20 Seconds... (Part 2)
11 Mar 2020Rex-Cramer
With Kayley in the Med Ward at Karian Vision and Dragonfly off to the Bubble for some refitting and repair, I took the Cutter, Horosha, out to obtain material for station repairs in Lembass. With some further modifications Horosha was able to carry the full load of about 728T of cargo. The 7D thrusters that were engineered grade 5 for better response in mining were not able to carry much more than about 550T. I had to swap thrusters and stick with only G1 level modifications to handle the full carry capacity. With that done I turned to hauling Tantalum, Copper, Robotics, and Ceramic Composits. With nearly 10,000T of each needed there was no danger of having nothing to do very soon.In this way the days ticked by. 300 - 800K per load. Run eight loads, and check in on Kayley. No change, non-responsive. Run eight more loads, check in on Kayley. This repeated day by day slowly whittling down the needed materials, slowing whittling down my soul. On my last visit though I bumped into an intern that said if I wanted the best outcome, to try taking her to Bray Landing in Yuanjia. They had a much better trauma team with more head injury experience due to the refinery operation there. She was not doing poorly, but he'd have expected her to be awake by now and feared something was being missed. I wasted no time in arranging transport to the Bray station in Horosha. The crew at Bray were waiting when we landed and brought her in to their facility and began an immediate round of tests. They told me to check back in a couple of days. It was disturbing to see her still lying there with so much attached to her but I put it out of my mind and went on.
More hauling runs. A couple of long distance runs were made to bring in Emergency Power Cells but I can only haul 440T with a reasonable jump range. Edwin and I cleared Copper, and Indium over a couple days of hauling including some with another CMDR. Finally I could not keep my mind at bay, I had to check on her. I landed at Bray made a b-line for the hospital ward and up to her room. When I walked in my heart skipped a beat. She was awake and speaking to a nurse. They were going over the deep tissue repair implants in her shoulders and how long she could expect to feel discomfort there. I stopped, and closed my eyes, my shoulders sagged, and it felt my entire body was released from a cast.
A loudly whispered "Hey You" woke me from my state of relief. "Came here to admire your handy work then huh", she said with a stone serious face as I looked up and then immediately down feeling like a vice just clamped on my chest. "Kayley, I am so"... "Hey, I'm kidding you Frank", she said with a strained laugh. "Damn, this much guilt and maybe I need to ask for a raise", she said with a bright smile. I couldn't get anything coherent out of my mouth. I just walked over and kissed her forehead and said, "Excuse me a moment" while I stepped outside to deal with my "allergies".
A few minutes later I came back with myself composed and we chatted about her recovery. Docs there had decided to place a drain to clear swelling in the skull faster and that seemed to accelerate her return to consciousness. She could not recall much of the immediate events leading up to her injury and still had very poor vision in her left eye but they expected her to make a full recovery. After a bit of catching up on events I told her I had a surprise for her. "Ohhh", she squeaked, "something good"!
I pulled out the Pilot's Federation message copy I'd made days ago and handed it to her. She looked at it. Held it close and then far. "Hey, can you read it please", she said a bit sheepishly. "I can't see for shit right now, even my good eye is pretty bad". "Sure", i replied as I took it back. "So Ahhheemm, The Pilots Federation congratulates Pilot Kayley Lyn Cambell on her recent promotion to the rank of 'Dangerous' in the skill of combat flight operations. Her...". "No way", she blurted out. "No WAY"! "Yes, yes way dear", I said. Those scouts we picked off just before this were enough to put you over the requirement. I didn't see the message until after the emergency repairs were done and you were out", I explained.
Her face lit up and color seemed to flow back into her for a bit. "Hey, you even made it before I did", I chuckled. "Figures, you never let the boss win one you know", I said? "Nope", she flipped back with a beaming smile. "So maybe you'll get that raise after all", I winked to her. "Better, I'm in high demand now buddy. Who is not going to want all this", she quipped back motioning to all her attached medical equipment.
I asked if she'd like me to stay a while and she said, "yeah, that'd be nice". So I settled into a chair next to the bed and held her hand until she fell asleep watching the local news program. I gently put her bruised up arm back on the bed, pulled the blanket up a bit and made my way back to Horosha. Back to the bubble for a few more days to get Firefly redone and now I can go with the weight of the Galaxy off my shoulders. Back to the grind.