Weapons of choice

Wassman urgently cast around for the source of the cries. There had to be sixty people laid up in the mess. Most of them were in pretty bad shape. The walking wounded were all helping with salvage operations. The room presented a tableau from one of Goya's nightmares, bloodied bandages, burned limbs, chaos, and horror. She'd treated deep tissue lacerations, compound fractures, crushed vertebrae, shrapnel and bullet wounds, and, of course, some terrible injuries caused by ceramic flechette rounds.

"Doctor!"

Wassman sourced the cries to a reedy-looking officer, off the Astoria, judging by his uniform. He didn't look too badly hurt. He had a good long scrape on his forearm and a bruise on his forehead. But that was it.

This better be good, she thought.

The lieutenant fidgeted impatiently as she approached him. As she did so, his eyes roamed up and down. She was running into that a lot, and she was struggling not to react badly to it.

"Yes… Lieutenant?" she said, drawing up in front of him. "Is one of your men in need of treatment?"

"No, Commander… uhm, Wassman. But I've been waiting here for a blood tranfusion for nearly an hour."

Wassman was genuinely confused. Her eyes flicked from the small bandage on his forehead to the one around his arm.

"I'm sorry, a tranfusion?"

"I've lost some blood," he explained. "I may need a transfusion, but nobody has spoken to me about the type of blood I would need."

She shook her head, wrestling with her irritation. Then she leaned over and somewhat peremptorily plucked his dog tags out to examine them.

"O positive," she read out. "There you go, Lieutenant… Charles, is it? Done deal."

A strange look flickered across the lieutenant's face. Levering himself up, delicately, he motioned for her to follow him a few feet away, into the corridor. Wassman was disinclined to follow at first, but was forced to comply when Charles carried on regardless, stepping over a black woman who was leaned up against a bulkhead, nursing a hand with some nasty-looking burns.

"Lieutenant!" barked Wassman. "I really don't have time for this."

Charles stopped, sighed heavily, and rolled his eyes before turning to face her.

"What is your problem?" Wassman demanded.

People were beginning to stare. Most of the men and women in the room were too lost in their private struggles to notice the scene by the door, but those who were nearby, such as the woman with the burned hand, were turning to watch.

Lieutenant Charles sighed with exasperation. He tried to lean in as if to talk discreetly. "You misunderstand me, Doctor. I didn't mean blood type. I meant type of blood."

Wassman scrunched her eyes shut, then blinked twice, rapidly.

"You're right. I'm sorry, I don't understand. Type of blood?" She gestured with her hands-which were sticky with gore-to emphasize her lack of comprehension.

He grimaced with distaste and rolled his eyes toward the black woman on the floor.

"Type of blood," he murmured. "Don't you see?"

What little concern she had felt for the man abruptly disappeared, and she just gave him a cold stare. Before he could say anything else, she turned away.

Charles reached out to grab her elbow and was stunned when she spun around and slapped him across the face. It was a hard, stinging blow. He gasped and, without thinking, slapped her back. His blow wasn't particularly firm, but the slap galvanized everyone who saw it.

Someone grabbed a handful of his shirt. It was a Chinese American sailor.

"Get your hands off me, you damn coolie," Charles shouted. He made a fist and drove a fierce uppercut into the man's chin, angling the blow to drive the jaw sideways.

Before the man had even hit the deck, though, another of Wassman's shipmates came at him. A white man this time, with a padded sleeve covering one arm. His other arm was fine, though. Wassman watched as it drew back and the hand formed a fist. Charles flinched as the blow came in.

The office housed the ship's Training Department. It was packed with VR gear, computers, screens, and office equipment. They had to break it down and get it all off the ship in less than forty minutes.

Seaman Davidson wasn't really helping with his endless stream of questions.

What's that?

What does it do?

How's it work?

But the ensign from the Leyte Gulf, who was supervising the salvage detail in this part of the ship, tried to answer as many as he could because Davidson was one of the few men off the Astoria who'd shown any inclination to be friendly. And his buddy, Molloy, he could carry a goddamn Xerox all on his own. Ensign Carver was glad to have them. They'd been no trouble at all, really, and had mixed in well with the rest of the work detail. He'd just made a mental note to talk to their Chief Mohr, and tell him what a good job they'd done, when shouting and the sound of something like a brawl reached them.

"What the hell is that?" said Carver.

"Sounds like a brawl," said Davidson.

The officer swore and told his team to keep working. Then he headed for the door.