6. Of Allergies and Moles
"Hailstorm this is Raptor, do you copy? Over," the voice of Gunnery Chief Ellison sounded clearly in Storm's earpiece. Her's and Raptor's squads had been tasked with clearing out the pirate base located by a recon flight out of the dreadnought Everest three nights earlier. Raptor's squad was on point, performing additional scouting from the ground and eliminating the few pirates on patrol, allowing Hailstorm and her team the relative luxury of being dropped right on top of the prefab structure without having to deal with the patrols.
"Hailstorm copies. Go ahead, Raptor," she replied. Her team, in full combat gear sat aboard Tokyo's dropship in readiness for the combat drop. Too large to make planet-fall itself and not built for atmospheric re-entry, Tokyo instead used relatively small, fast and nimble dropships to deploy ground troops while the cruiser herself hung overhead in geosynchronous orbit, ready to provided fire support if necessary.
"Outside patrols eliminated and we've ripped the guts out of the communications and tracking arrays. They're blind and dumb, Hailstorm."
"Copy that, Raptor. We appreciate the assist. Hailstorm, out." Storm closed the channel to Raptor, switching her comm to the frequency used by the dropship.
"Dropship One, Raptor reports the LZ is clear, we're ready to drop."
"'bout time, Storm. My butt's just about numb from sitting for too long and Fitzsimmons here won't shut up about his girlfriend," the pilot griped good naturedly.
"Hey screw you, O'Rourke," the copilot shot back, "At least I have a girlfriend and don't rely overly much on my right hand!"
"Jesus," Wilde, seated alongside Storm muttered. Saunders grinned to himself. Carver, Storm noticed, had his head tipped back, helmet resting against the bulkhead, eyes closed. How that man can sleep at a time like this is beyond me.
Voice now sober and professional, Flight Lieutenant O'Rourke said, "Dropship One reports ready to drop. Opening drop bay doors in three...two...one...drop!"
The sleek dropship, surfaces covered in radar-absorbent paint fell silently through the vacuum towards the large rocky asteroid the recon flights had located. In the rear of the vessel, Storm glanced over at Carver who still seemed to be sleeping and poked him in the side. "Rise and shine, Corporal," she said cheerfully.
"We there yet?" he asked through a gaping yawn.
"Almost. All right, listen up! Raptor team has already eliminated the patrols and taken out the enemy's comm and sensor arrays so we should have a clean drop. That doesn't mean anybody gets to slack off. Stay sharp and watch each other's backs."
As the dropship descended towards the pirate base, the squad stood in readiness for disembarkment from the ship. To minimise the time in hostile airspace, the dropship would pause only long enough to safely offload the squad before returning to low orbit to provide overwatch of the area.
The doors at the rear of the ship irised open and Storm shouted, "Go! Go! Go!" before throwing herself out of the dropship. As she went a thought occurred to her, You must be insane to throw yourself out of a perfectly good ship.
---
Private Saunders was in his element. Aglow with dark energy, he pushed out with his left hand and a group of three pirates, two humans and a salarian were briefly made airborne before they slammed into a wall with enough force to pulverise their organs and leave three vaguely man-shaped indentations in the wall. The bodies crumpled to the floor, blood leaking from the eyes and mouth.
"Kill confirmed," he said calmly. And how!
As Saunders moved from cover to cover, deeper into the large warehouse-like space in the centre of the base, he caught motion from the corner of his eye "Contact," he said quietly. "I'm on it."
"Carver, cover him," Hailstorm said. Carver nodded, detaching the sniper rifle from the hardpoint on his back.
Grigori's breath came in short, hard gasps. A biotic! A thrice-damned tool of Satan, himself. Grigori had seen what the biotic had done to Makharov and the others. He didn't really care much about the salarian, but he counted the other two men as friends. And he'd seen the life literally crushed from them in one negligent motion. His hands were slick with sweat and he paused to wipe them on his pants. He didn't even have a hardsuit, just these grubby coveralls. He was a mechanic for godsake! Where were the bloody guards?
Grigori crouched by a stack of cargo containers, gripping the rifle butt tight enough that his knuckles were white. He inhaled deeply and stood up to see where the biotic was.
Seen through the scope of Carver's rifle, the man's face loomed large. Large, sweaty and terrified. Clearly this was no soldier but he'd thrown in his lot with the pirates and Carver had no sympathy for him. Before the man could duck back down, Carver stroked the trigger, sending a hypersonic slug through the man's head. The head snapped back, spraying blood and the man collapsed. Carver grinned as Saunders swore, "Dammit, Carver! I almost had him in my sights!"
"It'll be a cold day in hell before I'm outshot by a teenager," Carver replied, still grinning. Sobering up again, he commed the Lieutenant, "Area secured, Ma'am."
"Roger that. Carver, start planting your demo charges. Wilde and I will take a look at their systems, see if there's any usable info for the boys and girls in Intelligence."
