==^== Hospital Drift Saving Grace – The Past ==^==
The last thing Harper remembered before passing out from blood loss was watching the Ariel explode before his eyes. The explosion destroyed both the ship itself and the pirate vessel attached to her hull.
The first thing he noticed in the here and now was pain. His body ached in places he never knew could ache, and for that matter didn't want to know.
As his eyes slowly adjusted to the surrounding light, his ears picked up the sounds of a hospital. Listening he heard sounds -- people crying, doctors talking with nurses and orderlies, as well the various mechanical beeps that indicated he was still alive.
Opening his eyes, he saw the familiar white of the hospital room. Back on Earth, he was always ending up in a hospital, thanks mainly to his immune system. It had been the same after he had joined The Order; even though he was out of action for a few weeks, the Leader never seemed to mind.
Turning his head at the sound of the door opening, he watched as a human nurse walked in with a tray of food.
"Ah, good, I'll tell the Doctor you're awake," she said as she placed the tray on the table beside Harper and turned to leave. He quickly grabbed her arm, struggling past a dry throat to ask a question.
"Where am I?" he managed to ask.
"You're on the hospital drift Saving Grace, the best in the sector," she said with pride.
Harper released her, but a new question appeared that he just had to ask. Saving Grace was indeed the best hospital in this and several other sectors, but it was expensive too.
"Why am I here, I have no way to pay," he admitted when she remained to answer his unspoken question.
"Your employer is picking up the bill. He said to give you the best care available. You deserve it after what happened," she then gave him a smile and left to find the Doctor.
Harper looked over at the food, he grimaced. Hospital food never changed, it was still the same bland, tasteless stuff as on Earth. Getting past his revulsion, he took the plate and began eating; when he was done he waited for the Doctor.
From what the nurse had said, Harper knew he wouldn't have to wait long. His former employer had been Sam Profit, and with his money, he shouldn't be waiting long at all. As soon as that thought left his head, the Doctor walked in the door.
"Mr. Harper, I'm glad to see you're awake. We were wondering if you would make it," the Doctor said cheerfully as he skimmed Harper's chart.
"How long was I out?"
"Hmm?" the Doctor asked, not paying attention to Harper, but more to the charts.
"How long was I out?" Harper asked again.
"About a week," the Doctor replied nonchalantly.
'A week,' Harper thought to himself, 'that's a lot of thrones to pay for me. I wonder why Prophet is paying?'
"According to your charts," the doctor said, interrupting Harper's thoughts, "you will be well enough to leave in a few days."
"That's good news," Harper said as his mind began considering ways to find a new job.
"Oh, before I forget, there is someone here to see you," the doctor said as he left the room after checking Harper's vitals.
"Who'd want to see me?" Harper asked out loud.
"I would, Harper," a voice from the door way said.
When Harper looked, he couldn't believe who was standing there. For in the doorway stood none other than Sam Profit himself, Beka Valentine's good old Uncle Sid.
During his tenure on the Maru Harper had heard many stories about the adventures of Beka's Uncle Sid and her father, even though he had never met the man. She had video files of her father and Uncle during some of their more 'happy' moments, before her father's death. She had told him that Sid was a merchant. He traded in various things, although she really didn't know what. As it was, she thought he was smuggling stolen goods around the various drifts and hadn't spoken to him in years. She had even told him that Sid didn't even show up for her father's funeral.
Beka didn't know it, but those brief months on the Maru had given Harper a leg up. When he began on the Arial, Sampson had been looking for another employer, and Harper knew just the person.
When Sampson asked about any job opportunities, Harper had jumped at the chance to help. He mentioned that he knew a merchant that needed some cargo run. He didn't expect that merchant to be Sam Profit, a.k.a. Beka's Uncle Sid, a fact that Beka was completely unaware of, Sid he expected, but not Sam Profit.
"Sir, what are you doing here?" Harper asked as he struggled to rise. Profit just raised his hand in negation of his rising.
