While all around them, the shields came back up more and The Hippolyta kept fighting, led by the XO from the backup bridge.
Naero was proud of her people.
Many stayed at their stations while hurt, until their turns for treatment came, still feeding vital data to the backup bridge. Still trying to help the ship and fleet, until the medteks dragged them away and put them on medbeds to transport them to the ship’s hospital.
Naero was one of the last to be taken out, but she insisted on walking and riding to the infirmary, and took the lift with a few others.
Tyber came up the lifts with an army of teks to repair the main bridge systems quickly and set things right.
“Oh, N…” he exclaimed, when he spotted her. He instinctively moved to put his arms around her.
She pushed him away slightly. “It’s looks and hurts worse than it actually is, Ty. So please, don’t touch me for now.”
He nodded and swallowed hard. “Okay.”
She stepped onto the lift with the others.
“Get us back in business up here, Ty. I’ll return shortly, after that quack of yours checks me out and patches me up.”
Her ship was still in a fight. Naero didn’t like not being a part of that.
But she trusted her XO and her people.
Other medteks dragged the gathered remains of the dead to the other lift, sealed up in more body bags as the doors to her lift closed.
Then, while she was being treated, she could sense suddenly that the ship was no longer being hit by enemy weapons.
It slowed down from attack speed and came around.
The battle must have concluded in their favor.
Although Zhen told her to rest, Naero insisted on heading to the backup bridge.
Her XO let her take over instantly, part of their agreement.
Protocol dictated that they could not be in the same place during a battle, so Jaylen went up to oversee the main bridge repairs.
Naero checked the displays and noted that the enemy losses amounted to almost two entire fleets–over eighty warships destroyed outright or captured. The combined power of the Alliance fleets closed in to hammer the rest of the enemy that broke and fled.
Naero analyzed their weakness and prepared to adjust her attacks to punish the Triaxians even further.
Then Admiral Kinmal cut in.
“They’re breaking and running, Captain Maeris. Let them go for now.”
“Permission to pursue, sir.”
“Negative. Pull back and regroup.”
“But we can still crush them, sir!”
“Negative. We’ve defeated them, but we’re too beat up. Regroup along the Beta line and put your reduced fixer clouds to work. Refits are going to take longer now because of your little stunt, but good work anyway. Those new fixer techniques worked well.”
“I still want to make them pay,” Naero said.
Admiral Kinmal sighed. “There have been enough losses on both sides today, N. I thought reports said you were severely injured?”
“Not badly at all, sir. Exaggerations.”
Then I strongly suggest that you go see to your own dead and wounded for once, Captain Maeris.”
“But I–”
“Take this opportunity to do so. No excuses this time. Consider it an order.”
In the aftermath of the latest intense battle, Naero did exactly as the Admiral commanded.
9
Most of Strike Fleet Six’s wounded were eventually transferred to their hospital ship, The Columbia, once the injured were fully stabilized.
Doctors and surgeons like Zhen and other medical personnel also transferred over to assist–as needed and as able–with the sudden, heavy influx of casualties.
The aftermath of every battle like this one always meant more dead and more wounded.
Naero was always so busy, that to her, they were just numbers and reports sent to her over more data feeds.
But standing in just one of the receiving bays of the hospital ship allowed her to put those numbers into a new perspective.
So many wounded, flooding in from the entire fleet.
Too many.
Naero noticed that as soon as she stepped on deck.
She instantly felt ashamed that she had not taken the time to do so during the first few weeks of the expanding conflict–until now.
On her direct, past orders, all busy medical personnel at times like this were exempted from the requirement to salute. Naero wanted them focused completely on their charges, without any needless distractions.
At least she had had the foresight to do that much in advance.
If not killed outright, Naero knew very well, from past discussions with Zhen that, their injured had a excellent chance of survival, recuperation, and recovery. In most cases it would simply take time.
Spacers healed rapidly, at least physically.
Brain and head injuries were usually involved in most KIAs. Then there were cases when bodies were almost completely obliterated, or reduced to ash or atoms.
But the fact remained, the brain was still too vulnerable, complex, and could not be routinely regenerated. Thankfully, almost every other part of the human body could be.
But the mental and emotional scars of surviving such terrible injuries often took longer to recover from, or simply affected people for the rest of their natural lives.
Naero went among the decks of the hospital ship cautiously at first, doing her best to stay out of the way. She offered encouragement where she could. The vast numbers of wounded from the fleet made her feel small and helpless. And this was just one hospital ship, with one fleet, from one battle.
Zhen had been her teacher about all things medical. Recovery was key to saving people. But being wounded or lying in a medbed for days, weeks, or months was incredibly boring, as well as depressing and intensely lonely.
Wounded often hungered for someone to talk to, to listen to them, or simply be with them. Someone holding their hand or staying nearby, just in case.
