New Beginnings Read online

New Beginnings

  by

  Michael D. Britton

  * * * *

  Copyright 2012 by Michael D. Britton / Intelligent Life Books

  It was a simple thing, really.

  Cut away the skin, carve into the muscles and sinews, pull back the tendons, reveal the bone. Extract the sample, close.

  I suppose it would’ve been a little easier if I had not been in a zero-G environment.

  And if the subject were not a baby.

  An unborn baby.

  Okay, so it wasn’t a simple thing at all.

  Oh, and the fact that I was missing an arm didn’t help, either.

  And not only did my life depend on it – but also the lives of a couple thousand colonists.

  Also, I had no prior training in this kind of thing.

  I was about as far from a prenatal surgeon as you could be: I was a unit commander for the 12th Spaceborne.

  #

  We’d spent the last forty days straight repelling the insurgent forces in orbit of Mars.

  Those cowardly snakes fought with no ethics whatsoever – laying cloaked mines throughout the x-zone just beyond the upper atmosphere, taking long-range plasma potshots from the polar regions, infiltrating our ranks and sabotaging our operations from the inside out. They also targeted the most vulnerable: schools and hospitals topping their list.

  The last attack came thirty-six hours ago.

  They laid waste to one of the nurseries aboard this generational cruiser we’re guarding – killed about a hundred infants and fifty or so incubates.

  Innocents I’d come here specifically to protect. In particular, my own infant nieces and unborn nephew.

  The plasma charge ripped a sizable chunk right out of the hull, and the emergency fields immediately sealed the hole – with me stuck inside, alone with dozens of tiny dead bodies littered around what was left of the damaged facility.

  “How long till you can get me out of here?” I asked, communicating with Lieutenant McMaster via the two-way bead in my ear canal.

  “We’re still taking heavy casualties out here, Sir. As soon as we’ve routed the enemy and secured the bridge we’ll get a crew down there to extract you. Just sit tight, Sir – and we’ll –”

  “McMaster? Lieutenant, are you there?”

  Silence.

  Great.

  I felt a low rumble in the deck plates and heard a crunching, moaning sound move around the perimeter of the room. I watched as the debris sprinkled across the floor started to dance around, then the blue lighting flickered and went out.

  Suddenly, I felt weightless.

  Half of the lights came back on, just in time for the lifeless body of a baby boy to bump into my face. I groaned and pushed it away, and watched it coast across the room, bouncing off other tiny bodies and pieces of smashed equipment.

  I reached for a steel table that was bolted to the floor and stopped my gentle spinning motion.

  Then the whole place rocked violently, darkening the lights once again. A searing pain in my left arm made me cry out in anguish. I released the table reflexively and reached for my new wound.

  The lights came back even dimmer than before, and I looked at my left arm to assess the damage – but it was –

  Gone.

  As if in a weird dream, I watched it floating toward the energy field that held me and everything else in this room from being pushed out into space. It tumbled end-over-end, a stream of dark blood trailing in a spiral behind it.

  I looked back at where my arm should’ve been – a stump that also streamed blood that randomly sprayed into the space beside me.

  I looked down, and my numb mind put together what had happened – the fire-axe embedded in the floor at my feet had been blown at me in the last blast.

  Could’ve been worse.

  Fortunately, I was trapped in a facility with advanced medical equipment – I could just retrieve my arm and use an Auto-Surg to do a field re-attachment.

  Without even waiting to stop the bleeding, I started to push off toward my arm, which continued to spin toward the energy field.

  Then my arm – the severed one – struck the field, and disintegrated in a flash of yellow sparks.

  I reached back to the table with my remaining arm and firmly gripped it, preventing myself from floating toward the energy field.

  It was malfunctioning.

  It shouldn’t have zapped my arm like that – the field is supposed to be neutral.

  My arm.

  My arm!

  It was truly gone, now.

  This was looking more grim by the moment.

  I switched to Plan B, and scanned around for something with which to stop the bleeding. I quickly spotted a supply cabinet with a broken door, nearer the inner wall. I pushed off toward it, found a roll of gauze, and tore it open with my teeth. Then I wrapped my legs around another anchored table and dressed the wound, sealing off the stump with a tightly tied strip of gauze.

  It wasn’t pretty, but it would have to do for now.

  I needed to assess the situation, so I pushed off gently with my feet and glided to a manual computer interface. The zero-gravity, combined with severe blood loss, made me dizzy and weak. I reached the interface, grabbed onto the console, and shook my head to clear my blurring vision.

  I positioned my feet under the bottom edge of the console to prevent myself from drifting away. One-handed, I input a few basic commands to get a view of the ship’s status report and some surveillance feeds from the main decks.

  It was worse than I expected.

  Much worse.

  Visuals showed the aftermath of a deadly battle aboard the vessel – deadly to the last man. The ship was mostly deserted – records showed that a few hundred survivors had launched escape pods during the thick of the fight, leaving only soldiers from our side and the enemy aboard – along with too many dead civilians to count.

  My men who’d remained were all dead now – along with all of the insurgents.

  A scan of the data showed that none of my family members who’d been aboard had made it to the escape pods.

  My whole family – dead.

  I pushed the thought aside – I couldn’t let that affect me – I still had a job to do.

  Status reports showed the ship on autopilot. I plotted the trajectory to a colonial settlement on the western plains – population 2,800.

  This ship – a generation vessel – was about the size of that whole community. And traveling at nearly a thousand kilometers an hour, they’d never know what hit them.

  I had to get out of this morgue for children and to the bridge – I had to prevent even more death and destruction.

  My remaining hand shook as I pulled up a schematic of the room. With the damage to the hull and the main entrance offline, there was only one way out – a service hatch at the back of the incubation chamber.

  I pushed off again and floated to the chamber, pulled myself awkwardly through the door, and moved past the dead babies to the back. Their tiny bodies – still forming as if in the womb – looked as if they were sleeping. Yet they’d never had even a chance to live, let alone to live the dreams they appeared to be having in their still silence.

  I reached the hatch and studied it. Two large handles, each about three feet apart, operated the sealing function. A quick turn of each and I’d be free.

  The first one wouldn’t budge.

  I tried the other. Same thing.

  I read the small instruction label and sighed heavily.

  Both handles needed to be turned simultaneously to release the hatch cover.

  Holding on with my one hand, I contorted my body until my foot was on the second handle, and tried to turn it.

  It wa
s no use – this was a job for two hands.

  Thankfully, I was in a medical facility equipped with the finest e-physicians available.

  “Auto-Nurse,” I said loudly, trying to activate the facility’s medical computer system.

  “Au-au Auto-Nurse ac-activated -vated,” the system speakers sputtered as the program came to life.

  “Nurse, I need emergency assistance,” I said. “My arm has been amputated – I need the Auto-Surg to reattach it.”

  “The Automated Surgeon System has been damaged beyond repair. Any triage must be performed by a human. Audio instructions are available for six-hundred basic procedures. Please specify desired procedure.”

  Basic procedures.

  “Uh, is ‘limb reattachment’ on the list of procedures with instructions?”

  “No.”

  “Arrrgh!” I pounded my one good fist on the hatch in frustration. A deep, hollow boom resounded from within.

  I laid my sweaty head on my forearm.

  Think.

  Think!

  “Auto-Nurse, are you programmed to problem-solve?”

  “Yes. I am capable of differential diagnosis, prognosis, algorithmic determination, and inductive solution development. Please state parameters.”

  “Parameters?”

  “Outline