The Rogue: Part 2
Pain. That was the first thing I remember. Intense pain, my whole body on fire, as though I had been thrown into an inferno. A soft moan escaped my muzzle. I tried to open my eyes, but even then, I didn't see anything. I slowly reached up with my right paw and ran my fingers over my eyes. I felt something soft beneath my fingers, though it felt sticky as I ran them over the left side of my face.
"Doctor, he's awake!" I heard a female voice say.
"Finally...I didn't think he would wake up, not this soon, at any rate," another voice said, this one male and older sounding. I opened my muzzle to say something, but I felt a gentle touch on my forehead.
"Shh...Relax," the female voice said. "Don't try to move or talk. Your ship was destroyed in the battle, but we were able to get to you before it exploded, though you've suffered severe injuries. You'll be fine, though."
I groaned softly and rest my head back on the pillow. It was then that I felt what seemed like a strap going across my neck. I reached up again and tried to touch my muzzle, but my fingers touched plastic instead. An oxygen mask...They had put me in an oxygen mask. Made sense, though. After a few moments, my mind started to grow fuzzy, and I smelled something different in the air within the mask. A sweet, almost tangy scent that I could feel on the back of my tongue. Slowly, I felt the pain receded from my body, and it seemed like I was floating, a warm blanket surrounding me.
"What are you doing?" I slurred, my tongue not wanting to work right.
"Van, we're going to put you back to sleep. There's a lot that we need to do to...arm....fine..." I heard a male voice say, probably the doctor, but his voice seemed to die away as my eyelids became heavier. Soon, darkness enveloped me again, but this time, it was warm, peaceful, calm...
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A groan crept from my throat as I slowly came to, my mind still fuzzy from the drugs they had used to put me to sleep. The pain that I had felt earlier had receded from a raging inferno to a dull throb. Slowly, I opened my eyes, but something felt a little odd. Light seared my right, but it was like my left never opened. I started to lift my left arm to touch the left side of my face, but nothing happened. Fearing the worst, I brought my right paw up to my left cheek, fingers slowly creeping upwards. Just beneath the eye socket, I felt it...cool metal. I slid my paw higher, tracing around the edge, and, sure enough, there was more metal.
"I wouldn't feel anymore, if I were you...I don't think the doc would be to happy if you messed up the circuitry inside the socket," a voice said, one that I recognized. Micah.
"Wha...What are you talking about?" I asked, turning my head to face him. He was leaning against the wall near the door, his arms across his chest. Standing, the dust colored ferret was shorter than me, and his build was quite wiry, but that by no means meant he was weak. In our spars, he could match me in strength, and beat me in agility. His black hair was cut into a standard military high-n-tight, and he regarded me coolly with those jade eyes of his.
"Better question is, why did you disobey a direct order to return to formation and attack a battle cruiser on your own? You could have been killed!" he growled.
"Tch...You would never understand, Micah...Not someone like you," I said softly, calmly.
"What the fuck's that supposed to mean? Are you saying that I'm heartless? That I don't know the pain of loosing someone?" He stood straight up, his shoulders tensing, his voice quivering.
"No, I'm saying you don't have the balls to try to avenge what's been taken from you. You may not be heartless, but you're gutless." My words hit him like a slap to the face. He scowled, jaw line tightening, and I could tell it was all he could do to keep from throwing himself at me, laying there on the bed. Instead, he turned on his heal and headed towards the door, which hissed open as he approached.
"That may be, but we'll see who's still flying after everything is said and done," he spat, looking back at me over his shoulder before leaving. The door hissed shut, and all I could hear was the steady beeping of several nearby machines that I was hooked up to.
I pushed myself to sitting, grimacing as I did so. The sharp, fiery pain from earlier had died down to a dull throb, especially around my now empty and mechanical eye socket and my left shoulder. That same throbbing pain turned my attention to that shoulder once more. I though for a moment about just touching it, feeling to see if my arm was still there or not, but decided against it. I looked down, half my vision obscured by my lack of a left eye, but I could still clearly see. Half of my shoulder had been replaced with metal and circuitry, going as far up as the midway point of my collar bone, but there was no arm. I had no left arm anymore. It was just like my eye. Had the explosion really tore me up that much?
