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HARI-9
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As Magellan had fallen on his face as he climbed out of the vehicle, HARI-9 rushed over to see what the situation was before carrying him down to the trauma management area right next to the armory. The small door that could have been mistaken for a closet or a service room revealed a compact analysis chamber of the Critical Trauma Management System, and the HARI unit wasted no time stripping Magellan down and sliding him into the chamber.
The first thing she noticed was the massive bruising of the shoulder and the fact that it had been completely twisted backward, so the arm was not lying against the side but behind him. The MRI revealed that the brachial artery had actually been torn, causing Magellan to suffer slow internal bleeding as the artery was oozing blood into the interstitial space between the blood vessels and surrounding tissue before perfusing into his torso, along with his upper humerus being completely shattered and ripped free from the shoulder joint.
HARI-9 was familiar with general medical treatment and was capable of light trauma surgery, but this was beyond her skill set.
“Recommendations?”
The system responded, --With materials and capabilities currently available. Amputation and replacement for quickest return to field service—
“Go ahead.”
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BONCHANCE
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Waking up, I found myself lying on my bunk in the room I had claimed for myself. My right arm ached, and I tried to raise it, but somehow it wasn’t working.
Turning my head, I saw my arm was completely missing, with a rounded metal plate at the end of my shoulder. Starting to panic, I looked for my left and found it was still there with a rack holding a series of wires and tubes running into it. It was then I realized I was strapped down. “Mara! What’s happened to Me?” I called out.
I heard her voice, probably a speaker like a public address system, “You’re awake. I’ll be right there.”
As I waited, I started thinking back. The last thing I remembered clearly was climbing out of the Gut using one arm and then collapsing on the floor. After that, it had been nothing.
Sometime later, as I lay there wondering what had happened, she entered.
“How do you feel?” she asked.
“My arm hurts, but it shouldn’t because it’s gone. What happened?”
“The soc destroyed your upper arm, and the Ceetams couldn’t restore it,”
“Ceetams?”
“A doctor of last resort. It can save your life and get you functional, but it is also brutal in its diagnosis and treatment. It was designed for critical battlefield medicine, not civilian use. So, it determined that your right arm was unrepairable with what we had. If it had simply sealed the bleeding artery and left the rest be, your right arm would have been effectively useless anyway, with the skeletal damage to your upper arm and shoulder joint, not to mention the nerve damage. The soc absolutely destroyed all function in that arm when you saved me.”
I nodded in resignation. So now I was one-armed; at least I wasn’t dead, “So now what?”
“Now we get you out of bed and get your new arm fitted.”
“What?”
She smiled and, pulling the blanket back, reached down to my groin, “This is going to pinch a little.”
There was the feel of her hand on my crotch, and before I could react, a sharp pain that faded quickly.
“Ahh!”
“Sorry, I had to get the catheter out. We couldn’t have you pissing yourself while you were unconscious.”
“How long?”
“A month. We don’t have any stock of plasma or blood products, so I had to make do with dextrose and saline to get you functional. That also gave me time to get the CNC and Additive Manufacture up and running so it could build the mount point hardware and Ceetams could install it and the bracing.”
As she was speaking, she was removing the tubes that had been attached to long needles as well as the wires that had been stuck to my chest and head in various places. It was about then that I realized that I was naked in front of her and immediately began to blush.
“What is it?” She had noticed me tensing up, I suppose.
“I’m so sorry.”
“For what?”
“Embarrassing you.”
“What?” she sounded puzzled, then she looked at my face and started to smile. “I get it, hold on.” She covered my man bits with the blanket, “Is that better?”
“Yes? I’m sorry you were forced to see that.”
“I’ve seen much worse; you have absolutely nothing to be ashamed of…trust me. Also, Bonchance, how did you get all these scars, like the ones on your back.”
“Practicing being a mechanician in Morag. The Guild had me whipped and thrown out of town.”
“And you never joined the Guild because…?” she continued as she began to unstrap me.
“I couldn’t afford the Apprentice Assessment fee, and since I never completed my term at the Academy, I was not eligible in that way either.”
“How many years were you at the Academy?”
“Seven, I still had one to complete before I would have received my certificate.”
“Damn. You got screwed.”
