Accord of Honor by Kevin O. McLaughlin Page B

gut somewhere. I didn’t know the extent of the damage, but the drainage tube from his gut, ventilation tube into his mouth, morphine drip into his IV, and a couple of other tubes I didn’t recognize made it look pretty bad. As I was taking the sight in, the surgeon spotted me and flitted over.
    “It’s bad, but not as bad as you might think if we can get him to a hospital pretty soon. I’ve got one other who’s worse. That one won’t last another day without major surgery. They’re both stable – for now. But it won’t last.”
    I winced. “If we turn back now, we lose our window to hit that refit station. Maybe for good.”
    He grunted. “I can’t advise you on strategy, Captain,” he said. “All I can do is inform you of the facts. Which are that these two men,” he gestured at Acres and the man nearby he had just been working on, “will both be dead if they don’t get medical attention soon.”
    “Are there adequate facilities on the R&D station?” I asked.
    “No. These men need Mars or Earth. They need a real hospital, real surgeons! I’ve done what I can, but I don’t have the skill or the equipment to fix these injuries. Acres needs a new liver, and his kidneys are failing from stress. Wilson took a shot to the inside of the thigh that migrated shrapnel up through his pelvis, tearing things to pieces in there. It was all I could do to stop him from bleeding out, but he won’t last long with just my patches.”
    I let out a hissing breath. This was Acres! I didn’t think anything could take him down. Seeing him like this shook me. “Thanks, doctor. I appreciate the candor. I’ll do what I can for these men.”
    “Take care of your men first. It’s what your father would do,” he replied.
    I forced a smile, biting back the angry retort that was my first reaction. The last thing I needed right now was someone telling me what my father would do.
    “I thought you weren’t going to give strategic advice, doc,” I said through gritted teeth. He made as if to say something, but I went on. “No, don’t interrupt me. First, I am not my father. What he would do is not relevant here. What I do is. Second, we’re at war, and every person who boarded that ship knew the risk. Myself included. If I have to sacrifice those men to stop the enemy, I will.” With that, I spun myself and pushed down toward the floor. His jaw was still hanging as I grabbed the railing and pulled myself out the door into the hall.
    Served him right, but it didn’t do much to make me feel better. The medic was right about my father. Dad would do anything he could for his crew, anything to keep them safe.
    To a point. But he would also order men into battle. He would share risks, but he would order people to take risks as well. The question was: how could I save the injured men under my command and still take the fight to the enemy?

Chapter 8
Nicholas Stein
    I t took us a couple of hours to get the fusion reactor kicking out power safely again. It shut down automatically to prevent a catastrophic failure when nearby systems were damaged. The crew rerouted essential systems to backups from the fourth missile bay computers, and were able to bring fusion back on line. That gave us power again, and we were able to warm up the ship and get air circulating again. Good thing too, because our suit air was getting a bit thin by that time.
    With power out, we’d had no way to track the enemy ships, and no way to contact Mars Station. We were blind – I could only guess what was going on out there. We hadn’t been blown to bits while we were helpless, which I hoped meant that the enemy ships had continued their retreat or been destroyed by our last missiles. We hadn’t been picked up by Mars Station rescue ships either though, which could have meant a lot of things.
    Once we had the power online, I ordered the helmsman to swing us back toward Mars. We’d drifted a considerable way, and I kept our acceleration low to avoid adding