"I've come to see you, my boy," he said as he moved to sit on the bed next to Harper. "You look worse than the last time I saw you."
"Well, I was in a fight with pirates, not to mention living through an explosion," Harper said with a little heat, a fact he quickly regretted. Profit just smiled and tousled his hair.
"There's the Harper that I hired, not this battered excuse of a man."
"Hey," Harper began, but stopped when he saw the twinkle in Profit's eyes.
"Harper, I know you've been through a lot, but I need you to tell me something," he paused dramatically. "How's Beka?"
Harper was momentarily stunned by the question, but only a moment.
"She's fine, she's blonde now, and she dumped Bobby, finally. She's doing ok aside from that, plenty of jobs, enough trouble to keep her from getting bored, the usual stuff."
"I see," Profit said as he rose. "Harper, I want to thank you for getting that chip off the ship."
"What?" Harper replied, totally confused.
"The chip that Sampson gave you before he shoved you in the pod contained valuable information about a new ship design. The pirates were after that. If they had gotten it, then I would be out of business. I thank you for saving it; it took my men 2 years to develop those blueprints. I tell you all this because I know you're trustworthy, you've proven it to me. That is why I've taken care of all your medical bills. Now, before I go, I wanted to give you your mail -- a few letters came to my office addressed to you. How they found you, I'll never know, but here they are, unopened. And if you need another job, I can find a place for an industrious individual like yourself in my company -- if you want a job so soon that is." Profit then gave Harper a bundle of flexies and left without another word.
Harper quietly opened his mail, surprised that he had received any mail at all. Leafing through the various junk mail, he found ads for dealerships trying to sell used ships at a discount, bills, the usual junk. At the bottom was one package that caught his attention. It was a small cylinder that was just the right size to hold a datarod.
Datarods were an invention of the Order, an invention that he help to create. They were specially encoded to be readable only by the intended recipient. They were read through the dataport, with the information transmitted directly into the brain.
Harper slowly opened the container, gently slipping the rod into his hand. He examined it before slowly inserting it into his dataport.
'Ah, Banshee,' the recorded image of the Leader said, 'glad to see this message found you. If you are getting this then that means the transmitter in your port is working. It's also nice to know the rods work, at the time of this recording they were still experimental. Anyway, we tracked you to Sam Profit's organization, that is why you received this through his office.
Now, onto the purpose of this message. When you left Earth you were placed on inactive duty. However, it has become necessary for you to perform another mission for us. Mission details will follow, remember to destroy this message. Even though you're the only one that can view it, we don't want it falling into enemy hands. We don't want them to have this technology.
I am truly sorry to have to reactivate you, but due to the sensitivity of this mission, I believe that you'll understand our reasons. Good luck out there Banshee. End Transmission.' What then followed was all the mission specifications and goals.
Harper pulled the rod from his port as soon as the mission specs were downloaded. He then snapped the rod in half and threw it into the recycling unit located in the room.
So, the Order was calling him out of retirement. That meant only one thing: it was a mission with a high probability of failure, meaning he was the only one that could survive.
During his term of service for the Order, he was the only one that was able to pull off the 'certain death' or 'suicide' missions. This meant he was the only one that came back alive, which is why he had been reactivated for this mission.
He sighed again as he returned to his bed, his various bandaged wounds aching. To take his mind off the pain he decided to categorize his wounds.
When the Doctor returned half an hour later, Harper had categorized all his wounds in type, location, and amount of blood each wound could lose every minute.
"So Doctor, when can I get out of here? I've got to find another job," Harper asked as the Doctor checked his vitals and recorded the results.
"Well, at your current rate of recovery, I'd say another week. Then we'll let you go and you can find a job," the Doctor replied after a moment's consideration.
"Thanks Doc, so another week? Think I could get a technical manual or something?"
"We'll see Mr. Harper, we'll see," the Doctor then injected him with painkillers and left the room, leaving the painkillers to put Harper to sleep again.
== End Chapter 4 ==