Post by Deleted on Feb 8, 2015 13:04:32 GMT -6
TIME: 2177 CE
PLACE: CLASSIFIED
The forward aid station was quiet, filled only with the sound of beeping machines and whispered conversations as doctors and medics treated wounded soldiers.
“Private, I need more light,” said a doctor as he worked on a soldier with a severe wound to his abdomen.
“Yes sir,” Naetilia said, and angled an overhead light to illuminate the wound better.
“This is Captain Vibidonis,” came a voice over every omnitool in the aid station. “The Blood Pack have broken through our lines. We anticipate they will reach your position in five minutes. You need to move your position now.”
The staff immediately began preparing to move the patients and breaking down the aid station, but the doctor she was working with did not, continuing to work on the patient.
“Sir, did you hear the evacuation order?” she asked.
“Yes, but if this patient is moved before I finish treating him he will die,” he said. “Once he is stabilized, we can move him.”
He looked up at her.
“You have advised me of the situation, and I have made my decision,” he said. “The other patients need you more, assist in moving them.”
She didn’t move.
“Did you hear me, Private?” he said.
“Even if you succeed in stabilizing the patient, you will need assistance in moving him,” she said.
The doctor nodded and resumed working.
-----
The first enemy shots began coming in a minute later, and by then most of the aid station had been broken down and the patients prepared to move, but hers was still being worked on. Several internal organs had been damaged due to the shot ricocheting around the abdominal cavity, so until they were all repaired it would do him no good to be moved. Several other staff reminded them of the evacuation, and offered to stay to assist, but those offers were turned down.
-----
She sighted the first enemy personnel thirty seconds later: a pack of varren followed by a lone Blood Pack soldier.
“Incoming enemy,” she reported, activating her tech armor and removing her Phaeston assault rifle from its cinch on her armor. “I will deal with them, sir.”
He nodded in acknowledgement.
-----
She took up a position behind an outcropping ten meters from the doctor and aimed the rifle at the approaching pack: five of them, closing fast, with the krogan lumbering thirty meters behind them.
She opened fire, killing two of them, and the krogan retaliated by throwing a grenade. She ducked down as it exploded, and a second later she felt a burning sensation on her arm. It wasn’t an explosive grenade, it was an inferno grenade, spewing out fragments of napalm.
She quickly put out the fragment on her arm, aimed at the closest of the varren and squeezed the trigger on her rifle, but nothing happened. A quick inspection revealed that a napalm fragment had burned its way through the firing chamber, rendering the weapon inoperable.
Three varren left.
She charged up her biotic amp and fired off a warp pulse at one of them, causing it to explode.
Two left, and they were upon her.
One jumped at her face, knocking her to the ground, and as she struggled against it, she felt pain tear through her thigh. The other one had bitten clean through it.
She pushed back the pain and focused on the one attacking her head. She fired an overload attack into it, causing it to fall to the ground as its muscles spasmed uncontrollably, and then finished it off by slicing its throat with one of her omniblades.
The one biting her leg shook its head violently, sending pain rippling through her once again, but she forced it back down. She charged her biotic amp again and fired a warp pulse right at its head, disintegrating it.
None left.
-----
She struggled to her feet as the krogan approached, holding a shotgun. It looked around at the bodies of the varren, then her.
“I raised them from when they were pups,” it said. “I’m going to kill you slow…and painful.”
She said nothing and activated her omniblades.
A biotic field began to glow around it, and the next thing she knew it slammed into her, knocking her to the ground.
It pounced on her, opening its jaws wide, aiming for her head, but she pulled aside, and its teeth clamped down on her shoulder. The pain almost overwhelmed her, but she forced it down as she stabbed at its head with her free omniblade, piercing the skin just behind its eye.
It responded by biting down harder on her shoulder, grinding its teeth. They tore easily through her muscles right down to the bone, and finally she screamed. Adrenaline coursing through her, she began stabbing wildly at his head.
-----
She didn’t know how much time had passed before she finally stopped stabbing at the krogan, but she knew it was dead, given it was no longer moving.
But there was still the problem of getting the corpse off her. After a few failed efforts at lifting it with only one good arm, she charged her amp and lifted it off with her biotics. She applied a dose of medigel to her wounds, then staggered back to the doctor and his patient.
-----
The doctor was sitting down, his back leaning against the gurney, cradling an arm and holding tweezers in his free hand. She could see the cradled arm had caught several of the napalm fragments and were slowly burning through.
“Private,” he said, nodding at her. “I gave myself something for the pain, but I can’t remove the fragments. I don’t have a good angle to see them.”
“Give me the tweezers,” she said. “Hold your arm as steady as you can.”
He did as she said.
-----
She was able to remove all the fragments, but the damage to his arm was severe. She applied medigel to the wound, then wrapped it with a sterile dressing.
The immediate problem now dealt with, she turned her attention to the patient. He was alive, but barely.
“Patient’s vitals are dropping dangerously low,” she told the doctor. “We have to do something or we will lose him.”
“I can’t do it,” he said, holding up his free hand, which was shaking.
“I will do it,” she said. “Just tell me what to do.”
-----
It was three days later. Several hours after the Blood Pack broke through, her unit launched a successful counterattack and recovered her, the doctor and the patient, moving them into a field hospital well behind the front lines.
“You did well, Private,” said her platoon sergeant.
“Thank you, Sergeant,” she said. “How are the doctor and our patient?”
“Both are doing well,” he said. “The doctor will require some cybernetics to restore his arm, and the patient will take a month to recover, but they both owe their lives to you.”
“No they don’t,” she said. “I simply did my duty.”
“You could have followed the evacuation order,” he said. “There was no shame in leaving them behind, they had made their choices and were ready to accept responsibility for them. Had you not stayed, they would most certainly have died. I will be recommending you for an award.”
“Thank you Sergeant,” she said.
“Your term of service is almost over,” he said. “Have you thought about re-enlisting?”
“Yes I have,” she said. “I will not.”
The platoon sergeant said nothing.
“It pleased me to serve others, to minister to their wounds,” she said. “I would like to go further in the medical field and become a doctor.”
The platoon sergeant nodded.
“A good choice, Private, you are one of the best I have commanded,” he said. “I will write a letter of recommendation for you, and I will speak with the doctor about writing one for you as well.”
“Thank you, Sergeant,” she said.