Snippet #1297782

Lara took the Captain's jibe without any sign she had heard it except for a certain hardness that immediately came over her gaze.

"Of course, sir," she said. She had two degrees and a PhD; checking her understanding was superfluous and patronising. She decided she did not like her new commanding officer, but then that hardly mattered. As long as he didn't interfere with her clinical judgement, he could throw all the insults he liked her way. The next time he required morphine for a field wound, she might just inject saline instead.

Once they were left alone, she packed her equipment away in its proper places and left the barracks.


The inside of the Manitoba was much like the outside. From a distance, slick and striking but closer up the wear from years of operation showed. Lara walked down the bustling corridors ignoring the double-takes from passers-by; it was obvious who the new recruits were on a ship like this and the existing personnel would relish the opportunity to inject a little much-needed gossip into their social lives. The ship was larger than any Lara had been on before but there could be no more than a thousand people living on it permanently.

After stopping briefly to bring up a map of the station on a nearby information screen, she found Clinic 2B. Pushing through the swing-doors, she went inside. It consisted of a small complex of consultation rooms around a central waiting area. Undoubtedly this was where the residents of the ship attended as out-patients for their more minor ailments or for monitoring and routine assessments. Somewhere else in the medical centre would be a ward where the most serious cases- field trauma or otherwise- were cared for.

A man, in his late forties with wiry grey hair, looked up from where he consulted with a secretary at the far end of the waiting area.

"Ah, you must be Dr Freeman," he said, extending a hand and smiling. Lara shouldered her bag and shook it. "Reggie Altriste, as I'm sure you know. Now, come with me and we'll sign out your standard issue-"

"I won't be requiring any," said Lara shortly. "I already have my own and there are certainly more advanced than anything you have here. Any information files on Guinamese physiology would be useful, however..."

Dr Altriste waved a hand in placation. "Don't worry, we'll get to that. And yes, I realise you've brought your own stuff, everybody does. In fact, I'd think less of you if you hadn't. But the thing is, the SRC like to think they're being useful in issuing outdated vitals monitors and insist that we all carry them around with us like teddy bears. So let me come and get your signature and they can stay exactly where they are in the storeroom until you sign them back in again and no one will be the wiser."

For the first time in days, Lara smiled. It seemed that not everyone in the SRC were unimaginative thugs with a penchant for power-play like her newly assigned captain.

"I know," said Dr Altriste sympathetically. "It's a relief, isn't it? Find a medic who says he truly fits in with a military organisation and I'll show you a liar."



A little while later, Lara had left her bags in her locker next to her new bunk (one of the other recruits had already been and gone, leaving their belongings on the bed one over), she took a few minutes to eat an uninspired lunch of rehydrated chicken salad. She had almost finished when the voice of her commander crackled over the intercom. With an exasperated look at her plate, she finished, changed into a more practical outfit of leggings, t-shirt and slim-fitting finned jacket and found her pistol. Deftly checking its machinery and putting a few boxes of ammunition into her pocket, she tucked the pistol into her waistband at the small of her back and left to find Block 42.