Set'em Up Read online

  The next step was to take the local anesthetic and fill the sizable syringe as much as I could, taking care to tap out the extra air that had been trapped inside. I walked up to the site of the broken bone. Being as gentle as I could, I injected the anesthetic at different points around the wound.

  I knew it was working because the Lilstar finally stopped crying.

  After I was sure the ship couldn’t feel any pain in the local area, I ran my hand gently across the break, trying to ascertain the exact type of injury it was and what kind of damage it had caused. I could barely make out the falsebone structure through the semi-translucent epidermis. It seemed that the rib was in three salvageable pieces. It was a significant wound, but there was surprisingly minimal tissue or vessel damage from it. Of course, I’d probably cause more damage creating an incision in the epidermis and trying to put the falsebone back together into something that looked like a functional ship’s rib.

  That, unfortunately, was going to hurt and there was no general anesthetic I could give the Lilstar to make it go away. The only places that were allowed to have that kind of anesthetic in stock were shipyards that fixed bones like this on a regular basis.

  The other problem was that I was going to need an assistant for this. The four-inch-diameter falsebone was broken inward, making it difficult to push back into place and put the mesh splint on it at the same time. Plus, I wasn’t certain I was actually strong enough to pop the rib back into place anyway. Falsebone was almost as strong as steel and far less malleable.

  I looked at the sociopath, who had a nasty scowl on his face.

  “I need help,” I said plainly. “Someone has to hold the bone in place while I put the mesh on.”

  “I’m not releasing Miss King,” Ottoman said.

  “No, I figured you would help,” I said honestly. Ottoman snorted at me.

  “I’m not going anywhere near you with those knives nearby, imp,” Ottoman grinned wolfishly. I took a step toward him.

  “Then you open up the possibility of a ReHy station inspector sending a team of nurses to board the ship and fix the rib themselves, in the process discovering this entire hostage situation. My only concern right now is fixing this ship, which is hurting. I’m not going to try to escape,” I spoke the words in a measured, don’t-mess-with-me tone. I was not lying, either, which Ottoman seemed to recognize.

  “Setesh, come stand here and watch what’s going on,” the sociopath called his twin/clone. The drug addict stumbled down the narrow hall and took Ottoman’s place in the threshold. “If Marcie does something wrong, fry Miss King.”

  Set nodded slowly, and Ottoman followed me to the injury. He put on the plastic gloves and mask that I gestured to. He almost looked like he could be an actual organic nurse, if I did know he was a cold-blooded killer.

  Also the ‘LOVER’ face tattoo was a little obvious.

  I handed the sociopath a roll of tape from the kit and picked up one of the knives.

  “I’m going to cut down to the falsebone. You put tape along either side of the incision so that it doesn’t try to heal itself before I can do anything else. Got it?” I asked, feeling very much like I was a teacher’s assistant for the younger organic biology classes.

  “How about I make the cut, you tape it up?” Ottoman reached for the knife I held.

  “Don’t get grabby,” I chastised him. “You’ll only cause more damage than you fix.”

  The sociopath sighed loudly in resignation.

  Satisfied he wouldn’t try to take the knife again, I went to the injury and began the incision, trying to cut as straight as possible while avoiding any of the arteries and veins that ran along the ship’s ribcage. The thousands of small capillaries I had to cut through began to ooze nutrient-rich…ooze. Organic structures didn’t have blood by any stretch of the imagination, but they did utilize a fluidic system that acted similarly to the circulatory system found in more natural beings, like humans. It helped mostly with transporting nutrients and for space-side injuries, would clot very quickly. Inside, however, it just oozed, making the tape invaluable.

  It took quite a while to cut the incision, despite the fact that the epidermis layer wasn’t all that thick and the knife I had was really sharp. Ship epidermis was designed quite a bit tougher than its building counterparts for the simple reason that, in atmosphere, a hole in the wall was a lot less dangerous than in the vastness of space. At least there was very little muscle in this region, so it was just a lot of really tough skin that I had to cut. There was a bit of connective tissue between the falsebone and the skin, but it was already damaged from the break, so I didn’t have to cut through it.

