Part Three

2074 BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS
The crocuses were everywhere, and even the daffodils had started coming up in some of the warmer pockets of the Public Gardens. From the corner of Commonwealth and Arlington, Nathan West could see the maintenance crews across the street skimming the waterways and applying this year's layer of white paint to the Garden's traditional swan boats. Whatever the calendar said, summer began in Boston when the swan boats were officially launched in the Public Gardens. Not after and not before.

With the change of the traffic light, Nathan hitched his backpack up a little higher on his shoulder and crossed the street to the low wrought iron gate that served as the park's entrance. The picnic had been Dora's idea; she liked picnics. Nathan was done with classes for the day, and the Public Gardens were right across the street from the three granite town houses on Commonwealth Avenue that Boston University had co-opted for its History department. West taught three sections of American History a week in one of those lovely old residences. And when he was not teaching, he was completing the doctorate that would grant him his tenure as a full professor - that and the publication of his book on the Chig war, which was due out early in the summer.

Had anyone asked him, those years while he was in the thick of the fighting, if he could ever see himself as an academic, West would have denied it vehemently. He was a man of action and he did see teaching as a active occupation. No one had been more surprised than he to find that not only did he have a particular talent for explaining the intricacies of historical events, he rather liked it. What had started out as a means to support himself while he was completing his studies had suddenly become a career. It had also brought him Doreen Anderson.

Of all the former Wild Cards, West had had the most difficulty re-adjusting to civilian life at the end of the war. In a way, it was ironic. West had only joined the Marines as a means of reaching the Tellus colony and for most of his tenure with the Corps his focus had been driven by "civilian" concerns. For the first year his primary consideration had been rescuing his girlfriend; that accomplished, his focus had remained on returning to her at the end of the war. He had never seen his stay with the Corps as anything but temporary, despite his considerable skill, and his commitment to his squadron. He never expected to find himself unable to adjust upon his final return home.

Some of the problem, he knew, had rested with "home," itself. His mother had never recovered from the loss of his brother, Neil, and in her heart she would always blame Nathan for having "seduced" the younger boy into the war. No matter that West, himself, had been vocally opposed to the boy's enlistment. His example, and the fact that Neil had always tried to emulate him, was blame enough in the mother's eyes. His father had tried to make it up to him, and youngest brother, John, had tried, too,. But it was not too many months before Nathan realized that, for the sake of his sanity, he had to get out. The problem was, he had no idea where to go or what to do.

All of his adult life, Nathan had spent preparing for space. His college years had prepared him for his duties as part of the colonization effort; when he and Kylen had been selected as part of the Tellus colony he never thought there would be anything else he wanted to do with his life. But once the war was over, he discovered that he had had his fill of space. He no longer wanted tocolonize. Terra firma was what he wanted under his feet; he had seen all he cared to see of strange new worlds. Unfortunately, there was a limit to the number of occupations in which a former rocket jockey could participate, and there were a lot of former rocket jocks to compete with. He had moped for over a year, unemployed, depressed, miserable at home but having no place else to go. He had tried a couple of different jobs, without success, and he left them after a few months.

The biggest blow to his life, though, had not been his mother's rejection or own his lack of direction. He could have survived those things had his relationship with Kylen Celina survived. In retrospect, he supposed they had been naive to think it would; both had endured too many life affecting traumas. They simply were not the same people when they were finally reunited back on Earth. But Nathan had not expected it, and Kylen's announcement, five months after his return, that she had met someone else whom she wanted to marry had nearly pushed him over the edge of clinical depression. For a while, he had even, perhaps, been a danger to his own life. It had been Shane Vansen, on a visit, who had talked him into going back to school. Nathan discovered, later, that his dad, afraid of his son's mental state, had invited Shane to Massachusetts for that very reason. He never let on that he knew.

Something in the atmosphere at BU had revitalized him. Some of it might have had to do with the fact that he was something of a celebrity with the younger students, those who had been too young to fight. But mostly it had to do with the fact that his brain was once again engaged with challenging ideas, and slowly he emerged from his shell and began to participate again in the world around him. And then Dora Anderson walked into his life.

He could see her sitting, now, on a ragged old plaid wool blanket, dressed in a pair of cutoffs and a work shirt, lunch spread around her. She smiled as he approached, but did not get up. Dora was a Master's candidate, one of Nathan's former students, and nearly ten years his junior - a fact that had bothered him for a little while. Physically she was about as different from Kylen Celina as a woman could get and still be female; short, well rounded, cropped blue-black hair and very dark eyes. Emotionally, she was little like Kylen, as well. Where Kylen was quietly aggressive, deeply focused on her goals, Dora, though no less focused, was bubbly, energetic and extremely physical. If there was such a thing as sexual healing, Nathan West had been raised from the dead.

