Trampship Wars 2 Read online

  Shaking his head as his brain was suddenly wracked with pain for a few seconds as he carefully held his head still. “No! No. C c rew cannot make them into weapons.”

  The Chief looked at Mark and then at the body in front of him with a frown. Then the Chief took picked the torch from Mark’s hand and pointed it at the overhead and pulled the trigger creating a 12,000 degree spot 6 inches from the muzzle. Adjusting the controls he tried again and then again. Moving the hot spot closer to the muzzle. Not being able to make the torch shoot any farther than 6 inches.

  The Chief looked at the torch and then the hole in the body that had been rolled over by the medics and then back at the torch.

  Turning back to Mark. “Promise me you will never tell anyone how you did that Collins. Got that. I don’t even want to know. It is a ship’s secret now.”

  Trying to even speak hurt his head but he opened his mouth and said. “Sure Chief, I promise.” And held up his right hand to swear. Then passed out. Falling back into the breasts of the 16 year old daughter of the Chief Master at Arms that refused to let him go of him again even as the medics decided that the goon with a hole in his chest was dead and tried to take over Mark’s care arrived .

  Chapter 6: Mess deck murders

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  Mark opened his eyes and immediately realized he was in sickbay. “Shit!” Mark tried to sit up and only got his head off the pillow before his head started spinning and he flopped back down as his head lolled over. Mark closed his eyes to keep the world from spinning and his head from splitting open.

  “Let that be a lesson to you. Stay down.” Mark did not recognize the voice as he carefully opened his eyes and looked over. An older woman looked back at him from the chair and then up at the monitor screen over his head. A vague recollection of seeing her someplace before came to mind but could not place it or who she was. And then he remembered that she was a friend of his mother ’ s as she said . “You have a concussion. That pipe almost split your head open. I am going to give you a treatment as soon as you can handle it. Right now just lay there. I have to get the fluid pressure down first.”

  Mark swallowed. “I can’t be here. Dian might see me. I have to leave.” Mark started to sit up again trying to use his hands on the rail to pull himself up and the gal shaking her head pushed his hands back down.

  “I really don’t want to knock you out but I will if you keep being stupid. I need you conscious to do the treatment safely.” Staring at him she smiled. “Besides your Dian has been transferred to the new wing in the park with the new English equipment to replace her hip. You are safe here from the woman that wants to kill you for now.” Shaking her head frowning. “You really need to work on your people skills with so many people trying to kill you over the last week.” Smiling she looked over her shoulder. “But then there is a woman a few rooms away that wants to jump your bones something awful since you saved her life from the poison gas. I told her she has to wait until you can run up a couple decks of ladders first. I just hope she can wait that long. She is one hell of a bitch when she is unhappy and horney.”

  “Ok. Aaa. What about Jolleen. She looked like shit the last time I saw her.”

  “She is fine. The only thing that penetrated her was that ass holes fingers. The news that you killed the guy that did it to her made her whole day. She has just finished her first session with your mother and I told her she had to wait as well, though not quite as long. I told her she can see you as soon as I get done with your first treatment. Though no bone jumping for a while.”

  “Godstar my head and back is killing me and my arm and aa are you sure Jolleen is alright. Can I please see her now? I. I. Aaa I just need to make sure she is ok. Ok? Mark felt his eyes start to water making it hard to see. Not believing Jolleen she was ok. All thoughts of Dian long gone.”

  “All right already. I just can’t resist guys that cry.” She got up turning to the rooms comm.

  “I am not crying damn it. My head just hurts.” H is voice said the opposite .

  Smiling down at him shaking her head. She squeezed his arm. I would wipe your eyes but I was told to leave your glasses on. Something about Nannites. Let me get someone in here to watch you and I will go and get Jolleen for you.”

  Mickey walked into the room and smiled down at Mark then turned to the Doctor. “I will watch him while you get Jolleen.”

  “Ahh I don’t know you and I know all the doctors on this ship.”

  “I am a visiting specialist sent to keep an eye on and advise on Mr. Collins treatment condition if the need arises. Seeing his friend will help his recovery.”

  The Doctor looked at Mickey narrowing her eyes and then suddenly they grew large. “You are a hologram. You’re not real.”

  “Of course I am real. Not just physically here. I will keep an eye on Mark while you get his friend. I am sure you want to talk to her first, setting down several strict rules like no jumping his bones yet though that is not a problem. But I am sure you have others before letting her see him at this critical time.”

  Her mouth opened as she stared for a few seconds. “Yes. No jumping bones.” Turning she stepped to the door and looked back before leaving.

  Mickey watched her go directly to Dr. Wells office and talk to him for several minutes before leaving to another part of the sickbay to and get ting Jolleen.

  “High.” Mark said looking up at her and smiling as he reached for her but stopped before touching her arm. “I take it I am a mess.”

  “Not half as bad as the two other guys.” They got to Perry’s family before anyone else and his wife is talking up a storm. And they even arrested Mr. Greedly still in the aircar on minor charges that won’t interfere with the bigger murder case but it will keep him out of circulation for a while.”

  Mark started to close his eyes.

