Chapter LXXXIX: Six Down
March 10, 2543 (UNSC Calendar)/
UNSC Inconvenience, Edge of Ursa Tertio System
"You'd be surprised how similar life on the ship is to regular civilian life. You know, with tanks and aliens thrown in occasionally." -anonymous UNSC serviceman.
Have you ever woken up after an operation? You know, after having your body pumped full of drugs, anesthesia, and painkillers. Have you? Well, in case you haven't it's a pretty hard experience to describe. It pretty much feels like you're waking up after a very deep sleep. You wake up feeling disoriented, confused, angry, and tired. The white hospital lights hit you in the face, blinding you temporarily and hurting your eyes, then you realize what happened and why you hurt so much.
Six.
That's the number of ribs that were crushed by the brute stomping on my chest. All but one of my 'true ribs' had been broken, leaving the right side of my ribcage an unrecognizable mess. My lung had been punctured in several places. It had started filling up with blood until Grass stabbed me with biofoam and some other large needles. By all accounts I should've fainted or died from shock, I suspected that ONI and Major Cavallaro had had something to do with me being awake to feel the pain and fight off my attackers.
"Frank, Frank?" someone asked. "Can you hear me?"
If I pretend to be asleep will you go away?
"I know you're awake," the voice insisted. "I woke you up with meds, so you can't fool me."
"What do you want?" I asked.
"I insisted that you should stay asleep," Doc Zhivago informed me, "but Lieutenant Albaf insisted I test your cognitive functions."
"What for?" I asked. "It's my ribs she should be worried about."
"Exactly what I said, but you know ONI."
"Yeah, yeah."
I finally opened my eyes and winced as the bright white light hit my pupils and forced them to contract. I blinked several times, trying to get used to the sudden change in light. My enhanced eyes became accustomed to the new lighting faster than normal and then focused on Doctor Zhivago. The doctor seemed more tired than usual, with lines in his face that hadn't been there when I last saw him. He was thinner and had a gaunt appearance. Despite all this he managed to give me a small smile.
"How's my ribs?" I asked.
"How are," he corrected. "And they're fine, I kept them in a box in case you wanted them."
"No, I think I'm cool."
"Good, half of them were shattered beyond recognition."
"Ouch, will these ones last more?" I asked as I gestured to my right side.
"Yup, reinforced Titanium. Not as strong as this ship's plating, and if you take plasma to the ribs they will still heat up and cook your insides, damaging you almost as much as a regular plasma shot."
"But they won't break."
"Pretty much impossible," he affirmed. "Same goes for part of your sternum."
"Scars?" I asked. So shoot me, I'm a vanity conscious bastard.
"They won't fade completely, but in a year you'll have six small lines on your right side, nothing more."
"Great. You testing me now?"
"You can talk well enough, so I'll pass you as mentally sound."
"Might be pushing it a little doc," I joked. Then I realized it wasn't really a joke.
"Maybe," Zhivago smiled.
"How's Pavel?" I asked.
"His body is accepting the transplants, they are his organs after all, even if they're cloned. Seems that he won't be able to fight for a while, though."
"How long?" I asked. "Will he be able to fight ever again?"
"Sure, but it'll take some months before any sane doctor allows him to."
"Three months?" I asked hopefully.
"More like seven, but I'll leave it at… five."
"Do what you think is best, Doc."
"If I did that I would have you restrained to the bed, same goes for your friend," Zhivago mumbled as he left my bed and closed the curtains behind him.
I hadn't gotten around to asking him when I was going to be able to leave, my chest was still stinging from the operation, something not even painkillers could get rid of entirely. As long as that pain still felt fresh and intense I would have no trouble staying in bed. Of course, then I would get bored and start itching for anything other than laying down on a mattress and I would pressure Zhivago to let me leave the goddamned hospital wing.
I grabbed a small device with a black button on it and pumped it down thrice, filling my body with morphine. Not that I was in any kind of unbearable pain, I just wanted to fall asleep as quick as possible.
"Sarge," Sutton said excitedly. "Welcome back!"
"Thanks," I said, putting out my hands to prevent him from hugging me.
"Oh, yeah, sorry."
"How's Snark?"
"He's fine, collarbone snapped, but it's healing nicely. Concussion as well, but nothing serious."
"Good, how 'bout Agnarsson?"
"Still limping, but he'll be fine, 'least that's what the doctors say."
"Good," I said, putting out my tray so that the guy doing kitchen service could pour me a giant pile of goop. "When are we leaving the system?"
