On Silver Wings Read Online Free

2
    Hell is a state of being, not a physical place.

    In all of the universe there are many places that fit the human definition of hell. Worlds filled with molten rivers and sulfur air, ice planets where the oxygen condenses into liquid and freezes like water, and barren moons with no air to regulate the environment and the temperature fluxes from zero to fifteen hundred degrees kelvin in a matter of moments.

    But for all that, hell is not a physical place. Those places will kill you far quicker than a bullet from a gun, and with more mercy. Hell is being caught in a nightmare, out of control, and out of your mind.

    Sorilla Aida knew Hell all too well, she was a frequent visitor.

    This time, it was filled with numbers. Statistics, heartbeats, footfalls, voices, inventory reciepts, and casualties.

    The heat was there this time too, burning from the inside.

    Last time it had been cold, she remembered in a moment of lucidity. She hadn’t been able to stop shivering then. Not this time; she was slick with sweat, and the numbers of her own personal hell reported that most of it was being recycled back into the liquid pouch that lined the back of her armor.

    The numbers just wouldn’t go away, no matter how much she tried.

    ‘
Proc, sleep mode
.’ She mouthed in her feverish dream, again demanding that the system shut down.

    It did, flickering away in an instant, only to light back up a few seconds later when her face muscles jumped involuntarily.

    She wanted to scream, a desire that built up deep down inside her, but she kept silent. Always stay quiet. Someone had told her that, a long time ago, but the name escaped her for the moment. The name did, but not the lesson. She let the urge to scream bubble and well deep down inside her, but only moaned slightly as she twisted her head and felt the pain rush through it.

    Hell was so hot this time.

    She wished she was back in the cold hell, just for a little while.

    Sergeant Sorilla Aida knew hell, though, and knew that wishes were worthless there. Hell fed on wishes, turning their false hope into new torture.

    She knew that, but couldn’t help making them anyway. That was the hell of it, after all.

    *****

    Water flowed from the stream to buckets to be poured on the feverish woman’s face and head every few minutes, a steady stream of people bringing the water in from the mountain stream to where the young woman in charge of the group’s medical ‘facility’ poured and dabbed the cool liquid on her patient.

    As she did, the redheaded nurse puzzled over the situation. The woman’s implants had obviously gone haywire, their control inputs skewed by the concussion. The ocular implants were constantly firing, and Tara could only imagine the horror that would be.

    It had been twenty hours now, at least, since the ocular displays had shorted. Twenty hours in which her patient’s body hadn’t been able to get any real rest in order to help its own healing.

    Surprisingly she was healing well other than the head injury and fever. Her ribs seemed to have firmed up, and the few cuts she’d had were already pink with healed. The infrareds she had were well tuned, Tara could tell, and were considerably better than anything she’d had even when she had an actual hospital.

    Unfortunately, infrareds were not intended for feverish patients.

    “More water,” She ordered, “And bring me her equipment case... maybe I’ll be able to find a way into it this time.”

    That was a forlorn hope, unfortunately. She’d already checked the case, but there wasn’t any way she could find to get into it. She had the wrong biometrics, couldn’t get a clear scan of her patient’s iris through the clutter of the implants, and it wouldn’t take a palm scan either for some reason.

    She’d try again, though.

    And, in the meantime, more water was the best she could do.

    *****

    The fever broke on the third day, after constant around the clock treatment from the people in the