She examined the nearest abandoned gun using the maximum magnification on her scope. She put several bullets into it in places that looked vital or instrumental, then moved over to the next one and repeated the process. She was lining up on a third gun when she heard ragged cheering. She took her eye off the scope and looked up to see several ships nearing. Theirs! Had they won?
It was all over in minutes as the remaining Keulfyd added up the opposition and surrendered. The ships were Niseyen and some others she didn’t recognize. Big ones, lots of them. She looked again through her scope. Okme? Surely not. They didn’t have military ships. Or did they? The Loridsyl rounded up the prisoners. There weren’t many and most were not Keulfyd. She wondered what would happen to them but didn’t really care.
Slowly and stiffly, she climbed down the tree a lot slower than she had climbed up and searched for Katy. She couldn’t find her. Numbly she noticed in passing a lot of dead and injured. She searched the trees. Her heart stopped as she thought she spotted Katy, limp and bloody, hanging by her webbing and at least thirty feet up. Frantically, she found three youngsters who were unhurt and could climb up for her. She watched in agony as two of them organized a rope and another a first-aid kit. The latter were in short supply.
It was only as she watched them climb that she realized she couldn’t see properly and someone else was organizing everyone, which was her job. There were injured people everywhere and a lot of people were not being attended to. There were more people needing help than helping. Most of those helping seemed injured. This wasn’t good. She swayed on her feet, torn between Katy and her job. She went to comment to the woman who seemed to have taken up station by her side and was watching her, not the rescue. She realized she was leaning on a tree and would have fallen without it. Her head spun and she sagged.
The woman helped her to sit on a fallen tree. Sarah looked down at herself. Her legs were soaked in blood! She looked up to see Katy slowly being lowered down on the rope. Dizzy, she put her head in her hands, just for a minute.
Sarah woke up to feel someone ripping the bandage off her back. Her hands were being gently held, a woman was explaining what was happening and she was lying on her stomach. Something was being passed over her back, not touching it yet she felt something like a vibration. A scanner, she was told. It caused tingling too as it passed over.
The Okme medic concentrated on Sarah’s injuries. He estimated the blood loss at less than thirty percent, so survivable. Her vitals were good under the circumstances. Blood pressure low but sufficient, heart-rate rapid but regular. She should have IV fluids. There weren’t enough but a mobile unit would be here soon. He ran his scanner over her back. Five wounds: one serious, three with foreign bodies in them, two metal and one organic. He injected an anaesthetic with a temporary paralytic which would stop her trying to walk for a few hours. He knew who she was, and he had seen Katy.
He picked up the scanner again, checked the location, depth and shape of the organic fragment, set the scanner to hover and carefully removed it. He moved on to the next one, then the smallest last. As he worked he cauterized the bleeding, which was now minimal, applied topical implants of slow-release antibiotics and instant and slow-release painkillers. He stitched up the wounds, applied a sealant and then placed a transparent pressure bandage over the whole area, running the sealant around the wounds, carefully inflating it away from the wounds. He secured the edges, well away from the wounds, and stuck her clothing onto the side of it assuming she would have the same decency problem the Niseyen had.
He did a final check of her vitals and her wounds. She was stable and now the whole area was protected. She would be able to move once the paralytic wore off and lie on her back but not inhibit the circulation which was needed to heal the wounds. Luckily they were small wounds compared to some he had seen, so she should heal. He turned her over, wrote some figures across her forehead and went on to the next 2.
He had been assigned the 2 level because he was not qualified for higher, not unsupervised, although if the situation had been any worse, and help not been imminent he would have been assigned to 3 first. He was relieved that hadn’t happened but it had been close. He sighed and stretched. What a mess! He was used to working in an Okme Healing Center and was way out of his comfort zone. A war was supposed to be fought in limited battles, not the whole planet at the same time and no reserves! There were tens of thousands of injured, he had been told, but his own people had now taken over the medical care. He was vastly relieved. He had no faith in the medical organization of any other Race.
He had been in emergency situations before but usually major accidents. In emergencies like this, necessity overrode normal protocol. They were using everyone they had: students, retirees, the sick, the injured. He considered himself lucky that he was none of the above.