"Dunno," he replied. "New Moskva is nothing but glasslands now, it's only us and the Retribution now. A few civilian transports made it out of the system."
"Why are we still here then?"
"Admiral Harper's orders. Honestly, I think it's got something to do with those Spartans."
"Probably," I admitted. "But we'll be out of here soon enough.
"Great," I said, carefully sitting down on a bench. I smiled when I realized that I could do that without wincing. "Camilla, Lamberti, Konstantinov?"
"Grass hasn't complained about her hands once, even with the ugly scars, but you can tell she dislikes the injury, Lamberti started feeling guilty about not being there for us, and Grigori is… well Grigori."
"Hmmm," I said as I shoved the paste of nutrients into my mouth. I don't know whether it was supposed to be chilly or beans. It was one of those days for the kitchen. "You never went to college, did you?"
"No, Sarge," he confirmed.
"If you had gone, what would you have studied?"
"Psychology."
"Figures." I swallowed the food. It beat hospital food no problem. I could only wonder at the difference in taste when both of them came from the same ship. Perhaps the hospital was purposely made to taste badly, you know, to get soldiers off the beds quicker. Makes sense. In a completely inhumane kind of way. "I trust Lamberti hasn't been mulling over it too much."
"I can't tell Sarge, honestly. Angel seems to be more quiet than usual most of the time, but will act almost normal when you talk to him."
"Should I be worried?"
"Yes, even if you're worried for nothing."
"Shit." I stayed quiet for a while, eating my food and observing the marines and soldiers in the mess hall. One in every six or so of them was sporting a bandage or was limping. The other four needed to complete the one in ten weren't present. "Tough battle."
"You have no idea Sarge," Sutton told me. "We had it bad, but these guys had it just as, and they aren't trained for it."
"That sounds… arrogant."
"Be that as it may, it's the truth."
"Never said it wasn't 'Crow."
I munched down on my lunch hungrily. I had been fed through an IV drop for most of the past week, and only had real solid meals the last day that I was in the hospital. It was still enough to make me want to leave as soon as possible, even if it meant leaving behind the nice and soft mattresses.
"Hey," I said as I stood up, "if Lamberti keeps mulling over this please tell Marina to help him out."
"Why don't you tell her, Sarge?" he asked. "I mean, why do I have to tell her?"
"We're… separated," I said.
"As in separated but not divorced?"
"No, as in separated but not dating anymore."
The man shrugged. "You'll bounce back Sarge," he said, followed by, "Don't worry, I'll tell her."
"Thanks bro," I said, disregarding all protocol. Scarecrow nodded at me and took off.
I ate my chow patiently and in silence, enjoying it as much as it was humanly possible without gagging. I could feel energy return to my limbs as the not-quite artificial meal filled my belly. The bad taste I could take, if you've eaten emergency rations or energy bars, you can take anything. What I couldn't get used to was the consistency. It felt like I was chewing on poop that was sometimes solid and sometimes soft. Yeah, it's as bad as it sounds.
Worry not, we usually had decent meals, since half the time we were locked up in the freezer we had large stores of frozen lasagna and pasta. The problem is that when we were deployed for extended periods of time we started running out of food, especially if the Covenant were shooting down any transport large enough to carry food for more than a hundred men. Except pelicans and albatross, they seemed to miss those remarkably often.
I was preparing to stand up when I heard a commotion. I turned around and my lips curled into a grin as I saw Agnarsson hitting a marine with a crutch. The poor marine didn't know what was happening, and when one of his friends tried to intervene Rob clocked him in the face and knocked him out cleanly. I watched the spectacle as my squad mate hit the man on his legs and waist. He at least had the decency not to hit him too hard.
"Enough," I ordered. "Rob, get over here."
The man looked at me grumpily and then shot the marine on the floor a look of anger. He still complied with my orders and hopped towards my table. He used his bent crutch as a staff and gently lowered himself onto the table. He made sure that his right leg could support his whole weight and then turned his head to face me. He gave me a "what do you want?" look and waited for me to say what I had to.
"Can I hit him?" Schitzo asked. "Please, can I?" For some reason he was holding a pan like a baseball bat.
Sure.
Schitzo swung hard at Agnarsson's head. The pan went completely through the man's skull like a hologram would've, appearing on the other side. Schitzo looked confused at the cooking implement before turning towards me.
"Wow, I did not see that coming."
Suuure…
"Listen Rob," I started.
"Agnarsson," he corrected. "Or Bumblebee."
"Listen, I'll call you however I like," I said a little bit too harshly. "But have it your way, Agnarsson it is then." I waited for him to nod at me. "How's the leg?"