By this time, she was done, and she handed me clean underclothes and a new set of coveralls like I had been wearing before, but these had the word ‘Magellan’ printed on a right-side tape. She was also gracious enough to turn her back as I levered myself up and began to dress. I managed to get both on and also the socks. Tyiing the boots was a challenge, but she heard me struggling and turning, bent down to do it for me.
“Thank you,” I meant it.
“No problem. Let’s get you your new arm.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Follow me.”
She led me to the elevator, and I saw a number of people in the dining area, all of whom stood up and applauded. “Lord Magellan! You’re alive!”
“Uh,” I glanced at Mara, who just winked at me and said, he is. And I’m sure he’ll be ready to speak to you later; now we have to finish fixing him up.”
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Once inside the elevator, I looked at her, “What’s going on?”
“The Duchy is expanding. We have some houses already under construction, but people still need the showers on M2.”
“The people you rescued from the raider compound?”
“The people we rescued,” she said, correcting me. “And another two convoys I hit while you were incapacitated. Neither one had any augments…socs…so it was easy. Got twenty-five more people from them. Fifteen of our rescuees were from a town that got destroyed in North Star, including the town headman. He and three others who weren’t too badly hurt are on their way to the Duchy’s capital along with Peter as a diplomatic envoy.”
The elevator stopped at SM, and she led me out and over to the fabrication area. Sitting in one of the units was the arm of a metal skeleton.
“What’s that?”
“Your new arm. Unzip your coverall, and let me see your right shoulder.”
As I did that, she opened the machine, several arms with tools attached to the end, pulling back and away. Lifting up the metal arm, she reached to my shoulder and, sliding something, fitted the arm into a hole that had opened up in the metal plate I had seen earlier. It locked in place with a click, and I felt a tingling like my right arm was asleep.
“Okay, running diagnostics now.”
A small screen on the wrist of this arm lit up with first amber, then green lamps.
“Perfect. Engaging…” Mara pressed a small concealed switch inside the frame of the forearm, and it twitched. Suddenly, I felt her hand gripping my fingertips.
“How?”
“It’s made a lot like my avatar body is without the camouflage skin. I have spare in case mine gets damaged or destroyed, but I’m afraid it’s the wrong skin tone for you. Try making a fist.”
It was fascinating watching my new metal fingers ball up. Looking at my fingers and thumb. I saw they were wrapped in strange translucent skin.
“I can feel through it?”
“Of course. Pressure sensory membrane integrated under a ballistically resistant layer.”
“Ballistic resistance? Like bullets?”
“Yes.”
I looked inside the arm at the motor and faintly glowing things, “This is electrical; how vulnerable is it to immersion in water?”
“As long as the insulation holds, very.”
“Could you wrap the rest of the arm in that skin?”
“Only have stuff for fingers in storage…I suppose we could use some of my spare, but it would look…odd, considering how not black you are, but sure?”
“This arm will look much stranger if it’s just bare metal.”
Smiling, she shrugged, “When you’re right, you’re right. I’ll get it set up.”
“Thank you.”
“Let’s try it out for now,” she walked me over to the machine shop, and it took a while before I could pick up stuff without simply crushing it.
“Is this how strong your hands are?”
She nodded, “Your hand, elbow, and shoulder are all this strong now. There were some reinforcing implants installed to spread the load, but if you tried lifting a Gut one-handed, you would snap.”
“Can you lift a Gut?”
“A little, but I would probably snap, it would take both hands, and I’m sure something inside me would be damaged even if I didn’t snap in half. I’m strong but not that strong.”
“Oh,” I slid my arms back inside the coverall sleeves. “Mara, I’m sorry you had to touch…”
“Do I really seem that virginal?”
“Oh! I never asked, were you married?”
She shook her head, “I was always too busy or on deployment. I’m guessing you weren’t either?”
“I was supposed to be before my world collapsed. Now…” I just shrugged.
“I get it…Here,” she handed me a right glove, and I pulled it onto my new metal hand. It hid it very well.
“Thank you.”
“You’re the one who saved my ass; I’m the one who should be thanking you more often.”
We headed up to SURFACE, and I saw all the construction that was going on. She had obviously used the Ape to cut down more trees, and now three large buildings were going up to go with the now-completed barn.
“Downslope,” Mara commented, “they’re prepping an area for planting. Peter is going to try to get us some seed stock from a trader in North Star’s capital.”
“What are we using for money?”
“Before I set fire to the Dark Warrior compound, I may have searched it thoroughly. We have a decent amount of gold and silver.”
