Mutation

When: After Davie
got in the lift
Where: Medibay
Who Davie
and others
 
 
 
            The
elevator stopped near the medibay, and Davie
stepped out. The lacerations on his back had begun to bleed again and were
aching badly. As he began walking towards the medibay, his left foot snagged on
something on the ground. He hadn't noticed it. Didn't even see it or know it
was there. It was on his left side. His blind side.
            He turned
to see what it was. It was a body. The corpse of one of the Blue Dwarf security
personnel he had met in the corridor just before he destroyed the docking tube.
The body was propped up against the wall with a blood soaked sheet tossed
haphazardly over it. Davie
sighed heavily as sadness spread across his face. Try telling the Marines to use non-lethal force next time. Davie thought. He stood
stalk still in the corridor, staring at the body, then at the other bodies of
Blue Dwarf personnel, Space Corp. Marines, and civilians that lay in the hall
under sheets and in body bags, unable to have a proper funeral yet.
            He recapped
the day's events in his mind. The wormhole…the Marines…the bug…the chief of
security…chief of security…Rosette. What
was it she said? "Leave the ship's security for those trained for it."? Yes,
that was it. he thought. She doesn't
know about my history with the Space Corp. Hell, how could she? No one does.

            Davie felt a twinge in
his back and remembered why he was there. He said a prayer for the dead, and
the turned and walked down the corridor towards the medibay, stepping over bodies
as he went.
            Davie stepped into the
medibay, and the groans and cries of injured and dying people filled his ears
with a dreadful and horrible sound. An injured man sitting against the wall
next to him tapped him on the leg, "Excuse me mister? Have you got any water?"
the man asked in a dry and raspy voice. Davie
flicked his canteen out of it's pouch and handed it to the man. When he bent
down to give the man the canteen, he noticed the Space Corp. Marines insignia on
his blood soaked jacket. "Keep it." Davie
said kindly as the man looked up gratefully at him.
            He saw a
doctor kneeling on the floor next to patient, trying to stop a profuse amount
of blood pouring from his patient's chest. The doctor looked around desperately
for more medical supplies to no avail. Davie
felt for his med pack, and tossed it to the doctor, who cast Davie a look that said "Thank you." without
words. Davie
nodded back.
            Another
doctor stepped in front of Davie
and noticed the streams of blood dripping steadily down his arms, and then he
noticed his blind eye. "Your bleeding." said the doctor, "Let me help you."
            "Take care
of the others first," Davie
said, "they're worse off."
            "But--"
            "I said…the
others first" Davie
cut him off. He started towards the waiting room when his legs gave out
underneath his weight. The doctor reached out and caught him half way through
his fall. Blood loss had caught up with him. The doctor helped him to the wall
to rest. "You're in no condition to refuse treatment." said the doctor, looking
at him. Davie
nodded reluctantly, capitulating
to the doctor, and let the doctor treat him then and there. He gave Davie some pain killers, and then he began to disinfect
his wounds; Davie
grunted loudly, the disinfectant stung like a smegger. He then began to sew and
bandage the lacerations. He obviously didn't care how Davie got them just that he got them.
            It was now
that Davie
realized just how bad the doctor
looked. His eyes were blood shot, and were surrounded by dark circles; like he
hadn't slept for days. He looked like he normally kept clean shaven, but he was
starting a three-day beard. "Wait here," said the doctor, "I have something for
your eye."
              Before Davie could stop him, the
doctor walked to one of the cabinets on the wall overflowing with Dr. Keto's
mysterious ointments. He came back with a small white tube, and he put on a
rubber glove. "Let me put this on your face around your eye." he said. "What is
it?" Davie said
cautiously. "Dr. Keto's `cure' for vision loss."
            "He made
it? Not sure I want to try it."
            "Oh come
on, what could go wrong?"
            "Lots." Davie said flatly.
            "Trust me." said the doctor.
            Davie reluctantly let him
apply the ointment. Suddenly his vision began to clear. He stood up and walked
slowly forward, closing his right eye to see if his mind was playing tricks on
him. They weren't. "Thank you God!" he said, "Thank you doctor!"
"You should thank Dr. Keto, it's
his formula."
            "Where is
he at?" asked Davie,
"Around here somewhere."
            Davie went to take a step
forward to look for Dr. Keto, when suddenly the world around him began to spin.
His vision went blurry and the world looked as if it were swirling around his
head. His body throbbed with each heart beat and he began to feel feverish
almost the instant he started moving. Sweat collected on his forehead and he
doubled over to the ground as sharp stabbing pains shot through his stomach.
Darkness worked it's way around the edges of his vision and his hearing tuned
into a muffled symphony of strange sounds. He fell to floor vomiting, and the
last thing he saw was the doctor standing over him calling for help from a
nearby medical assistant as he rolled onto his back and slipped into
unconsciousness.
 
