Sciberran Healer Terrell Vorton had spent five years
working his way from moon to moon, planet to planet and system to system, on
ships of every shape and size, in search of something, though he didn’t know what
that something was, he just knew that it was not on his home planet of
Sciberras in the Hennis system.
He was a small stout man standing 5 foot 5, and was
quite striking in appearance with chalk white skin, short hair of midnight blue
and hypnotic violet eyes.
He was a quiet studious man who apart from medicine,
loved science, and had a fascination for off world travel, although it would
have remained just that had it not been for the untimely deaths of his wife and
child.
Their loss had been particularly acute because he was
helpless to cure them despite his high regard as a Healer.
On his world, Healers started their training at the
age of 5, but it wasn’t for everyone, but those like Terrell who reached
adulthood and remained in training were destined for a lifetime in medicine,
but for him he was destined to be the cream of the crop.
But with the premature deaths of his wife and child he
came to doubt his ability and that prompted him to leave his home world and try
and regain belief in himself and since leaving Sciberras he had learned a lot
about the anatomy of other species, who he hadn’t come in contact with before,
because Sciberras was quite an insular world, but travelling off world had
opened his eyes and he was left hungry for more.
But when he
reached the moon Alwi and saw the beautiful Vann telepath, Shiyne, he knew that
the next leg of his sojourn was to go wherever she went so he joined the crew
of the Tornado and very quickly won the heart of the beautiful
little cerise coloured Navigator.
He was just
finishing up in the sick bay where he had been stitching a cut on Lyris Skeets
hand, sustained in a fight with and ex Legionnaire, and looking forward to
spending some quality time with Shiyne when there was a commotion outside so he
opened the door and found a dripping wet Pulsat Rad carrying a bloodied body in
his arms.
He couldn’t see
who it was or the full extent of their injuries, but he calculated they must
have been severe to get the Prinsloovian to go out in the rain.
“Bring him in Pulsat” Terrel instructed so he carried
the casualty into sickbay and laid him on the nearest bed.
“Thank you Pulsat” he said “Have you told the
Captain?”
“Now I get” he replied and then as he got a better
look at the casualties face he added
“And fetch Bagg as well”
“I get, I get” Pulsat said and rushed off leaving
Terrel to continue his examination.
Visitor Parham,
not for the first time in his life, found himself standing outside of sickbay
or equivalent awaiting news.
They were due to
depart that morning but Merri had delayed it for twenty four hours, and it was
still raining hard outside and was showing no sign of stopping.
As he waited he wasn’t wearing his more formal Visitor
attire of a full length pale blue robe tied at the waist with a royal blue
cord, beneath a full length dark blue leather jerkin, or carrying a simple
roughhewn staff decorated with a carved cruciform relief a few inches from the
top, instead he wore a simple oatmeal coloured robe tied at the waist with a
simple cord, because he wasn’t, first
and foremost there as a Visitor but as a friend, Bagg.
At some point, he
wasn’t sure when, he was joined by the Captain.
“How’s he doing?”
Merri asked “Has he regained consciousness?”
“Not fully”
“Has he said
anything at all?” Merri asked
“No” Bagg replied,
and Merri thought for a second and asked.
“Is anyone with
him?”
“Just Terrel, he’s
changing his dressings” Bagg replied just as Malena walked towards them, she
had driven into the city to collect Duff’s wife and family.
“Chani is in the
mess, Pulsat and Vanzyl are entertaining the children” Malena said
“Thank you” Bagg
replied and walked passed her and headed for the mess and as soon as Chani saw
him she leapt up to greet him and then broke down in his arms.
Bagg found the
time dragged very slowly, even baking couldn’t hold his attention and after
burning the second batch of scones he gave up, so he walked to the nearest
Visitor Church and prayed, there really wasn’t anything he could do aboard the
Tornado for the time being, so he would return later that day unless there was
a change.
The
next morning, Supreme Commander Emad Salmin was feeling very pleased with
himself following the successful capture of 90 percent of their target suspects
after the earth shattering revelations, more than double of any other system,
but it did help that he knew the shock wave was coming, as a result he was to
be decorated and get another pip on his shoulder.
But
his good humour was soon dispelled when he received a message from the Tornado
to tell him that Duff Tarver had been severely beaten and was still
unconscious.
His
first reaction was to summon Captain Kolan Nulak and relay the news of the
attack to him.
“What’s happened
sir?”
“Duff Tarver, has
been attacked” Salmin answered and “He’s been unconscious since it happened, have my Cutter readied, we’re going to Eikon Major,
immediately”
“Immediately?”
Nulak queried
“Yes I blame myself, I should have foreseen this, and assigned
him some protection, but I didn’t so I want to get there as soon as possible
just in case”
“It’s that
serious?” Nulak asked
“I’m afraid so” he
replied
The “Cutter” as
Salmin described it was actually a sleeker variant of a Blaze Command Ship,
with a small crew of handpicked men, who had all served for Salmin before.
On the journey
Nulak asked.
“Was it a
robbery?”
“No, nothing was
taken”
“Were they
interrupted?”
“No, they had
plenty of time to strip his body of everything, the taxi dropped him at the
Space Port gate and he was found forty-five minutes later” Salmin replied
“So he was beaten
up for no reason?” Nulak asked in disbelief
“That’s what I
intend to find out” Salmin said as the Cutter set down on the Apron next to the
Tornado.
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