<continued from Part I>
* * *
Ophromatos Saidel Orbital Military Hospital, 15 Sagittae A "Ophramatos," May
28, 2173
"Five weeks?!" Ina Konora exclaimed. "Five weeks to transfer a
neuro-traum?" With dark irony, she drew a long breath of her cigarrette,
which her intern so strongly refered to as a "cancer-stick," as she glowered
at the three bio-beds that were primarily sustaining her newest patients.
>From the lobby of Ri-gel�s ER ward, the relatively quiet night allowed her
for a brief view of Ophromatos, the timelocked fifth moon of a red
gas-giant, Ophrodia. The Ophromatos Orbital Hospital had originally been a
public medi-cal facility for the colonists below. However, due to Rigel�s
proximity to the Corron border, it had been converted, like many other
orbital facilities within the Periphery, into a DeForce military
installation�without much compensation to her previous charges.
"I�m sorry, ma�am," the intern replied. Her response was text-bookish,
about the best Konora could expect from this sloppish, easily intimidated
Core World medicians. "The study of neuro-traumatics of durational
hibernation is stll a rather neglected field in physiology. Physiological
reprecussions are rarely this...farreaching, and the availability of
necessary specialists is accordingly infrequent. A psyche-consult might be
in order, though; after all, we don�t know the extent of the damage done�it
might not be all that bad."
"They don�t need a damn shrink!" Dr. Konora huffed, and stared angrily
out her office window at the sandy gold world below. A medical doctor of
twenty years, Ina Konora�age 43�had long left the line of great
cyber-engineers, founded by her forefather Raizo Konora. Three years
residency with this hospital, and she was still frustrated with the methods
of bureacracy this hell-hole employed. Frustration with red-tape,
unfortunately, was a family legacy she wasn�t bound to discard as easily as
others. The Konora clan included a rather impatient lot. "I don�t care.
Do what you have to do, but I want that transfer time cut in half!"
"We�re trying to cut it down to three weeks," the intern pleaded, but
her eyes were as weary and heavy as Konora�s. "Personnel is working hard on
this�"
"These people have been in hibernation for seventy-five years!" Konora
turned from the starfield. "You just can�t fit their revival time around a
schedule. You tell Personnel to get off their collective asses and start
doing their fucking jobs! What the hell ever happened to the grand
�military alacrity� I�ve heard so much about?"
"Doctor, there�s nothing we can do. We�ll just have to wait"
You know she�s right, Konora told herself. The intern had tried, but
the bureacracy had stepped in, placing her patients on a lower priority to
facilitate the annual check-up of Ophramatos colonial governor. At the
center of the entire goddamned Confederation, and she couldn�t even pull a
single specialist in less than a month..
"Let�s take a look," Konora huffed.
The walk to D-wing wasn�t that long. The hospital appeared smaller than
even the Pasori MOCC�s sickbay, and they probably didn�t have half the
staffing problems Ophromatos suffered. The Periphery, by its mere proximity
to a hostile, interstellar empire, drew most of Navy Medical�s human
resources on-board the large-scale pickets out there. Ophramatos, "safely"
basking in the warm, Sol-like radiance of 15 Sagittae A�a yellow, G1 star
fifty-four lightyears from Earth�drew no particular attention from Com-mand.
No, only a full-scale invasion could scare the fleet back to the Core
Worlds, and the Saggitae Sys-tem station had to deal with Navy Medical�s
short straw.
"The male?"
"David Yatsumi? Death at two-thirty-seven this morning," the intern
yawned out, not really under-standing the insensitivity of her remark.
Konora spared her a dirty look. "Surgeon Lieutenant Gigliciatto made the
call, ma�am."
She muttered under her breath. A little more time, maybe�better
facilities to deal with this unique case. We could have saved him, but for
what? The paralysis of half of his body, and his mind had with-ered into an
involuntary nothingness. The medical term for that state was "partial
death," a condition as feared as a real deal itself. He�d be nothing more
than a living corpse, condemned to an intensive care unit for the rest of
his natural life�which, at best, would�ve lasted three or four more months.
What parts of his body continued to function did so at an astoundingly low
rate, and the improper hypersleep condi-tions had not shielded him fully
from the radiation and grav-pockets the escape pod had encountered during
its seventy-five year tromp at the edge of the Pasori system. The cancer
that ate at the remaing vestiges of his lifeforce finally succeeded in
consuming him, at 0237h this morning.
"Comotosis has fully set in," she lifted an autopsy report; Konora had
yet to hear the details of David�s cyrogenic mishap. "The helium freezing
attacked his optical cavities almost immediately, completely freezing his
left lobe. The rest just gave out, after swelling...profusely. It was
quick�painless, perhaps. It�s almost as if wanted to die, ma�am. Only fair
to let the other half go."
But it wasn�t fair. He had saved the life of his sisters, only to have
fate cheat him through a technical malfunction. It was clear they would
never really know the full story of what had happened, at least not for some
time.
* * *
They say that warping space has some sort of biological "preservation"
effect. Those who�ve traveled constantly on warp-equipped vessels have
often found their cells rejuvenated, their longetivity increased sometimes
twenty to forty years beyond the already improving human lifespan.
