by Korza, Jay
He was a mess, what was left of him. Daria knew she couldn’t save him but that never stopped her before. One of his legs was missing and the other, although not missing, was not attached, either. It was sitting next to him, held on by a small piece of trouser that hadn’t ripped off yet. He had his surveying pole stuck deep within his chest and part of his lung was on the ground behind him. Most of his facial tissue had been worn off from what Daria guessed was a couple hundred meters of scraping the ground from the blast of the explosion. But he was breathing and that meant that she would at least try to save him.
Not much had changed in field medicine in probably the last five hundred or so years. First things first. “Get me an oxygen tank while I work on finding any major life threats.” This was said to no one in particular because she just knew that it would get done by one of her two colleagues. The oxygen arrived as Daria finished putting a tube through the victim’s throat. His mouth was almost non-existent but she had to get him oxygen somehow and that meant through his trachea. He was so far gone that she didn’t even need sedatives for what was normally an excruciatingly painful procedure.
Daria glanced at Emily and was surprised at how well her friend was handling herself. You never know how someone will react in their first trauma situation. “What can I do?” Emily almost pleaded.
“Put a tourniquet on both legs and tighten them until the bleeding stops. Davies, put together two IV sets for me. I need to get this guy some fluid; he’s already in major hypovolemic shock.” And Daria added to Emily with just a look, you can also pray.
Daria had set her comlink to the command frequency. In medical emergencies, the command center would route all transmissions to a field medical officer, who would listen in and give advice as well as coordinate the medical evacuation. That was one thing that was nice about an assignment like this: you had a doctor to back you up. Not that Daria needed it, but it was nice not to have coordinate extraction and medical treatment at the same time. The doctor usually kept his mouth shut anyway because he knew what a corpsman could do. He would only add things if he felt it was really important.
Right now Daria was receiving a transmission from medical control. “Transport is twenty seconds out. Keep up the good work until then. We have a full trauma and surgery suite on board with a full staff. Nice to be funded for once, isn’t it, Doc?”
Daria liked someone who could stay light even in a bad situation; she’d have to talk with whoever this guy was later. And yes, it was nice to be funded. Her patient just might actually make it with a full team on its way. You usually didn’t get that in a combat zone. But then again, this wasn’t a battlezone, or at least wasn’t supposed to be.
The evacuation team arrived as Daria was placing the second IV in the external jugular vein. The placement was set and the fluids bolused in as fast as possible. An air stretcher was placed under the victim and he was hauled into the awaiting ship. Daria followed while Emily and Davies stayed outside to put their gear back together.
Inside the suite, Daria was calmly giving orders to other corpsman and doctors alike. “We need hemo-synth immediately infused at forty degrees Celsius and don’t stop until we actually have a blood pressure back.”
Hemo-synth was another wonder of modern medicine that Daria usually didn’t have the privilege of using in the field. Specially designed for each species within the Coalition, it allowed the synthetic cellular tissue to absorb and disburse whatever gas element the patient needed to sustain life. It also acted as a volume expander to increase the amount of fluid within the patient’s body after a major blood loss. It was the difference between life and death for this poor soul.
Daria put on a sterile surgical gown and gloves and began to open the chest wound to extract the impaled object. Using an x-ray visor, she was able to see the bony structures and tissue masses near the survey pole. The doctors assisted her efforts, knowing that she was obviously as competent as they could’ve hoped to be in her place. “Someone get me that leg from outside and get it ready for reattachment.”
“Do you think he’ll make it?” Emily said, not even looking towards Davies. She couldn’t take her eyes off the floating platform before her.
“If he’s got a chance, Daria will make sure that he comes back. I sure hope so, though. I’d like to know what happened here.” Davies didn’t mean to sound too cold but he’d rather know what happened than to find out when it happened again but to him instead.
A medic rushed out of the suite and began looking around the area. Davies knew what he wanted so he went over to the leg and handed it to the medic. He took it like it was a handed off football and rushed down field towards the end zone with a secondary “Thanks!” over his shoulder.
Inside, the corpsman began prepping the leg by cleaning it and testing neuro functions with an electronic nerve stimulator. If the nerves were trashed due to shock or other metabolic reasons, there was no point in attaching it. After the test was done, he reported that the leg was ready when they were. At Daria’s periphery of consciousness, she heard the report and continued to cauterize lung tissue surrounding the invading piece of metal.
After an initial two minutes of cauterizing, one of the doctors decided to speak up. “It’s a valiant effort to try to save his right lung, but I don’t think that it’ll work. He can live on just one lung and with only one leg, he won’t really be missing out on that much oxygenation anyway.”
“If I can’t stop the bleeding in thirty seconds, we’ll perform a lobectomy. Do we have a pulmonologist here?”
“I’m a cardiologist but I’ve done these before. His blood pressure is rising but he also has a subdural hematoma. We’ll need to get that lung out and stabilize his cardio-pulmonary functions before we reduce the intracranial pressure.”
