AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Upon their arrival at Headquarters Shaw dropped Kaleb off at Zuri’s lab.Shoving him into the workshop and yelling ‘test-dummy delivery’ before promptlyslamming the door shut and making a fast track for Medical.
Morra, the senior healer on the roster today, required threats andstrong arming before she was willing to examine Shaw’s knee. Who bit her lipstoically as Morra poked and prodded her. Humming and haa’ing under her breath.Then requesting Shaw go through a series of jumping exercises followed by somebalance stretches.
Olrun arrived just as Morra was conceding that it might be prudent forShaw to test her knee in a battle situation for a defined amount of time.Location, foe and terrain to be confirmed.
Nose bright red, her wellness binder clutched to her chest, Olrun eyedShaw and her bared knee. “I knew that Kil’tiark bandage would do the trick.Didn’t I say to you, Morra, like months ago, that what Shaw needed was aKil’tiark bandage?”
“You say a lot of things, Olrun. But remind me again, where did you getyour medical degree from? Yeah, nowhere. Besides, Miss -there’s nothingwrong with my knee, Freyja damn it, and get that bloody support bandage awayfrom me or else heads will start flying– pain in my ass, as I seem to recall,was more than a little resistant to the idea.”
“Perhaps if you’d demonstrated the camouflage properties to Shaw, shewould have been a little more receptive. Hey.” Olrun’s attention shiftedabruptly to the left. “Venta, that’s rotroot you’re holding there. Did you notnotice the big red skull on the bottle? It requires gloves and a mask tohandle. Unless someone has a burrowing Fang-mole problem, I can’t think of asingle tonic or lotion that you’d be needing that for.”
Whilst Venta looked confused and unsure, Morra huffed out a deep,exasperated breath. “Olrun’s right. What do you think you’re doing?”
“Oh, I thought it was Rubargh, they’re both in a purple bottle.”
“Except three drops of Rubargh won’t kill a battalion if you drop it.Honestly. You need better storage. All the poisons should be separated, clearlymarked and kept under lock and key.” Olrun scolded, wiping at her nose absentlywith a tissue. “That way, you would have avoided that whole nasty left side ofthe body paralysis that hit the squadron assigned to the Jilkson Plane. Poorheifers, thinking they were applying sunscreen and then the next moment theycan’t feel anything down the left side of their body.” Absently reaching up,tsking under her breath, Olrun began rearranging the bundles of dried herbsthat hung in a row along the left side of the room. Muttering something aboutthe alphabet under her breath and rolling her eyes.
“What? When did this happen?” Valkyries had been paralysed? Shaw didn’tlike the sound of that at all. Nor did she like the fact that this was thefirst time she was hearing about such an incident. Heavens, maybe they neededto make finding a Head of Medical a priority.
“It was ages ago.” Morra brushed off, searching through a nearby pile ofpapers. “Everyone’s fine now… mostly. Their fingernails have even startedgrowing back.”
“I told you Hirjla needed to get her eyes checked. All that squinting. Adead giveaway.” Olrun, finished putting the herb bundles in order, stepped tothe side and began ripping open a medium sized carton box. “Yeah, the new nasalapplicators are here, and they took my advice and added a pressure pump, cool.”Switching her attention back to Morra for a moment. “What are you looking for?”
“The V-Med47j forms, I’m signing off on Shaw conducting an initial halfday test on the battle Planes.” Giving Shaw a hard glare. “As long as youchoose one with a flat dry terrain against a foe that has an average size ofseven feet or under. We don’t need any heroics. Remember, it’s just a test run.I’ll assign an evaluator once you give me the date and time.”
Blowing her nose enthusiastically Olrun studied the contents of hertissue, issuing a sigh of disappointment before throwing it in the nearesthazardous waste receptacle. Marching over to an overflowing desk off to theside stacked with various folders she pulled out a pale green one. Passing itover to Morra. “Here, I think you mean you want the V-Med42k form. The 47jinvolves Med signing off on any pets a Valkyrie finds on the battle Planes andwishes to adopt.”