"Hey, sweetheart," he sighed, leaning over and kissing her, then dropping on to the blanket beside her. The sun felt wonderful and there was a light breeze blowing.

"Hungry?" Dora asked, extending a water cracker smeared with brie. West let her pop it into his mouth; Dora did know how to pack a picnic. When he had finally worked up the nerve to propose to her, ten months earlier, it had been over just such an al fresco fare. Probably with a mouth full of brie.

"How'd you make out this morning with your mother?" he asked as he dug around in the basket for something more substantial. Chicken. He snagged a piece out of its bag as Dora chattered about shopping for wedding gear. He tried to pay attention, but it was not long before his mind wandered on the warm spring breeze and the steady stream of commentary on the virtues of pink ribbons versus yellow. It occurred to him, as he sighed contentedly, that none of the former Wild Cards would believe it if they saw him, now, the absentminded professor, and he knew he was looking forward to his wedding day as much for the reunion with his old friends as for the event itself. And they would all be there, even Cooper seemed sure he would be able to get away from Demios.

How long ago it had been. And yet, such a little while ago when he had stood with Coop in Commodore Ross' office and begged for one last chance to go and find his friends. So sure they were out there. So sure he could find them. The memory of that ache had never gone away, even though it had all turned out all right in the end. Even though Dora had effectively chased away all of his other sorrows.

"Hello?"

Nathan blinked, and smiled.

"I'm sorry. Wool-gathering. It's such a pretty day."

Dora looked put out, briefly, then shrugged. "So do you want me to just use my own judgment?" she asked him.

West had the decency to look embarrassed. "If it's not going to squander all of my book royalties," he told her. "I'm sorry, babe, I really wasn't paying attention."

"It was today, wasn't it?" Dora asked. There was no accusation in her voice. She understood that these mental wanderings were something she was going to have to get used to. Her father had them, too, sometimes, and her mother had always blamed them on the AI war. Nathan nodded. Yes, today, so many years ago, that the war had almost ended and then everything had gone to hell.

2064 WEST AND HAWKES
They had actually fallen asleep, exhausted and emotionally wrung out, in the Wild Cards wardroom when the call came for them to report to the Commodore in his quarters.

"Sir!" Lt. Nathan West said sharply before he and Hawkes had even come to a full stop before Ross' desk. The young man's voice was edged with anger and pain. "With all do respect, sir. The Colonel.. It wasn't right to let him go back to Earth believing that the others are dead. The SARs haven't reported..."

"At ease, Lieutenant," Commodore Glen Van Ross said sternly, with as much patience as he could muster. Ragged with his own grief, he longed to vent himself on this boy, shout his pain at him, read him out. But one look at West's frantic expression, and Cooper Hawkes' tortured, heartbroken face, and he knew he could not do it.

"Colonel McQueen's condition is grave, Lieutenant. Extremely grave. Letting him entertain false hopes could actually make matters worse for him, rather than better, fret him, create more of a strain. He needs to concentrate *all* of his energies on healing. And they *would* be false hopes..." he insisted quickly before West could cut him off.

"But the SARs..."

"Have returned. There is no sign of the ISSCV cargo hold in which Lieutenant Wang was stranded. Nor have the rescue teams found any remains on planet of the cockpit containing Captain Vansen and Lieutenant Damphousse. I'm sorry," Ross said, fighting his voice for control, now. "I cannot tell you how very, very sorry I am. But those are the facts. They are gone."

The two young pilots just stared at him, disbelieving, unable to accept.

"Sir. We can't just give up," West protested softly. "The SARs didn't find any remains, they might still be out there..."

"Lieutenant. Lt. Wang's unmaneuverable vessel was drifting in space, surrounded by Chig fighters when you last saw him. There is simply no *way* he could have survived..."

"But what about Shane and Phousse?" Hawkes fairly pleaded. "They might have made it..."

"Their craft would have burned up in the atmosphere, or..."

"But..."

"Or," Ross said forcefully, "disintegrated upon impact with the planet's surface. The 'chutes on that cockpit would not have saved them."

"Then why aren't there any remains?" West challenged. "Sir," he added, as an afterthought.

