Read Online Sullivan Saga 3: Sullivan's Watch by Michael K. Rose - Free Book Online

one of the paramedics shined a light into his eyes, the other scanned him with the diagnostics equipment.
    “Slight dehydration,” said the man with the scanner. “Have you been drinking your water?” he asked.
    “Only a little bit. I wasn’t thirsty.”
    “Well, no broken bones, no signs of concussion. As soon as we get you hydrated, you should be right as rain.”
    “What’s your name?” Pickett asked.
    “Lee, sir.”
    “What’s your first name?”
    “Oh… Arnold.”
    “My headset was damaged when my ship was destroyed, Arnold. What do the casualties look like?”
    “Aboard the Artemis , nearly one hundred percent, sir. On the Europa , seventy to seventy-five percent.”
    “And the Vigilant ?”
    “About ten percent, sir. Mostly….”
    “Mostly what?”
    “Mostly the pilots, sir.”
    “You don’t need to try and protect me, Arnold. I saw what happened when the alien ship exploded.”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “Anything else happening?”
    “Increased attacks on Earth by those weird creatures.”
    “Any other ships?”
    “Not that I know of, sir.”
    Pickett nodded. The paramedics wheeled him into a long, narrow room lined with beds. Around two thirds of them were occupied, and half a dozen doctors and nurses stood examining patients or studying monitors.
    Pickett glanced at each face as he passed them. From their uniforms, he recognized some of them as pilots, but he didn’t see any others from his own ship. “Arnold,” he said.
    “Yes, sir?”
    “The fighters that took out the alien ship. Were they from the Vigilant ?”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “How many?”
    “Sir?”
    “How many pilots from the Vigilant have been recovered?”
    Arnold Lee tapped on his tablet for a moment. “Just you and one other man, sir.”
    “Who?”
    “Lieutenant James Kern, sir.”
    Pickett nodded. “Thank you.” He swung his legs down off the gurney and climbed into the bed they had stopped next to.
    “Is there anything else, sir?” Lee asked.
    “No. Thank you.”
    Lee nodded. “I’m sorry, sir. Good luck.”
    Pickett smiled and shook the hand that Lee held out to him. The paramedics moved to assist one of the doctors, and Pickett closed his eyes and listened to the drone of fans whirring in the various machines throughout the sickbay.
     

11
     
    JEFFERSON IVES WAVED Sullivan forward. “Look at that!”
    “That’s it,” said Sullivan. “A wormhole.”
    “What do we do about it?”
    “I told you how Frank and I forced the other one closed, but I have a feeling that wasn’t entirely our doing.”
    “How so?”
    “I feel like the entities made the aliens decide to close the wormhole. We were just there to give them an excuse.”
    “You said they have defenses?”
    “Yes. An energy-like weapon was guarding the last one I encountered. This is beyond the two of us. Call it in to the Bureau, and let them know where it is.”
    “If it’ll do any good. The military has been chasing these things all over the planet. As soon as any troops close in on a wormhole, it disappears and opens up somewhere else.”
    “Well, if we can stop even a few of those creatures from coming through, it’ll be worth it. Call it in. The best thing we can do is to keep evacuating people. Fall back.”
    The two men moved back around the corner. “We haven’t cleared this building,” Sullivan said, looking up.
    “These are offices,” said Ives. “It was Sunday when the wormholes first started appearing, so there shouldn’t be very many people inside, if any.”
    Sullivan pointed through the glass door of the building. “Someone’s inside this one.”
    Ives looked in and saw the body of a woman on the floor of the lobby next to what looked like a maintenance cart. “I don’t see any blood. Is she alive?”
    “Let’s find out.”
    Sullivan walked up to the door and tried the handle. “Locked.” He knocked on it with his fist, but the woman did not stir. He took his energy pistol from his coat pocket and aimed it at the