Life Support: Secret Operations

By Joseph L. Kellogg

Father Tanner treats the sick and injured on a dusty backwater planet. Desperate for supplies, he takes a job to treat a visiting alien official, teaming up with Damien Rogers, an out-of-work smuggler, to get him there. The problem? They're on the wrong side of enemy lines in the middle of a cold war.

 

Forced to hide their identities, Father Tanner and his team are stumped by the bizarre patient, whose condition steadily worsens. To make matters worse, the alien crew catches onto the ruse, and the missionary is forced to turn to kidnapping. Can they find the diagnosis before their only bargaining chip dies on the operating table?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Joseph L. Kellogg
• Release date: Jun 10, 2022
• ISBN: 9798985472714

Book preview

Table of Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Epilogue

Sample Chapter from Blood Pressure

Life Support 1_rev02

Life Support:

Secret Operations

Joseph L. Kellogg

Joseph L. Kellogg is a chemist living in Tennessee with his wife and two corgis.

You can see more of his stories at www.JosephLKellogg.com

Cover art by www.100covers.com

This story is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to real persons or events are purely coincidental.

Copyright © 2022 by Joseph L. Kellogg

All rights reserved

ISBN: 979-8-9854727-1-4

To Julie

CHAPTER ONE

Father Tanner pulled back the torn flap of sun-beaten skin and probed into the wound with his forceps. Deep red blood oozed from the injury, washing over the dried blood that coated the nearby skin which was mottled with sand and dust. The nurse on the other side of the table suctioned away the blood with a plastic tube stained with years of repeated use. A curtain hung to Tanner's side, shielding the patient's face from view, but he still heard the patient's moans of pain through gritted teeth. Tanner threw up a quick prayer for forgiveness for the pain he was causing as he operated; a stick clamped between the teeth was a poor substitute for anesthetic, but it was all they had at this point.

It looks like the shrapnel nicked an artery, Tanner said, but it's holding it closed for now. Get the clamp ready, Ghenni.

The masked nurse grabbed an instrument from the table, tensed in anticipation of the next command. Tanner gripped the offending piece of metal, and carefully coaxed it out of its place. More blood squirted out of the artery, staining the patient's pant leg and spattering on the battered metal operating table. Tanner tossed the shard into a dish of water.

Clamp, he said, keeping his eyes on the patient as he held his hand out. Ghenni passed it to him, and Tanner placed it on the artery to stop the flow of blood as he continued in his work. With quick, practiced movements he ran a thread through the vessel's ruptured wall, slowly pulling the hole closed. After a few more stitches, he re-examined his work, admiring the small amount of order he was able to bring to the chaos of mangled flesh. He removed the clamp, and the artery surged with blood again, but the stitches held under the pressure. After closing his eyes for a quick prayer of thanksgiving, Tanner sutured the wound, backed by a chorus of pained whimpers.

As Ghenni began cleaning the patient, rinsing the instruments, and loading them into the autoclave for the next surgery, Father Tanner turned his attention to the piece of shrapnel. A quick shake rinsed the thick liquid off, dyeing the water red. Then he pulled the shard of metal out and wiped it off with a dirty cloth. It was thin, with twisted, jagged edges from the terrible force of the explosion that ripped it apart. Inscrutable etching marked its surface; Tanner scrubbed it until he could make out the minuscule writing: a serial number in Arabic numerals. With a sigh, he pulled off his surgical mask and trudged back toward his office.

Father Tanner's slow footsteps in the hallway were drowned out by the dull roar of crying children, shouting parents, and patients moaning with pain and nausea. The last of the battle casualties were stabilized, but that left dozens of non-emergency cases backed up. Twisted limbs, grotesque tumors, and deformed faces all waiting for him, for a second chance at a normal life. They came from hundreds of miles away, from remote villages without so much as an herbalist, or from other cities where all the doctors were conscripted into the endless war with the Consortium. But they would have to wait a while longer. Without anesthetics, he couldn't risk any elective surgeries. He sank against the wall, just out sight of the open waiting room door, letting the chaotic noise was over him as he pulled off his bifocals, rubbed his eyes, and ran his fingers through his close-cropped, graying hair.