  “No love. You have to stay awake now. If you sleep now , you may never wake again.”

  Mark opened his eyes and looked at Mickey with a smile. “That bad hu?”

  “Yes and no. You will be good as new by tomorrow morning but getting to dinner is going to be a bitch. That pipe hit you damn hard love. That ass hole knew how to whip the end around fast with sho rt strokes rt strokes . Probably with lots of practice. Anyone else would be dead.”

  “Thanks. So I stay awake tell Dinner?” Mark took a deep breath. “ With this head ache, H h ow hard can that be?”

  “I am sorry Mark but the hard part is going to be not passing out from the pain of the treatments.” She frowned down at Mark as tears seemed to come to her eyes. “I can’t give you any pain killers or help in most ways. The only thing I and my Nannites can do is make the treatments more productive so each won’t be as long and you don’t have to take as many of them. I can also use the pain to open more of your brain’s nerons neurons, improve , your memory as well as neural pathways while enlarging blood vessels to allow more blood to reach your brain when needed while fixing a little aneurism deep inside your cortex and adding a little armor . I will also use the pain to teach you to think and react faster but it wil l also make the pain a little more intense while giving you something but the pain to think about love. Allowing you to tolerate the treatments better. I am sorry, but if I don’t speed up your mind, reaction time and endurance, the next time you decide not to kill a bad guy trying to kill you, you could be killed.”

  Shaking her head. “Fact is. If you could have sped up your mind again when you grabbed for the pipe the last time, or even when you threw the short pipe, you could have ended the fight and taken that ass hole alive. But your mind simply was never trained for the stresses required to over clock your brain multiple times so close together and it simply refused to.” Taking a deep breath even though she did not need to. “Just remember that I will always love you and the pain will end.” She did not tell Mark that her Nannites were constructing a thin shell around his brain to protect and cushion it from future blows. Cutting out a layer of his skull with the large Nannites Dr.
Wells had injected into Mark days before was what half the pain would be coming from so her smaller more advanced Nannites could build an the extremely strong Carbon shell with cooling channels around the inside of his skull . While the Doctor’s treatment to help the brain repair itself with Mickey’s help was the rest.

  “Ok… Aaa.. Does that mean what I think it does? That I could die?”

  “Yes love, we could die. I was not kidding about making it to dinner. We only have a 40% chance of living to dinner even though the other damage to your body is easily repaired.” The damage was why Mickey was adding the new protective shell to his entire skeleton. While his mind was damaged the worst, the pipe had almost broken Mark’s back while cracking several other bones.

  “Ok cute. Only 40% chance.”

  “ Forty percent for a normal human but you have me and I have confidence that we will survive this Mark. You are a tough kid. Though there are too many variables for me to accurately calculate how much better your chances of survival are. ” The fact that she was simply doing so much more than what was required f or Mark to survive the concussion actually made his chances worse in some respects. But this was the only chance she would get to make the many improvements she knew Mark needed. Most of which she could not do outside the sickbay or to be more exact, the intensive care bay .

  “Mark frowned. “I feel like my skin is starting to burn all over my body. Is that normal?”

  “Yes Mark, that part should not get that painful but persist for the rest of the afternoon.” Mickey lied. The ship’s Nannites were already hard at work shaving the bones in his body so her ’ s could construct carbon shells to strengthen the bones. Not normal procedures with some risks all their own. Though nothing compared to repairing the damage to his skul l and bra in head .

  The Doctor came in with Jolleen in tow. She checked Mark over, changed the setting on the lamp shinning on his head then turned to Jolleen. Remember don’t touch his head and you only have a few minutes.” Then started to walk out to give them a few minutes of privacy but glancing at Mickey that showed no signs of leaving and frowning, she stopped in the middle of the door.

  “High.” Mark said. “You look great. I thought after the way you were knocked around, you would be black and blue all over.”

  Shrugging she smiled at him. “I was when I came in but they have great makeup around here and a healing lamp is to die for.” She joked and then bit her lip as tears came to her eyes as she realized what she had said. Taking his hand. “You look like shit. Why didn’t you just shoot him? I should box your ears off for playing with the ass hole instead of just killing him so long .”

  “That’s ok. Perry He did that already.”

  “You just wait until you get out of her, I am going to do it again. What the hell were you thinking specks?”

  “Been wondering that myself flats. Do me a favor and tell my parents that I love them and I am sorry I put them through so much over the years.” Smiling and getting a bit bashful. “And have them tell you the same thing for me and aaa. That I do love you.” Mark looked down at Jolleen’s fingers turning white as she squeezed his hand with hers. Not believing that he had said that to her.

  Seeing were the conversation was going the Doctor stepped forward. “Ok that is enough. Mark is ready for his first treatment. The sooner I get him in there the better. You can see him again in about 6 4 hours if everything goes well.”

  Jolleen bent over and kissed Mark’s hand then turned around and ran out.

  Mickey turned to the Doctor. “I have had the English set up their internal cell regenerator ahead of schedule, they are still in the process of attaching the new hip and are several days from needing the regenerator. Theirs will do a much better job than the old one here. It has many advancements for head trauma cases increasing the effectiveness and Mark’s chances of surviving the treatments.”

