Big Red

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 3

“And that brings us to right now,” I concluded, glancing over at Doctor Ling.

My head felt a lot better. Although the calming euphoria of the drugs they were pumping into my body affected me, my mind was starting to focus. I could recall most of my memories from prior to the job interview and snippets of what happened after, although in certain places they were a bit fuzzy. Apart from a few grainy images of a firefight, I couldn’t recall what had happened to me yesterday or the day before.

Doctor Ling finished scribbling her notes before looking back up at me.

“So, what happened next?”

“I woke up on Phobos.”

“And what happened after you woke up?”

“That was thirteen months ago,” I stated, ignoring her question.

Turning away from her, I focused my attention on the doctor gazing intently at the monitors at the end of the room.

“I thought you looked familiar. No, ‘trustworthy’ was what I was thinking when I first woke up. You look similar to the doctor who told me I had nothing to worry about when I signed that damn contract a year ago.”

Doctor Lucas turned away from her work to look at me. I could see a flash of remorse cut across her cool exterior, but her lips remained firmly shut as she looked in my direction. I don’t know why, but a surge of hostility rose in me. It felt like something left over from weeks of dwelling, like when you have a fight with your partner and it goes on for so long that you forget what the actual tiff was about.

“I remember lying down in a room similar to the one I woke up in, after an interview a year ago. Tell me doctor, how long has it been for you since I lost consciousness?”

“There’s no need for this,” she replied, trying to maintain her professional composure. “You’ve already been briefed. You know exactly how this works. We’re on the same side. Right now, civilians are counting on us. We don’t have time for games.”

“Answer the question or I stop talking. I want to hear you say it. I laid down on that cot over a year ago. How long ago was that for you?” I hissed at her.

The doctor shifted her weight before taking a few steps towards the foot of my trolley and folding her arms. “Okay, fine. You and everyone else were unconscious for exactly seventeen minutes. You were supposed to serve a twelve-month tour of duty and be rotated back after sixty minutes, my time. Instead, according to the Compression Matrix logs, you were gone for thirteen months and you were back in a quarter of the recommended time. On top of that, the exact minute that we received the compression signal, we lost contact with every one of our off-world colonies. Every single one has gone dark.”

She turned, walked towards the double doors leading to the room that I’d woken up in, and threw them open. Outside, I could still hear the cries and groans of my comrades, although it had quietened down considerably. With steel in her voice, she turned to face me while gesturing towards the noise outside.

“Three quarters of your fellow soldiers haven’t returned and those who have show evidence of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder from gunshot wounds, stabbings, and dismembered limbs, indicating an extremely violent confrontation. Only two of you are lucid enough to speak, so we must focus on the task at hand. We need to know what happened up there or everything we’ve worked for and sacrificed for is over. Do you understand?”

“Okay, that’s enough,” Doctor Ling interjected, holding her hand up to silence the doctor. She returned her attention to me and patted me reassuringly on the hand.

“I’m glad it’s coming back to you, Darren. I really am. I know the last year hasn’t been easy for you, and you have every right to be angry. Let’s continue to take this nice and slow. We’ll figure this out together, shall we?”

I ignored Doctor Lucas and returned my attention to Doctor Ling, nodding my consent. As I shifted in the trolley to get comfortable, I felt the cylinder the orderly had slipped me nestled underneath my right thigh. For a moment, I saw a flash of what it could be used for and, stretching my muscles as a pretext, looked around at the monitors on my left and right, wondering if it would work on one of them. No rush, though. I still hadn’t received the signal yet—whatever it was supposed to be.

“Fine,” I continued, “so, I woke up in Asaph Hall Research Station, on Phobos…”