Somewhere, in that framework of tachyons and super-gravity, the secret of
eternal youth lay wrapped up in the hyperstate quantum-level particles
favored by time, rather than space.
Voices.
Kyoko eyes opened to gaze upon blinding, immaculate radiance. Her
eyes...no, they were still shut. No, she looked upon the universe as her
essence perceived. She felt alone, as if the universe had arrived on the
door-step of its abeyance. The monotony of it all disheartened her; then,
all of a sudden, vague silohuettes began to punctuate the brilliance,
She tried to speak, yet her as her muscles strained to form the words,
her voice fell prostrate to the tsu-nami of silence which enveloped her.
The white light...
She stared into it before shielding her eyes.
Light. Death light. She had returned to that fatal moment...the
shuttle, the red shuttle and the lateral white stripe. Her family...dear
god, her family!
A shadow darkened the light, and another...
?!?
Daddy! Her screams cries out in agonizing despair. Nothing. Nothing
but a whisper�the one sound that defied the smothering silence...
whisper...
DADDY!!! she screams a second time. Nothing, or something.
whisper....
"DADDY!!!" she screams a third time...
...and for the first time in ages, her eyes opened; the fire within them
radiated unimaginable terror. The tortuous nightmare that had plagued her
soul tore out of her through the momentum of her sheer panic. A
blood-curdling scream ripped from her trembling lips, drawing the attention
of the two figures standing behind the distant transparency. For the first
time in seventy-five years, the hellish nightmare gorged itself on the
total, animate fear inhabiting all of living reality...
* * *
Earth...
Hikaru Yatsumi, ninety-five and greying, appeared far more wizened and
feeble than he had any right to be. In an age where the human lifespan
peaked at the century mark and diminished after two, the elderly gentleman
found his bones unjustifiably aching and his once youthful, vibrant skin now
calloused and mellow. Still, his stature radiated confidence and health,
and despite the wrinkles criss-crossing about his face, his senses of vision
and hearing were just as acute as they had been forty years ago.
His wrist chronometer chimed four o�lock the afternoon, station-time, as
he looked up to see the de-barking rush of space-liner passengers racing for
their scheduled planetary shuttles�pushing and shoving each other along with
way. The old man smiled inwardly, remembering a time when he had thought
that life was too short to let a moment pass by in wasteful idleness;
businessmen and tourists alike doomed endless cycle of haste and rush which
only time would prove its futility. Then, emerging from the faceless deluge
of the mob, four silohuettes materialized before him. As they approached,
the elderly man rose slowly to his feet, he recognized the two Marine
sentries the Personnel Department told him he�d be waiting for. Within
their company, two small, slightly frightened, and thoroughly bewildered
young girls huddled closely to the shorter of the sentries. Hikaru�s eyes
searched their faces�he suddenly felt as if he were torn between relief and
distress.
Seventy five years, Hiro. Seventy-five years.
"Mister Hikaru Yatsumi?"
"Yes, Corporal," Mr. Yatsumi answered softly. Then, he forced himself
down onto one knee to get a better look at his nieces.
"Well, well now. What do we have here?" Inspecting the children�s
quizzical expressions, Hikaru Yat-sumi smiled broadly as his aged features
curled and contorted warmly about his wry, elfish face Kyoko grinned right
back, her eyes glittering as she looked past the face�s worn features to
find her uncle, hiding delightfully in the shell of an old man. Taking a
few distancing steps back, the corporal nodded approv-ingly before looking
down at the older sister.
"Go on, child," the soldier nudged sixteen year-old Linna forward, yet
she expressed absolutely no in-terest in introductory formalities. As
Hikaru�s eye migrated from Kyoko to her older sister, his grin faded as he
gazed into Linna�s cold, listless eyes. For a moment, he seemed to lose
himself in that emptiness, and the emotionless gaze tore at his heart�devoid
of happiness and life. Only the strong clasp of Kyoko�s hand on his brought
him back, and the helpless sensation that had flushed across his entire
be-ing dissipated into the greys and whites of a bustling shuttle terminal.
The taller Marine, a buck-sergeant, smiled sympathetically at the kids�
new guardian, extending his hand in a friendly gesture. "Good luck, Sir.
The young one�s quite a handful."
Mr. Yatsumi accepted the gesture graciously. As the Marines made their
way back towards the military block, he stooped down to Linna and Kyoko�s
height to introduce himself. "I hope you remember me. I�m your uncle,
Hikaru."
Twelve year-old Kyoko scrudged her nose in wry recognition. Some things
seemed to never change, as Uncle Hikaru had always looked old to her.
Nonetheless, a lot of other things had changed, inside of her and out in the
world.
* * *
* * *
+-----------------+-<The Badass Reverend of Funk Prez>---+
| Presley H. | Political Science / Computer Science |
| Cannady II | and Electrical Engineering Undergrad |
|<revprez@mit.edu>| at the Mass. Institute of Technology |
+-----------------+-<Anime Manga Development Group>------+
+ Author of Liars and Dreamers, a Robotech fanfic +
+-------<http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/1731/index.html>-+
| MIDN 4/c A-2-2 SQD, MIT-Harvard-Tufts NROTC Battalion |
|_|"The art of war is of vital importance to the state"|_|