Rescue Branch (Kinsella Universe) Read online

  Becky laughed. “I’d likely be out of the Fleet, right then. You and Admiral Kinsella are both diabolical.”

  “I’m an amateur -- if Steph had suggested it -- you’d have been happy to comply.” She sighed. “I’m so tired. Invite the rest back in... then see how fast you can get rid of them.”

  “You’re still trying to get me fired. Admiral Kinsella will understand. We can take our time.”

  “You don’t know Steph. Prepare to compromise on an early wedding.”

  Anna waved at the door and Becky ushered the others back in. Becky was surprised how quickly Anna wilted once she had to deal with so many -- Becky was certain it wasn’t an act.

  When the doctor told them that they had to leave, Becky braced herself.

  “Anna and I would have preferred to announce this together. We’ve decided to get married.”

  She was unprepared for Admiral Kinsella to laugh. “I’ve become familiar with the desire for a quick marriage. I know it would tickle Anna’s -- funny bone -- to get married at once. Dick had his heart set on his parent’s wedding anniversary in little more than three weeks... but I decided I couldn’t wait. Anna is a tough lady -- but not that tough. That said, the three of us will be here on whatever date you pick.”

  “Three?” Becky asked, but almost at once regretted it.

  “Well... my cat never lets me leave home without him if I know I’m going to be gone.”

  Anna said peevishly. ”I’m sleepy; I’m trying to take a nap here.”

  The dignitaries all looked bemused, but the doctor was forthright. “It is amazing that she was even conscious at all this soon after that sort of surgery. It’s a good thing she’s resting. Sleep is the best medicine just now. Her body has suffered massive trauma and extensive shock. Please, she needs to spend twelve to fourteen hours resting before she will be fully able to deal with visitors.”

  The visitors all headed out, but Becky lagged behind. At the end just the doctor and two nurses were left and Becky asked her question. It was the most difficult, the most personal question she’d ever asked anyone about anyone.

  “Doctor, a diaper?”

  He nodded. “I don’t know how much anatomy you’re familiar with, but that part of the body is crowded with nerves, blood vessels, organs -- it’s more than just a bit crowded. Surgery, no matter how carefully it’s done, causes some inflammation -- swelling. In an area where there isn’t much room to begin with, the pressure can affect the nerves. We were ready and administered anti-inflammatory meds early. The use of the garments is almost certainly temporary.”

  “And the other organs?”

  “None are compromised, and we’re running frequent checks. Miss Sanchez seems like a remarkably tough young woman. Aside from the leg, there won’t be much other loss of function. In a week or so, when things are settled down more, she’ll undergo hip replacement surgery and we’ll complete what repairs we can make to the stump. After that, how well she’ll adapt to a prosthesis is an open question. I’d give her a better than even chance of being able to learn to walk again reasonably normally.

  “In short, she’ll be fine. The first forty-eight hours are going to be the toughest, but I’m confident she will manage them in fine shape.”

  “Thanks, doctor.”

  Chapter 7 -- What Duty Means

  Becky found herself assigned a suite of rooms that far exceeded any place she’d lived before. A little after noon she was invited to lunch. That turned out to be part and parcel of the “entirely new” experience. She’d known about the President of the US, the President of Taiwan and the Prime Minister of Israel. She was unprepared for them to have been joined by Prime Minister of Australia, the Prime Minister of France and Eagle and his wife Kat, who received the same precedence as the other heads of government. There were three admirals and a raft of captains and commanders, plus a dozen lesser political figures from the assembled governments.

  The President of the United States rose to speak after the meal. “Our Federation is a fledgling. We haven’t had any time to develop traditions -- not even new ones, much less hoary old ones.

  “That said, people are people. They don’t necessarily need examples to work from -- they rise to whatever occasion they are called upon to deal with. I had to fight for the right to put a word in; others wanted to hog the spotlight. Lieutenant Rebecca Cooper, please stand up.”

  Becky wanted to hide, not stand up, but she still managed to stand.