                                               
                                                                        *   *   * 
 
 
            Davie began to resurface
into consciousness a short while later. He awoke with a start, his eyes going
wide, and was met with a flash of color that made wince and close his eyes
tightly. He tried to open them once again, slowly this time. The vision in his
right eye was normal, but out of his left he saw several shades of yellows,
blues, and reds. He couldn't make out details with his left eye, only colors
and shapes, as he was looking through a pair of thermal goggles. And then
slowly it began to change, everything turned blue in his left eye except the
vials and tubes of chemicals and ointments that lined the walls. The resulting
effect was unbelievably disorienting.
            He looked
around and saw the doctor who gave him the ointment. The doctor saw him sit up
and walked towards him, "You okay?" he asked. Davie just starred at him for a moment, a
very stern stare. "What the smeg do you think? `Nothing can go wrong.'? `Trust
me.'? What happened anyway?"
            "I'm not
quiet sure…"
            "Not sure?"
            "No, I
could tell you if I knew what I gave you…"
            "What?!
What do you mean?! You don't know?!"
            "No." the
doctor said calmly, "Apparently one of the scutters decide to play a particularly
nasty April fools joke. He…switched the labels on a whole cabinet of medical
supplies."
            Davie sat, silent. "So
what other side effects can I expect?" Davie
said, calmer now. "We don't know exactly." said the doctor. "What happened to
my eye?" asked Davie.
"We don't know exactly." they said in unison, Davie nodding his head. "Nearest we can
tell," began the doctor, "the solution mutated your eye somehow…"
            "Mutated?"
            "Yes, but
we don't know quite how yet. It may actually be a good thing." the doctor said
optimistically. "How about you let me mutate one of your body parts and then
tell you it's a good thing?" Davie
said sarcastically. "Look I'm sorry. I didn't mean to mutate you. I was trying
to help."
            Davie just sat for a
moment, looking at the blood stained ground of the medibay, then he looked up
at the doctor, "Don't worry, it isn't your fault." Davie said to doctor, "Now go ahead, you have
more patients to attend to."
            The doctor
just nodded in compliance, and walked off towards another bleeding person. A
man coughed loudly next to Davie
and he turned to see him. The man's whole left side was covered in white
bandages, some of t skin that was showing on his face was burned, and his
uniform was charred. "You okay?" asked Davie,
"Yeah, thanks." the man said, his cough teetering out. "What's your name?" Davie asked. "Lt. Spicer,
I'm a pilot. What's yours?"
            "Jones,
civilian."
            The man
looked him over, surprised. "You don't look like a civilian in that combat
gear. Ex-military?"
            Davie
thought it best to play along. "Yeah. I came here for some peace and quiet.
Guess I picked the wrong time."
            "You could
say that again. I feel bad for all the other pilots, having to go on this
bombing run…"
            "What
bombing run?" Davie
asked, puzzled. "You mean you've not heard the captain's plan?"
            "No what is
it?"
            "The
captain is planning bombing run as a preliminary strike on the Hymie home
world."
            "And then?"
            "Then, he
wants to send some men into the tunnel system to plant hundreds of
thermo-nuclear bombs inside the planet in an attempt to destroy the planet from
the inside out."
            "How do you
know again?" Davie
asked, attempting to verify the information. "I was preparing my squadron to
perform a bombing run and then to provide aerial defense for the people on the
ground. That's how I was injured. While fueling the ships, a broken electrical
panel caught fire and sent the fuel up in flames. Me and one other were caught
in the resulting explosion. I was the lucky one." said the pilot, his voice
sad. "I'm sorry." Davie
said softly. He could feel his strength returning. It was a good plan. But
there was something…in the back of his mind…the bombing run. Oh…smeg…he thought, horrified at the
possibility.                                
            Davie pulled out the
plasma IV in his arm, and stood up quickly. Too quickly. His head spun and he
reached out a hand for the wall catching himself. He moved quickly for the wall
mounted intercom by the medibay door, his feet sliding on the slick blood that
coated the floor. When he reached the intercom, he quickly keyed in the number
for the drive room. "Let me speak with the captain!" Davie shouted to the person at the other end.
"The captain is bu - -"
            "Don't
care! This is urgent!"
            There was a
long pause from the other end. "I'll put you on speaker to the drive room."
came the reply. "This David Jones," he said over the intercom, "Captain if you
can hear this cancel the bombing run!
At least for now. If you bomb the Hymenoptera now they'll just go underground,
where we need to be. If they get underground we'll be cut to shreds down there.
I suggest drawing them out first. If an earthquake makes ants come out of the
ground, then we should shake the planet, cause an earthquake. I suggest using
all of the mining drones we have, sending them to the planet and make them
start digging. When the vibrations force the Hymies out, glass the planet. That
way we'll be met by less resistance when we enter the tunnel systems. That's my
theory. Make sense?"
            Davie waited for a reply,
and listened carefully to crackling of the intercom speaker.
 
<Tag Cptn. Chrysler>