“You burned it down?”
“There were things there that no one should see.”
As we walked outside, people waved at Mara and pointed at me.
“Why am I so special?”
“There were witnesses when you tackled the soc. Apparently, nobody does anything that stupid and survives…except you.”
“I wouldn’t have survived if you weren’t there.”
“Opposite is true, too. I recovered that axe; the blade was made from salvaged alloys from my time. If he had hit me, it would have left a mark. Like you said, I wouldn’t have survived if you weren’t there,” she patted me on the right shoulder, “and, unlike me, you were severely injured doing it. I can’t tell you, ‘Thank you’ enough.”
We were walking down the road, and I caught myself scratching my nose with my new hand. It felt so natural it was surprising.
“So now what?” I asked.
“I got a chance to talk to the people we rescued from the compound. One of the women, Clara. They had been using her since she was brought in six to eight months ago. She heard a lot. That compound was Hollis’s Land, and it was run by somebody I killed when we stopped by.”
“Pity.”
“I agree. However, the main Dark Warrior’s lands are south and west; I’m thinking in eastern South Dakota…Old World name. This is important because Malcolm, the head of the Dark Warriors, demands tithing every three months or so. When the levy from Hollis’s Land does not arrive, he’s probably going to send up someone to find out why…and when they find the entire compound burned to the ground…”
That would make someone mad. “So what do we do?”
“They have two more compounds south and one more to the west. Assuming they have roughly the same amount of troops in all of them and double that in the main city…we have about two hundred combatants total, including thirty more augments…what you call socs. If we knew exactly where all those secondary compounds were, wiping them out one at a time would be the best call. Since we don’t know the locations, cutting the head off the snake is the best strategy.”
“Going after their leader?”
Mara nodded, “I think we can do it. We have about two months until the next convoy comes north. We ambush them and then head to their city. That will give us some time to prepare and some of our new residents trained up if they want to assist.”
“Alright...” I began, then a thought that had bothered me before came to the front. “Mara, people are going to want what you have here. The weapons, the technology.” I patted my new arm, “Things like this.”
“I know. I started having all the residents of the Duchy of Ceedo swear an oath of fealty. I know that’s not much, but they’ve all seen the results of raiders and the fact that we…”
“You.
“No. We. If you hadn’t been here, I would still be sealed in a tube..you ran the drone on that first slave convoy, you were shooting the people that could take me down from the watchtowers, you saved my life…We rescued them. They know that and understand the risks we took, and I have let them know that the only way we could do this is with some secrecy in our capabilities.
“That’s why the glove…it wasn’t just for me.
“And why no one except Peter’s family knows how injured you were. They know we have some things, but they are locked out of anything below M2, and I polarized the views so you can’t see the mission command area.”
“I don’t understand what that means, but alright.”
“Sorry. I hadn’t realized how much your Academy education had helped you understand how my world worked. The Galways and the others aren’t fools; it’s just that they don’t have any of your background in history and technology.”
We were near where Cal and I had walked the oxen to feed. There was a fence here now to pen them in, and a young woman of about thirteen or fourteen years old was watching them, “Lady Mara!”
“Hello Sandra, this is Lord Bonchance. He is my right-hand man and was my partner in defeating your captors, and also the one who transported your mother to safety before returning and rescuing us. His words are as important as my own.”
“Oh1 Pardon milord.”
“It’s fine, and you can call me Bonchance when old people aren’t around.”
She smiled at that.
“How are the animals?” I asked.
“The oxen are fine, and the chickens, milady found, are laying well.”
“Chickens?” I looked at Mara.
“It wasn’t just gold and silver. I filled a Gut twice with items from the compound.”
“Ah. So Miss Sandra, what do you think of the Duchess?” I said, glancing over at Mara.
“She’s very pretty…and very smart.”
“I know. I went to a very important school, and I know she’s smarter than any of my teachers ever were.”
“Really?”
“Oh yes.”
“I’ve never been to school.”
“Really?” Mara asked, then shook her head, “of course…I should have known. Bonchance, we’ll need to do something about that.”
“Set up a school? We’d need at least one teacher.”
“I would ask you to do it, but I need you for other things.”
“I should be making a list.”
“I’ll show you how to do it on a tablet,” she said as she turned to look south, “but before setting up a school, we need to deal with those assholes.”