  “President Sarkozy, you get to go first.”

  The hawk-faced man stood and looked for a moment at Becky before speaking. In the last instant before he opened his mouth, his face went from expressionless to one similar to a cat licking canary feathers from its mouth.

  “In the past, we’ve celebrated brave men and women who have performed heroic deeds. I’m not here to do that. Lieutenant Cooper arrived with a few others to help a French-flagged ship. You know the story; I won’t repeat the infamy that my predecessors engaged in.

  “Lieutenant Cooper is a nuclear power engineer. She shepherded the placement and the early phases of a replacement reactor’s installation. She worked steadily and competently. Remember that word -- competently. We need to learn it, repeat it and burn it into our brains.

  “I make no excuses; I sent our best men and women forward to take the Federation’s space competency exam, once we determined that the way to prevent the hundreds of deaths we’d already experienced from occurring again, was to qualify.

  “It was humbling. We sent a dozen men and a woman. They all failed the exam. In our arrogance, we thought they knew it all. They knew nothing... we knew nothing. Lieutenant, there is no medal for competency, not in the Federation. There should be.”

  He walked briskly down the table and stood before Becky. “Here, wear this. Earlier today I signed a proclamation -- you are the first certified French member of the French Space Service.” He laughed. “And the last as the Federation has recertified France to receive fan licenses. Our Space Service is now part of the Federation Fleet.”

  The small pin was the emblem of a French astronaut. The French President returned to his seat.

  Psyche’s habitat manager rose next, without introduction. “Having more than one master is frequently a prescription for living in ‘interesting times’.

  “Like the honorable President of France, I’m loath to say someone was heroic when all she did was the job she was trained for. Yet I’ve lived on Psyche for almost a year. All of us, entirely too many times, have had to watch someone self-destruct because this wasn’t their cup of tea. We’ve seen more than one person die because there wasn’t anything that we could do to save them.

  “There are many unsung people out there though, who do their work competently, day in and day out.

  “Lieutenant Cooper was called to respond to an accident. I was one of the first on the scene. I went through the motions; that’s about all we can do for accidents out here. Still, the person was important to the habitat, a friend to nearly everyone here.

  “I’ve seen a half dozen people die in similar accidents. We’ve tried to save them and until yesterday, failed. Lieutenant Cooper was at the scene, in a vacuum suit within ten minutes.

  “Five minutes later the doctor was there, her emergency equipment was there. I understand that this was a rather simple area to seal. Hah! My engineers had no idea of what to do! Five minutes later still, a seal was in place and the doctor was cutting. We hadn’t completed our measurements. The doctor was like Lieutenant Cooper -- competent. Five minutes later the accident victim was being transported to the hospital and prepared for surgery.

  “Lieutenant Cooper’s assistant reports that the equipment has only recently been given preliminary approval for use in space, it is envisaged that it will be recommended in the next month or two, for all ships and habitats. I’ve already ordered a slew of these -- they’ll save dozens of lives over the next few years.

  “Lieutenant Cooper, I can think of no higher com
pliment than this: you did your duty and more... the more meaning you did a competent job, given the circumstances.”

  He sat down, leaving Becky standing with a lump in her throat.

  “I don’t know what to say,” she said.

  Captain Gilly, not rising from his seat, spoke up. “You didn’t do anything, Lieutenant -- so best not to say anything at all. Besides, there is some chocolate mousse for desert. The President of France brought up a dessert chef! Now there’s a man who knows how to make friends and influence people!”

  There was laughter, and indeed, small plates of mousse began to appear.

  After the meal, Becky went back to the hospital to find Anna still asleep. “Not to worry,” the doctor told her. “This is a good thing. She is sleeping comfortably. An hour ago, there was a slight spike in her temperature. We had her on mild antibiotics and we boosted that. Knocked any fever right out.”