Naero had the fleet casualty report numbers in her head from her wristcomp. And this times the numbers were in fact very low.
Just six hundred and eighty-four KIA. Most of those from the loss of The Wombat. Twelve hundred and five wounded.
She witnessed the aftermath of every kind of injury imaginable, flowing around her in a steady, streaming sea of medbeds, like rafts on and open sea.
Part of her wished she hadn’t seen so much all at once. It was quite overwhelming.
Burn injuries. Missing limbs.
Blast injuries. Shredding and penetration wounds. Bodies twisted and mangled in every way possible. Partial bodies. Partial faces. Partial torso’s.
Bodies crushed and shattered, barely clinging the spark of life.
Naero volunteered to sit with a badly wounded fighter pilot from The Cockatrice.
The pilot was missing the lower half of her face, various tubes allowing her to breathe, hydrate, and feed when needed.
Naero did not know this Spacer fighter pilot personally, but she could tell that the wounded woman was smart.
The pilot had one sparkling green eye left, and half her nose. Nothing else down to her raw, exposed throat.
Everything. Gone.
She blinked at Naero with her remaining eye, until Naero figured out that she was using a basic spacer battle code, made with short and long blinks.
It took a short while for Naero to figure it out.
By the time this pilot would fully regenerate and learn to re-use her re-constructed face and body, hopefully the Annexation War would be long over.
1st Leftenant Mariisha Elkins, of the 94th Alliance Starfighter Wave, 3rd Squadron, 10th Fighter Wing—The Headhunters.
That was her name and rank and unit from her holochart.
Only twenty-three years old.
Her 3D scan of her face and head, being used for reconstruction purposes, was heartbreaking.
Mariisha spoke in code with her o
ne green eye until her pain meds wore off. Then her sole eye began to weep, and bulge in panic and terror.
Tell parents…family…I live…Please…do not…them see me…this way.
Naero touched her hair gently.
“Don’t worry. I will inform them of your wishes, Mariisha. Personally. All you need to do, is focus on your re-construction treatments. Our people are the best in the galaxy. They’ll get you back.”
Med teks came by seconds later, at Naero’s direct call, and doped the suffering pilot up again.
Spacers were immune or resistant to many poisons–as well as drugs–including most standard pain meds.
One drawback to their advanced, genetically engineered metabolism.
It took heavy doses of meds that were specifically attuned to their unique biology to put them under or relieve their pain.
Meds at levels that would kill normal humans.
Mariisha finally dozed off, her one green eye still half open.
Naero patted her hand and closed the young woman’s eye gently, the rest of the way with her own small fingertips.
Naero softly kissed the top of Mariisha’s head.
Her brave people, like this beautiful young fighter pilot. What a price they paid. Damn Triax, damn the war, and damn…herself.
Naero moved on from medbed to medbed in that section.
Sometimes the wounded could interact. Some could not, or were still in shock or even anger, and didn’t want to. A few just stared.
Some cried out repeatedly for their family, or perhaps for a lover or a cherished friend.
Their cries were the most heart-rending Naero ever witnessed or endured.
It would take a heart made of pure steel not to be moved by such cries.
Many raved, or rambled, or sobbed.
Naero understood as best she could. None of this was about her.
If these poor wounded needed to yell or cry–let them–they could do so freely.
She never took any offense, even if a few noticed her rank.
Especially–when in their pain–some few of the wounded cursed or blamed her directly for what had happened to them.
Just one more price of wearing her gold halo and star.
She moved on if things got too abusive. Hanging around just provoked further outbursts. Such incidents were rare, but still painful and awkward to endure.
Yet thankfully, the vast majority of the wounded didn’t give a damn either way what her rank was.
They simply wanted some human contact, comfort, or company.
They did not care who or where it came from.
Naero called to her ships and explained the overwhelming need for such comfort that the wounded had.
Once she fully explained that need, volunteers flooded over, to comfort or sit with other wounded Spacers, many whom they didn’t even know.
Those who were off duty could give that much of themselves.
The next time, it could be them, or a family member or friend in such dire need.
As she moved on, Naero discovered firsthand that burn wards could also be grim, tricky places.
First of all, the smell of the wards themselves was perhaps something Naero and many others would never forget.
Most Spacers, like Naero, had keen senses of smell.
Even with having been burned herself, the clinging, cloying smell of so many burned people, burned flesh, burned human hair, and the distinctive regenerative meds combined were quite overpowering. Especially when the victims were first tended to and brought in on the special medbeds designed for burn units.
The overall smell was an intense odor that would likely haunt Naero’s nightmares for the rest of her days.
Yet she could choose to get away from it, in part at least, if it all became too much.
She could walk away and leave it behind, and duck out to another part of the hospital ship. Or leave the ship entirely to try to escape from it.
Then Naero thought about that and steeled herself.
What was it like for the victims themselves? They were stuck with the entire situation. They could not run away from it.