Owing to the extremely lacklustre account keeping of the pirate band, neither Storm nor Wilde were able to pull any hard intel on pirate operations in the area. Carver's explosives blew up the base real good, though.
---
It was Wilde who noticed the mole on the Lieutenant's left shoulder blade. Dark brown, edging towards black at the edges. The mole's outline was irregular where the few others on the LT's back were round and it was raised slightly from the surrounding skin where the others weren't. Wilde didn't like it, not one bit.
"Ma'am," she began. The two were in the locker room, having just showered after completing a drop in the Attican Beta cluster. Another day, another pirate base dismantled. Independent salvage teams would be pulling debris from the asteroid surface for months.
"Have you seen that mole on your back?" The LT twisted her shoulder around, simultaneously craning her neck to see but couldn't get eyes on the target.
"What mole?" she finally asked, her neck cracking as she faced forward again.
"This one here," Wilde said, tracing a fingertip across it. "Doesn't look good, Ma'am. I'd see the doc if I were you."
Turning to face her subordinate, pulling on T-shirt, Storm asked, "You think it might be cancer?"
Wilde blinked. Just like that, she asked you think it might be cancer she'd tell Saunders later. As though it were an unavoidable fact and one she'd better get used to.
"Uh, I don't know, Ma'am. But I wouldn't leave it if I were you."
"How the hell can a person get a melanoma...in space?" the LT muttered and pulled her collar-length blonde hair, still damp from the shower into a short ponytail. "I haven't felt sunlight on bare skin since...the last time I was on Earth and that was over a year ago."
Wilde shrugged, combing her fingers through her own short dark hair. She'd had it cut recently despite Saunders' protests. He liked long hair, he said. She snorted, he didn't have to live with long hair.
"Alright, I'll see the doc. Thanks, Wilde," the LT said and left the room.
---
Ten year old Hayley was playing with the dog in the back yard of their parent's house when it happened. Julian, at fourteen, had been left in charge of both the house and his sister, a responsibility he took seriously. Their parents had left for the afternoon to visit friends in a nearby town.
Standing in the kitchen, Julian looked out the window. It was mid-summer. The sky was a brilliant blue with puffy cumulus clouds high above. The lawn grew thick and lush, despite Julian taking the mower to it every two weeks. Why can't we have that fake grass like the Lennons'? he wondered. The stuff looked and felt like real grass but it never needed mowing.
"Mowing lawns builds character," his father had told him when he'd asked why they had to have real grass.
"What's build character?" Hayley, then aged eight had asked.
"You'll learn when you get older," their father answered. Hayley was about to build character, right here in the back yard.
Hayley threw the tennis ball, sticky with drool for Benji, the family labrador to chase. Enthusiastically, Benji chased down the ball, jaws closing around it and ran with it back to young Hayley. "Good boy!" she said excitedly
In her innocent exuberance as she played with the dog, Hayley strayed too close to a wasp nest and the inhabitants didn't take kindly to the intrusion.
"Ow!" Hayley yelped as something stung her between the shoulders, once, twice. Hayley swatted at the wasp but it had already gone, buzzing angrily around her head. Suddenly afraid of the large yellow and black insect, Hayley called Benji and the two ran for the house.
By the time she entered the kitchen, Hayley began to feel strange. Her lips began to tingle and swell up and her breath came in short gasps.
"Julian!" she called out, her voice rasping.
"Hayles? Oh my God!" Julian saw his sister's face swell up and immediately put two and two together. "Did a wasp sting you?"
"Uh huh," Hayley nodded. "My face feels all swollen."
"We have to go to the hospital," Julian said, grabbing the set of truck keys that hung from the hooks screwed into the kitchen door. "Right now!"
Grabbing his sister's hand he pulled her over to the backyard shed where their father kept the old diesel powered monstrosity. In the past year, Julian had been learning to drive the old Toyota and had gotten pretty good at it. Good enough to drive it on the open road to the hospital before his sister died of anaphylactic shock and not crash it? We'll see he thought to himself.
"You can't drive," Hayley protested, breath wheezing in and out of her throat, "You don't....have a license!"
Julian placed his hands on her slim shoulders and said in as a calm a voice as he could, "Hayles, you have to trust me. You need medicine from the hospital to make you better, OK?"
Hayley nodded. She trusted her brother, he'd never let anything bad happen to her. Relieved, Julian hugged her tight. "Good girl."
Racing to the truck, Julian fumbled with the keys, finally getting the door of the old red Hilux open. He ran to the passenger side, wrenched the door open and lifted Hayley into the seat before strapping her in.
Quickly, Julian adjusted the rear view mirrors and twisted the key in the ignition. The elderly turbo-diesel engine roared to life, the vehicle shuddering as he revved the engine, grey-black smoke issuing from the tailpipe and threatening to choke them both.
"Julian," Hayley said in a small voice, "Am I going to die?"
