A droning, monotone, steady beep was the first thing that she gradually became aware of as the gray, amorphous haze in her vision started to coalesce into something tangible. Faint, murmuring voices muffled through walls and doors could be vaguely heard, echoing down hard, sterile hallways. The gray blobs slowly began to form pristine white shapes. White walls. One window. A hard tile floor. Bed railings. Computer equipment all around her. One or two cream-colored metal lockers. She was propped up about thirty degrees at the waist.
She blinked, trying to clear the fog from her vision, and in doing so she felt the gauze wrappings around her temple and cranium. She lifted her arm to touch it, and noticed the wires and monitoring devices attached to her slender forearm, and pinched on her index finger. She looked around the room, down at her feet, felt her chest and waist. She was dressed in nothing more than a paper hospital gown, covered by the bedsheet. She lifted her left arm, noticing it was in a cast. She saw her fingers poking through the end. Seemed she was in one piece, and in a hospital. She wasn't sure how she got there, but right now it didn't much matter. She let her head fall back down onto the lumpy, cheap pillow and couldn't help laughing quietly to herself, even though doing so made her chest hurt and made it somewhat hard to breathe. She closed her eyes and sighed. Damn, what a rush. It was stupid, she knew, flying that far off the trade lane without backup and running her mouth off to two ships that, criminal or not, obviously outgunned her by at least three to one, but damn, what a rush.
The droning beep continued to pulse along with her heartbeat. For a moment she reflected on how something that sounded so dull and lifeless could signify something so life-affirming as a heartbeat. Funny thing, that. But it meant she was alive. And damn, did she ever feel that way, ironically, even if she was lying in a hospital taped together like a half-mummy.
Through the narrow slats of the blinds over the window across the room from her revealed two men talking. Not quite arguing, but she could tell that one of them wasn't in a terribly good mood. The balding one who had his hands defensively held up in front of him wore the white coat of a doctor. The other one was a uniformed LPI pilot, still in his flight suit, carrying his helmet under one arm and pointing firmly at the doctor with the other. Behind the two men, Carina could make out a familiar face sitting on a bench on the opposite wall. A fellow recruit, whose name she didn't remember. Younger guy, short dark hair. She'd been in one or two training classes with him, and she remembered he had a real problem keeping his eyes pointed above the neck. She cracked the knuckles on her good hand, rolling her shoulder a couple of times to be sure at least *that* fist would be mobile in case she felt like it would do some good.
The doctor glanced her way, then with a double-take seemed to notice that she was awake. He interrupted the police officer and pointed into the window. The LPI pilot turned and looked through, and she immediately recognized him.
"Ay, mierda," Carina thought to herself. It was Officer Frost. She dropped her head back into the pillow and sighed, rolling her eyes as she heard the door open, the clack of two pairs of boots marching in, followed by a third. She was going to get an earful over this.
