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Royce ran over to the ambulance and hopped into the driver’s seat. He checked the radio and discovered it was still set on the tactical channel. They were receiving the transmissions from a scene meant for the dispatch center.
A woman’s voice was asking for help, using appropriate radio terminology. Royce checked the computer and tried to figure out which scene was in progress. “Who do you think it is?”
“It’s Firehouse 15. It’s her voice.” Royce understood that there was only one ‘her’ Casey would know from Firehouse 15, his previous hook-up.
Royce did a quick calculation. He’d subbed in at 15, which is how they’d ended up at the rookie graduation party. Firehouse 15 was super punctual, therefore their fresh shift was the one calling for help.
He lifted the radio. “Copy, 15. This is Medic 19. Over?”
No one responded.
He tried a different tack. “Dispatch. Do you read? This is Medic 19. Over?”
“Dispatch might be down. Let me get the lieutenant.” Casey headed to the crew quarters and woke the lieutenant.
The lieutenant growled, “There isn’t an actual call from Dispatch. We don’t drive around the city willy-nilly like a newsie with his first police scanner. We wait until we’re called. It’s not even our battalion.”
“I think we should—” Royce protested.
“We’ll go when Dispatch calls us.” The lieutenant headed back to his quarters.
“But Dispatch goes down all the time.”
“Then when you’re lieutenant, you can make a decision to provide aid when Dispatch doesn’t call you. Let me sleep another thirty minutes or until Dispatch actually calls me.” The lieutenant shut his door firmly.
“He’s wrong, and I’m right. Firehouse 15 needs help,” Royce said.
“Gonna disobey him?”
Royce set his teeth. “No. But I feel like opening the barn doors and sitting inside the Medic with the engine on. Just in case.”
“I guess you need a partner.” Casey climbed into the passenger seat.
“It’d be nice.”
Royce tried rousing Dispatch again but heard nothing. Tense minutes ticked by as he waited, wondering what was going on over at that scene.
The commotion with the lieutenant had roused the rest of the team, and the incoming shift started to arrive. When they saw Royce refused to leave Medic, they ferried him coffee and bagels instead.
Line-up was delayed anyway because the lieutenant took his extra thirty minutes of sleep very seriously.
Then the klaxon went off. Dispatch was calling for Medic, Ladder, and Engine from 19 to respond to a call because Firehouse 15 was in trouble.
Royce gunned it out the open doors before Casey even confirmed their reception.
Newly promoted Battalion Chief Haskell was more than happy to see the speedy arrival of Medic 19. Royce felt his jaw drop at the unbelievable sight in front of him.
The scene involved a fire engine crashed into a garage. The garage had burst into flames on top of the fire engine, and the team from Firehouse 10 needed more water.
With the weather close to ninety degrees, the battalion chief put them on setting up rehydration stations for the firefighters. Fifty pounds of turnout gear got pretty hot.
Lieutenant Pickford, the battalion chief’s aide, said. “Where is the rest of 19?”
“On their way. ETA five—six minutes. New shift settling in,” Royce said and wrote their names on the accountability list.
“You’re from yesterday’s shift,” the battalion chief noted. “Why are you still working?”
“We heard a distress call from 15. We tried Dispatch so we stayed to monitor the radio.” Casey helpfully omitted the general tardiness of their firehouse.