In the time it took for Daria to get a report, her thirty seconds were up and she knew it. “Doctor, please take over. I’ll get all the equipment set up for the cranial procedure.” Again Daria was giving orders as the cardiologist began removing the right lung. The patient miraculously held on to his vital signs during the procedure and before long was ready to have his head worked on.
A neurosurgeon had been preparing the leg for reattachment and stopped to start the procedure to relieve the pressure building up in the man’s skull from an internal bleed. Daria went to work on cleaning and closing the side of the amputated leg that could not be found.
After an hour or so, the neurosurgeon returned to the leg and continued to put the patient back together again. He spoke to Daria without looking away from his work. “Very impressive, young lady. Why don’t you stop by my office later and we’ll talk about getting you into medical school? Not that you seem to need any more training, but the degree helps you to actually practice medicine.”
“Sir, why would I want to be a doctor and make more money, not get shot at, and have to live in a big house with servants and money and stuff? That’s not for me; I need an easier life.”
Although prodded many times by doctors, Daria had no desire to give up her current life. She enjoyed doing the work she did and although she at times helped people she didn’t know, as with her current patient, she got more satisfaction out of helping her friends or fellow marines. Although she didn’t like the idea of them getting shot or blown to shreds, it was the only type of medicine she felt good about.
The doctor smiled. “If you change your mind, please don’t hesitate to call me. I think we can finish up here. Thank you for your help. Your patient is going to make it. We’ll keep you apprised of his condition.”
When Daria left the surgical suite, the sun was already starting to set. Almost five hours had passed and it seemed like only a few minutes. It was a nice change of pace to be able to take your time and really do a job right. Usually you had to duck bullets and bomb fragments to work on someone in the field. And you only had about ten or so minutes to stabilize them for evacuation before you had to move again.
Emily was going over data with Davie
s that had been sent back from the site. They both looked at Daria who, in her groggy state, hadn’t removed her blood-soaked gown and gloves. “He’s going to make it”, she said as she sat on the tailgate of the car. “He’ll need a lot of reconstructive surgery to make him have a face again, or even talk for that matter, but he’ll live.”
“I ordered all excavation to stop and an immediate evacuation from all sites”, Emily stated. “Let’s get you home and we’ll all come back when it’s light again.” She and Davies began to load equipment. Daria realized her gown and gloves were still on and went back into the suite to dispose of them. When she returned, the car was loaded up and already pointed towards home.
She climbed aboard. “They got his leg almost all the way back on and his head wound is stabilized. They’re going to finish the operation out here and then take him back. I figure if we’ve been here for this long and nothing else has happened, nothing else probably will. It’s safer to move him after he is completely stable. Maybe four or five more hours.”
“Sounds good to me,” Emily said as she started the car towards home. “I hope when he wakes up that he’ll have some good info for us.” Emily wasn’t the highest-ranking officer by far on this mission but she had gotten to be quite an authority figure around the site. Daria figured that it was her expertise and the fact that she seemed to take command when no one else would. Of course, it only took about two seconds of other people’s indecision for her to take over, but hey, “you snooze, you lose.”
Although not much older than Emily and never being very maternal herself, Daria almost wished now that she and Mike had had children of their own. Emily was just the type of woman that she would’ve wanted her own daughter to grow up to be.
That thought faded into a dream of her and Mike standing in the doorway of a small house, looking out over a green meadow, with children playing. Then suddenly a huge explosion engulfed the meadow and her children disappeared in a flash. She began running towards where they stood just seconds ago, when she turned just in time to see the house explode as a training fighter crashed into it, sending Mike into oblivion.
She awoke to find Davies half carrying her to her quarters. She awoke fully and with a start, looked wildly around for the children she never had and the husband she no longer had.
“You all right? You’re so tired that your body just kinda walked when I urged it to but you never really woke up. So I thought that I’d get you to your bunk without completely waking you up if I didn’t have to.” Davies had relinquished his hold on her shoulder and Daria stood on her own accord, more or less.
“Thanks. But I can make it the rest of the way. If,” she didn’t even know his name, “if that guy wakes up, let me know, even if I’m asleep, OK?”
“No problem, Doc. Get some sleep and if you need anything, let me know.” He tapped his comlink even though Daria didn’t need reminding. Although it wasn’t permitted, many marines adjusted their comlinks to have an illegal frequency that allowed them to talk to others who had similarly adjusted theirs. Usually friends did this so they could always be in communications with specific people and no one else could hear their conversation.
Daria, Davies, and Mike had a secret frequency for themselves that now only two of them shared. When the command post issued orders, the comlink automatically detected the frequency and shifted itself to the proper channel. So they were never in danger of missing orders. But if all hell broke loose and the field command structure went to shit, the three friends could find each other more easily by cutting out all the garbled screams of other soldiers, and get themselves out of the fire.
That’s why it was a court-martial offense to rig your comlink; they didn’t want marines to do an “every man for yourself” operation. But with the touch of a button, the secret channel would automatically short-circuit itself and no evidence would be found. It had come in handy more than once and Daria would risk the court-martial rather than give it up.
