Wounds, Book 1 by Ilsa J. Bick Read Free Book Online Page A

they’re side effects from new medicines.”
    “But maybe not. Mara, if she’s a mutant, no one’s going to pay to get her back, and we can’t trade her for anyone. Then she’s useless.”
    Lense didn’t like where this was going. “Excuse me, but I’m not a piece of furniture. How about including me in the decision, all right?”
    Mara opened her mouth to say something but Saad silenced her with a look. “You’re right,” he said to Lense. “You’re not a chair. But you could be a deserter, or a spy. Yes.” He stroked his chin between a thumb and forefinger. “The more I think about that one, the better I like it.”
    “How is that better?” Mara’s lips twisted into a scowl, and this made her scar jump and wriggle like a fat, purple-blue worm. “If she’s a spy, we can’t let her go back, no matter what’s offered.”
    “But if she’s a deserter, she can’t go back either. We win either way. I think this puts her in a rather interesting position and I suspect—” He broke off, and now Lense heard the commotion, too: a gabble of angry voices, shouts, the sounds of footsteps clapping against rock. A moment later, a wiry man with the half-moon of a scar arcing in a scimitar over his neck hurried in and sketched a hasty salute. “What is it?” asked Saad.
    “Kornaks.” The wiry man had chocolate-brown spatters on his shirt that looked like dried mud. “Got two of our squads.”
    “Squads?” Saad shot Mara a look.
    “I don’t think there’s a connection,” said Mara. “No one around where we found her.”
    “Unless they’ve come out looking for her,” said Saad. The corners of his mouth tightened. “How many Kornaks?”
    “At least fifteen that we saw,” said the wiry man. “We killed nine, but the others kept up a suppressing fire and we had to retreat.”
    “No possibility you were followed?”
    “None.”
    “What about our losses?”
    “Five dead. The rest of us made it back, but we’ve got two wounded, both badly. I don’t think we can save either one. Do you want them executed now, or—?”
    “ Executed ?” The word was out of Lense’s mouth before she could bite it back. “What are you talking about? Where’s your medic?”
    “Shut up.” Mara nudged her with the point of her rifle. “Really.”
    “You object,” Saad said, his tone more curious than hostile. “Why?”
    Lense weighed the value of keeping her mouth shut, then decided she’d already put her boot in it and if Gold ever saw her again, he’d string her up by her thumbs for that Prime Directive stuff. Only these people would probably kill her anyway and deprive Gold of the pleasure.
    So you might as well go down for something useful, not some dumb runabout accident, right?
    “Yes,” she said. “I object. Your people get hurt, you fix them up. You don’t automatically decide that someone’s life is worthless just because he’s been wounded. You don’t have that right.”
    “Don’t talk to us about right,” said Mara. “You, a Kornak, of all people…”
    Lense kept her eyes on Saad. “You don’t have the right.”
    “Convince me there’s a better way,” he said.
    “What do you mean, better? Why should I have to convince you that it’s better to be humane and better to treat someone even if he ends up dying? Otherwise, you’ll never know whether you might have saved him.” It occurred to her that in triage situations, sorting through who was worse off and who she might save, she did let people die. But she couldn’t think about that now.
    “Interesting point,” said Saad. “You talk as if you have some sort of training. What type?”
    She paused. “I’m a physician.”
    “Really?” Both of Saad’s eyebrows went up this time. “Do you have trauma experience? Combat?”
    Her thoughts jerked back to the Lexington , and the air electric with screams and klaxons and smelling of singed hair and clotted blood, and she thought that, yeah, she had plenty of experience and some to