Free Jethro: First to Fight by Chris Hechtl Page A

It's minimally invasive and has a much shorter recovery time.”
    “Lucky for the new recruits,” Jethro
murmured.
    “Well, we can bring you up to standard,”
the doctor replied. “Eventually. I am a bit concerned about these strange
growths in your body,” he murmured, looking at the tablet the nurse was holding
out.
    “Strange growths?” Jethro asked. 
“Is that what's bothering my back?”
    “It would appear so. I thought it was a
hernia, but they aren't embedded in your muscles, they're below them. Deep
tissue indeed. Strange.”
    “Are they cancerous?” Jethro finally
asked, worried about his exposure to space might have harmed him in some way.
Cancer was a big concern for Neo's. Their artificial gene sequences could be
thrown out of whack due to a lot of issues over time.
    “No. I'm making a note here to look into
it further though.” The doctor made note of the strange growths that were
causing the panther pain. He put it off as something to do with his unique
ability, but made a note to explore further when the panther's medical
evaluations came up.
    Jethro talked with Standish a bit, more
small talk before they got back to improvements in medicine. Standish stated
that they were getting a better hang on the implants, now that the medics had
them they could do some of the implant surgeries in a regen tank with nanites.
“So we can catch you up to your unit.”
    “Interesting.”
    “Though, you said we can't make some
changes,” the doctor tapped a stylus against his lips. “Hm... you know, let me
get with doctor Thornby on your case. I don't want to mess up anything.”
    “Yes sir. I remember my muscles have
some croc genes in them.”
    “Oh?”
    “They can shed heat fast and can go from
cold to full action in microseconds.”
    “Nice,” the doctor smiled. “Yes, I'll
put a note in your chart to look into that when your eval is up in a couple of
weeks.”
    “Yes sir.”
    “For now though, light duty. At least
until that is healed. And no wrestling. I mean light,” the doctor said,
waggling the stylus at him.
    “Yes sir.”
    “Yeah right, Marines, why do I even
bother. Go on, get out of here. I mean it though!” the doctor said as Jethro
jumped off the bed and headed for the door. “Seriously now!” Standish said.
Jethro did an about face and then saluted. He winced. The doctor sighed,
shaking his head. “Just go,” he said in exasperation, waving a dismissive hand.
    “Marines,” he grumbled, taking a tablet
from a nurse. “Who's next?”
    ...*...*...*...*...
    Jethro was on light duty for a couple of
days until his body fully healed. Off duty he was bored. He hopped a shuttle
flight over to the Annex to see Valenko in the regen tank. The bear cracked an
eye at him and then went back to sleep. “He's heavily sedated,” the human nurse
attending the bank of regen tanks said from her desk. She didn't even look up
from her tablet.
    “Oh,” Jethro replied quietly.
    “Oh don't worry, you won't disturb him,”
the nurse said and walked off.
    “Wanna bet?” the bear growled. “Go get
into trouble or something.”
    “That an order?” Jethro snorted. He
pointed to his arm. “I can't, doctor's orders.”
    That got Valenko to crack an eyelid
again. “What'd you do? Arm wrestle Sergei again?”
    “Now that would be really stupid,”
Jethro snorted. “No, wrestling in PT.”
    “Ah. Should have tapped out,” the bear
said. His muzzle twitched. “You know what sucks being in here? I want to sneeze
and I can't. It fracken bugs the heck out of me. Itching inside my nose. The
damn nanites I bet, crawling all over the place. And I want to scratch my nose
and my ass, and I can't. Sucks.”
    Jethro couldn't help it, he flicked his
ears in humor. “Another day and then they'll pop the cork and then they can
wring you out,” Jethro replied, teasing. “I wonder if you lost weight?” he
asked.
    “Probably. Hospital food sucks,” the
bear grumbled. “Go on, go chase Gunny around for