  When I was finally done with the incision, I gently pulled back the two sides, allowing Ottoman to apply the tape. Once I was satisfied that the incision wasn’t going to close in on itself and that most of the bleeding was stopped, I released the two halves a bit, taking a moment to survey the damage more closely.

  The falsebone was broken, as I had surmised, into three big pieces with a few smaller shards all around. I made Ottoman hold one side of the incision back so I could take out the shards. They wouldn’t heal properly even if I could put them back together, so it was easier just to remove them.

  Once I had cleaned up the area, I looked carefully at the massive artery that ran alongside the left of the rib to make sure it hadn’t been punctured by any of the broken falsebone. After I had confirmed it was intact, I grasped it gently, running my hand up and down, feeling for any hidden weaknesses along the walls. The gloves made that somewhat difficult, but with a visual inspection it appeared to be a relatively strong artery. I could even feel the Lilstar’s heart pumping through it.

  The next task was setting the rib to rights. I decided the best way to fix this would be to straighten out the two relatively intact pieces of falsebone and then try to work the third piece into place. It was a reasonable plan, of course, and it wasn’t even the most complicated fracture I had ever had to deal with.

  It might have been one of the biggest, since I never actually finished my education as an organic nurse, but it definitely wasn’t the most complicated.

  The difficult part was that since the broken section was bent inward, I’d have to push the pieces out as opposed to pulling them in. I tentatively tugged at the falsebone. The Lilstar released a single, whistling note as sort of a hey-you-know-that-hurt-a-little. Even with the local anesthetic, it was still going to suck for the ship. I took a deep breath and braced myself, then I shoved up against the broken falsebone with as much force as I could muster. The Lilstar let out a few more notes that I tried very hard to ignore.

  After a few tries to make sure I wasn’t strong enough, I motioned for Ottoman to push the rib back together. He shoved against it as hard as he could, succeeding on the first try. Unfortunately, he also screwed up big time. As the falsebone snapped into place, his left hand slipped and hit the artery dead on, tearing a big hole into the side of it and causing it to spew nutrient-rich ooze everywhere. The Lilstar began to shriek horribly.

  “You idiot!” I screamed, “Get out of my way!” I reached for Ottoman’s right hand and pulling it across me, exposing his front. As he was bewildered at what was going on and blinded by a spray of nutrient ooze, I kneed him where it hurt. Honestly it was just to get him out of the way as quickly as possible, but I couldn’t say I hadn’t been waiting for the opportunity.

  I wrapped both my hands around the broken artery to stop the bleeding and looked back over my shoulder at Ottoman. He didn’t seem to be too retaliatory over my attacking him and Set was nowhere to be found.

  “Get up, you big baby! Before the ship bleeds out!” I yelled at Ottoman. He stood up slowly, with murder lurking in his eyes.

  I ignored it.

  “I need two of those clamps. Now!” I gestured to the metallic clamps on the tarp. Ottoman, probably despite himself, reached down and grabbed the clamps. “Put one above and one below my hands.”

  The sociopath co
mplied, successfully clamping off the artery. I slowly released my hands to make sure it wasn’t still bleeding. While it was leaking a little nutrient ooze, it wasn’t as bad as it had been. I dabbed my forehead on my sleeve. Of course, Ottoman couldn’t just leave me alone. He grabbed a handful of my hair and yanked my head back so I’d have to look at his face. He also pressed one of the knives from the bone mending kit up against my neck. I could feel the metal biting into my skin.

  “Don’t ever do that again,” he whispered harshly. Although I had a million comebacks of varying degrees of crass, I decided just to keep my mouth shut. Thankfully he got distracted.

  “Where have you been?” he spat at Set as the drug addict reappeared.

  “Restroom. These meds are kicker,” Set said. Internally, I had a lot of thanks to give that the drug addict wasn’t there to see me attack his twin/clone. If he had been, Ariadne would definitely be toast by now.