As he moved away Sarah grabbed a woman standing close by and said, “Katy?”
“She’s alive but has a serious head wound. She will be evacuated soon. They said she’s stable.”
“What did he write on my face?” Sarah asked, half-asleep now.
“Some Okme writing. I don’t know.”
Sarah tried to process this information. Triage, her brain responded. “Can you write it down for me?”
Sarah looked at the scrawls, forcing her mind to work. She thought of the triage system she had seen written in English. Slowly she translated the symbols, relieved her Translator wasn’t damaged. She read: “A 2 AB M=F”.
She tried to remember the Triage system but her brain kept losing the information. Finally, she wrote down what she could remember:
1 minor
2 moderate
3 severe, fourth priority Okme.
4 critical, treatable, third priority Okme.
5 critical, treat only if time, prognosis poor, second priority Okme
6 terminal, pain relief/stabilize only, first priority Okme.
7 deceased.
A, T, M, AB
The addition of “A” in front meant attended to, treated. “A” after meant treatment needed. “T” after the number meant tourniquet in place. “M” meant morphine or pain relief given or needed. “AB” meant antibiotics. ‘Me’ meant other medication and there were others symbols but she couldn’t remember them. She remembered the letter before the number meant nothing urgent to do now but the letter after the number meant something else was needed. Underlined meant urgent. So A, 2, AB, M-F meant moderate injury, attended to, antibiotics given, pain relief given, probably the delayed release stuff which would keep working for several days. What was “F”’ She couldn’t remember. But ‘=F’ meant she needed something. No underline meant she could survive without it. Probably. Her mind wandered then she suddenly thought: fluids. Of course. She had bled a lot. She needed fluids or a transfusion but would she survive without it?
“Katy. Please go and write down what’s written on her forehead. Please,” begged Sarah.
The woman came back and handed Sarah a scrap of paper that her Translator told her said 3 D *. She tried to think and eventually remembered: D meant deteriorating or urgent. A “3” now but worsening. And *. What did that mean? Did that mean she needed an operation? She couldn’t remember. She looked again. No pain relief.
“Is she unconscious?”
“Yes.” The woman, Nyla, who had been delegated to look after Sarah, thought she looked awful, so pale and her eyes mostly weren’t focused. She kept losing consciousness. So many dead and injured and the medical people were ignoring so many. Nyla was frightened. So many were begging for help, with awful wounds or broken bones, and were being told, “It’s not life-threatening. You can wait.” Nyla was a 1. She had a broken right arm, some shrapnel in it, was sure that her fingers were broken and she had concussion. And this equalled a 1?
She remembered being flung against a tree and assumed it was due to an explosion. She wasn’t sure but her ears were ringing and her hearing impaired. She had been briefly checked, labeled and then assig
ned to work. She would have liked to help more but didn’t know what to do. The bad headache didn’t help. So she had followed the medic around until he told her to help and guard Sarah. That she could do. She could still shoot: she was left-handed. She sat and watched Sarah, content to have a job that she could do.
Sarah awoke, finding herself being moved onto a stretcher and floating. She looked up and saw Jesan. She looked around and spotted Dai. She groaned. Big mistake.
“What’s wrong?” Dai moved quickly into her field of vision.
“Moved too fast. Katy?”
“Gone to the Okme. They’ll treat her tomorrow and we can take her home after.”
“She’s OK?”
“No, she’s critical,” said Jesan. “That’s why they’re treating her.”
“Shut up!” Dai glared at him.
“Where are you taking me?”
“Home.”
“Not to hospital?”
“No. You’re category 2,” said Jesan cheerfully. “Hospital’s only for the serious and critical.”
Sarah peered at him in the dim light. Dim light? “Is it night?”
“Yes. We took hours getting here. We hitched a ride with an Okme search and rescue ship but they got diverted everywhere and it was night before they dropped us off.”
Sarah peered at his and Dai’s faces, trying to decipher the characters written there. “What’s broken? How?”
“We crashed and Dad broke my arm when he threw me into the ocean,” Jesan responded cheerfully.
