Part 18 —Extraction
Monday, 02 November 2009 23:19
There was blood everywhere. Xiao Mei was amazed that Jarod was still in one piece, let alone alive. Alive he was, however, and there wasn't a minute to lose. She shoved her way past Jaswan and Marianna, who were busily setting up a string of torch lights so that they'd be able to see what they were doing. At least they were making themselves useful and not getting in her way."Can you save him?" Marianna asked quietly as they worked.
She pursed her lips. She disliked admitting her own limitations, and she disliked giving any kind of prognosis even more. "If I can stabilize him enough to get him into trank, then maybe," she said finally. "We have to get him out of there before I can even think that far ahead, and I don't have to tell you that a wrong move will kill him."
"No, you don't."
Xiao Mei knelt next to the prone form, and surveyed the damage with dismay. Jarod's legs were almost entirely trapped in the crushed metal of what had once been the weapons platform: there was no way to tell how extensive the damage was, or whether his spinal cord was damaged. That could always be repaired in trank –slowly, but it could be done. What worried her more was the jagged metal spike that protruded from his chest. He was propped partly against the wall, and she couldn't tell if the metal had penetrated from the back or the front. She hoped it was the front, and that they wouldn't have to cut him away from the wall.
Gingerly she clambered over him, picking her way through the debris, careful not to touch him. She crouched by his side, shining her torch behind him. To her surprise, his eyelids fluttered after a moment, and he tried to turn his head toward her. Instinctively she reached out and placed her hand gently on his shoulder.
"Easy, Jarod. Don't move."
His mouth worked convulsively for a moment as he tried to form words. Then his entire body spasmed, and he coughed up a gout of blood onto his already-soaked shirt. Marianna was at his side in the blink of an eye. Marianna could move remarkably fast when she put her mind to it.
"It's okay, Jarod. We'll have you out of there in no time. You have to keep still for me, okay? Don't move until we've got you free."
He'd slipped back into unconsciousness by then, which was probably a mercy, Xiao Mei thought. Peering down the beam of light from her torch, she was beginning to get a better idea of just how badly things were going.
"Well, we're not going to have to cut him free up here at least," she told Marianna. "Whatever he's impaled on, it doesn't look like it's attached to the wall. Probably a free-flying piece of… whatever the hell kind of metal that is."
"Plastinum. It's an Imperium-designed alloy that allows for –"
"–Whatever. Just so long as he's not nailed to that wall, we've got a fighting chance. We need to free his legs and get him to the med bay. Jaswan, you're the closest thing we've got to an engineer. What's it going to take to get that off him?"
Jaswan shrugged, his white tank top glowing an eerie greenish colour in the light cast by the torches, contrasting sharply with his dark skin. "It's not as thick as the doors, obviously, but we're going to have to be a lot more careful not to accidentally hurt him more. I've got a laser cutter that'll do the job, but it's going to take a long time. Especially if there's more metal under this first layer that we don't know about yet."
"Can you cut him out, or should I do it?" It was a question of practicality more than anything else. Jaswan would do the job faster than she, but if he got nervous about cutting around human flesh, especially someone he counted as a colleague –not to say a friend– then it would be better if she did it herself.
"I can do most of it. I'll probably need your help for the more finicky bits. I don't want to slice open an artery by mistake or anything."
"All right. Marianna and I will make sure you get enough light. Let's get to work."
It was slow going. Sweat poured from Jaswan's face as he bent over his work, bent only a few inches away from the thin laser that bit methodically into the twisted metal. Xiao Mei could hear him breathing hard, could hear her own breathing and Marianna's, harsh in the stillness. Jarod was still breathing shallowly, the movement of his lungs restricted considerably by the jagged piece of metal in his chest. She very quickly left Marianna to take care of the lighting, and devoted all her attention to her patient, setting up an intravenous drip and carefully placing an oxygen mask over his nose and mouth. Too risky to try to intubate here, and she wanted to know how extensive the damage to his lungs was before trying anything more invasive.
"Can't you give him something for the pain?" Jaswan asked eventually, as Jarod moaned very softly.
"No. Too dangerous. He's unconscious, anyway. Can't feel a thing, I promise you."
"Right."
"Just concentrate on your cutting. I'm doing everything I can."
"What's your ETA, Jaswan?" Marianna broke in. Her arm was beginning to shake from the strain of holding the light steady for him.
"Don't know. I think I'm almost through. Maybe five more minutes. Give or take." Jaswan wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand.
A moment later Jarod's eyes flicked open again, and he stared hard at Xiao Mei, trying to focus. She murmured something she hoped sounded reassuring, and found herself almost wishing that he would lose consciousness again. Almost. In a very few minutes they'd be forced to hurt him a lot in order to move him, but it was a better sign if he remained conscious. It took her a moment to realise that he was trying to speak, pulling weakly at the mask with one hand. She shook her head, then realised he probably couldn't see her. She grasped his hand in both of hers to keep him from pulling off the mask.
"Don't try to talk, Jarod. There's a lot of damage to your lungs. We're working to get you out, but we're not there yet. You need to stay very still, do you hear me?"
He choked slightly on what sounded like it could have been a word, but came out only as a gurgle of blood and spittle. She risked lifting the mask for a moment to wipe his mouth and make sure nothing else was obstructing his windpipe. Not much else to be done. She wanted to scream in frustration, but there was no point in doing that either. Stay focussed until Jaswan was finished, then get to the med bay as quickly as humanly possible.
"What's he trying to say?"
"Don't know. He'll tell us after, when I'm satisfied he can talk without endangering his life. Not before."
"That's not what I meant."
"I know. I just thought we could all use a reminder."
"I'm through."
"What?"
"I said: I'm through. I think we can pull back this whole section," Jaswan pointed with a forefinger, "without actually touching him. Marianna, grab hold here, and Mei, take that bit over there… no, a little to your left… no, your left… good. Okay, on three. One, two, three!"
They scrambled to follow his instructions. There was no questioning anyone's authority within their own sphere on board ship, at least not when the stakes were this high. Second-guessing might mean the difference between life and death, a lesson they had learned the hard way and not one they were likely to forget as a result. The metal peeled away with a hideous screeching, tearing, rending sound that put all their teeth on edge. Xiao Mei winced at the noise, but kept pulling doggedly, trying to maintain an even pressure as she did so. With one last jarring shriek of metal against metal, the whole thing came away in their hands. Marianna swore as a jagged edge caught against her arm, slicing open her skin, but immediately shrugged off Xiao Mei's attempt to look at the injury.
"Triage, Mei, triage. I'll survive until you get him stabilized." She jerked her head at Jarod.
She nodded to show she understood, and began prepping Jarod for transport, packing as much gauze as she could around the terrible wound in his chest. The less the metal moved before she could remove it surgically, the better. She didn't even want to contemplate the damage to his legs and back for the moment. She jumped as she felt the brush of a hand on her arm. Jarod gripped her wrist, his grasp surprisingly strong, and pulled her toward him, staring at her with eyes that glittered with intensity. He'd pulled off his mask without her noticing.
"Listen to me, dammit…" the words rasped in his throat, and he had to pause to try and gather air into his ravaged lungs. "Ship… the Gato Nero… It's still out there… Nearby.
"It's waiting for us."