"Healing."
"When will you be able to fight again?"
"A week and a half."
"Will it heal in cryo?"
"Probably, but at a slower rate."
"Figures. Just wanted to know how you were doing." I explained. "How's the rest of the team?"
Agnarsson sighed, his dislike for me becoming more evident with each passing second.
And here I thought he liked me the most…
"Snark is still a little arse, can't move his arm, a month of immobilization for him, they're healing his bone the old-fashioned way. Grass's hands are healing up nicely, even if the scars are piss-ugly. Scarecrow's fine, cheery as always that bloody bastard. The Italian worries me a wee bit, seems to be staring off into the distance sometimes."
I nodded. "Grigori?"
"Grigori's just… Grigori."
"Great, thanks for the talk," I said as I stood up. "Good luck with the leg."
"Thanks," he muttered reluctantly.
"Oh, and by the way, never hit a fellow marine or soldier again. Ever."
I left before he could answer and left the mess hall. The two marines that Agnarsson had clocked were shooting me daggers with their eyes, obviously blaming me for their misfortune. Their pride was probably more injured than their bodies, with a man beating both of them up with a crutch. A crutch that he needed to use to walk.
I walked normally. The extent of my healing allowed me to do that now. I occasionally raised my left hand to feel the new ribs on my torso. They felt weird, unnatural. Then I felt my scars stinging and dropped my hand back down. For the most part I managed to repress the urge to prod around my new metallic bones though. I had given up on wearing the t-shirts for a while, instead switching to a relatively loose jacket that we were issued. I wore nothing underneath other than a patch to protect my scars, that way the fabric didn't squeeze them. I felt pretty good with myself for coming up with that.
The next question was where I should go. The obvious choice was the gym, but I wasn't nearly as healed up as I had to be to bench press two hundred. The second choice was my room, but I had just left that room because I was hungry and felt overtly claustrophobic. Third choice would've been Marina, but I, in all my wisdom, had broken up with her because of my imaginary friend's whims. I had mixed feelings over that decision. Sure, I was starting to feel less "love" for Marina with each passing day, but I still liked her as much as I could. And the sex was pretty awesome.
"You see? You miss the sex, not her."
Shut. The. Fuck. Up.
"It's true though."
"I liked you more when you were a creepy background person…"
"Liked who more?"
"Huh?" I asked dumbly.
"Who are you talking to?"
"Who are y-. Oh, Lockley. Hanna, is it?"
"Wow, you already forgot my name," she complained.
"No, I just told you. You're Hanna Lockley, Corpsman. Partially saved my life."
"That's correct," Lockley said, her scowl disappearing but not quite turning into a smile. "What's wrong with you now?"
I started unzipping my jacket.
"Whoa, I don't want to see that."
"Yes you do," I smiled at her. "Besides, I don't want to show you my fantastic abs, lookee here."
"Hmmm," she said, leaning closely towards me and pulling back the patch that covered my ribs with care. "Ouch," she exclaimed as soon as she saw the six scars. "All six ribs?"
"No, just one, I asked for five extra scars to make the story cooler."
"You know, that sarcasm thing you've got going on might work for some people, but to me it just makes you seem like an arrogant ass."
I shrugged. "I guess you're right."
Hanna looked up from my scar and into my eyes. I hadn't noticed before, but she had lovely light brown eyes. You know, not the regular light brown kind that a lot of people seem to have, but instead the light brownish that was almost-but-not-quite green kind of eyes. If I had to compare them to something I would probably compare them to honey. Honey-eyes, yeah, that sounds about right. They were brown all over except directly around her pupils, that area was slightly gray. I could only compare the gray colored areas to that of rays of light, starting thicker but getting thinner as they got farther away from the center of her eye; they reached out in a lot, but not all, directions. The way that the colors mingled at the center of her iris made it seem like half her eyes were green if you stared at them for a short amount of time.
Yes, her eyes were fucking awesome, if I want to write an extra-long paragraph about it, I sure as hell will.
"Nice eyes," I commented. If I didn't say anything I would just look like a creep for maintaining eye contact too long. Even if she did so too I would end up being the creepy one for some reason.
Hanna blushed quickly, which didn't surprise me even if I knew almost nothing about her. Then she poked my belly with her finger, which kind of surprised me considering her chronic uptightness.
"Can't say the same about your abs," she said.
It was so out of character with her that I had to laugh out loud. I knew next to nothing about Corpsman Hanna Lockley other that she was a good medic, but I knew that she was extremely uptight about things like that. Hannah pulled her hand away and smirked at me with some degree of satisfaction. She then put her hand back to my chest and pasted back the gauze to my skin with extreme care.