"The planet is half ocean," Ross replied reasonably, vowing to bring this conversation to an end.

"Then they might survived a splash down," West insisted, heatedly. "Early space craft always splashed down in the ocean for that reason... and the SARs could have missed them..."

"Lieutenant West!"

"I know they're out there, sir! I know it. I can feel them. I believe in them, sir. I know they survived."

Ross glared at them.

"Sir, let us try. Just once more. Please. Send the SARs, again, and let us go with them..."

He should have been prepared for it. In a way, he supposed he *had* know they would make this request. They were McQueen's "kids," after all, and the apple did not fall too far from the tree. Ross was about to bark a sharp refusal, and then suddenly, something inside him just surrendered. Why the hell not? Let them go. What possible harm could one more pass do, things were still in chaos on board the ship, but there were no Chigs converging on the immediate vicinity. In fact, once the civilian prisoners had been safely returned, the Chigs all seemed to desert the area. So why not let them go see for themselves? It would make it easier for them all to have this closure. And who knew. Maybe... Ross closed his eyes and tried to deny the small tickle of hope that nagged him. It was not use. He believed in them, too. He opened his eyes again.

"All right. But if you don't find them after one full grid, you are to return here and I don't want to hear any more about it. Is that understood? And I want you back here the *moment* there is any hint of Chig activity..."

They looked at him in disbelief, as if his words had not quite registered. And then they burst into grins.

"Yes, sir!" they shouted in unison.

"Dismissed," Ross barked tersely, not knowing whether to smile, or weep. Then West turned around again, before they opened the hatch.

"Sir?"

Ross rolled his eyes. "What?" he asked, giving the boy his best "Commodore Ross" look of exasperation.

"Can we take a "sue", sir? God knows what condition they'll be in, if we find them..."

Ross sighed, but he was not about to deny them, now. "You may take one small ISS Surgical Unit," he agreed. "Now, dismissed."

Because of the distances in space, and the time it could take to get the wounded back to a shipboard hospital, most carriers fielded one or more airborne surgical hospital units, set up in specialized APCs. ISSSUs, or "sues," were nothing more or less than flying emergency operating rooms. The Saratoga had three of them. One was a fairly large facility, with two operating rooms and a critical care unit, and the other two were quite small, single ICUs that could double as operating rooms, if necessary. It was one of hese that accompanied the SARs and the remnants of the Fifty-Eighth squadron to Celestial Body 2063 Yankee. If any of the SAR personnel thought it was odd that they were going out again, or unusual that the 'sue' boat was coming along to pick up two pilots who had to be dead, by now, even if they did find something this time, no one said so.

"You West?" A dark-haired, rangy man held out a hand to Nathan where he sat between the blood supplies and the bandages. West stood up and nodded, noting the Navy uniform, and the lieutenant's insignia on the man's collar.

"Dr. Joe Damato. Nice to meet you." The two men shook hands.

"Thanks for letting us come along, sir," West replied.

"Wasn't me," Damato said good naturedly, "I heard it was on the Commodore's orders. But I also heard..." he continued gently, "that the MIAs are squad mates of yours. You're the Fifty-Eighth, Wild Cards."

"That's right. Me, and Hawkes." He nodded to Cooper, who was hanging over the shoulder of the LIDAR operator.

"Hey, Nathan," he called now. "They've started the grid."

"I'll let you go, then," Damato said. "Just wanted to introduce myself..."

Five SARs gridding the surface of the planet took nineteen hours. And Vansen and Damphousse had already been missing for several days. West knew it was almost hopeless, even if they did find them. His head knew it. His heart was not ready to give up. He had held onto Kylen for almost a year, and he had been right about *her* survival... But even if it was too late to save them, at least he could bring their bodies back.

And it was beginning to look like they were not even going to be able to do that. The search was almost over and they had turned up nothing. Ross must have been right, they must have landed in the "ocean" and sunk like a stone. West closed his eyes wearily, unaware of how much hope he had pinned on this one last search.

Behind him, the LIDAR operator sat up straighter, almost knocking Hawkes in the mouth as the other man hung over him.

"Got something," the operator mumbled, pushing buttons.

"What!" demanded Hawkes. "West!"

"This is SAR Three. I got a beacon pulse, bearing three two niner, south south west of axis..." crackled over the intercom.

"Roger that," confirmed the pilot of the 'sue'. "We got it, too. Going down for a look..."

West and Hawkes exchanged looks.

