Chronicle 1, Episode 1, Chapter 9

The Interstell Chronicles

Episode 1 - War from Above

Chapter 9

More pain. It was becoming an increasingly familiar sensation. Pain in the darkness. Pain without the sensation of having a real body. It was the stuff of nightmares. Pain that transcends the boundary between reality and dreams.
Light crept in to Matthew’s vision. It was too bright. The sort of light that you get on a summer’s morning when a member of your family opens the curtains to let in the light. The sort that wakes you up from even the best dreams. Pure sunlight.
The realization that it was sunlight brought other sensations flowing back to his consciousness. A spring breeze heavy with the scent of life flowed across his face. But something else. The smell of artificial cleanliness.
The sensations flowed out down his body, like it was slowly filling with life. The feel of cotton sheets around bare skin. The itch of bandages on skin. The sounds of people talking, walking and working outside the room. A constant beep of something to his left. The quiet whir of machinery and hum of electronics.
A hospital? That would explain the smell of disinfectant, the constant beeping would probably be a heart monitor.
Matthew tried to open his eyes and found he couldn’t. It was standard procedure to tape people’s eyes closed in certain situations. One of them was for surgery, another was for death. Especially if the corpse had the tendency to open it’s eyes. Not many did it, but some did. Many a relative had thought their loved one was coming back to life when they had opened their eyes. It was really just the occasional stray nerve firing and causing a muscle to contract. For some, feet twitched, others had their hands close. Some opened their eyes.
Am I dead? Is this death? No. Probably not. The sensations seemed to real. The pain that had seemed so constant in the dark had subsided in the light. In life.
So my eyes are taped from surgery.
Relief at confirmed life filled his body, bringing the rest of his senses back to full. Matthew reached up with his right hand to pull at the tape covering his eyes. He couldn’t use the left, it was punctured with IV lines and would get tangled up in the heart monitor lines.
The tape came away relatively easily with little pain, allowing Matthew to flutter his eyelids to remove that horrible gunk that builds up in the corner of the eyes sometimes after sleep, and to help his eyes adjust to the light.
It was indeed a hospital room. Pastel Blue walls, white ceiling with recessed lighting, linoleum style floor extending nearly a foot up the wall. All the corners of the room were rounded, providing no recesses for bacteria to grow in and making cleaning much easier.
The bed was one of those specially designed for long term occupancy. It was a new design where the bed was adjustable in three sections, head middle and foot. Metal railings ran round the edge to stop patients from falling out in a fitful sleep or some form of attack.
The medical equipment was arrayed around the head of the bed, heart monitors, brain function monitors, pain monitoring equipment, automatic medicine dispensers. You name it, it was there.
The windows were at the far end of the room, nearest the foot of the bed, allowing any patient to look out over the vista.
The view was mainly of uninterrupted sky, but also visible was the tops of surrounding buildings. It was early. The sun was only just beginning to creep from the east side of the windows. The occasional sound of a car running on a concrete road not too far away echoed round the room from the open window.
You can always tell the difference between concrete and tarmac roads. The tarmac is just quieter sounding that the harsh sounds of tires against worn concrete roads.
Matthew recognized the view. It was from the fifth floor of Southend General Hospital. It had recently undergone a major rebuild to modernize the sixty’s style concrete tower. It had cost millions, and was the latest phase in re-development. It had started with a new wing of wards to the west of the grounds, connected to the oldest part of the hospital in the middle of the complex, that dated from before the first world war. It had also just finished major renovation work. Now they had started on the tower. Floor by floor they were gutting it and re-building it. The fifth floor had been turned into the high dependency ward with all the latest equipment.
The door of to his left opened and Matthew turned his head to look. One of the Nurses entered followed by Cubber. It was hard to recognize him at first glance. Gone was his traditional work coverall, and work dirty hands from disassembling alien equipment. Instead, he stood there in a tailored Lincoln green suit that set off his eyes. Expensive, definitely expensive.
At his back was one of the base security personnel in an off the rack, dark slate gray suit. Matthew caught the bulge under the left arm as he leaned round the door, indicating he was armed. All three stopped dead in their tracks staring at Matthew as he lay on the bed staring back.
The nurse moved into the room, scanned the equipment above his head and dashed out the room, presumably in search of a doctor. The security guy scanned the room professionally and moved to look out the window. Seeing no threat he moved back outside the doorway.
Cubber stood there open mouthed for a moment, before replacing his look of astonishment with a smirk. "So glad you could join us kid! You had us all worried there for a while."
"How long have I been out?" At least that’s what he wanted to say, but it came out more like "Hrmm onlg, e bn t…."
Cubber frowned again and glanced out the door. Apparently seeing nothing he was after, he moved in and sat in a chair by the open window, handily in a place that meant Matthew did not have to turn his head much to look at him.
He looked uncomfortable, crossed his legs, frowned again, unfolded them, and finally scooted the chair forwards to sit closer to the bed. "That is something the Doctors should talk to you about son."
As he said it, he looked away, finding the heart monitor extrodinarly interesting, like he wanted to take it apart and see how it worked. So, something was wrong.
"How long Cubber?" Matthew was pleased to find that his words actually came out as understandable English this time, and that he even managed to leak some of his anger at having his question deflected and not answered. If there was one thing he hated, it was not getting an answer.
"A while." There was that frown again. "Look kid, I would really feel more comfortable if the Doc’s look over you first." There was a trace of concern in his voice, so Matthew dropped it and stared at Cubber instead. But that made him shift in his seat as though it was uncomfortable again, so Matthew returned his attention to looking out the window at the sky.
Three doctors burst into the room closely followed by the Nurse from earlier. All went straight to the equipment and looked at the readings, then promptly set about examining him. Manually checking the pulse, shining lights in his eyes, asking questions like, how do you feel, any pain. All the standard questions that members of the health profession bring out to build a profile of their patient.
The Nurse had given up trying to shove Cubber out the door, and instead put herself between him and Matthew while the examination continued.
Matthew turned his attention to one of the Doctors and suddenly recognized him as one of the new Doctors from the Medical bay back at base. Come to think of it, all the people in the room were attached to XCOM. "How long have I been out Doctor Guerdin?"
Guerdin started at the mention of his name and looked at his colleagues, who all nodded in return. "Six months." He had a definite French accent to his English, but it was soft, almost comforting. Almost.
Matthew’s mouth dropped. Six months! "How, why?"
Guerdin signaled for Cubber to close the door and leave, but Cubber just closed the door and leant against it with his arms crossed. His sheer physical bulk was intimidating standing there with a frown. While not an athlete, he was almost burly, like an American Hell’s Angle biker, and as such could be imposing as hell.
Guerdin sighed and turned back to Matthew. "We are not allowed to disclose much. This place is too insecure. But, you were really worked over. According to the reports we were allowed to see, the fighting was fierce. They ended up sending in all the reserve personnel from the base in the end. You were amongst the wounded. Reports from your squad-mates said they saw you fighting hand to hand with some Mutons and when they went to help, they were attacked and lost sight of you. The local police turned up after they heard reports of gunfire, and our personnel were deeper in the woodland clearing up the erm… location. The police called in an ambulance before we could intercept them. According to their reports, you were found partly buried under a tree. Your armor was the only thing that saved your life."
Matthew stared at his face, at the dark hair going gray at the temples, the short stubble that was either a fashion statement, of a sign that he had just not shaved for a couple of days. At his eyes that were so pale blue, it was like looking into a calm swimming pool, and knew that more information would not be coming from him. Yet.
"Why Southend Hospital?" That caused another frown, and a sidelong glance at Cubber who stared back but gave a slight shake of his head.
"How did you know?" That almost made Matthew smile.
"Elementary." Another frown and a glance between his colleagues and Matthew re-answered. "I used to work here. I recognize the view and the room, though the last time I saw it they hadn’t finished the refurbishment’s of this floor."
Just saying that brought home the reality that six months of his life had just disappeared. But where to?
"The police ID you and contacted your family. We could hardly have you disappear again, not when your parents had already seen you. You’ve been in a coma since then, so not much of a security risk. The guy on the door was undercover, posing as a security consultant for the charity group you are supposed to be working for. The NHS transferred you here after you were stabilized."
Six months. Half a year. Admittedly his memory of that night was blurred, but it seemed so, well, impossible

