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"Yes, Doctor," Kalmiya said. The med bay doors opened. "This way."
Fred studied the items on the clipboard. "Very, very good," he said, and his voice was thick with satisfaction. He nodded, took a long look at his teammates, and then he and Will departed.
Dr. Halsey returned to her medical readouts. "Vinh, you have a torn deltoid muscle, three broken fingers, and a herniated disk. Isaac, internal contusions and both shoulders have been dislo?cated and reinserted incorrectly, which is pinching off the blood vessels. I'll get you both fixed up in a moment, but first I want you to survey the route we took here and suggest further perime?ter defenses."
"Yes, ma'am," they replied, cast a look at Kelly, and left.
Dr. Halsey concentrated on Kelly's internal scans. Her injuries were by far the worst. She had seen that from the extremely low blood pressure and high body temperature even before she'd glanced at the MRI. There was moderate bleeding in her liver— a fatal condition if not treated—and her right lung was com?pletely collapsed. That the woman was still on her feet, let alone fighting, was tantamount to an act of God.
Of course, that's what the SPARTAN-II project was all about, wasn't it? Playing God for the greater good.
"Doctor Halsey," Kelly asked. "Where are the others?"
"As I said, they evacuated," she replied. "On the table, please. I'm going to perform some minor repairs."
Kelly complied. "Then why aieyou still here, ma'am?"
Dr. Halsey picked up a curved, long-handled magnetic wrench, built specifically to fit this, and only this, access panel. She in?serted it and popped open a fist-sized section of Kelly's battered
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MJOLNIR armor. Blood and hydrostatic gel bubbled from Kelly's wounds.
"I volunteered to be the fail-safe option," she told Kelly. "In the lower levels of these caverns are enough high explosives to level the facility—in case we were ever overrun by the enemy. I'm here to make sure no one gets access to our technology."
Dr. Halsey injected a local anesthetic and inserted a flexible laser-tipped catheter into Kelly, carefully monitoring her progress on the MRI. She pulsed the laser, fusing the lacerations in her liver. Dr. Halsey then inflated her lung. Kelly would lose half of that organ, regardless of her treatment. The tissue was already turning blue and mottling necrotic brown.
"Kalmiya, prep the flash clone facility and retrieve Kelly's DNA sequence from the archives. I'd like to get a new liver and right lung started for her.
"You're fine for now," Dr. Halsey lied. "I just want to get replace?ments made for you, in case we're down here for a long time."
"I understand," Kelly rasped.
Dr. Halsey wondered if she did—if Kelly understood that getting shot and burned and having your internal organs trauma?tized wasn't supposed to happen to you every day... unless you were a Spartan. She wished the war were over. She wished her Spartans had some measure of peace.
"Doctor?" Kalmiya whispered through the tiny private speaker bud in Dr. Halsey's glasses. "There is an anomaly in SPARTAN-087's DNA files. You may want to review this in private."