Warpath Read Free Page B

until
he could feel himself starting to fall backwards. Alice supported him
in time, her arm reaching as far across his broad back as it could.
“I got you,” she said. He leaned on her for stability and she
practically held him up herself. He could move his legs, but his feet
weren’t listening nearly as well. He needed the support of his
daughter and Doctor Messana to walk.
    “That’s a lot of
progress for the first ten minutes,” Doctor Messana said. “How
about a first step?”
    “No,” Jake said,
laughing nervously, then he instinctively stepped forward with one
foot, and the other. He felt as though he were about to fall
backwards, but leaned on Alice briefly to compensate.
    “Well done,” Doctor
Messana said. “You’ll be jogging in no time. There are a few
people waiting for you in the next room, do you feel up to it?”
    Jake nodded, slowly
sitting back down on the bed with Alice’s help.
    “Good, the sooner we
get you back to normal activities – moving, socializing – the
sooner you’ll be in shape. I’ll go brief them.”
    Jake waited for her to
leave. “Someone should tell her I wasn’t the most social creature
before all this.”
    Alice gave a short
laugh. She pulled a regular vacsuit out from a box at the foot of the
bed. It was already black with the markings of a captain, and WARLORD
printed in white across the shoulders. “I don’t feel like I’ve
earned that back yet,” he told her quietly.
    She looked at it for a
moment then used her command and control unit to change its colour to
navy blue and remove the markings. “Better?”
    “Looks right,” he
replied.
    The suit did most of
the work of dressing him, creeping across his skin as he put his feet
in, but Alice helped him lean the right way so it could get access.
It was a little demeaning, but Jake pushed his pride away. “I never
thought about what it was like for you when you were first born as a
human,” he said to her.
    “I’d almost
forgotten that,” Alice said, “I guess it’s one of those things
the framework is suppressing, it’s all foggy. I sort of remember
learning how to walk, talk. I was lucky, I had people there to help,
mostly from pity I guess.”
    “I wish I was there
for you,” Jake said. “You didn’t waste too much time waiting
for me to hatch again.”
    “I visited,” Alice
said, looking a little guilty. “But, no, I didn’t waste much
time. Remmy convinced me to re-enter the Rangers when Anderson
invited me back in. They’ve gotten better now that the standards
are higher, I’m almost finished with the advanced tactical and
encounter analysis training.”
    “So you’re going
back to the Rangers?” Jake asked.
    “Yes, but Governor
Anderson tells me that I’ll be leading another team of rangers
aboard the Warlord when it’s back in full service, with your
approval, of course. If that doesn’t work out, I’ll leave again
and join your crew.”
    He was glad to see that
she’d been busy while he was practically dead, and he would have to
thank Remmy later for getting his daughter back into the Rangers.
They would be a good option for her, since he didn’t want her on
the Warlord any longer.
    “You okay, Dad?”
Alice asked.
    “Just wish I could
have been there for you way back when you were taking your first
steps,” he lied.
    “Ancient history,
besides, you didn’t even know,” she said as he positioned his
left arm so the vacsuit could close around him. “Ready to go?”
    Jake took a deep breath
and let it out. “Time for the great unveiling. I feel like I owe
this to Doctor Messana. I’m her big success.”
    “Just concentrate on
yourself,” Alice said as she helped him up.
    With her under his
right arm, Jake took ponderous steps towards the door. When he
finally made it across the room it opened to a hallway, where Ayan,
Minh-Chu and Ashley all watched from a door on the other side.
    Ayan was across the
space and pressed into his arms in a moment. Minh-Chu put