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// Chapter I: Aftermath 
// Story: Accommodations 
// by Cyanblackstone 
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	Deep within the bowels of the aircraft carrier rested a vast sickbay, a well-equipped and modern facility designed to care for everyone on board the town-sized vessel at any time, from a peaceful cruise to a full-on battle. Doctors were always present, usually fussing over several of the crew who had suffered some minor injury or taken sick while on board. It held everything required to heal even the grievously wounded and the deathly ill.
Connected by a thick door to the sickbay, and isolated from any other entrances, was a far less welcoming room, one that until this moment had never actually been used. This was where those too injured to live went to die, and where the dead laid until they could be put to rest.
The morgue was usually a stark, empty room, clinically clean and sterile, with a stale odor of disuse, and, despite the fact that it had never been used, the oppressive feel of death. Today, however, it held its first real occupant. A team of doctors and the medical examiner, along with his assistants, circled the tattered body of the former Secret Service agent, who still dripped water from the melting ice crystals which had nearly encased the headless, burning man. The other body hadn’t been recovered, as it had apparently been tossed over the side before anything could happen.
“This is the most unique body I have ever seen,” the medical examiner commented, pulling on his sterile gloves and wheeling over his tray of equipment. “He appears to be severely burned, as though he was in a large fire, and yet he is wheeled in covered in ice crystals. Also, his head and one hand are missing. What happened to him?”
The others shrugged helplessly. “I have no idea,” one confessed. “There was some crazy stuff going on up there, is all I know, and then suddenly I’m carting off this dead guy, and everyone up there is running around like headless chickens.”
“Anyway,” the medical examiner dismissed, “it’s time to begin the autopsy.” He waved the assistants over. “Time of death?” It was faithfully reported and recorded. “Cause of death… undetermined at this point.” He began to carefully remove the scorched, ragged suit jacket the cadaver wore, inspecting the piece of clothing carefully before setting it off to one side, on another cart marked ‘Evidence.’
The shirt was unbuttoned and likewise examined, but just before it was about to be put aside, the examiner noticed a slip of paper in the shirt pocket. Carefully, he removed it, and looked at it quizzically. “It looks like a picture of some freighter. Why on earth would this be here?”
One of the other doctors asked, “Is there anything else on it?”
The examiner flipped over the picture. “Just a little bit of writing… the water and fire damaged some of the ink badly. I can’t read the first word, but the second word reads in part, ‘zgerald.’ There’s a number afterwards, but it’s been half burnt off. The two readable digits are one and nine.” He stared at the innocuous slip for a few moments. “What on earth is that supposed to mean?”


In the sickbay, there were a handful of patients. There were a few sailors, one recovering from the flu and a couple more with minor cuts and scrapes from shipboard accidents. A supervisor stood in the corner, scribbling an accident report down on his clipboard. A few nurses were tending to the handful of naval personnel, but the two doctors and the other nurses were all clustered around a trio of unusual patients.
One man, in charge of the President’s schedule while on board, lay unconscious, heart rate monitors beeping steadily. The administrative paper-pusher had been discovered by an off-duty crewman at an intersection, bleeding heavily from the head. Someone had slammed his head into the corner of the wall, several times. His skull had been fractured severely, and there were signs of internal bleeding. It was unsure whether he’d ever wake up after a beating like that, which begged the question: who had a reason to do something so brutal?
Another was the head of personal security for the president, who had suffered two bullets center-of-mass. He was critical, but stable, constantly watched by a doctor to keep his tenuous hold on life from deteriorating.
The final man was similarly unconscious, and hooked up to even more machines than the second, though he bore no signs of injury. A pale pinkish scar shone over much of his throat, the only sign of what had been only hours before a mortal wound.
A few doctors stood huddled over by his bed, glancing at various papers and images. Most regarded were a pair of X-rays and a picture of the scar tissue.
“This scar looks like it’s a wound at least five years old,” one doctor insisted, jabbing the picture with a pen. “It bears all the signs of having been there a significant time, but it obviously hasn’t. Even if we had the capabilities to close and heal a wound like this in such a short time span, the scars would be significantly redder, more puckered, and sensitive.” The other doctor nodded.
“The X-ray points to similar results on internal tissue and the tracheal wall. But that’s not what I wanted to talk to you about.” He pulled out the first X-ray. “What does this look like?”
“A normal neck, one that’s recovered from significant trauma,” the other doctor replied impatiently. “It’s obvious.”
“But that’s the point!” was the reply as the second sheet, an angle view, was revealed. “Here’s the entrance wound,” he pointed, marking on the sheet with his pen a small X at the indicated position. “And here’s the exit wound. Notice anything?”
“No,” the first replied, with a frown on his face.
“Let me show you.” There was a few seconds of concentration as two lines were drawn from entrance to exit point, marking the path of the large bullet. “Notice what this goes through?”
“It goes right through the vertebrae,” the other breathed, sudden realization dawning on his face. “But all responses were normal…”
“Exactly.”
"...We need some time with that thing."