"That beacon wasn't out here the last time," the communications officer insisted suspiciously

"Maybe somebody regained consciousness in the mean time," Damato said behind them. "I might be inclined to take that as a good sign."

"I'm picking up an ISSCV cockpit floating in the sea," the pilot said moments later. "We got 'em. Prepare the drop team."

The drop team would descend to the roof of the cockpit, cut a hole if necessary, if they could not get in through any of the normal apertures, and bring whoever was inside out. It was risky, the danger of falling and drowning in an unknown and likely toxic liquid substance high.

"Let us go," West said.

"You boys risk your lives to fight the Chigs, that's your job," Damato reminded them gently as they watched two of the team members step through the open hatch and swing down on the cabled ladder. "These boys and girls risk their lives to bring you back, again. That's *their* jobs. Let them do it."

They waited what seemed like an eternity, listening to the team below.

"Get me that laser torch, we gotta go in through the roof..." "Got the hook on it?" "Watch that thing, it's swinging wild..." "Goin' in..."

And then: "They're alive! Barely!" "We need a couple of coccoons down here, I can't tell how bad their injuries are..." "Hook up that monitor..."

There was no time for congratulations. Data fed up into the medevac computers and Damato scowled.

"Nasty fracture, eighth and ninth ribs right side, and it looks like a lung puncture on the Captain. Ventilate her, and move her *very* carefully. If you shoot rib through her heart, or take out the other lung, it's all over. Lt. Damphousse has a subdural hemotoma, I can see it from here. If she's already unconscious we don't have much time. We're gonna have to go in. All right get 'em up here..."

The doctor went to scrub. No one paid West and Hawkes any attention. They made themselves as small as possible in a corner as their squad mates, strapped on stretchers and encased in clear plastic, inflated bubble coccoons, slid through the open hatch of the ISSCV. Damato did not waste a moment.

"Shave her." He put his hand on Damhousse and gestured to a technician, who pulled over a tray of sterilized instruments. He rattled off instructions for intravenous feeds, blood products. Taking only a moment to look at Shane, he patted her hand, and murmured some encouragement. "Hang in there, Captain," he told her, smiling. "I'll be back in a minute, gotta have a look at your friend first." Then he walked the short distance back to Damphousse and reached for something that looked for all the world like a woodworking drill. West turned his head away. A med tech finally took pity and waved them over to stand by Shane.

"Will she make it?" West asked softly. The tech just shrugged. Beside them, Vansen stirred a little. West leaned close to her.

"It's okay, Shane we've got you. You're not dreaming and you're not dead..." He took Vansen's hand, and waved Hawkes closer. "It's me, Nathan. Cooper's here, too. Just hang on, we're with you..."

Vansen did not open her eyes, but West could swear he saw a small smile through the ventilator mask, and could feel a slight pressure on his hand. They could not see what was going on with Damphousse; at the last minute, a technician had pulled a screen closed, cutting off their view. And they could hear very little of what was going on, understanding even less of it. Finally, they did hear Damato give an order to bandage Damphousse up, and the man came around the outside of the screen, pulling off bloody gloves.

"How is she?" Hawkes demanded.

"Too soon to tell," Damato replied. "She had a subdural hemotoma - a puddle of blood and clot under her skull pressing down on the surface of her brain. We've relieved the pressure, but she was pretty far gone; we won't know for a while if any permanent damage was done." He leaned over Shane and placed his palm lightly on her forehead, smiling down at her warmly.

"Hello, sweetheart. How ya doing?"

If anyone had called Vansen "sweetheart " when she was fully functional, she probably would have killed them. And West at least expected Shane to scowl in annoyance despite the gravity of her condition. He never expected to see her smile back at the offender, or to see the tears that suddenly welled into her eyes stream down over her cheeks. She must be in worse shape than he thought. He watched Damato eyeing the monitor readouts, saw him smile. It was not until he let her go, though, that West realized the doctor had been holding Shane's hand.

"Looking good, Captain," he sighed, giving her arm one last squeeze. "Get some rest, now..."

Damphousse remained in a coma in sick bay for three days. Even after she regained consciousness, she was in and out of lucidity, only vaguely remembering faces, oblivious to where she was or what had happened. Vansen faired a little better. She was still in a lot of pain, but her worst problem was the extreme dehydration. The docs had patched the hole in her lung; now it was up to time and medication. Her spirits were good. West noticed they got markedly better, the second or third time Dr. Joe Damato came in to check on her and stayed to visit.