  He was silent for a moment, and then touched her arm. “Lieutenant, I’ve had patients like Miss Sanchez before. Ornery is the nicest word that applies to her. If I was a betting man -- and nearly everyone I’ve met here is -- I’d say Miss Sanchez would balk at being a famous medical case.”

  “The subject never came up between us,” Becky told him. “But, three to one you’re right.”

  “Miss Sanchez suffered serious trauma -- trauma that few have survived out here. We both know she’s not going to want to return to Earth to recover.

  “You’re a professional -- just like I am. You have to know that having baselines to work from, experience with the issues, is going to save a lot of lives over time. I know it’s presumptuous of me, but if you could put in a good word about how important this is...”

  Becky shrugged. “At first, I was going to dismiss your request out of hand. Anna wouldn’t be that dumb. I still don’t think she’d be that dumb -- but I’d have to bet she wouldn’t object. Like you, I feel like I’d lose that bet. I’ll do what I can.”

  “You can offer her a sweetener, although you probably need to phrase it better. Her diaper remains -- unsoiled. If Miss Sanchez can demonstrate normal function, we’ll try a bedpan. Although a micro gravity bed pan is an experimental concept at this point.”

  “Speaking for myself, given a similar situation, I’d be happy to be experimented on.”

  She left after a few minutes, to run into Admiral Kinsella outside. “How is she?” the admiral asked.

  “Well, Admiral.”

  “I’m leaving; I’ll be back in a few days. John is leaving and Admiral Delgado and the politicians are already on their way back home. I don’t know why, but their protective services are nervous when their principles are in an environment where a percent of the new chums die on their first day.”

  “I believe they are safer than that on Psyche, Admiral.”

  “So do I. When Anna wakes up, tell her I’m willing to give away the bride, if there are no other volunteers.”

  Becky blushed. “I know nothing about her family.”

  Stephanie Kinsella shrugged. “And probably won’t. They are -- traditional -- in their definition of marriage. The solution to that is education, Cooper. Give them a splendid example.”

  “I will, Admiral.”

  “Henceforth, call me Steph, when we’re not around the old guard. We need to have a long conversation, you and I.”

  “We do?”

  “Anna needs to take a break, at least once. She needs to get out into space, exploring.”

  Becky bit her lip. “Steph, Anna and I are going to come to a working agreement. We’re both determined to make this work. I want to go out and she wants to build ships. We both want babies. We’ll work something out.”

  “If Dick and I can, you can. Do you know how many senior officers got their panties twisted when I announced my engagement to a Marine enlisted man?”

  Becky shrugged. “Everything I heard growing up and at the Academy tells me it’s wrong.”

  “Would you have a problem if I was marrying the cable guy? A plumber? A pizza chef?”

  “No.”

  “What’s the worst case? Dick will never be a Marine officer. He might be one of my ship’s Marines -- but he’ll be subordinate to someone else. That person might be subordinate to me, but so what? I won’t permit favoritism; Dick would refuse the orders of anyone who tried to show it to him. In any case, it will be a couple of years before I go out again; odds are Dick will go sooner.”

  She grinned at Becky. “I bring this up because you and Anna will be treading the same ground. She will be a project manager -- she has but to lift her littlest finger and she’ll be a habitat manager. What are the odds -- really -- that you’ll leave the Fleet anytime soon?”

  “That’s something we have to work out,” Becky told her obstinately.

  “And I’m sure you will. Tell me, how are you fixed for money?”

  “Pardon? I draw my pay, like everyone else.”

  “Talk to Anna, when she’s feeling better, about money. You might be surprised.”

  “She’s a project manager -- I assume she makes a lot more than I do.”

  “Anna built Ad Astra for ten percent less than budget and finished weeks early. There’s a lot of overlap there, but conservatively, she saved two hundred million dollars. I wrote her contract -- she got an on-time and under-budget completion bonus. It amounted to two million dollars and change.

  “Anna was wealthy before she came out to Psyche. Now she’s just finished her second ship, again, ten percent under budget. No matter how much you’ve heard about Jews and money, they are like anyone else -- save them a bunch and they are grateful. The Taiwanese are even more generous. True, the budget was a billion five, but the bonus was three percent of the under-budget amount. Three percent of a hundred and fifty million dollars comes to a tidy sum.”