Thinking back, I remembered. It was though it happened in slow motion, the console buckling beneath my paws, then erupting into a fiery blossom, looking oddly beautiful. Shards of the panel flew towards me, and I remember throwing my left arm in front of me to protect my face, but there was one shard...I remembered it well. Moving, almost in slow motion, towards my face, a jagged and razor piece of steel, gleaming from the light of the explosions, white hot, looking like it was coated in fox-fire. It felt like it skimmed my cheek, but I blacked out afterwards. I didn't remember anything hitting my arm, but then, I was to busy watching that bit of metal heading towards my face.
"What was that all about?" a female voice said. I turned my head and saw the nurse come around the corner, a young vixen, couldn't be older than 24.
"Nothing..." I lied, shaking my head slightly.
"It was more than nothing...He seemed pretty angry when he left." I chuckled lightly under my breath.
"You're new on Katina, aren't you?" She tilted her head slightly and gave me a puzzled look.
"What do you mean?" she asked.
"Let's just say that most here don't like Micah for a very good reason. He's the reason we lost what would have been two excellent pilots," I said. The vixen tilted her head slightly to one side.
"How?" I shook my head and sat back down, right paw resting on what was left of my left shoulder.
"A few years ago, when I was still a lieutenant and nearing the end of my combat training, I was doing an exercise with two other young pilots with Micah as our instructor. He was supposed to be teaching us advanced combat techniques, so our weapons were powered down. During our lesson, a flight of Andross' fighters dropped out of slipspace and engaged us. Micah refused to power up our weapons, so sure he could take them out on his own. He couldn't. Those two young wolves were killed, one from a direct cockpit shot, the other when his engines overloaded and exploded. I only just made it back. Needless to say, Micah never taught again. I've hated him ever since. I had trained with those two since day one, and we had become close friends." She looked down slightly, then back at me.
"That makes sense..."
"Yeah, I guess it does." I said, shaking my head slightly. The vixen nodded slightly, then leaned towards me. "What are you doing?"
"I'm checking that none of the connections on your shoulder have worked their way loose. They're quite fragile until the replacement arm is in place."
"I have a question for you...Why did you have to take my arm? Was it really that bad?" She nodded slightly.
"Yes...You had severe burns, the muscle was shredded, the bones were pulverized, and there was extreme nerve damage. It would have taken a long time to recover, and you most likely wouldn't have been able to use the arm again."
"A dead arm, huh?" she nodded. "When will I get the replacement?
"Should be later today, along with your eye. We also made a sleeve that matches your own fur pattern. No one will even..."
"No," I interrupted. "No cover. I want this to serve as a reminder for me...A reminder of what today cost me." The vixen blinked in surprise, but she nodded.
"If you wish...But I should tell you that it's been almost a week since the battle. You've been under the whole time we were rebuilding your shoulder and cheek." I just stared at her. A week...A week since I lost Avril. I knew that I had missed her memorial, along with other pilots that we lost that day. I didn't know the true toll, but just loosing her was to much. My eye burned, and my vision grew blurry. A single tear trickled down my cheek, forming a small trench through my fur.
"Avril..." I whispered, standing only to move over to the wall to lean against it heavily. The vixen watched me for a moment, then left in silence, the door hissing shut behind her. "I won't forget you...my love..."
I straightened up, sighing heavily. I had met her shortly after I arrived at Katina. It wasn't long before I had asked her out for the first time, and within that first year, I proposed to her. She said yes, and we were mated early the next year. She was an excellent pilot, and the best mate a guy could ever hope for. I loved her with every fiber of my being, and she returned that love.
While I had been thinking, I had started to wander around the room, stopping before a mirror. Why there was a mirror in my room, I wasn't exactly sure, but it was enough to show me that I looked like hell froze over. My usually neat dark blonde hair, falling just past my shoulders, was a mess. My fur, white and deep red, with a streak that ran down my muzzle between my eyes, was ragged, matted down with blood in places. Then, my eye fell on those mechanical parts, a sharp contrast to the rest of my body. They gleamed as the light reflected off of them, the hollow socket of my left eye shrouded in darkness. The light was angled wrong to show me the inside of it. But what I could see were the tiny motors that would ultimately provide movement for the mechanical eye that would take the place of the ice blue one that was once there. My tail fell from it's usual curl to just hang behind me. If there was one way to tell that a husky like me was upset, it was if their tail wasn't curled.
Sighing again, I made my way back over to the bed. There wasn't much for me to do, so, even though I had technically slept for a week, I decided to sleep again to pass the time. I laid down and closed my eyes, the sounds of medical equipment beeping lulling me to sleep once more.
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