Authors: Paul Kater
Bactine |
Paul Kater |
Unknown (2011) |
A steampunk sci-fi story about the adventures of a soldier in intergalactic service, after being shipped off to a very remarkable planet. Sailing will never be the same again...
Bactine
by
Paul
Kater
Published by the author at Amazon - Copyright 2011 Paul Kater
License
Notes
:
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Contents
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The white ceiling of the small cabin that Daniel could call his own was not any help. His thoughts kept racing around the insanity that had been the past day. It was after all not everyday a soldier woke up in a new body.
He lifted an arm and looked at the super smooth skin that Rhonda had outfitted him with. "Damn," he said, not sounding grateful. Again he recalled the buzzing of the machines that had kept him alive, in the few moments he had been awake during the all the surgeries. Nobody had asked him if he wanted to be repaired, or be patched up. No. Someone at the top had considered he was valuable, and therefore Daniel Zacharias was to be put in the trust of Head Medical Officer Rhonda Flower, one of the leading specialists in applying Bactine.
"The bloody pirates should have shot me up so badly that they had no chance for this," Daniel shared with the ceiling. But they had not. "Crapshot," he told the ceiling before he rolled off the bunk and headed over to the small sink. Bactine or not, a splash of water in his face felt good. As the drops fell off his face, he stared at himself in the mirror.
"Good thing you don't know this, Malcolm," the soldier told himself. Malcolm Zacharias, businessman and good at that, had always been on Daniel's case. His younger brother had been the one that got the good jobs, the girls, the money and- bloody everything. Daniel could almost hear the sneering voice: "Military eh? Now look what that got you. I don't envy you, older brother."
Daniel walked over to the small view port in his cabin and looked out over the barren environment. The planetoid that the military base was housed on was only a clump of rock. There was some air outside, but not enough for normal people. Not for the kind he had been. After a good stare at the never changing landscape, Daniel pounded his fist against the wall and fell on his bed again.
Slowly he tried to grasp what had gone wrong at the space freighter. He had been sent there, with a small group of two dozen soldiers, to guard the shipment of weapons. It had been a routine run. Less than that even. The weapons were not that impressive, nor was the number of them.
The schedule for guards was the normal thing, four in the cargo bay, two on the bridge, some men scattered about the ship, and the shifts were only five hours per person. And then there had been the pirate ship. It had almost dropped on top of them, out of FTL. That was either an example of excellent navigation or the biggest lump of luck Daniel had ever seen. He would put his money on the latter. They probably had gotten off course somehow and fallen out of Faster Than Light speed on top of the freighter.