"No, no, honey." Julian leaned over and brushed her hair back from her forehead. Turning to face forward he gunned the engine and roared out onto the road, the rear almost fishtailing out of control before the tires bit into the road surface with a squeal of burnt rubber.
Storm the Elder had tuned the truck's radio to an oldies station, and, as the old Hilux merged into traffic, Elvis Presley singing Jailhouse Rock segued into The Beatles' Let it Be. Julian reached for the tuner, hoping to find something rocking when Hayley placed a small hand on his arm. "Leave...it," she said with a wheeze. Julian shot her a concerned glance and let his hand fall back to the wheel.
Julian drove with a white-knuckled grip on the wheel, the truck shuddering every time he engaged the clutch and changed gears. Manual transmissions build character, right dad?
Hayley lay in the passenger seat, eyes wide open, chest rising and falling as she fought for breath. By now her face was horribly swollen and Julian counted his blessings - at least she hadn't been stung in the face or throat or she'd probably already be...
No! She won't die. I won't let her!
Mercifully, the traffic was fairly light and they arrived at the hospital after what wasn't an hour but only felt that way to Julian and he slammed on the brakes, parking the truck half in and half out of a disabled parking space right next to the entrance to the ER. Julian believed that able-bodied people who took the parking spaces reserved for wheelchair bound people should have their legs broken so that they'd know what it felt like to be reliant on a chair for mobility, at least temporarily.
He began to revise that opinion as he unbuckled Hayley's seatbelt and half carried her inside. The ER was brightly lit and almost chilly due to the air conditioning after the heat of outside.
"Hey," he called out, "I need help here! My sister's been stung by a wasp and she's allergic!"
Immediately, a white-uniformed nurse bustled out from behind the admissions desk and ushered them inside a room with Exam Room One on the door. "I'll bring a doctor straight through," the nurse reassured them. Julian nodded gratefully. Hayley merely sat on the paper sheet covering the exam table, gasping and wheezing.
After maybe a minute, two perhaps, the door opened again and a tall man of Indian descent clad in a white coat with a stethoscope around his neck entered the room.
Before he could utter a word, Julian stood up from beside his sister and said, "She's been stung by a wasp and she's having a reaction, she can't breathe!"
As though to offer corroborating evidence of this, Hayley's wheezing seemed to ratchet up a notch. The doctor nodded and turned to a supply cabinet on the wall. He beamed a code from his omni-tool and the door swung open, revealing a cornucopia of drugs and medical supplies. The doctor removed a vial of fluid, a length of elastic and a syringe.
When the doctor spoke, his accent washed over the siblings like a soothing hand on a fevered brow. "I'm going to inject some epinephrine; that'll take care of the swelling and make it easier to breathe."
Hayley looked away as the doctor tightened the elastic around her elbow and plunged the needle into the vein there. Almost immediately, the drug began to work and her breath came more easily. Soon she began to feel the swelling in her face go down.
By the time their parents arrived at the hospital, just off the verge of freaking out, Hayley had fully recovered and had elevated her brother to the status of movie stars and rock idols. And, as the years went by, he never fell in her estimation of him.
The only downside to the whole experience was the thirty-credit parking fine they found affixed to the truck's windshield when they left the hospital late that afternoon.
---
"Well what do you think?" Hayley asked the medic as he stripped off the rubber gloves and tossed them in the wastebin. She sat on the exam table in Tokyo's cavernous medbay, shirt off and bra strap pulled aside to reveal the mole Wilde had been concerned about.
"Your PFC Wilde is quite right," the doctor said and his tone of voice seemed surprised that a jarhead was capable of such independent thought.
"That mole is beginning to turn evil. Luckily, we can easily excise the little bugger and you'll have nothing more to worry about."
"I see," Storm replied and pulled the strap back into place. "How soon can we do this?"
"What about right now?" the doctor said, surprising her as he pulled on a fresh set of gloves and began placing surgical supplies into a stainless steel tray. With quiet dread, Storm watched as the doctor filled a syringe with local anaesthetic, tapped out the air bubbles and squirted out a bit of fluid before turning towards her.
"OK, Lieutenant. I'll need you to take off that bra, can't have that strap getting in the way, there's a good girl," the doctor said just a little too brightly for the Lieutenant's tastes.
Stoically, Storm sat, straight-backed as the medic first numbed the area around the mole How the hell did I get a melanoma on a freaking starship? before taking to it with his scalpel, whistling to himself as he worked.
Even with the area deadened, Storm could still feel a tugging sensation as the mole was excised and the would sutured.
"I'll just send this off to pathology to make sure we got all of the little blighter but I suspect you'll have no more troubles. Though I would suggest a regular skin check up to make sure nothing else crops up."
Right arm held across her breasts, Storm looked over her shoulder at the doctor. "I think I'll have Wilde handle it. But thanks for the advice."
A/N: I was stung by a wasp once, years ago and that was the inspiration for this. I tell you , there's nothing quite like your lips swelling up and getting a shot of adrenaline to an elbow vein. What fun!