Chapter 96 - Critical Condition

  The road back to the base was a long one, and I was worried, it being night, that we’d get attacked every step of the way. Thankfully, most nocturnal monsters must have taken one look at a pissed-off T.rex skeleton steaming along at top speed and just decided to go elsewhere for dinner, because we weren’t stopped even once. There was a brief moment when I saw a flight of avians winging their way toward us, but as soon as they were close enough to make out who we were, they turned right around and went back the way they’d come.

  “That’s what I thought,” I muttered in their general direction.

  Kara’s condition didn’t deteriorate, but didn’t improve either. I was worried for her nonstop. The bounding strides Sue took weren’t making this an easy, gentle journey, and I had no idea what was happening inside Kara’s skull. The longer she was out, the more certain I was she’d suffered a life-threatening head injury.

  I ordered Sue to kick out a Fireball as we hit the final stretch toward the Guard base, aimed straight into the air like a flare. It ‘popped’ at about a hundred feet up, making a big fireworks style display that could probably be seen for miles. That was the point—the last thing I wanted was to sit outside their gate waiting for someone with authority to come open the thing up. Every minute counted.

  They’d know who was coming when they saw the Fireball, and they’d know it was important.

  As I’d hoped, Farnsworth was atop the gatehouse over their southern gate when I arrived. I kept Sue sprinting until we were pretty close, at which point I brought the dino to a trot. He shouted down to me. “Is something after you?”

  Made sense. He had to find out if there was danger for the base. I shook my head without thinking about it—he probably couldn’t see me in the dim lighting, so I shouted back. “No danger. But Kara’s been hurt! She needs a healer, badly.”

  The doors were opening before I drew another breath, and I almost started leaking tears in relief. I’d worried they might make some sort of production number over me coming in.

  Instead, Farnsworth was there on the ground as the gates opened, ushering all of us inside before closing the gate again.

  “What happened?” Farnsworth asked.

  “Long story. Tell you later. Right now, she needs healing, badly. Compound tibia and fibula fracture, but that’s immobilized and I stopped the bleeding. She hit her head, hard, and she hasn’t woke up since.”

  “How long?”

  “Over an hour now.”

  Farnsworth frowned. He knew as well as I did that wasn’t great news. He barked orders to go get one of the base healers, and a younger man rushed off into the night.

  We carefully pulled Kara and the mattress out from Sue’s ribcage and set them down on the ground. Farnsworth did a quick check of my dressings, but then grinned and glanced at me. “You probably know more about this stuff than I do. You were training to be a doctor when this shit went down, right?”

  I nodded. “Yeah, UVM medical school. Guess I still remembered enough.”

  Shouts told me more people were on their way. It wasn’t one healer; the airman had gotten an entire team. Two men and two women rushed over, a wheeled stretcher between them, aid bags stuffed under it and slung over shoulders. They took a quick report from me, then got to work.

  Medicine post-Event was a weird combination of old world and new. I watched the medical team go to work. One of the men was older, with officer rank on his shoulders. I figured him for an actual Air Force doctor, which felt good. Our modern medical gear might mostly be trash now, thanks to electricity having vanished. But the skills and knowledge? That stuff was still valuable as ever.

  Two of the younger medics started casting spells, white glows suffusing their hands. I’d seen Healing magic at work before, even had Henry cast heals on me, back when I was still working with Lords and his crew. God, was that just a week ago? It felt like a lifetime.

  They must have gotten Kara stabilized enough to feel safe transporting her, because two of them got a sheet under her and then lifted her into their stretcher before starting to push her away.

  “Hey—how is she?” I asked.

  The doctor turned back toward me, and I caught his name patch. It read ‘Levinson’. “You were right about the concussion. She took a nasty hit to her skull, and the bone is fractured. She had pressure building up inside the skull. Another hour, and her vitals would have crashed, and then… Well, it was good you got her here so quickly.”

  “Can you treat that?” I asked, worried. In the old days, the injury he was describing would have almost certainly required surgery to repair. Now, without all our tools, surgery was iffy at best. Was this something magic could heal?”

  Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

  His immediate smile said the answer was yes. “Of course. I don’t pretend to understand how all of this stuff works, but we have several people with tier three Heal spells, and mine is tier four. We’ve had to handle some very serious internal injuries, and our patients have come through it okay. We need to get her somewhere safe, where she can rest and be monitored. But your friend should be fine.”

  I sagged with relief. That was all I really wanted to hear. “Thanks, Doctor Levinson. I can’t tell you how glad I am to hear that. We raced here as quick as we could.”

  He nodded, then followed his team back toward their medical building, while I waited for my heart rate to slowly come back down to normal levels. It had been a near thing, just as I’d thought. If I hadn’t been able to get Kara here so fast, she’d have died.

  I walked over to Sue, who was crouched down low to make it easier to extract Kara, and patted their head. “Thanks. Couldn’t have done any of that without you.”

  Sue made a rumbling sound in response.