  “Anna is a multi-millionaire?”

  “Yes, many times over. That’s not how she wants to live; ostentation isn’t how she wants to spend her money. But you have to understand it.”

  “I’ll try,” Becky told her.

  “Try very hard. Dick is a Marine sergeant -- he makes a quarter of what you do. You should have seen the fuss I made when they wouldn’t seat Dick next to me at a State Dinner. He was an enlisted man, after all, and the protocol drone automatically took his name off of the guest list. The President taught that Vassar graduate a great deal about protocol that she hadn’t learned in college. He did it in about 45 seconds, and he used some words that a Vasser graduate hadn’t heard before.”

  “Admiral, long ago I asked Commander Jacobsen ‘why me?’ She told me that she knew I wanted to go into space. That’s true enough, but I’m back to that same question, ‘why me?’”

  “Back in Hawaii, in a drawer in my desk, are a couple of racks of medals. I understand the importance of symbols to motivate people, but space isn’t like what they’ve known before.

  “People who go to space are brave. People who survive and do well are braver than most. I’ve not gotten very far with my campaign to make Fleet awards for bravery exceedingly rare, but I’ve hardly gotten started. The French are too fond of medals; I have no desire to see medals awarded to people because they are competent. That they are alive is proof of that.

  “No, I rather like Psyche’s manager’s formulation: you did your duty and more. No ribbons or gaudy medals. Just a scrap of paper in your records saying that. The ultimate certification of competence -- competent when it counted. A ‘clutch hitter’ so to speak.

  “You just did your job. You’ve helped save thousands of people and one particular one. That’s what we want you to do... and recognize the difficulty inherent in that. I told Delgado it’s time to get you on a ship, John agrees. Now, I have a nice Marine pilot who is waiting for me. Marine pilots, Lieutenant, are boring. They are competent at what they do -- and little else. They only do what they’ve been told. That’s useful in its own way, but not as useful as your skill set.” She saluted Becky and Becky returned it.

&nb
sp; Anna was still sleeping when Becky returned and the assurances of the doctor that this was a good thing fell on deaf ears. She napped most of the rest of the day next to Anna’s bed, and when Anna finally awoke in the early evening, Becky was the first to notice.

  “I have to pee,” Anna told Becky. Becky pushed the call for assistance.

  The doctor appeared, in the company of two nurses. “Miss Sanchez, you called?”

  “My teeth are floating. Becky, you’re going to have to give me a minute.”

  Becky was out of her seat in a flash, even before the doctor said anything. She rather hoped that it didn’t take the half hour for Anna to relieve herself that it took before the doctor reappeared to let her back in.

  “Becky, how are you?” Anna asked.

  “I rather think that’s my question,” Becky replied with a laugh.

  “You know how I am... still breathing, but able to kick only half as much butt. That’s going to seriously impair my ability to make myself understood...”

  Becky figured that out ahead of the doctor and nurses, who hovered nearby.

  “I’ll see if there’s an Italian qualified as an astronaut. I’m sure he can teach you some linguistic shortcuts using your hands.”

  Everyone laughed and Becky felt better. “I’m fine Anna. Do you like chocolate?”

  “I’m a woman. Of course I do.”

  “I had them save a piece of chocolate mousse for you from lunch.”

  “That habitat manager waited until I was in the hospital to have chocolate mousse? I’m going to have a little talk with him. Cooper! Take a note! Hire a mousse chef, soonest!”

  “Yes, Miss Sanchez.”

  She sighed. “They told me that the brass all went home.”

  “They did.”

  “There is no way Steph left without talking to you.”

  “She said some things; she says she has more for me.”

  “Money?”

  “Yes, that she got to first.”

  “Anything important?”

  “She says I’m going out to the Fleet -- leaving the Rescue Branch.”