"Hey. Hanna, I was- oh, am I interrupting something?"
I looked over Hanna and saw another woman, a friend of hers by the look of it in the corridor, staring at the two of us strangely.
"No," she said.
"Yes," I said.
"No, we were just-"
"About to have sex," I cut in.
"Oh, in that case I think I'll be leaving," her friend told us with a smile.
"We weren't about to have sex!" Hanna exclaimed.
"Sorry, what? I couldn't hear you," I told her.
"Oh shut up," Hanna chastised me. To her friend she said, "And don't look at me like that!"
"Fine, fine," she apologized.
"Well, Staff Sergeant, a pleasure seeing you," Hanna saluted.
I smiled and gave her a quick salute before she turned around and hurried back to her friend. Just when they thought they were out of earshot I heard Lockley's friend tell her that there could've been a whole lot of pleasure in seeing me if she hadn't interrupted us. That comment was followed by a muted slapping sound and a yelp of pain.
I think it goes without saying that I kept walking with en extremely large grin on my face.
From there I decided that it was best to head towards the hangar, Sheppard and Marina were probably there and I wanted to see how they were doing. The ship was surprisingly empty, with many of the surviving marines and soldiers simply confining themselves to their rooms and getting as much rest as possible. About halfway through to the hangar I heard Eliza broadcast over the ship that we were about to jump into slipspace.
"Three, two, one," she said.
The ship seemed to shake, but I knew that the ship wasn't actually moving, it was the space around the ship that was doing that. Or was it? I'm not sure, slipspace doesn't really follow the laws of physics, and the laws of physics are complicated enough as it is without throwing faster-than-light travel in the mix. My stomach lurched for a second and I reached out to the wall. Every now and then a jump would make me nauseous.
"Yeah, I'm fine," I told myself as I resumed walking.
The ship's hangar looked crowded even though there were only a few people walking around. The pelicans were all cramped up and there were several Armadillo tanks and Warthogs parked all over the place. Sometimes I wonder how they manage to park them so closely and neatly without doing some paint scraping. I instantly looked around to see if I could spot the pelican with red paint, but then I remembered that it was probably a puddle of molten steel back in New Moskva. That pelican had been here for most my life and now it was gone. Things like that hurt, even if it's just a machine.
"Frank!"
I turned around and saw Sheppard trying to hop towards me. He decided that it was best that he stay where he was, leaning against a Scorpion instead of further damaging his body. He waved me over and I walked towards him. He seemed a lot better than before, but he had some horrible bruising to his face and there were several small cuts that were still healing.
"Hey, How you doing man? I didn't know you were out of the infirmary yet."
Well, I am," I said. "How are you?"
"All right I guess, my face still hurts like hell, but I can do pretty much anything that doesn't involve doing anything more than a fast walk."
"Don't worry, I think your face looks better than before."
"Ha-ha. How about you Frank?" he asked me.
"I'm doing fine, my scars hurt a little bit, but they'll heal up soon enough."
"More scars for you and more cool stories to tell."
"There's nothing cool about being stomped on the chest by a brute."
"Right, but civvie girls don't know that."
"That they don't," I agreed with a chuckle. "Talking about girls, where's Marina?"
"Fourth pelican, she's trying to fix it."
"She's always trying to fix something," I muttered.
"Yeah, you might've been her boyfriend, but I am the one who had to spend endless hours in the cockpit with her. She's a handful, in a good way, but still a handful."
There you have it, Marina in a nutshell. I nodded at Sheppard and walked towards the pelican that he had directed me to.
I looked inside the cargo bay and knocked on the door.
"Look Vince, you can't walk or do anything, so just leave and go-"
"It's me," I interrupted.
"Oh," her tone instantly became more venomous. "What do you want?" Marina emerged from the cockpit and walked slowly towards me. Her face still had several fading bruises and her left arm was covered in cuts of varying sizes all the way from her wrist to her shoulder. Her other arm was in a sling that crossed her body, the position of her arm propped up her chest, a fact that I couldn't help but notice.. Her aforementioned chest had escaped relatively unscathed compared to the rest of her body. Despite all her injuries she still looked as sexy and beautiful as ever.
Does that make me sound like I have a fetish for that kind of thing? I hope not.
"I just wanted to check on you," I said.
"Well."
"How are you?"
"I'm fine."
Talk about being cold.
"Good, good,"
There was a long moment of awkward silence.