  “Now that your friend is out of danger, you want to fill me in on what happened out there?” Farnsworth asked. “If there’s something out there bad enough to threaten your team, then my team needs to know about it. Most of our scouting groups aren’t half as well set up as you.”

  I was willing to bet none of his teams were as powerful as mine, if I was being honest, but there was no point rubbing noses in that sort of thing. “Ants. We went to the cemetery, found lots of undead, and a giant ant nest nearby. We bypassed the ants and went for the undead. I split off from Kara and Sue while I fought a bunch of them. They…fell through. Into the ant nest.”

  I gave Farnsworth a quick summary of everything that happened after that. He whistled at the description of the egg chamber, but otherwise remained silent while I finished telling my story.

  “That’s crazy. We’ve seen a few giant spiders, but no ants yet. Guess we’ve been lucky. I’ll pass it along to Turner, so our teams can watch out for more,” Farnsworth said. “We’ll want to wipe out any nests nearby. If they’re hunting and eating people, that makes them an existential threat. What are your plans about the nest you found?”

  “Oh, I’m finishing what they started,” I told him. “If they’d let us leave without a fight, if they’d been willing to allow us to just walk away in peace, then I’d have followed my promise and let them be. But they didn’t. I said I’d burn their nest to ashes if they attacked. I don’t know if they understood me. Probably didn’t. I have to say, I don’t much care. I intend to go back and finish what they started.”

  He nodded, rubbing his chin. “I’m assuming you don’t want backup?”

  I flashed him a toothy grin. “Oh, I think I can handle this one.”

  Farnsworth laughed. “I’ll bet you can. Come on. I’ll take you over to the medical center. You can check in on Kara, I’ll get you some hot coffee, and then if you want, we can find a bunk for you somewhere so you can get a little rest.”

  “Thanks,” I replied. I wasn’t sure about the rest, but the coffee sounded good. After practically living on the stuff throughout college, I missed it. Once the stockpiles of coffee beans, grounds, and instant stored locally were gone, we’d probably have to do without forever, so it made coffee a damned valuable commodity. “What about Sue? You want me to send her back outside the walls?”

  Farnsworth shook his head. “No. I think we can make an exception for Sue at this point. The dino can stay inside the walls for now. Just order her to stay right near the gate, please?”

  “Can do.” I sent the order. “There. Sue won’t budge, and any avians coming this way will have a bad night ahead of them.”

  “Good enough. Let’s get you that coffee.”

  A little while later Farnsworth had me sitting in a chair next to Kara’s bed, sipping a warm mug while I watched her sleep. I’d given the medical team a pair of clear crystals I’d picked up from the ants, one Intellect and one Strength. It wasn’t a lot, but I figured it would work as payment, or at least as a thank-you for their services.

  Kara lay there, not moving, more pale than I’d ever seen her. I hoped she would wake soon, but the Levinson said she might sleep through the night. Healing took a lot from a body, and even though Kara had Stamina stones, there was only so much healing they could perform at any given time, with injuries this severe. Her bones were knitted back together, and they’d removed the swelling from her brain. The brain trauma itself was going to take some time to heal, though. It wasn’t something they could fully rush, or at least, not something the doctor felt comfortable rushing.

  “Damn it, Kara. We need to get you some sort of healing,” I murmured. I thought again of the Alchemy crystals in my pouch. Maybe those would let me make healing potions or something? If I had something like that, then I might have been able to better stabilize Kara right away, and she could have avoided a lot of the risk.

  Giving her a few of my Drain Life stones would help, too. She might not be able to socket them yet, but she was going to keep growing, and with all the black crystals she already had, Drain Life would only make her stronger still. I reached into the pouch and slipped two of those out, carefully setting them on her bedside table, so Kara would find them when she woke up.

  Then I stood and turned to go, glancing back over my shoulder one more time to smile in her direction. Kara was a good friend in a time when having those was more precious than just about anything else.

  I met Levinson outside the room and told him I’d left the pair of crystals for Kara. He told me he’d make sure she got them, and they didn’t go missing.

  “Thanks for all your help, doc. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate it.”

  “No trouble, really. It’s my job, after all,” Levinson said. “And you’ve done more than enough to help us, you know! Between bringing in refugees to help increase our numbers, and fighting the undead and goblins and god only knows what else… You’ve made quite a name for yourself around here. I think you’ll find a lot of folks will go out of their way to help, if you need it.”

  That felt weird, but I’d take it. I turned to go.

  “You need a place to get some rest?” Levinson asked.

  I shook my head. Between my stamina crystals and the coffee, I was feeling up for round two, and the longer I gave the ants to prepare, the harder the fight was going to be. “No, I’ve got a hot date with a certain queen ant.”

  He blinked, then shrugged. “If that’s what you want. Master Sergeant Farnsworth is out by the gate where you came in. You should be able to get back out the same way without any trouble. Good luck—stay safe!”

  “Thanks again, Doctor.” I flashed him one more smile, then turned and left the building, marching through the cool night air back toward the gate where Sue and Hope waited for me.

  It wasn’t me who needed to worry about being safe. Not tonight.