  Despite this interruption, the rest of the surgery was relatively easy. I stitched up the artery with the biodegradable thread, meaning I wouldn’t have to come back and remove the stitches after the artery had healed. The good news was that it was much less delicate work than if it were on a human being, meaning I could go at a relatively fast pace and get back to the broken falsebone quickly.

  Ottoman held the three falsebone fragments in place while I wrapped the mesh sleeve around the whole thing. It was designed to fit any of the Lilstar’s fifty-plus ribs that served as the main structure for the ship’s interior. In some ways, the ship was one big ribcage with plenty of room and protection to house the small, livable interior and the innards needed for the organic components to function.

  I tugged the sleeve on tight with the split on the inside of the rib, shoring up the break. Once I had fitted the sleeve and cut off the excess mesh, the final step was to take the tape off and let the incision seal once again, providing the bone with even more stability. It was immensely satisfying to watch the epidermis seal without a crack or scar. There would be some scar tissue underneath, of course, and nerve damage was inevitable, meaning the Lilstar would always be a little numb in that spot, but everything looked much healthier than it had been. Plus, the ship wasn’t crying anymore.

  The mesh was now a permanent part of the ship’s rib, unless some strange incident forced surgeons at a shipyard to cut it out. That was not necessarily unheard of, especially if the mesh was causing any sort of major discomfort to the ship. This was a good mesh sleeve, however, and I doubted it would ever need to be removed.

  After being assured that all of the bone kit’s knives were accounted for, Ottoman marched me back to my seat next to Ariadne. I felt exhausted, even though the surgery had only taken an hour at the most. I had forgotten what it felt like to be an organic nurse. In some ways, I was glad that wasn’t my current path, but it would definitely come in handy if I stuck around with Ariadne and the Lilstar. I’m sure Ariadne had more than her fair share of knowledge regarding ship first-aid and even basic surgery skills. All pilots had to pass the rudimentary organic biology exams. Having studied to be an organic nurse, however, made me feel much more useful when we were bouncing between destinations and there wasn’t any skiptracing to be done.

  I sighed heavily, trying to settle comfortably in a very uncomfortable position. At least Ottoman had let me wash most of the nutrient ooze from my hands and face. Although it didn’t have any sort of smell, it got sticky after a while.

  “Thank you,” Ariadne whispered, tape hanging off her face.

  I gave her a genuine smile.

  “Yeah, I almost got you killed,” I confessed. She nodded her head understandingly.

  Fourteen

  I bided my time and strength in hopes of retaking the ship before the next meal. And the next. And the meal after that. We finally made it to the ReHy station and I hadn’t come up with any great ideas. The Lilstar seemed to be doing perfectly well with the mended rib. There was an almost undetectable sort of shudder whenever we passed through a pocket of ionized helium and the drastic change in temperature caused some discomfort to the ship’s injury. There was no crying, however, which I took to be a good sign.

  I was glad the ship seemed to be feeling better, even if it meant we’d have to figure out Plan B for escaping. Unless someone from the ReHy really thought that my patch-up job on the Lilstar’s injury was a threat to itself and its crew, it was highly unlikely an inspector would board the ship. To add to my stress, my shoulders were cramping up something fierce; Ottoman let us loose far less often than we let him loose.

  “Alright” Ottoman called the princess and me something very rude as the Lilstar pulled into the ReHy station’s queue. Apparently, our displays of mental and physical defiance soured his impressions of us. He hadn’t used the terms ‘pet’ or ‘imp’ since the Lilstar’s surgery. “Miss King, you’ll stay with me and ensure that everything is in order for the station master, and Miss Dunn, you’ll accompany my friend to the lavatory. Of course, with these attached.”

  Under muffled protests, Ottoman placed one shock disc to my forehead and the other to Ariadne’s. He handed the device to the semi-lucid Set, once again explaining the rules of the shock device to the drug addict.

