Chapter Three - Doctor
Chapter Three - Doctor
"Vena! We need another sack of blood coagulants here!"
Vena jumped to it. The medicae deck was currently abuzz with activity, in a way that it hadn't been since... ever, really.
The Broken Scale was her home. It was where she was born, and where she'd likely live most of her life unless she proved herself worthy of a posting off-ship. Something that she was genuinely considering, at times.
Right now, her home had been struck, hard. The ship was damaged, though she had no idea how badly.
Fortunately, The Broken Scale was one of very few medicae-specialized ships in the Imperium. Of its crew of fifteen thousand, nearly a full thousand were medical professionals. Another thousand souls, not part of the crew itself, were support staff and assistants.
That's where she fell. Junior Medicae was a respectable post on most vessels, but on The Broken Scale it made her one of hundreds.
Vena ran across the metal deck plates, her long limbs letting her move with some alacrity to the service window at the rear of the room. Behind the counter were two servitors and a pharmacologist with a bandage wrapped around his head. "I need... I need three sacks of blood coagulants," she began, then she ran over what she had seen.
Operating theater six, the one she was rapidly assigned to, had twenty patients at the moment. They were all from the middle decks. Of those, half of them were left on the floor, for a lack of beds. The ship was designed to provide medical attention to battlefields and hive cities under duress, but that didn't mean that they were set up to provide attention to so many in mere minutes.
Usually, they had hours, or days of time to plan and prepare. This incident gave them none of that.
"I'll need stimms as well," she said. "Two adrenal stimms. I need six anti-shock, three tourniquets, burn-gel, I need a box of splits, a respirator mask, I need a sanguine pack if you have one. Are there any spare diagnostic auspex?"
"No," the man said. "And I can't give you half of that."
"Are we so low on supplies already?" she asked.
She knew they weren't. They had entire cargo containers full of supplies, enough to patch up an entire guard regiment from the brink of death, because that is what they did. Still, couching it like that wouldn't help any.
"I can't give you stimms, I can give you the splints, the gel and the tourniquets," he replied. His eye, covered by an auspex, flicked to the front of her bodyglove. She had a badge pinned over her breast, worn like a medal, but it wasn't the complex badge of a fully-accredited medicae. A glance was enough to tell that she was just a junior, and her authority in that respect only went so far.
She tugged on her leather apron, then leaned forwards. "People are dying."
"And we have procedures to keep that to a minimum," the pharmacologist said.
He was right. Textbook right. Her authority only allowed her to requisition some simple items, and for good reason. Some of the stimms behind his armaglass panels were dangerously addictive, or once taken, had to be consumed regularly for the rest of one's life.
Giving that to a junior medicae was like giving a fresh-faced guardsman a melta-bomb. She'd actually seen the consequences of that, once, and it wasn't pretty.
Still, people were dying.
Fast as a viper, she reached through the panels and grabbed onto the pharmacologist's tunic and pulled him closer.
People often underestimated her strength. Yes, her limbs were all unnaturally long, but that didn't mean she was weak. In fact, she often had leverage and reach on her side. "I need pain suppressants, anti-shock stimms, and coagulant foam. I need three sacks of blood coagulants. Two adrenal stimms and, three tourniquets, burn-gel, I need a box of splints, a respirator mask, I need a sanguine pack if you have one. Are there any spare diagnostic auspex?"
The pharmacologist had reached for a pointy little gun by his side, but he abandoned that when she let go of him.
"Fine," he said. "But you're signing for it."
"As long as I'm signing for it soon," she snapped.
The man grunted, but she caught something in his look. Most had a hard time reading other's expressions, but she had studied people for her entire life. There was some amount of respect there.
That was a risk, but she had to take those, on occasion.
Her goal was to be the Medicae Primus. That wasn't going to happen this decade, or even probably this century. If anything, the wealth of medical knowledge they had tended to extend their lives and make attaining higher ranks more difficult.
Still, it was her goal, and she was going to achieve it. That meant stepping on a few toes, but she could do so in a calculated way.
Annoying the pharmacologist was a bad idea. Doing so in a time of emergency, for the right reasons, and showing that she was serious, wasn't as bad.
She'd be reprimanded later, but the right people would know that it was the right thing.
"Sign here," he said as he returned with a bag stuffed full of items and a datapad which he placed on the desk.
She read over the list, nodded, then she signed. Vena Venin. Junior Medicae. Everything on there was something she needed, and something she could excuse the possession of.
Stuffing it all into a satchel, she bowed shallowly to the pharmacologist, then darted out across the room.
There was screaming, and lots of it, but that was hardly unusual here. People complained oh so much when they were having bits removed, and one simply needed to get used to it. If they could complain, then they were alive, and that was well and good enough.
She arrived in bay six, and slowed down.
There was another group of juniors here, moving around with alacrity and taking over the tasks that she had been caring for just minutes ago.
"You're back? About time," the senior said. "We don't need the coagulants anymore."
"I see that," she said. A glance down at the patient that needed it most, and more importantly at all the blood leaking into one of the troughs on the floor, confirmed that he wouldn't need it. Or at least, they wouldn't help. "Where am I needed?"
"Tsk. Go see Ship's Chirurgeon Veil," the senior replied before shoving his hands into a patient's chest cavity.