The Wild Cards were rarely separated. Ross, compassionately, had delayed reassigning West and Hawkes until he knew if the others were likely to ever be fit to return to duty. The young men spent almost every waking moment they were not on duty in sick bay, sitting beside their friends, holding hands, touching, not talking much. It was not until the fifth day that someone mentioned Paul Wang.

"Poor Paul." It was Vansen who said it, her voice still weak.

"I talked with the chaplain. I wanted to wait until we could all go," West said. He was sitting on the edge of Vansen's bed

"Go?"

"To his memorial. I just wish the Colonel could be with us."

"I wonder if he even knows that we found *you* guys," Hawkes said, from the floor beside Damphousse. "The Commodore told him you had all died. And they told us nobody could write to him, that he wasn't allowed to get any news from the war..."

"Ross will find a way to get word to him..." Vansen sighed. They were too engrossed in their own thoughts to see the Commodore come into the ward.

"Atten-hut!" Nathan barked, suddenly noticing their visitor.

"As you were," Commodore Ross said as the two men started to their feet. They sat back down and eyed him expectantly. "I wanted to tell you this myself," Ross began. "A few minutes ago, we received a message that has been relayed from the battleship George Washington. While performing routine maneuvers outside of Cora they came upon a derelict ISSCV cargo hold, drifting in space, which they believed may have been lost in some battle. The hull was covered with Chig missile burns, and one end of the vessel had been torn off, perhaps by a cannon blast, or perhaps by a collision. Close examination determined it to be one of ours."

The Wild Cards dropped their eyes. Ross hurried on.

"On the off chance that there might be bodies still inside, the George Washington recovered the vessel, and did in fact find one body, trapped under the debris in the sealed thorax of the cargo hold. The dogtags identified the body as that of Paul Wang, Lieutenant, USMC."

Well, at least they knew, now, thought West. At least they could bury him decently. He opened his mouth to say so, when Ross held up his hand.

"By some miracle," the commodore went on, his voice nearly breaking, "the chief medical officer on the George Washington was a cryonicist in his former life. On a whim, he examined the body, and found slight... brain wave activity. After carefully raising the body temperature, he was able to restart the heart..."

"He's alive? Paul's alive?!" West was on his feet again. Ross touched the boy lightly on the shoulder, squeezed. Guided him back down onto Vansen's bed.

"His heart is beating. He is in a deep coma, and he is not breathing on his own. It is unknown at this time if he ever will or if he will ever regain consciousness. But yes. In a manner of speaking, he is still alive."

"Cryonic sleep. The cold of space must have pushed him into cryonic sleep. We put people into cryonic suspension all the time, he'll come out of it..."

"It's not quite that simple," Ross cautioned them. "Cryonics is a very exacting science, and is by no means one hundred percent. Even under carefully controlled laboratory conditions, many individuals put into cryonic suspension do not revive, or revive with significant brain or organ damage. And Lt. Wang did not have the benefit of carefully controlled laboratory conditions.

"The George Washington is shipping him back to Earth as soon as the doctor feels it is safe for him to be moved. But I felt you would want to know..."

"Sir?" It was Hawkes who spoke.

Ross looked at him.

"We have to let the Colonel know they're alive, sir..."

Ross hesitated. "They're not letting him get any news from the war," he said slowly, but he knew the boy was right. McQueen had a right to know, now. It was one thing to protect the man against the strain of false hope, but *this* was positive, this was real. They *were* alive. McQueen would *need* to know that. "I'll do what I can..." he said. He hesitated a moment longer, then turned and left the room. For a moment, they were too stunned to speak.

"He's right, you know," West finally admitted. "Cryonics *is* a very delicate science. There are special procedures that need to be followed, chemicals that prevent the water in the cells from freezing... we can't expect Paul to..."

"But if the doctor found brain wave activity, then he couldn't have been, well, *really* frozen..."

"I suppose the cold could have just slowed his metabolism down to the point were it allowed him to survive... if there was still some residual heat and air in the hold..."

"Back up life support is run on batteries... " Hawkes ventured.

"I don't care," said Damphousse, her voice filled with tears. "He's alive. As long as his heart is beating, I have to believe he's gonna make it. God would not have brought him back this far against these odds... just to let him go, now... "

They all turned and looked at her. It was the first coherent words she had spoken since coming out of her coma, the first real sign that she was aware of anything at all. Hawkes reached over and took her hand.

"I have to believe," she sighed.

Next : Part Five

Previous : Part Three