One hour later, half a dozen members of XCOM intelligence were packing up their tape recorders, and collecting together the notes they had written during the debriefing session. They had even brought a polygraph lie detector.
The question session had been relatively futile. His memory for the entire six months was a total blank. Infact, the intelligence officers had been able to answer more questions than he had. They had filled him in on some of the details of the battle, and the fact that twenty of his comrades in arms had died, but that his own team had only suffered minor injuries, and were all now back on duty.
More details were to be released to him once they got him back on base. But they had filled him in on certain things, like why he was back in the country, when he was supposed to be several thousand miles away in the Middle East.

Then the questions were over. His Mum and Dad burst into the hospital room. His mum looked very tired, and tears were streaming from her eyes, but she still managed to look beautiful.
She had nearly waist length brown hair that was beginning to thin out and gray with age, but still shone under the lighting of the room. Her face, though now beginning to show the years, was oval shaped, and kind looking, with her most prominent feature, her almost aqua marine blue eyes, puffy and red after crying.
His Dad was six foot, definitely where he got his own six foot two height from. His hair used to be black, but was now more gray and silver than anything. He had unfashionably long sideburns down to the bottom of his ears, and his hair was receding from his forehead and in its usual semi-tangled length to the middle of his neck. His eyes were also blue, and were near brimming with unshed tears and his face was lit in a big smile.
While not the most glamorous people to have ever walked the face of the planet, to Matthew, then and there they were too beautiful for words.
They both literally threw themselves at him lying in the bed, not even giving the unusually large number of visitors a second glance.
His brother however did look at the people gathered around the room. He was the shortest male in the family, being not much more than five foot five. Fashionably dressed in pale beige pants and slate gray designer tank top, showing off his well muscled and dark Arabic colored tan. Plus the inevitable Ray-band shades that cost him nearly a week’s wages when he had bought them four years ago.
He also stared back at the security man standing in the doorway. He would be glaring behind his shades.
He continued to glare at the people surrounding him as they filled out the room. But instead of asking about it outright like he normally would, he simply picked a spot at the foot of the bed and sat down.
The appearance of his family dispelled his worries like the sun chasing away the night. All the troubles that had happened over the past year were behind him. Even if it was just for a few hours.