Deserter New Life: Chapter Six-The Truth (Seven Month's Earlier)
“This isn’t what I had in mind,” Sam murmured to himself as another
bullet bounced off the rock wall, spraying him with sharp fragments of stone. He
turned his face away and clenched his eyes shut. Then, with a growl, he leaned
around the wall and pulled off four shots.
Sam knew he was going to have to run out if he was going to get out all. There
were two men out there, and they didn’t like what was going on. They’d
arrived at Sam’s post two days earlier with a wounded buddy.
Not knowing who they were, Sam had said to bring the wounded guy to the hospital
to get patched up. When he took blood to see if the guy would have any reactions
to treatment, he found out that the guy was wanted and dangerous.
So, he’d called in the big guns to have the guy hauled off, along with his
buddies. Well, somehow his friends had found out what Sam was getting ready to
do, and when Sam went on one of his daily walks, this is what he got. Cornered
in some dusty canyon, being shot at.
Sam ducked back behind the wall and leaned against it, his head back and eyes
closed. He took a few deep breathes and waited for more bullets to bounce off
the wall, putting in a fresh clip. He didn’t have to wait long. The echoing
rings resounded off the stone walls and then Sam launched himself around the
wall.
Bullets started bouncing off the walls all around him and he spotted the first
guy. With a roar he pulled off three shots and they thudded into the man’s
chest. Blood oozed out as he fell back against the rock he was behind.
Adrenaline pumped through Sam and he barely noticed when a round of buckshot
exploded into his leg. He let out a slight grunt, wincing, but kept advancing on
his enemy.
The man, seeing that the shot to the leg hadn’t even slowed Sam down, panicked
and jumped up from his hiding spot to run. Sam leveled his revolver and squeezed
off two shots. The first one hit the man in the back of the left shoulder, and
the second exploded into his skull. Sam watched dully as blood and flesh burst
from the front of the man’s face and he collapsed to lay twitching in the
dust.
A few minutes later found Sam sitting on a rock, his weapon on the ground,
clasping his thigh mutely. He stared at the blood oozing between his fingers and
felt the pain radiating through his leg and into his abdomen and chest. It hurt
like hell. He’d never been shot with a shotgun before, and he was quickly
realizing he didn’t like it one bit.
His radio had gotten crunched when he’d dropped to the ground. The first
bullets had awakened in him his old instincts to duck and cover, and then he had
he’d smashed the hip with the radio into a rock. Little plastic fragments had
been all that was left, so he’d pulled it off and tossed it at the men. Sam
was going to have to walk the three miles back to town and there wasn’t any
trees around to have dropped branches that he could use as a cane.
With a howl of pain, Sam threw himself to his feet and began to hobble back to
town. His leg was totaled, and walking on it was making it worse, but he had to
go or bleed to death. He stopped by one of the men’s bodies and pulled off the
man’s belt to use as a tourniquet. The blood flow slowed enough that Sam
didn’t think he’d pass out for a while and he continued along the path.
~~~
“Sam Kincaid, identity number 10311987-SLB, you are hereby discharged from
your services due to serious injury.” The stern man in front of Sam relaxed,
now that his duty was done. He smiled at Sam. “You’re free to go, son.
We’ll send you anywhere you want to go.”
Sam leaned back in his chair and folded his arms behind his head. “There’s a
little place by Rhea. New Nantes. It’s a good sized little planet. I’d like
to go there and I can work in a hospital. Doesn’t matter where, really.”
The man smiled. “Will do, kiddo. You leave at 1100 hours tomorrow morning.
Congratulations on your discharge.” They saluted each other, then Sam was
dismissed from the office.
He whistled quietly to himself as he hobbled down the corridor, supporting most
of his weight on the metal cane in his hand. The buckshot had torn up a lot of
ligaments, damaged muscle, and fractured bone. If the weather changed at all,
the wound throbbed painfully.
Oh, well, Sam told himself, stepping into his compartment. I’m free now, and I
can finally get out of this place.
The first thing he was going to do was change his name. He’d been using his
father’s last name, but now he’d switch to his mother’s. Dux. He stood in
front of the tiny mirror in his equally tiny bathroom. “Welcome back to the
land of the living, Samuel Dux,” he stated to his pale, drawn reflection in
the mirror. He twisted his lips sardonically. “Welcome back, indeed.”
*
Present
*
Rain was alone. Again. She sat huddled on the roof of the hospital, perfectly
quiet and still. Her hair cascaded over her shoulders in a black waterfall of
silken strands and she shoved a curling lock away from her eyes impatiently.
She’d really started to like Sam. The way he cared for her, talked to her,
like she was someone important and special. Someone worth something.
She shook her head angrily. “No,” she growled painfully. “No one wants
anything to do with a monster like you. Serves you right to start falling for a
Ranger, of all things.”
Her senses exploded in warning and Rain jerked her head upwards. She couldn’t
hear or see anything, but someone was getting close to her. Pain started to
build in her temples and she clutched at them, forcing a wall between her
consciousness and the warning ringing in her head. The pain dissipated and she
removed her hands from her head and concentrated on the feeling.
It wasn’t Sam. It was someone else. She could feel that. Rain dug deeper into
the person and reached for a key to who they were. It was hard. Beads of sweat
broke out on her forehead and upper lip. She felt droplets trickle down her
spine and shivered slightly as a stiff wind rose up and washed over her flesh.
But then it was to late. The person was to far away now. Beyond even her reach.
Then another warning. And this time it was Sam, and he was getting closer. She
watched the door leading back down to the hospital, knowing she could escape,
but wondering why she didn’t run. Four minutes later, Sam was standing framed
in the doorway, watching her.
He shoved a coppery shock of hair away from his eyes impatiently and crunched
over the gravel on the roof towards her crouched form.
Rain looked up at him silently, her face a carefully blank mask despite the
unwarranted pain inside of her. The feeling of betrayal that she couldn’t
grasp rushed through her like a tidal wave and she locked her arms tightly
around her drawn up knees.
Sam hunkered down in front of her, knowing that if he was going to regain her
hard won trust, he was going to have to tell her everything. From when he first
saw her to how he got reassigned to New Nantes. “I’m going to tell you a
story,” he said, quietly. And then he started from the beginning.
***