Frontiers Saga 10: Liberation Read Free

“I don’t see any medical reason to keep you from returning to your duties…”
    “Yes!” Josh exclaimed under his breath.
    “…On the condition that you start slowly and don’t overdo it,” she added.
    “This is the Aurora, Doc. When do we ever do anything slowly?”
    “Please, don’t remind me.”
    Josh looked across the treatment room at the unfamiliar man sitting on the edge of the bed. He had been sitting there quietly, not talking with anyone and watching people come and go the entire hour Josh had been receiving his infusion. “Who is that guy?”
    Doctor Chen turned slightly, looking over her shoulder. “His name is Tony. Lieutenant Commander Nash brought him and his friend back with her from Earth.”
    “Is he injured?”
    “Cuts and scrapes mostly, but his friend is still in surgery. She was in pretty bad shape when they landed.”
    “A girl? What happened to them?”
    “Something about an ambush when they were being picked up.”
    “He doesn’t look good,” Josh commented.
    Doctor Chen looked at Josh, noticing the concern on his face. “Maybe you should speak with him,” she suggested. “You still have to wait fifteen minutes for the nanites to disperse throughout your system before you are free to move around at will.”
    “I wouldn’t know what to say to him,” Josh said.
    “Just introduce yourself; ask how he’s doing. Talk about whatever he wants to talk about. Just distract him from worrying about his friend. That alone would probably help.”
    Josh looked at the doctor. “Didn’t know you were a counselor as well.”
    “Part of the job,” she said. “I’ll check back with you in fifteen minutes.”
    Josh waited for the technician to finish taping up his arm, then stood and walked across the room toward Tony. As he approached, Tony looked up at him, his eyes full of doubt and fear. Josh recognized that look. It was the same one that Kaylah had worn for the first few days after Josh had regained consciousness. “Hi, I’m Josh,” he said, extending his hand toward Tony.
    “Tony,” the stranger answered, shaking his hand.
    “You okay?” Josh asked, pointing at the bandage on Tony’s forearm.
    “That’s nothing,” Tony answered. “Just a cut.” Tony looked at Josh’s arm. “What about you?”
    “Me? I was all messed up: subdural something, broken bones, radiation burns. I was out for like a week or something.”
    “Wow. You look like you’re doing pretty well, then. What were they giving you,” he asked, pointing at Josh’s bandaged IV site, “medicine or something?”
    “Just another batch of nanites. I get a new batch every few days now.”
    “Really? They gave some to my friend when we landed. What are they, exactly?”
    “Nanites? I don’t really know for sure. They’re some kind of microscopic robots they inject in you. They use this scanner to program them to fix you up inside.”
    “How many do they put inside you?”
    Josh scratched his head. “Huh, I never really thought to ask. Millions, I think.”
    “Do they hurt?” Tony wondered.
    “If you have a lot of them all working in one spot, sort of. They feel like little needles poking you on the inside.”
    “That doesn’t sound fun.”
    “You get used to it,” Josh said, sitting down on the end of the bed. “It helps if you keep yourself busy doing something. Keeps your mind off them.”
    “They said something about the pain when they injected her with those things,” Tony said. “They seemed worried about it.”
    “I think people from Earth feel the nanites more than others. For some reason, they don’t bother the Corinairans. I suppose it’s because they’re the ones who made them.”
    “Corinairans?”
    “People from Corinair?” Josh said. “Oh, yeah. You wouldn’t know about them, would you?”
    “What, is it a planet or something?” Tony wondered. “I heard there were old colonies of Earth nearby.”
    Josh laughed. “Corinair is not exactly nearby.”
    “Is that