Scent of Treachery by Smith, T.L. (free books to read txt) 📕

Dolan waved her off before he got the lecture on patient privacy. “I have a good reason to ask, and I don’t want to see it all.”

“I already showed you her professional file.” Taylor squinted at him. “What’s your obsession with this woman?”

“I’m not obsessed.”

“I saw the way you were looking at her professional portfolio. You were smiling, just like that.” She pointed at his face. “Doc told me to watch out if you had that weird grin on, that you were up to something.”

“I’m not up to anything. I just want to understand what’s in her head.” He leaned across the desk. “There’s something behind all that snarky attitude, she’s haunted. You know she was injured? That’s one of the reasons she needs the lower gravity.”

Taylor sat back, folding her arms. “Yeah, if you’d read all her bio, it’s there. She left the military after an explosion at a research facility.”

“Well, she told me a little about it, but I need to know more. I walked in on her using this burn cream on herself. All I want to do is compare her current scars to how she started out, see how well this stuff really works. I think it’s important.”

Dolan could see her skeptical squint getting tighter as temptation crept through the cracks in her medical oath. “I’ll look at her progress reports.”

“Fair enough.” Dolan sat back as she pulled up Maldonado’s medical files.

Taylor kept the screen turned away from him. “Okay, last report is here…” She nodded as she flicked through the reports. “It’ll take a moment to find her earlier reports. Have to go back a ways… yeah, here they are, military medical records…”

Taylor covered her mouth with one hand, her face scrunching up. She didn’t speak as her eyes flitted from one file to the next.

He could see her forcing herself to swallow. “Is it that bad?”

“Yes.” Taylor whispered. She brought her hands together in front of her face, folded as if in prayer. “I don’t know how she survived. How she’s still functioning.” Her eyes shifted to Dolan as she pushed away from the computer. “Excuse me for a moment while I… check on a patient.”

Dolan watched her walk around the workstation and to the string of beds. No one was awake and calling to her, so her message was clear enough. He reached out and swirled the holo-screen his direction. He instantly regretted his actions. He instantly gained some insight into her strange behaviors.

Taylor broke the silence, still fidgeting with the sheet over a sleeping patient. “So, you saw her scars?”

“What’s left of them, they’re almost gone. But I don’t think she’s able to recognize the difference between then and now.” He forced himself to look at the entire file. “When I suggested scar therapy, she thought I was patronizing her.”

“Not surprising after that. She’s probably developed body dysmorphia, post-traumatic stress, survivor’s guilt... The report said a number of people died.”

“One of them her husband, who I happen to bear a resemblance to.” He shrugged at Taylor when she turned back around to give him a renewed squint. “She said she killed him.”

“Not according to the file. She was messed up like that trying to rescue her team. She received several military commendations. However, psychologically she might blame herself. She was the lab director in charge when the accident happened.”

“Ahhhh, that explains even more. There’s always some level of survivor’s guilt when you’re the one in charge, more when it’s someone you’re close to.”

Taylor dropped her squint for another pensive gaze. “As you most likely feel with our own disaster. You and Doc served together. How you holding up?”

“Touché.” He pushed his chair away from the workstation. “I’ve been through this before, so I know the routine. Right now we have more important things to worry about. Forward me everything you can find on Ms. Maldonado. If things get insane, I need to know whether our hostess is going to be an asset or a liability.”

“Now you want her psych profile too?” Taylor laughed. “She’s out here all by herself for a reason. Like… to avoid people.” She kept talking, louder as he headed for the door ignoring her. “You might not like what you find.”

“Send it anyway.”

“Yes, sir!”

CHAPTER SEVEN

As much as Jayda resented being summoned, she sat through updates from the repair teams, impressed with their efficiency.

The tech reporting bowed his head to her. “We have your perimeter net up again, as well as the station’s shields. We found a programming virus set to go live when the system detected an approaching storm over a certain severity. This one qualified and shut down the whole of your defenses.”

“How’d you get it up and running so quickly?” Jayda frowned at him. The last team had spent a week on simple repairs, or sabotage.

“You helped.” The lead tech smiled at her. “Normally archive files are purged after a few upgrades, but you send them to backup instead. We found a clean version and rebooted the system.”

“Good job.” Dolan nodded to the techs. “So the station is protected. How about our ship?”

“Covered. We’re inside the shielding.”

“Which we might have to resort to.” The repair team leader chimed in. “Starboard weapons are too damaged to repair. Port side defenses are intact, but blocked by the station as long as we’re docked.”

One of the younger engineers stepped out from the back wall. “We can disengage the clamps and use the robot arms to rotate the ship around. Unfortunately it eliminates access to and from the ship, and might make us vulnerable again.”

“No, the shields are expandable to anything on the arms. Field-podding is possible too.” Seeing the curious looks from the team, the tech held his hands up in fists. “Works like a soap bubble splitting, but it’s still connected. It’s a really cool system.”

“Still a problem with access.” Another junior engineer spoke up.

“We can ride the maintenance bots.” Jayda recognized the young woman who’d run the laser test. “The bots are