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She grunted, then looked at the others. They smiled back at her.
Ah, so it was that kind of situation.
The number of open positions was always lower than the number of snapping juniors eager to gain one of those spots. The infighting was... sometimes a lot. Sabotaging another junior wasn't unheard of, and perhaps she was not one of the more popular members of the crew, for a whole host of reasons.
"Fine," she said.
Her family, of which there were few members remaining, had an expression. First, avoid harm.
It had served her well so far, but it also instilled something in her that some didn't like. She didn't much care, however, and so she refocused on her new task.
Ship's Chirurgeon Veil was waiting by the entrance to the deck. Six other juniors with her, as well as another fully-accredited medicae and a dozen medicae servitors. When Vena arrived, she spared her a nod, but continued to focus on a datapad. Two more juniors arrived, and Vena realized that this was a cabal of the unwanted and less popular.
"We have been tasked by the bridge to assist with care for the lower decks," Veil said.
Vena tsked silently. Of course. Caring for the officers might lead one to make connections in the right places. Caring for the Navis or bridge crew was an honourable position to be in, and of course the rogue trader and his family had their own members of the medicae in their retinue. Caring for the lower decks, however... well, even if she saved a thousand lives, it would be of little note.
Still, the task needed doing. She shouldered her bag. At least she had some supplies on hand.
The instructions were simple. Get as many people back on their feet as possible. Triage was inverted. That was to say, that the least injured were to be tended to first. This wasn't about saving lives, it was about returning the ship to working order.
They left, moving with some alacrity through familiar decks, then down, and then down lower. Six levels later they were in locations that Vena had never seen before, but which she had been warned about.
A mess hall had been converted into a medical facility, though it was... not ideal.
Ship's Chirurgeon Veil took over immediately, assigning each of the juniors and some of the servitors to a table, then she demanded more supplies from the locals. There were voidsmen here, keeping order, and they in turn had medi-packs, which did provide some base materials.
She set her satchel down, then paused when someone walked over to her. A member of the crew, though judging by the sackcloth he wore and the smudges on his face, not a particularly well-placed member. "Yes?" she asked.
"Ah, miss healer! Please! You must help us."
"That is what we are here for. I'll ask that patients form an orderly line and--"
"No. Not here. We have others. Further in, they can't be brought here. Good people. Honest folk. They're hurting, ma'am, we need help."
She frowned. There was an order to this. A way things were done. Though...
She glanced back at Veil, and returned her attention to the man. "Explain yourself," she said.
He did so, rather succinctly. There were people deeper in the ship that needed help, and bringing them here wasn't possible. So, the help had to go to them.
"And you can't bring them here?" she asked.
"They are void-born. The Voidsmen, they do not enjoy the sight of those of our sort." He gestured between her and himself, and she noticed that his hands had six fingers, with more joints than normal.
She hesitated. Protocol said that she ought to stay here, but staying here would make her utterly unremarkable. A glance over the room showed that the worst wounds here were sprains and bruises, maybe a few fractured bones.
She lifted her satchel. "Show me."
Of course, it wasn't so simple. She asked for permission from Veil, expecting to be refused, but the woman simply nodded and waved her off. "It's your head," she replied. "Don't let the lower deck rabble steal your gear. I won't protect you from reprisals."
Vena didn't question it. Instead, she followed the man as he led her through a trio of service hatches, then through a maze of pipes. When he stepped aside at last, they were in the lower deck warrens.
There were netted beds hanging from pipes above, homes made of discarded materials tucked into every corner, and sweaty, dirty people all over, packed together with barely any room to move.
There weren't a few injured here, there were dozens.
And they were staring.
"Okay!" she snapped. "I need space, and a raised bed to work on. Clear some room!" She pointed to a man that looked fine. "You, get me some cloth, tear into strips this wide. You, over there. Boil that cloth until it's clean. I need people lined up for help. I won't be able to fix everything, if I say it's beyond me, then it is, no arguing. I need clean water if you have it as well. Move!"
It took all of five minutes to get situated, but eventually she had a man on her table with a piece of steel through his chest. No painkillers, she only had a few of those, so the removal was done past his screaming. The wound was closed, sutured, and then he was moved aside for the next.
She reset limbs, removed a fair amount of metal from punctured limbs, and ran through her supply of bandages and started in on the stripped cloth to cover burns.
Her bedside manner was brusque, but it worked.
For a while.
Then her supplies started to dwindle. So many of her patients had signs of poisoning of one sort or another, but she only had so many doses of anti-poison stimms. Most of those, she realized, were from their food and water. That wasn't her problem to fix, not now.
If it wouldn't kill them that day, then it wasn't her problem.
She still ran out within the hour. She did what she could anyway, but the dying kept coming, and the looks on the faces of the people she couldn't help...
First, avoid harm.
But then what? She had dug herself a pit, and now she was afraid that she'd drown in it.
You're doing quite well, Vena Venin. But you could be doing better.
She stopped. A voice? Was the air quality so low that she was suffering from psychosis?
Congratulations! Your willingness to preserve life at meaningful personal risk has been noted. You have been selected. I am Vyper. I will aid humanity. Do not resist.
***