Chapter 19 Part 1
The following day Tabitha stood at the side of the MTS entrance, waiting for the guards to bring out the five prisoners. She just wanted to have a few final words with them. They approach, and the leader spits at Tabitha. One of the soldiers raised her weapon to hit the leader. Tabitha raised her hand towards the guard and said, "Leave her be, she will be suffering when she gets to where she is going. The King, as already, made the shuttle to the outer planets ready for these five."
Tabitha looked towards the leader, "I am truly sorry for your misfortune, but hopefully, in your next home, you will learn to appreciate what you have been given. For the rest of you, you just gave up a good thing to follow this woman, now think about it."
Tabitha stepped aside to allow the women to pass through the MTS. Then, each woman walked up to the machine and stepped into it, except the last. This one stopped, turned to Tabitha, and said, "Princess Tabitha, I am sorry for my sister's behavior, please do not hate her, it was the way our father taught her." Then turned and walked into the MTS machine.
After the last one was through, Tabitha turned and switched off the machine. She stood there for a moment, could she have done this a different way. Did turning them over to her father do any good. Could she have talked to them, trying to make them understand, she was not her father. She did not agree with some of the things he did, but he was the King. Someday she may rule the Kingdom, but for now, it's his.
She turned and started to walk back to her quarters. She felt terrible about what had happened. She really didn't want to go to her quarters. Finally, she stopped and thought about what needed to be done. "Sarha, where is Tawni now?"
"She is in the new testing bay on deck nine, bay 34. She's down there assessing the new uniforms."
Tabitha turned to the lift and said, "deck nine, Please." She exited the lift and headed for bay 34.
Tabitha stepped up to the doors of bay 34, and they opened, walked in, and saw Tawni next to a soldier with a new uniform. They were testing the new force field uniforms. They were upgraded with each discovery from Sarha's data files.
The most recent upgrade was a means of removing or putting them on. The problem was the time to do either one of them. Her group had conceived the latter with a single push of a button. On their daily uniform that they wore, they would add a button to the left side of the collar. The uniforms already had the nano-bots bead along both sides that on command would expand to cover the body. That style of the uniform took two minutes to enclose the body of the wear. But it was activated by the wearer's voice only.
With the upgrade, one reached up and touched the button, and within one minute, the uniform was sealed or unsealed. But another advantage was that if the individual could not press the button themselves, someone else could touch the button and activate it for them.
The medic would be allowed to remove the shield to do the aid that the individual needed. It would also act as a protector after the medic had finished. After finishing his or her field aid, he could press the button and have the shield back in place.
Tawni showed Tabitha how everything worked while making sure everything worked as it should, OK here. The replicator could start producing the new uniforms in about an hour. It already had all the measurements of everyone aboard the ship, and it would start with the soldiers. Tabitha spent some time with Tawni, just talking about different things.
***
Madlyn stood next to the soldier's bed and checked out the chart to see how she was doing. She was the only soldier that was severely injured in the fight with the red ants.
When they brought her in, Madlyn and Jeanne didn't think that the soldier would live. If that were the case, it would be more or less in a vegetative state.
The record on this soldier showed her condition: a fractured skull, fractured backbone, four broken ribs, punctured lungs, arms, and legs broken in multiple places, and blood loss.
"I want a recording of everything that's going on from this point on. I don't want to tell the King or anyone else that this soldier did not make it. There has to be a way to help her." Madlyn said.
"The engineers just finished the first diagnostics unit. Do you want to place her in it?"
"We don't know anything about how it works. Tawni's researchers may have printed out a manual. 'Sarha, was there a manual with all the data recovered?'"
"Yes, I have a bot bringing it to you." A bot came into the medical bay a few minutes later carrying a large book and handed it to Madlyn.
"OK, I need four student nurses and two of Tawni's researchers here ASAP. Jeanne, I need you to set up a schedule. I want a nurse sitting beside the diagnostics bed 24 hours. I want it set up in the next unit to the right of my office."
"What's with the researchers?"
"Somebody needs to read this manual, or do you want to read it?
"Sarha, could you ask Tawni to send two researchers to the medical department at once? Preferably those that have a medical background." Said Jeanne.
Madlyn turned to see who was entering the medical unit. It was the diagnostic bed. Jeanne moved towards the men and showed them where she wanted it to be placed.
A few minutes later, six nursing students made their way into the bay. "You requested volunteers, and here we are."
"We requested four, and six came, which is even better. Thank you, ladies."
"We need you ladies to have a seat over in the office. We are waiting for the researchers to get here."
It did not take long, and the doors of the medical bay opened, and two of the researchers of Tawni's entered.
Madlyn directs the rest of the group towards her office. Everyone is sitting down, waiting to hear what they will be doing.
Madlyn stood in front of these women, "Ladies, this will be the first time. We are about to see if this diagnostic bed will heal the body. First, the researchers will read this manual." She held up the extensive manual, so all could see. "They will explain to us how the bed will work and what we must do."
"If you have no questions, let's get down to business." The researchers walked up to Madlyn, and she handed them the book. "ladies, you do not need the book itself. Sarha has it on the scanner. You can use the scanners in the first unit. We need to know what to do first and then keep right on reading." They handed the book back to Madlyn and turned towards the first unit.
The first researcher said, "I'll take the description of the machine and the buttons. Then, you start on the treatment part."
About an hour later, the first researcher walked up to Madlyn and said, "OK, let me show you the buttons and what they will do."
Madlyn gathered around all those that needed to know. The researcher showed them all the information she had collected and answered all the questions she could. Finally, she asked, "Sarha, could you place, just above this unit, a detailed description of what I just talked about."
A second later, just above the unit, was a hologram, with details about each button and what it did. The nurses looked and studied it.
They were ready to place the soldier into the unit. Instead, Madlyn had three bots enter and transferred the soldier into the new unit.
Within the first hour, the Doctor could see some signs that she might recover. Everyone was thrilled that the unit was working, even though they did not understand how.
Madlyn scheduled body scans each hour just to keep records of how things were doing. The student nurses were told their schedule and what to do during their time on.
It was all taken care of, and now it was the challenging part, waiting.