He tried to remind himself that all this pain and suffering was just a symptom. The outward groans of a world that was cursed and broken. The mangled bodies were the result of mangled souls, fighting their fellow man for farmland and water rights. Children were born into a fallen, sinful world with twisted bodies, then abandoned by parents who saw them only as burdens. Father Tanner's primary goal here wasn't to bring physical healing, but spiritual. That kind of healing didn't require expensive equipment or drugs, it only required the simple truth of God. But that goal seemed to be falling further and further into the background as the physical maladies piled up in the clinic. He was barely treading water in the operating room, and after fourteen straight hours of surgery, he was still farther behind than the day before. With more supplies, he could run two operating tables at the same time, but the latest shipment was late. Again.

The slap of hurried footsteps on the stone floor snapped him out of his brooding, and he quickly stood resolutely upright. Ghenni hustled briskly around the corner, his surgical mask gone, showing the glia that dangled like seaweed from his bulldog-like face.

Any news of the shipment? Father Tanner asked.

Not yet, Ghenni said, and we're running out of time. We've been running without proper anesthesia for a week, and we're almost out of antibiotics. We'll probably be without those within two of your weeks.

What about other drugs?

Our supply with those is holding out for now, for the little difference it is. My people are killing each other too fast for anyone to get sick.

Apparently not fast enough for somebody, replied Father Tanner. He fished in the pocket of his lab coat for the piece of shrapnel and showed it to Ghenni. You see the serial number?

Ghenni took the piece from his hand to peer closer. This is English numbers?

Tanner nodded. Someone is supplying them with Earth weapons. Perhaps a grenade of some sort, by the looks of it.

Is this some sort of espionage with your Consortium? Ghenni's face flashed with anger briefly. His planet had been been dragged into the space age when they were conscripted a few decades ago into a massive totalitarian alliance of multiple alien species that spanned half of known space. Even though their conflict with Earth's own alliance of planets had been imposed on them from outside, Ghenni was young enough to have been raised by Brotherhood propaganda.

"Not my Consortium; I'm not much more welcome there than on your planet. But no, the CIP has much more efficient ways to carry out their business. Tanner plunged his hands back into his coat pockets, so Ghenni wouldn't see him clenching his fists. If I were a gambling man, I'd wager it was a smuggler or independent arms dealer, willing to equip warring clans to wipe each other out, just to line his own pockets."

Ghenni snarled. I pray Mennas chokes him of his own purse strings.

Father Tanner grunted. I don't think he needs help from your gods. He will be judged, in this life or the next.

What do we do in the meantime?

Tanner pinched his nose as he considered the problem for a moment. There's a woman who lives nearby; she's an herbalist. I'll have her take Andrew out and see if they can find some traditional medicines to fill in the gaps. I'm going to go into town and see if I can find some proper supplies.

Good luck, Ghenni said, glancing out the window at the bright Trenthan sun and gusts of sandy wind. You're going to need it.

As the first traces of atmosphere began to register on the control panel in front of Damien, two yellow lights on the far end flickered and winked out into darkness. The pile of plastic dishes, encrusted with days-old traces of reconstituted protein, shimmied down the last few inches of the console as it vibrated, then fell to the floor of the cockpit with a clatter. He added the inertial buffers to his mental list of things that needed replacing once he landed. When he reached over to activate the landing controls, a few of the lights remained dim.

Uh, Eve? he asked, flicking the switch back and forth. The fine control thrusters...

Yeah, I see it down here, she replied, her voice filtering through the intercom. I told you that scrap dealer looked shady.

Great, Damien said, engaging the engines to slow the ship's descent. You can lecture me on shopping later. Right now I need you to fix those thrusters before we try to land.

You're kidding, right? I can't fix those in the next few minutes; it would probably take a spacewalk just to diagnose the problem. You're going to have to abort the reentry and go into orbit.

Damien watched the dishes vibrate across the floor, dragged toward the rear door by the slightly out-of-calibration artificial gravity. Then he glanced back at the rapidly expanding planet on the viewscreen. Yeah, about that... I don't think the inertial buffers are up to a course change that sharp. Even if the hull stayed intact, we'd be splattered all over the ceiling, and the maid's not due until Thursday. We're pretty committed at this point.

Brilliant, Eve growled. So what's your plan?

I'm thinking, I'm thinking...

Damien ran through the options in his head. He could still slow down just fine with the primary thrusters, but they didn't have the kind of precision he needed to guide the Malika down for a gentle landing. He could go for a water landing somewhere; they'd survive, but there was no way he could get her out again, and life without his ship just wasn't worth thinking about. That left the repulsors. They were made to deflect micrometeorites, but a planet was just a big one of those, right?

Repulsors are still online, yeah?

You're not serious, Eve said. It was more of a statement than a question.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's gonna be a little rough, alright?

