipped away, choking on the bitter taste of defeat.
Chapter Six
I woke up in a hospital bed. That was the first surprise. Not the bed, the waking up. Somehow I had survived, and to this day I'm not entirely sure how. Part of it was luck, and even more the amazing technology of my armor, which managed to stop my bleeding and inject me with enough meds to keep me alive, despite catastrophic damage to my body and a dose of radiation that could have fried a kitchen full of eggs.
Years later I found out that another big factor, maybe the most crucial in my survival, was Colonel Holm. Somehow my brutalized armor maintained its link with the command net, and the colonel could tell I was still alive on his readouts. He personally led a search team into the apocalyptic red zone to find me and pull me out.
I braced for the pain, but there was none. Of course, I thought. I must be up to my eyeballs in happy juice. Probably best that way for all concerned. I had no complaints about it. I lay there groggy and incoherent for a few minutes, maybe for a few hours. Or days for that matter; I was completely out of it. Finally I decided to take a look around, so I lifted my head. Well, I thought "lift," but my head didn't do anything. It wasn't until I tried to raise my arm, but only managed to turn my hand a little with intense effort, that I realized I was so astonishingly weak I could hardly move.
Of course, I thought. The radiation. It was a miracle I was alive at all, but I was clearly much worse for wear. I looked around as much as I could manage with the little I could move my head. The room was fairly large, with high ceilings - over 3 meters. I was definitely planetside someplace; no spaceship wastes this much volume. The walls and pretty much everything else were spotless white. There were various machines lined up next to the bed, and they were all connected to me by some type of tube, wire, or other conduit.
I tried to yell for someone, but my voice was as weak as my body, and all I could manage was a barely audible whisper. I croaked it out from what almost certainly would have been a very sore throat if I hadn't been so medicated. I didn't expect an answer, but I got one.
"Good morning, Sergeant Cain. I am Florence, your medical AI. Your condition is stable, but I must ask that you refrain from trying to speak or move. You are still very weak. I have notified Doctor Linden that you have awakened."
The AI's voice was female, soothing, and probably exactly what I would have designed for the purpose. My first impulse was to start asking questions, but I was so exhausted it just seemed easier to wait for the doctor.
I didn't have to wait very long. It couldn't have been more than a minute before the door slid open and in walked a doctor followed by two medtechs. "Hello, Sergeant Cain. I'm Doctor Sarah Linden, and I'm very happy to finally have the chance to meet you. We've spent a lot of time together, but so far I'm afraid the relationship has been pretty one-sided."
I managed to turn my head to get a better look, and when my teary eyes managed to focus, I was looking at a woman. A very beautiful woman. She was wearing a wrinkled light blue surgical uniform, but she still looked incredible. She had a very pretty face with blue eyes and the sweetest smile I'd ever seen. There were a just a few wisps of strawberry blond hair protruding from the baggy cap that covered her head, but my mind filled in the blanks, and I saw it cascading around her shoulders.
I tried to manage my own smile, and I rasped out the very best greeting I could manage. "Hello, doctor. It's nice to meet you. I'd shake your hand, but I'm afraid I can't lift my arm."
She smiled again. "I'm glad to see you've still got a sense of humor. That's a good sign. Don't worry, you'll be able to lift your arms soon enough. In fact, you'll be able to do everything you could before. You may find it hard to believe right now, but you'll make a full recovery."
I had to swallow hard to try and keep speaking. My throat was parched and it was hard to get any sound to come out. She saw that I was struggling trying to say something, and she walked over and put her hand softly on my shoulder and said, "Don't strain yourself trying to speak. You got quite a heavy dose of radiation, I'm afraid, and it caused a lot of damage to your digestive system. We can't even let you take water orally until we can get in there and fix you up, so your throat is likely to be pretty dry as well." She started to turn to leave and continued, "Try to get some more rest now, and we'll talk more later."
"Wait." I croaked like a frog, but at least I got it out. "There aren't any mirrors in here, at least none I can see."
She turned her head to look back at me. "Why don't we worry about that after you rest a bit?"
"That bad, is it? It's ok, I can take it. Really."
She didn't answer right away, and I could see that her expression was troubled. After a few seconds she tried once more. "I really think we should wait until you are stronger."
I pushed hard and actually managed to completely turn my head to face her. "Don't worry about me, doc. I'll be fine. No matter how bad it is."
She paused but didn't answer.
"Please."
She finally relented and ordered one of the medtechs to do as I asked. He headed out into the corridor and returned a minute later carrying a large, circular mirror.
Doctor Linden made a gesture and the tech stopped. "Before you look, I want you to understand that you are going to be as good as new before I let you out of here. It won't look like it, and it certainly won't feel like it, but you've been through the worst. It's just a matter of time now. Time for us to work through the procedures that need to be done to fix the damage."
I nodded, or as close as I could come to nodding. "I understand." I had to try 3 or 4 times to force the words out audibly. I couldn't move; I couldn't talk. This was starting to piss me off.
She motioned to the tech, and he moved over to the edge of the bed and held the mirror over me so I could look without having to move.
My height is 1.9 meters. In fighting shape I weigh about 95 kilos. But the shriveled, hairless thing staring back at me would have weighed 50kg at most. If it had legs. Which it didn't.
The memories rushed back. The debris landing on me, the sharp pain as several tons of rock crushed my legs, the rush of outside air as my suit was breached, searing pain as my armor's trauma control system cauterized the stumps. That's how I remembered I had lost my legs. And while I found the whole thing interesting, I didn't really care. I suspect I owed that welcome apathy to the same cocktail of meds keeping what was no doubt agonizing pain at bay.
"Don't worry," the doctor said. "Believe it or not, I was telling you the truth. You're through the worst of it. Or at least the most dangerous. You're going to make it, sergeant, and when I'm done you're going to be tearing down the walls to get out of here."