“Let me take you back. Get an IV started and prep you for Halloway. He’s scrubbing out of a knee replacement now.
He’ll be here in twenty minutes.”
Sterling looked at the clock. The pain was becoming blinding. His vision was blurring at the edges.
He hated civilians; he found them soft, uncommitted, lacking the discipline that defined his existence. But he was a pragmatist. He couldn’t command a battalion from a hospital floor if he passed out.
“Fine,” he spat. “But you do the basics. You stick the vein, you hang the bag.
If you miss the vein once, you’re done. I get a corpsman. Deal?”
Sarah’s face remained impassive.
“I won’t miss.”
She gestured for the orderly to bring a wheelchair. “I walk,” Sterling commanded, gripping the armrests. “Colonel…”
“I said I walk.”
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