"So, how do you feel about losing your plane?"
"How do you think I feel?"
"Not good, I guess," I replied calmly, running my hands through the walls of the pelican. "I had lots of good memories related to Mary's Little Lamb."
"Good, but not important," she stated. She really knew where to make me hurt.
"Both," I said. "I hope you feel better," I told her almost angrily as I climbed back down.
Sheppard shrugged at me as I walked past him. My ribs were hurting and now I was in a bad mood. Fucking great, on top of it all I would be shoved into a freezer in a few hours, same as everyone else on the ship. I was trying to be the good guy in the breakup, even though we weren't going out anymore it still meant that we could still be friends, right? I mean, why the hell not? We were great friends before I started putting my wee-wee into her hoo-hah with regularity.
"Hey, Sarge!"
I turned around, I didn't think that anyone would be addressing me personally, but I did instinctively, same as when you hear someone call out for another guy named just like you.
"Sarge! Wait up!"
So they were talking to me.
"Buenos días Subteniente," I greeted Emily Hardwick.
"Huh?"
"Good morning Second Lieutenant," I translated for her convenience.
"Oh, just call me Emily," she smiled. She was wearing her old-fashioned aviator sunglasses.
"Are you sure ma'am?" I asked in a fake tone, clasping my hands behind my back and assuming an at-ease position.
"Yes soldier. In fact, I order you to."
"Wow, I just got goose bumps."
She laughed. "You look like a train ran you over, what happened?"
"Thanks. A lot."
"Oh, I'm kidding," Emily apologized. "I'd give you a forgive me hug but you look like you could break into tiny pieces."
A forgive me hug? Huh, I wouldn't mind. Especially not from her.
I looked Hardwick over. Sure, she wasn't as physically attractive as Marina and couldn't compete with Grass, but she was still pretty easy on the eyes. Unlike my blonde ex-girlfriend she had dark brown hair, unlike Hanna Lockley, she had green eyes. She also had a line of freckles that ran across her cheeks and over her nose, giving her a cutesy appearance. All in all, she might've been able to pull off a nine-point-six or a nine-point-seven. You know, the usual.
"Not a train," I corrected Hardwick, "a brute. Chieftain."
"Ouch, they seem scary even from inside my hornet."
"And then you blow them to pieces with the push of a button."
"Are you trying to discredit the value of my job?"
"No, of course not, after all, you've saved me, I'm just trying to discredit the difficulty of pressing buttons."
"Very funny," she said, obviously not amused.
"I'm kidding. So, did you lose the sun?"
"What?"
"Did you lose the sun?"
"Did I lose the- what are you talking about?"
I motioned to her sunglasses.
"Oh, very funny."
I shrugged at her, trying to nail Pavel's "I'm cute even though I could kill you in twenty different ways" look. By the way Emily reacted I must've gotten it pretty close, because she gave me a smile, almost as brilliant as those that Layla could give.
"And back to her," Schitzo chimed in.
"So, are you ok?" Hardwick asked me.
"Yeah, I'm fine, I'm six ribs short, but still kicking."
"Six?"
"Yup."
"What did you get instead?"
"Titanium. Good 'ol titanium."
"Nice, can I feel them?"
Well that's a weird question.
"Jeez Francisco, how you manage to fool yourself is beyond my understanding," Schitzo groaned.
"Not right now you can't," I informed Emily. "You'd probably just open my stitches."
"Maybe later then," she half-said, half-asked.
"Maybe later," I agreed.
"Great, I'll see you around Frank," Emily smiled at me.
"Wow Francisco, I don't remember you giving her permission to call you by your first name."
Shut up Schitzo.
"No, I'm serious, that's supposed to go against regulations."
When has that ever stopped me before?
"Huh, we make a great team you and I. You're the… no, wait. I'm the beauty and you're the… no, I'm also the brains and the brawn."
You're me. I noted.
"Well, I guess we're not that stupid after all then."
And there it is ladies and gentlemen, the proof that Frank is not an author avatar. Frank is a pimp.
Seriously, I hope you enjoyed the chapter, thank you for the reviews, and keep on reviewing, after all, you are the ones that inspire me. Corny much?
I just realized that I don't have anything important to say here other than my half-hearted lame attempts at jokes and almost pathetic expectations of your enjoyment of the fic. Also, one quick note. While doing research I noticed that the UNSC hadn't met Spectre's until 2546, so please ignore that little bit of data, because retconning all their appearances so far would just be stupid.
As always, thanks to Sniper Fodder for proof-reading this chapter.
-casquis