They could not get away from any part of their ordeal, let alone the intense smell. Not until they regenerated–which could again take up to several months or more. Their long process was just starting.
These people were stranded with their condition each day until then. No escape. No way to walk away from anything.
The ones who could joke about it all called themselves ‘fryers,’ as in ‘the deep-fried.’ She had heard about this before and just thought it to be more dark, gallows humor among warriors.
But on a burn ward, that still seemed incredibly poignant to her—that some of the victims could actually be that flip about it, so soon.
Some of the wounded even took to calling each other ‘drumstick,’ or boasted about being ‘extra-crispy.’
Of course, any who spent enough time around burn victims, realized very quickly that they were obviously still the same people trapped inside their outer shells, however damaged and horrific those outer forms became.
After several hours and repeated visits, Naero stopped seeing their burns, and interacted with them more or less normally.
But it did shake her to come across one of the burn victims from her own bridge, someone she knew personally. Knowing the person made the adjustment even more heartbreaking.
Kelment Walker, Launching Bay Station Control. Second and third degree burns over the front of his body, from his head down to his waist. He was missing his ears, nose, and three fingers.
He slept peacefully, as long as Naero kept her hand gently on the normal portion of his scorched left arm.
He started and woke up if she tried to slip away.
Naero stayed with him for two hours before another crew from The Hippolyta took her place, and Kelment’s arm.
From what the other doctors said, the more people who could be around them to be supportive, the better and faster the healing process would go. Including the emotional component.
From the outset, these wounded wanted desperately to get back to being their former selves. To escape from their nightmare.
Many like Mariisha and Kelment elected not to allow family, friends, or loved ones to visit or see them, until they would be more or less completely restored and healed.
For them it was, in fact, better if strangers sat with them. It was better to be around someone who hadn’t known them before.
They wanted to spare their family and friends the same pain and terror that they themselves were going through.
Naero still marveled at the modern, advanced medicine of their time.
How terrible it must have been, before people had possessed advanced regeneration and restoration techniques. Medical procedures that were now nearly taken for granted, by those who did not need them.
Naero finally went back to her flagship after each visit–exhausted–but usually she slept fitfully.
She struggled not to blame herself.
The war was at fault, not the people conducting and fighting it.
And their war still just both just and necessary.
Each crew member took his or her own chances.
Any of them could die.
Any of them could be wounded.
At any moment, including Naero herself.
Naero ignored her own slight wounds and superficial burns. They were already healing. In a few days or weeks, they would be completely erased.
Nothing like what Mariisha and Kelment were going through.
But she or anyone fighting the war could still join them at any time–or the dead, for that matter.
That was what everyone needed to understand. Not dwell on or obsess about it, but simply rationalize it. Perhaps each person did so in their own way, and the path of denial simply worked best.
Naero returned to The Columbia each day for the majority of the next few days.
Sometimes, if the hospital ship was particula
rly overloaded, Zhen would hunt her down and put her to work.
“Get to it, N. You’ve had lots of medtek training. We need every pair of hands today.”
In those situations, Naero pitched in directly, rank or no rank.
If she was off duty, she could do whatever she wanted to with her time, just like any one else.
Strangely enough, it was half-Yattai empath Shalaen who could not handle being around so many wounded all at once. She visited the hospital ship–only once. Then she balked and departed quickly, and never came there again.
Being around that many people in pain was extremely difficult for an empath.
The way Shalaen explained it to Naero–with haunted eyes–not being able to heal like her fully-Yattai mother could, it frustrated and tormented Shalaen greatly. It left her helpless before the suffering and torment of so many others, gathered together in one place.
When Shalaen could feel everything so many felt at once, and yet she could do nothing to help them, or ease their suffering.
For all of her empathic powers and Cosmic abilities, there were some things that remained beyond Shalaen’s amazing abilities, and that lack served only to torment her beyond what she could bear.
After Naero’s latest visit to The Columbia to help the wounded, she finally understood why Admiral Kinmal insisted that she should go among them at such length.
Casualty numbers would have a much greater and poignant meaning to her now.
And despite their heavy losses, at least the wounded still had a chance to recover and take up their lives again, whatever they endured.
Life remained sweet to all of them, and hope endured, as long as there was life and a chance at life.
But never for the dead.
The dead lost everything outright and up front. Death was unforgiving and offered no second chances.
She thought she understood that once, but war thundered and hammered that reality home every day.
10
Naero’s first disguise that she used to walk and work among her crews was that of a starfighter pilot replacement.
With her youth, that was more than plausible. And she was already an excellent fighter pilot.
She wore a blond nanowig that fused itself to her own hair and could not readily be pulled off, even in a fight. The style was a sharp cut bob with long, tapered sides that angled up to the back. Shorter in back, and much shorter than her own long hair, tucked up under the wig.
Citation Series 1: Naero's War: The Annexation War Page 6