  “I was not aware that they even had a new one down there and was planning on using ours.” She looked up at the complicated machinery hanging over Mark. “I was trying to figure out how to move this one back and forth between the clinic bays.” Frowning. “But I have no clue what the English one can do and..”

  “I have already sent Mark’s file to their expert. He will be ready by the time you get Mark down there.”

  “Ya all he has to do is survive the short bumpy trip. No, they have grave gurneys down there. Damn it.” Turning she readjusted the lamp over his head then rushed out bellowing orders. “Get me one of those Grav gurneys from the garden bay clinic up here stat.”

  Mickey smiled down at Mark. “I need you to push that lamp panel up and turn it a bit to shine down across your whole body love.”

  Mark reached up and did as he was asked until it was pointed where Mickey wanted it and then the part of the panel that was pointing at the rest of Mark’s body brightened up considerable. “Ok. That seems to be helping with the burning sensation clear down to my toes.”

  “The grav-gurney that will be arriving has lamps built into the mattress and will continue helping the rest of your body heal.” Mickey did not tell Mark that with the lamps in the mattress of the grav-gurney she would be able to greatly increase the numbers of Nannites working all through his body. Looking over at the Nannite pump attached to his IV, she was already increasing the numbers of flooding his body with more the much bigger and cruder N annites Nannites the English had, flooding into his body. Though she would soon have to start putting construction and the materials into Mark that were needed for her much more advanced and smaller Nannites to construct the light weight armored shells for Marks protection . Her biggest problem now was and would continue to be, trying to keep the damn ship’s Nannites from cleaning everything out of Mark’s blood which included her nanites Nannites . Which was the ship’s nanites Nannites original primary job until she reprogrammed most of them . But there were always a few that missed the signal or simply did not take the new programing.

  The English medical experts were just now starting to realize that cleaning all toxins out of the environment and the human body just made the body week over time. More prone to getting sick and dying even from when it did get old age or sick from even a minor illness. A simple thing like breathing pure clean air from birth made people more prone to emphysema and other lung diseases. Mickey had realized that the life expectancy of the population a thousand years before when she was created was three times that of what the supposedly modern Galactic citizen could expect at that time. So much had been lost during the Cleansing War with the bugs. Small levels of toxins in the air, water, food and body and stress, forced the body to react against the intruders, exercising its repair and disease control systems to protect and strengthen the body and keep it alive.

  Taking away all toxins and germs making the blood and the environment crystal clean from everything that was bad for the body was like making a person lay in an isolat ion ed bed with no outside influences without moving or any mental stimulus for their entire short life. The body and mind simply wastes away and dies. Even developing breathing problems for even minor particles never before considered contaminants. A minimum amount of toxins and things irritating to the mind and body as well as physical work were needed to keep the body and mind healthy.

  The Doctor came back with the grav-gurney and spotted the change in the medical light panel. Her specialty and concern at the moment was Marks brain and nervous system and not the rest of his bodies other problem s . While Mickey knew that she needed to treat all of Mark’s problems together, not only for a rapid recovery but to increase his chances of living after he got out of the hospital.

  So started a tug of war between the Doctor and Mickey that would last the rest of the day with Dr. Wells trying to referee. With Mickey getting more and more frustrated that she could not do anything physically herself. Not even hook up the I.V. to inject the building blocks her Nannites needed to construct the armored shell which the Star Queen’s surgeon kept refusing to allow until Mickey went to Doctor W
ells and another heated argument ensued.

  -------------------------

  The Pumacat Doctor stood beside the elevator as the door opened and the ship’s Captain walked out with his Gronk guards.

  Staring at the Doctor the Captain’s main puffed up as he strode past her without saying a word and headed for the ring of cells circling the deck’s outer hull. A DNA scanner in is hands. He scanned a dozen cells taking a close look at each of the cell’s occupants just in case the scanner was malfunctioning.

  In the 13th cell the scanner went wild. “Yes! You had technician Instapal in this cell.” Turning to show the Doctor the screen the Captain was ecstatic. Then turning back to the cell he looked at the two female occupants before turning back to the Doctor with a scrawl. “Where is Instapal?”

  The Doctor shook her head frowning. “I am sorry Captain but part of last night’s feeding came from this cell.”

  “What?” The Captian roared. “You fed my technician to the crew?”

  Hooking her thumb toward the Sargent Gronk standing a few steps to one side with his squad. “The Gronk picked the pray and they do like the more feisty one’s to eat.”

  Turning to the Gronk the Doctor pointed out. “You took my technitian technician for dinner?”

  The Gronk Sargent looked up at the cell’s number and shrugged his shoulders. “Food was very noise and demanding. Did not want to leave females. Food fought extremely well on dinner table before we eat it.”

  The Doctor stepped forward. “Fact is Captain. I do seam seem to remember a good half dozen food slaves were incredible troublesome over the last week. If I remember right all of them were from cells with more than the usual numbers of female slaves.” Turning to the Gronk Sargent. “You remember them don’t you Sargent Cumpshit?”