Free A Deep Sleep (Valhalla Book 1) by Tyler Totten Page B

needed to drop into a region where there were no secure rear areas but always a lot of wounded.
    “On call medic?” Danford asked the nurse.
    “Yes, he was quite adamant that your leg be dealt with properly.” She turned to face him again. “Please remove your coveralls and sit on the edge of the bed.”
    Danford complied and sat on the edge. The nurse quickly stripped away the bandage and examined the wound. There was a fresh trickle of blood but the wound wasn’t so large as to require a constant pressure bandage at this point. The nurse reached into a drawer and withdrew several items. She cleaned the wound with antiseptic and applied a small amount of a silvery gel. She then sprayed on a thick layer of liquid skin, sealing the gel and wound. She finished by rewrapping it all with bandages. The entire process took less than five minutes. As expected, the nurse demanded that he remain in the medical department until morning. They were always more cautious than required, particularly when there wasn’t any combat occurring. Danford was just preparing to launch into an argument when Colonel Summers saved him the trouble.
    “Captain Danford, Colonel Summers requests your presence at 2300. HQ building Four, sir.” Colonel Summers aide, a young lieutenant, commed Danford directly. Reluctantly, the nurse allowed him to leave medical after seeing the electronic orders with Summers signature. Before he left, Danford stopped by the intensive care unit to inquire about Lt Colonel Cain. He found out that Cain was no longer in intensive care, but instead had already been shuttled up to one of the waiting hospital ships. His condition was still critical and he needed the more advanced equipment in orbit. He was already likely to lose both legs and an arm, promising a long regeneration and recovery process ahead of him.
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    “Captain Danford, welcome.” Colonel Katrina Summers smiled slightly as Danford entered her briefing room. While not the most senior commander in system, she was the area commander and so was the highest ranking officer currently groundside.
    “Thank you sir.” Danford noticed that all of the surviving senior commanders were present. Lt Diggs sat across the table, Lt Hanford sat with his right arm in a sling, and Colonel Summers’ aide Captain Franks. He didn’t see any officer from 4 th Company, but then again that wasn’t surprising when he really considered it. 4 th Company had been broadsided by one of the main enemy counterattacks. They had more than sixty percent killed and Danford didn’t think more than ten percent were uninjured. 5 th Company wasn’t much better. He nodded to each in turn. The last person sitting at the table was Lieutenant Kim, though she looked entirely too pale and sat in her chair at an odd angle. He could just make out the bulges under her coveralls where she had been bandaged. By all right she should have been in a hospital bed recovering, but he could only imagine how much of a hardcase she had been until she’d gotten her way. RASAT operators were all like that.
    “Now that everyone is here, let’s get started.” Colonel Summers walked to the head of the table as Danford took his seat. “First I want to express my pride in you and all of your men. You were all dropped into a real meat grinder and yet you still managed to come out on top. We lost a lot of good people over the last couple of days, but without your efforts, I doubt that any of us would be here and there’d be a lot less of those men and women out there still breathing.” Summers paused for a moment with a somber expression on her face.
    “Getting down to business. The Battalion is in rough shape and we aren’t going to be seeing replacement troops for some time. We’re a long ways from friendly space and enough of our own worlds are under attack that this little expedition into enemy held space is already considered risky