  “It’s just like before. Activate this whenever they seem to be getting uppity, do you understand me, Setesh?” The addict nodded a weary reply and Ottoman moved to slash the epidermis that held me to the ship. I was tempted to try and escape then and there with Ottoman within easy range of kicking, punching, or biting if I tried really hard, but thought better of it. Although Set seemed placid, I didn’t know which setting the shock device was on.

  And, either way, the disc was stuck to my head. Ariadne was probably familiar with the sensation of a small, rubber-like disc fully capable of frying one’s entire brain by now, but it made me quite uncomfortable.

  Ottoman hefted me up roughly and pushed me down the corridor to the ship’s bathroom, shoving me into the narrow shower and reattaching the epidermis that bound me to the shower’s floor. My knees came up to my chin with my arms wrapped around them. I glared at the sociopath until he vanished back down the corridor, returning a moment later with Set.

  “Go sit with Marcie, okay?” he cooed to his twin/clone. The addict nodded and started toward the shower. Ottoman followed, ensuring Set’s comfort before placing the second of the shock pads to my chest just above my heart. “This is set to the maximum level. Only a few meager layers of bone and skin are between your brain and heart and the discs. I’ve suggested to Miss King that she obey me to the letter or I may activate the device.”

  I jerked my head toward Set, who was literally toe-to-toe with me and dozing.

  “I really can’t have him wandering around in his fugue state; this is a two-person craft, if you remember, and Earth has always been so picky about that. I suppose, if you get zapped and die, he does, but I’m hopeful your friend will see everything my way,” Ottoman said, with what could have been a reassuring smile if it had been on pretty much anyone else’s face.

  The sociopath turned to leave, sliding the shower’s translucent falsebone door closed. I heard the bathroom’s iris door open and close slowly, and then it was just me and Set.

  I yelled internally with all of the helpless anger I’d built up over the past day and a half, while making some feeble attempt to yank my bonds free from the shower floor. It mostly just bruised my wrists and made me angrier. Set moaned slightly in reply, but didn’t stir.

  After venting what little I could, I tried to look at the situation rationally. What could I do that would get Ariadne and me out of here without making Ottoman fry my entire nervous system? I stared up at a few patches of beneficial and bioluminescent fungi that covered the shower’s ceiling like they made up some kind of all-answers-oracle, which of course they didn’t.

  The ReHy station itself wouldn’t provide much of an opportunity for escape, given that it required very little contact between stationmasters and pilots. The short-range radio wa
s more than enough to confirm the ship’s identification, Ariadne’s pilot’s license, and a list of vaccines and injuries the Lilstar had in the past few months, including the broken rib I’d repaired. While it was entirely possible a nervous stationmaster might order the ship to be inspected because of the injury, that was unlikely. Not only was I a great surgeon, but the ReHy station would undoubtedly be able to see that the rib was not that serious and had been treated properly.

  There wasn’t much to the ReHy stations. They had a fleet of smaller inspection ships, and ships that functioned a lot like tug boats, guiding bigger, clunkier superliners and such into the station itself. ReHy stations themselves have been described a number of ways in varying degrees of accuracy, but I always saw them as giant, legless frogs with next to no discernible body and one, big, gaping maw that had to be miles across. Unlike most organic ships, ReHy stations were not matured in a shipyard and then slung into space. Since their internal structure more closely resembled the simplicity of a single-cell organism, it didn’t require the constant monitoring of scientists, surgeons, and genetic facsimile experts that normal ships did to make sure everything was growing properly. This meant that ReHy stations could be grown partially on Earth and then sent into orbit to mature to full-size.

  The station’s big mouth would open up every six to twelve hours, essentially swallowing dozens of ships at a time. Once inside the station, the ships were subjected to a humid environment and to a special treatment applied via a fleet of small lamprey-like ships that oozed a lotion from their mouths, rehydrating the ships in preparation for the considerably moister atmosphere on Earth. This kept the outer epidermis, which had hardened and formed a shell in space, from cracking and splitting upon reentry, spilling the ship’s entire complement halfway to the surface.

  I needn’t discuss the horror stories involved with that.