Finally they had some down time later that afternoon. Six fingers and all, Naero joined her mates to visit Chaela, who looked bored out of her mind, watching wall vids and reading INS feeds on a flip panel.
Chae rolled her eyes but her face brightened as they all filed into her room, holding bunches of greenpod flowers behind their backs.
“Wow, am I glad to see you guys. I’m going stir-crazy in here while Remy’s on his duty shifts, but I’ve got two more whole days to hang out here and keep my stump in this re-growth tank.”
She snarled, pointing to her leg, secured below the knee, immersed in the fizzing, dark green regeneration tank.
In three days she’d have a new foot grown back, but it would be soft and as useless as a newborn infant’s. The bones would continue to re-form and harden, and then the painful therapy would begin for her to retrain the joints and muscles and learn to use it again.
Saemar dumped an armload of snacks and drinks into Chaela’s lap. Foil packages and cartons spilled over onto the floor.
“What’s all this crap? I don’t eat this stuff. Get this junk off’a me.”
“Can it, sweetie. This stash is for us. We’re all gonna take turns sitting it out with you, when your squeeze Remy isn’t here, as you regrow your tootsies. And when we’re not in training or on duty.”
Naero winced. They hadn’t bothered to ask her to join the watch team.
Not with her own…situation.
She stopped trying to hide her hands.
No one but her seemed to be able to see her delusions anyway. Ignoring them and pushing on seemed to be the best way to make them go away.
Tyber pulled a couple of floppy, dopey-looking sim-helmets out of his tekpak. “I have this new simgame you gotta try. The holoimager is amazing. We fight our way to this castle and–”
Chaela crossed her arms. “Save me from the geek patrol. You know I hate your dopey games, Tyber. And I wouldn’t be caught dead wearing one of those goofy sim caps.”
Tyber already had his on. He looked both hurt, and stupid. “What’s wrong with them? I’m telling you, this game throcks.”
Everyone struggled not to laugh. Even Zhen. Gallan took some pics and vids with his wristcom for later blackmail. Tyber looked like a total idiot wearing the damn thing.
“Yeah, you keep that thing the hell away from my head, or I’ll rip your arms off and you’ll be strapped down next to me with your stumps in two tingling vats of goop.”
“I’ve never had the pleasure to hafta regrow anything,” Saemar said. She rapped on the wall with her knuckles. “Knock on hull. What if a guy lost his ding dong? Would his stuff grow back? Would it be just the same, or could they, you know, make improvements? I’m not just talking length, but thickness, too. But I digress. Does it hurt at all, sweetie? Or are you all pumped up with drugs so that it kind of feels frost?”
Chaela shifted, blinked, and grunted, making faces.
“It definitely is not frost. It doesn’t exactly hurt, but it kind of feels like bugs are biting me or sticking shock and stun needles in me at times. It’s really weird. But if it gets me back in my squadron, I’m all for it.”
“These are for you,” Gallan said.
On cue, all of them dumped their flowers in her lap, on top of the heaps of junk food.
Chaela just stared.
“What the hell is this? I hate plants and flowers. What am I supposed to do? Make a salad?”
“It’s customary to bring a recovering patient flowers to brighten her room,” Zhen said. She took them one by one and put them into pweaked nanovases set into the medical bay’s walls, quickly and efficiently arranging them into a pleasant pattern.
“Great, I feel like I’m in some kind of jungle now. Hey N…Naero? You okay?”
Naero snapped out of it and came back to the present.
“Sure. You know. Still trying to deal with it all. But don’t worry about me. You just get your foot back. You’ll be running with us again in no time. Uh, sorry. No pun intended.”
“I’m…I’m sorry about your folks, Naero,” Chae said. “We all are. They were good to us. They were stand-up people. None of us know what to do or say.”
Everyone looked down and got quiet.
“Naero, you know we’re there for you if you need any of us,” Chae added.
Naero bit her lip. “I know that, guys. I couldn’t ask for better mates. It’s all…just so new still. I’m still dealing with it. Just give me time.”
They all drew close and put a hand on her. Even Chaela.
“We are,” Chae told her.
Naero pulled away from them before she started bawling.
“Uh, I gotta go. Got a thing with Jan. He, uh, wants to meet him somewhere. So, I’d better go. To go talk about stuff.”
“Sure, sweetie. You go right on ahead. And don’t worry about Chae. We got her covered until her lover boy Remy gets off work.”
Saemar turned back to Chaela and patted her hand. “Now, I’ve got the first watch, sweetie. I wanna go over the performance of my last couple dozen guys to see maybe who’s worth another go. I got vid clips from my wall cams so that we can compare both looks and prowess, although you can’t always see that much from certain angles.”
Chaela panicked as the rest made ready to leave. “Quick, someone kill me. A stunner. One of you has to have a way to stun me, right? Zhen?”
Zhen patted her arm. “Sorry, Chae. You and Saemar enjoy your girl time. Tyber, you’re not staying to watch.”
“Awww…Mom.”
In desperation, Chaela snatched one of the sim helmets and squashed her head into the silly thing.
“All right, T. Switch me on. Let’s find that dumbass castle.”
Tyber popped his cap back on. “Yay!”
The caps came to life, forming glowing globes of intricate holographic projections over their heads, immersing them and their senses in the projected adventure world.
Saemar cluelessly kept rambling, focused completely on her pad. “Now what about this guy? Lots of enthusiasm, but I never noticed this growth right here. See it? Let me zoom in. What the hell is that? Do they still have goiters? What is a fricking goiter anyway? Is it like a tumor? Do you think I should be worried about that? Maybe Zhen should check him out for me before we hook up again.”
“That’s my cue to be gone.” Zhen made a hasty retreat. “Bye-bye. I’m out of here.”