He didn’t need my weakness now. He needed the strength he’d always believed I’d possessed. He needed my love, and my expertise, and my refusal to fail him. I would have his back. I would not let him down.
“I’m here, Jackson,” I said in a low voice that managed to sound brave. “Hold on, love. I’m here. I know it’s complicated between us. Don’t worry about that. Just know that I’m here, and that I love you. I came all the way to Mars to watch your back. All you have to do is hang on until I can pull you over the edge.”
I don’t know how long I stood like that with him. Holding his hand, stroking it as I told him how brave he was, how strong, how he could fight to survive until I flanked the enemy with my pharmaceutical reinforcements. Then I fell into quiet, his hand against my cheek, staring down into that beloved face as if I could infuse him with love and the will for him to survive.
The door clicked open and closed. Doctor Flannigan stepped in, empty handed, but didn’t move farther than the door. “You okay?” he asked.
“Yeah. We’re okay,” I said, and set Jackson’s hand down with a pat. “We’re good to go. Let’s get the IV lines and hemofilter set up. I’m ready to pull on my gloves and start round one.”
Mars will try to kill you every chance it gets. I’d come ready to put up my dukes and go a round with the solar system’s most pugnacious dustball. Bring it, Red Planet.
31THE BATTLE FOR JACKSON SADLER
“Pushing the initial dose of Trigeneris,”I said, and with a slow, deliberate squeeze of my thumb, I depressed the syringe plunger to send the first measure of drug into Jackson’s IV line.
My gaze remained riveted to Jackson’s vitals readout. I ignored the tablet that showed the faces of his family, clustered around the screen in Fort Carson’s family communications room and watching the procedure. I’d actually requested that call, because Randall had given up his seat on the ride here for me and he deserved to be present. These hours would decide his son’s fate. Jackson should have his family with him.
The effect was immediate. His respiratory function bumped up, and so did his heart rate – though not in a way I would consider positive. Trigeneris had kicked his body to work harder, to build new tissue and throw out all the accumulating waste. That required energy and energy usage meant increased cardiovascular activity from a system that had taken enough abuse already.
Yet his color improved, and his oxygen saturation crept up. Good signs. Ones that wouldn’t last, but even seeing them for a few minutes meant the systems hadn’t been damaged beyond repair. It’s a little like saying,Well, the engine turns over,even though you can’t keep the car lit. That proves there are working parts left to repair.
“Is this good?”I heard Cheyenne murmur to someone else in the room on Earth.
“It’s too early to tell,”came another voice. The medical liaison.“Probably.”
I ignored them and glanced at the clock at the edge of the medical monitor. Minutes ticked by until, as I expected-
“Vitals are dropping,” Doctor Flannigan said.
“I see it,” I said. “They warned me it would happen. I have the neutralizer prepared. Waiting to administer.”
Jackson’s vitals dropped. Dropped. Dropped.
“Not looking good,” the doctor said.
“Waiting. Let the Trigeneris work.”Please hold on, Jackson. Please. You need as much of this drug as I can give you. Please hold on.
Dropped. Dropped.
“Why is he waiting?”Brenda’s soft, tinny voice said from the tablet.
“It’s necessary,”the liaison said, without conviction. He didn’t have either knowledge of or experience with Trigeneris, and had only the briefest of summaries for what we meant to do.
Dropped.
I itched to push the plunger and force his vitals up again. My hand wanted to shake with nerves. Already, my palms were wet beneath my latex gloves. Every second dragged Jackson closer to death. But every second I waited would give him a better chance at life, too.
“Shouldn’t we push those now?”
“Not yet.”
“Are you waiting for him to sit up and beg?”
“We only have so much Trigeneris,” I said. “We have to make the most of it.”
Doctor Flannigan frowned. “We could crack open another dose.”
“He can’t have more than what’s in a single course, or hewillhave organ failure,” I said. “The Van Horn in-house doctor was very clear about that. Trigeneris doesn’t have much margin for error. Not like Regeneris.”