Can you at least promise you'll get us down in one piece? Eve asked.

Right, one piece. Two pieces, max.

In the main viewing window, Damien saw the landscape slowly opening before him. Clouds whiffed by into the periphery of his view, and in the center was the bustling city of Calchassa, now just a splotch on the pale brown plains surrounding it. Green patches of farmland and scraggly forest dotted the scene, gradually slipping out of view as he made his approach.

He keyed some buttons on his control panel, and an icon popped up in the corner of the viewing window, blinking yellow, then blue.

Calchassa Spaceport Authority, Damien said into the radio, "this is the BCS Malika, requesting a landing space." The ship continued to shake as it was buffeted by the rapidly thickening atmosphere, and a loud crash sounded behind him as a rifle fell from its rack and clattered against the inside of the gun cabinet. After a few long moments, the icon on the screen expanded into a set of coordinates, and Damien ported them to his navigation controls with a swipe of his finger.

Individual streets were now visible, and the activity of ships buzzing around was clearly centered on a wide-open space on the edge of the city. Damien continued to slow the ship, giving it quick, measured bursts on the remaining thrusters to guide it into the proper landing site. Eventually, he could make out individual humanoid figures on the spaceport's packed-dirt floor, along with the white chalk outlines that parceled it out into landing spaces.

By now, the Malika had slowed to a crawl, and Damien tried to keep her as steady as possible, but she swayed up, down, and side-to-side as he made repeated over-corrections with the primary thrusters. Soon he was low enough to make out individual faces, and out of the corner of his eye he saw the crowd of other travelers and attendants all stopping to watch the spectacle of his clumsy landing. Crews of the ships in adjacent spaces waved their arms to warn him away, and he gave one of them a friendly wave back through the viewing window. Malika lurched to the side as he pushed it into his assigned space, and the crowd recoiled. Finally, he switched over to the remaining fine control thrusters. The only ones left were on the back of the ship, and he kept the repulsors running on the front end. As the back eased gently down, the front dropped freely, slowed by the smallest bursts Damien could manage on the primary thrusters. Finally the repulsor field meet the ground, and alarms wailed in time with the flashing red light on his panel.

Come on, baby, he muttered, I know you've got it in you.

When the back end was settled, Damien flicked off the repulsors. The alarms went silent, but his stomach lurched as the cockpit fell. It shuddered briefly as the landing leg hit the ground, and Damien realized he was holding his breath. He released it, and the ship immediately dropped again as the leg buckled beneath the weight. A puff of dust kicked up in front of the cockpit, and the metal hull settled and cooled with a few muffled clangs and pops. The crowd outside dissipated within moments; in a spaceport frequented by criminals, it was best not to get caught gawking too much.

Damien shook his head, slapped his face a few times, and let out a whoop of triumph. Then he sank back into the battered leather captain's chair. That was a close one, even for him. After catching his breath, he got up and briefly considered cleaning before disembarking. His dishes were scattered across the metal floor and onto the tattered rug. Something was starting to smell, too. Some old laundry was draped over the empty co-captain's chair, and a lot of the labels on the instrument panel were fading and peeling. But all that could wait until after he had a job. He heard footsteps in the hallway behind him, so he jumped up to his feet and kicked the used dishes off to the side. Just as the path from his chair to the door was clear, it slid open with a thunk.

That wasn't so bad, was it? he asked.

No, Eve said as she slathered her face with greasy sunscreen. You probably only took about ten years off the service life of the hull. And dear God, it smells like something died in here, and it looks like it went out with a fight. Maybe we should bump the maid up to twice a week. Her dark hair was tucked up under a wide-brimmed hat to guard against the harsh Trenthan sun.

I'll try to find room in the budget, Damien said as he flicked a series of switches on the control panel. Indicator lights went out, and the whine of the engine gradually lessened as the flight systems powered down. Then he climbed against the new incline of the cockpit to the back wall, grabbed his belt and holster off of a hook next to the gun cabinet, and fastened it around his worn khaki pants. But for now, I guess you'll be wanting some money to get started on repairs.

I'd like to get paid myself for once too.

Aw, and here I thought you stuck around because you liked me. He fished around in his pockets, produced a rolled-up wad of paper currency, and peeled off a few bills for himself before handing it over. Don't spend it all in one place.

Eve flipped through it, then stuffed it in her pocket with a grunt. "This isn't going to fix everything on this piece of junk, you know. And it won't even start to