“We can do that?”
“No, but we let the Hoi Poloi think we do.” Morra rolled her eyes to theceiling.
“Because if we didn’t, they’d all be sneaking baby bison-egret eggs backhere under their armour.” Olrun absently caressed her wellness binder.“Everything starts off fine when the fluffy little thing fits in your hand andlooks up at you with those big - feed me - pleading eyes. Then you wake upthree weeks later, it’s grown to over ten feet tall overnight, is standing overyour bed and deciding which limb to start snacking on first.”
“Oh, Freyja.”
“Don’t worry.” Morra patted Shaw’s hand as she handed over the signed42k form. “We’ve instigated quarantine rules. The animals have to stay in acage here at HQ for six weeks to ensure they don’t have any foreign bugs.”
“Or are secretly a ten foot tall foreign bug.” Olrun laughed, snortedand then sneezed. Morra joined in the laughter, absently throwing Olrun a boxof tissues. Shaw, clutching her precious signed form, left hurriedly beforethey began recounting any more horrifying tales.
Honestly, more and more she was thanking the heavens that she’d ended upin Legal, rather than somewhere scary like Medical. Her team might bitch, butwhen properly motivated, like any team, they pulled together and they got thejob done.
Dealing with a lot of whiny litigious clients and combatants couldadmittedly get a little tedious. Forever accusing Valkyries of being too rough,too deadly, or too culturally insensitive. Always blubbering on about theirinjuries, or their fatality numbers.
Once upon a time, in the good old days, you met on the battlefield andhad a rousing good time. Limbs flying one way. Heads the other. Returning tocamp covered with your enemies’ blood, eating a nice thick juicy steak,drinking ale and swapping stories with your fellow Valkyries. And the next dayheading out onto the field and doing it all again. Ah, those were the days.
Now. Bloody hell. Now, foes were often considered clients. They signedwaivers. Insisted Valkyries be held to a specific code of conduct of how muchviolence was permitted. There were penalties, demerit points and fines. Moreannoyingly, a special Valkyrie Resources tribunal would be convened toinvestigate if any Valkyrie cut off even a smidgeon more flesh than had beenformally contractually agreed to.
It had caused frustration in the past. Less so in the last year asStephanie, in her role as CEO, sought out more vengeful, liberal clients forthem to fight on behalf of.
All and sundry knew the Deities despised rules and anything that smackedof legalese. Having lined up several Goddesses as future clients, Shaw expectedseveral old-fashioned balls out brouhahas to start coming down the pipeline.Which should please the troops… and her, because she would be returning fulltime to the ranks soon, oh, so soon.
Finished with Medical, Shaw swung by to pick up Kaleb. Who was a littlereluctant to leave Zuri’s workshop, caught up in watching her kid sister add afew special extra features to a tomahawk. Muttering under his breath all theway to the executive conference room. “But why does it need a smoke screen?”
Once seated in the conference room Shaw had the privilege of watchingKaleb yawn for the fourth time in under two minutes. Helgastein finallystomping in, all greys in her tweed jacket and skirt, her matching colouredhair bound up in plaits wrapped around the crown of her head. Releasing ajudgemental humpfing sound Helgastein collapsed her large frame down onto thenearest chair, her gaze fixed upon Shaw’s casual black shirt, jeans and boots.
Honestly, the older Valkyrie was never happy. When Shaw insisted shewear her armour to HQ, Helgastein did nothing but sneer. Now she was outfitted insomething casual, Helgastein was still finding fault.
But then Helgastein found fault with pretty much everything andeveryone, except it would seem for an angelic looking Conflict Demon. Who’ddone some online shopping in the past few hours and had everything prioritydelivered to HQ. Kaleb now rocking dark khaki trousers, a cream loose shirt andtaupe espadrilles.