Morning came and never bothered to let Daria know it had arrived. She awoke to her room buzzer instead of the sun and pushed a button on her nightstand to open the hatch. Emily and Davies stood there with a tray full of food and a glass of orange juice to boot. Not just a glass, but a huge glass. That was a week’s worth of OJ rations for two people.
“Hey, where’d you get all that juice? You guys better not have used up your rations on me”, she said groggily as she got out of bed.
Emily blushed and Daria remembered that she was naked. Not that she had forgotten, but there wasn’t much modesty in the real Marine Corps.
Davies didn’t even think twice about it and walked to hand Daria the tray. “No, the doctors put together their rations for today to thank you for the great work you did. They said that if you didn’t take it, they would feed it to you by IV.”
She took the tray and set it down on her bed but decided to shower and dress before she ate. She could tell that Emily wouldn’t be able to get comfortable until she wasn’t showing in all her glory. Of course, it would probably take another marine to appreciate “all her glory” considering it was laden with scars and a roughness that only a marine could love.
Davies always kidded Mike about how he would “take care” of Daria if anything happened to him. Mike always said that he would reach out from his grave and rip Davies’ dick off if he even got it near his wife.
But Davies was a marine and did consider Daria’s scarred flesh to be absolutely full of glory. In fact, although Emily was as beautiful as any woman he had ever seen, she didn’t hold a candle to the one who was now taking a shower. He hated himself for even feeling that way.
“Any news from the site?” she called from the shower.
“The teams arrived at the rim about an hour ago”, Emily began, still a little flustered from the sound of her voice. “The data from last night and today suggests that the canyon was fabricated by someone and the blast originated from two kilometers below the surface. By the time we get out there, they will have performed enough of a scan that we will be able to descend into the hole without fear of deadly gasses or radiation. None have been found yet but I don’t want to take any chances.”
“You, the lieutenant and I, along with a recon team will rappel into the hole to scout the bottom. If the site is suitable, we’ll set up a hoist system for the surveying teams.” He stole a piece of Daria’s bacon and continued, “Your patient hasn’t woken up yet so we haven’t got any more information. But they say he’ll be just fine with the exception of his missing leg and facial reconstruction.” He shoved the second piece of bacon he stole into his mouth as Daria rounded the corner.
“Why don’t you ever just eat more instead of always taking my food?” Turning to Emily, she said, “I bet he drank most of the orange juice on the way and then filled the glass with water.”
Emily wasn’t too surprised how well Daria knew her friend, but it was funny how she knew exactly what Davies had suggested. “I wouldn’t let him. He said that you would never even know because the stuff is so watered down anyway. Big bully is what he is.”
With a sheepish grin that was out of place on a man so big, Davies swallowed the rest of his stolen goods and wiped the greasy evidence from his mouth with the back of his hand. “I’m a growing boy! I need my nutrition. You want me to starve or something? They should give out rations by size and not standardize it for everyone.”
“If they did that, your size would get bigger than what they’d have rations for. Besides, being planetside for so long, you’ve put on a few. You need to get with Emily and me sometime for a workout.” Daria finished her breakfast with the ferocity of a Grizzly bear and got geared up for the survey. Not knowing what they’d encounter, she loaded up everything she could think of.
She decided on a small med pack for this trip. If yesterday was any indication of what they might find today, she’d only need stuff for small scrapes or cuts. If anything else happened, being at ground zero would leave nothing behind for her to patch up.
So why take the extra weight?
“We have a little something for you”, Daria said to their CO. “It’s not exactly legal, but if you won’t tell, neither will we.” She handed Emily a comlink.
“What’s not legal about this?” Being part of the scientific corps, Emily didn’t know about the outlawed links.
“It’s a special link that has a secret frequency that only you, Daria, and I can listen to.” Davies showed her the termination button that would destroy the outlaw channel in case of a surprise inspection. He then explained why they used it.
“Thanks, guys.” That’s all she could think to say. For these two marines to trust her like that was more than anyone ever had in her life. Except for her brother. He would be proud of her to know what she had done with her career.
With that, the three friends left the barracks and headed towards the site.
Wilks
Mr. Wilks looked at the clock; only another two minutes had passed. Damn. He tried so very hard not to be a clock-watcher, especially as it went against everything he told himself he would never be. But standing there, watching his students browse the Net, message one another, doodle, and even blatantly sleep, it was difficult for Wilks to be the teacher he always dreamed of being.
Mr. Wilks had an affinity for history and advanced mathematics with a personal interest in military history. He had always wanted to be a teacher, had always wanted to be better than the horrible clock-watching teachers he had had while growing up in an impoverished Coalition colony. The teachers showed up for their paycheck and to make sure no one was killed in class—not always successful on the second part—and that was about it.
Mr. Wilks understood why they were that way: the kids were horrible and had no desire to be there. The colony had taken steps to ensure that there were no truancy issues by placing a GPS bracelet on all of the students. If the bracelet wasn’t on the school grounds when it was supposed to be, the police would locate the truant child and return them to school. So although this made sure that every kid was at school every day, it just increased the number of problems that the teachers had to deal with. If the kids who didn’t want to be there weren’t, then the teachers would have had more time to work with the students who did want to be there.
