A Dangerous Leap by Sharon Calvin

twenty-two years. His back, shoulders and upper thighs were smeared with antibiotic ointment and covered in loose gauze. Double-damn-son-of-a-bitch. With that much burn area, his chance of survival was down in the single digits.
    She looked at the doctor and narrowed her eyes. He didn’t look optimistic. Fine, she’d do her damnedest to prove him wrong. “What volume do you have the IV running?” she asked.
    While the doctor gave her the bolus rate and morphine dosage in a clipped unemotional voice, a Navy health tech secured a sheet over the top of the basket. She nodded to the four men standing at ease behind the doctor. They moved into position, picked up the litter, and headed to the open deck area. The stench of burnt flesh mixed with antibiotic and spent ordnance. It smelled like a damn battlefield and yet they sat in the calm blue waters of the Gulf of Mexico.
    “Here are his things. His gear will be shipped back to his wife at our next port,” the doctor said, handing a clear plastic bag to Kelly.
    She took the container automatically. “Wife?” She hadn’t expected a twenty-two-year-old officer to be married.
    “Yes, with a new baby. Hell, they were all just kids down there,” he said harshly, gesturing to the lower level where the explosion and fire had taken place.
    Suddenly Kelly noticed the bleak look in his eyes. His detached assessment and impassive expression of only a minute ago had cracked. He cared all right, but he’d given up hope.
    Kelly gave him a nod and forced her mind on what she had to do. She secured the cable to the litter and signaled Joe to begin the hoist. Ian would check the sailor’s vital signs the minute they hauled him into the helicopter, while she waited impatiently for her return trip up. Thank God he’d been assigned to the mission. Of course, they’d sent two medical crewmembers because there’d originally been three sailors to tend.
    She tried to quell the verse in her head:
and then there were none
.
    * * *
    Ian helped Joe swing the litter into the helicopter and get it safely stowed. One look at the extent of burned body surface area and his optimism died. Unless God had a few extra miracles to distribute, this kid had run out of luck.
    Despite the odds, Ian set to work with only one goal in mind—keep his patient alive. Shock and subsequent cardiac failure were very real concerns to deal with first, by fluid resuscitation.
    Intent on the sailor, Ian didn’t realize Kelly had joined him until she set to work wrapping a blanket around the litter. With so much skin damage, a rapid drop in body temperature became inevitable. Ian swiped at the sweat running into his eyes with the sleeve of his flight suit. Hell, with so much trauma,
everything
was life threatening.
    He and Kelly settled into a rhythm as if they’d been working together for months. In reality their being assigned together was more luck of the draw and circumstances. As a Health Tech, Ian’s schedule tended to be limited to the base and was much more predictable than Kelly’s. Medical emergencies, not search and rescue missions, dictated his addition to an air crew.
    Thirty minutes from the hospital, the sailor regained consciousness with a strangled cry that cut through the Jayhawk’s engine noise. Kelly dropped the chart she’d been writing notes on and immediately bent over him, her face inches from his twisted features.
    “We’re almost there, Ensign Balinski. We’ll have you in a hospital soon.” She cut a quick glance to Ian. “Give him another ten of morphine.” Her attention back on her patient, she grabbed his hand and moved closer still. “Listen to me, Balinski,” she shouted above another anguished cry and the roar of the helicopter. “That’s an order, dammit. You will survive, you hear me? You have a little baby and a wife counting on you. You will do what it takes to get the job done. Nothing else is acceptable. Do you hear me, Balinski?”
    Ian pushed the morphine, as