Sarah couldn’t help laughing, but very carefully. “What did you break?”
“Just an arm.”
Sarah asked Dai. “What about you?”
“I don’t know. Several bits hurt but everything works and the medic said, ‘in alignment,’ which means the bones haven’t moved out of place, so I guess it doesn’t matter as long as I’m careful.”
“You crashed?”
“We got shot down,” said Jesan before Dai could speak. “He didn’t mean to land in the ocean but the anti-grav was on the blink, fuel was low, the ship wouldn’t turn properly, lots of the gauges weren’t working and those that did work were mostly saying things that really weren’t helpful. Dad turned all the alarms off because he got sick of them. I didn’t think we were going to make it but Dad said he’d spent a fortune on me so he was determined I wouldn’t die.”
The two insulted each other for the next several minutes. Sarah thought they were acting like a couple of Englishmen, being very rude to each other as a substitute for affection. Looks like some male bonding has been done.
Sarah dozed off, waking when the bright lights disturbed her. Sleepily she recognized her apartment building. She hoped the power was on otherwise it would be ages before she could get to bed. Then she realized that if the lights were on the lifts would work. She dozed again, waking to hear, “Just put her in. What’s the fuss?”
“You have a lot to learn about Terrans, Jesan!”
Sarah roused to see that she was in front of the Cleaner. “Just this once,” she replied and several glorious minutes later she was in bed. Her own. Clean. She slept.
Dai went in to the Cleaner as Jesan came out. Contemplating a snack and bed, Jesan was startled to look up from the fridge and see his father in clean, untorn clothes. “Where are you going?”
“Someone has to run this world and the President is unconscious. That leaves me.”
Once again Jesan was having trouble reconciling what his mother said about his father and what he saw. And what he heard on the bank ships with his father’s family.
“You need to bring your bag in here and look after her,” Dai said.
“Why? Won’t she be all right?”
Dai sighed in exasperation. “She’s badly injured. She can’t walk unassisted. You will have to help her get to the toilet. She will need food and drink when she wakes and she can’t get it herself. And in all this confusion it would be an ideal time for an assassin. You need to guard her.” And with that he left.
Jesan sat in shock. His father, Acting President and running a war-torn world. Jesan had heard some of the conversation yesterday on the search and rescue ship when Dai had been talking to the Loridsyl. His mother was so wrong. And he had to guard Sarah from possible assassination? Ashamed, he realized who he had to protect her from. His father trusted him to do that!
Jesan was determined not to let his father down. He checked the fridge. Not much prepared food and he had never learnt to cook. He looked in the pantry. “Add water and stir” food had never been on his menu so he ignored that. There was some Niseyen dehydrated stuff, though. He wouldn’t eat it but Sarah would and it only had to be heated. That solved that problem. He could make drinks and there was a good stock of those and a good stock of the bars he liked. Sarah could eat them too.
Now, guard duty. Jesan checked that all the doors and windows were locked. He went to his room and heaved out his bag. He checked Sarah. Asleep. He sneaked in and checked her window. Locked. He turned the alarm on. He got his hand gun and moved his bag in front of Sarah’s door. He figured she couldn’t get out and no one could get in to her without waking him. He slept.
Dai went to the Air Traffic Control room, which was busy. “What’s happening?” he asked the Chief Controller.
“All the ships with injured are down and most of the damaged ones. The Okme hospital ship has deployed its twelve mobile units and the ship itself is at capacity as are all the Healing Centers.”
“Do we have any idea of the body count yet?”
“Several thousand and still counting. We are prioritizing the living and putting bodies through a photo check and into cold storage. Most fatalities were in the ships, although this city took a heavy toll. No one in the other cities was hurt. Many thousands of injured here, but they are being treated very fast. The Okme say almost all will survive and they say they will retreat any with permanent injuries. They emphasized all this is their contribution. Free.” She smiled.
“Good price. Did they know the planet is open? Any of their Race can come here. No restriction until we are up to two hundred million.”
“Yes. Everyone knows. The media are clamouring for an interview.”
“They’ll have to wait. Tell them Sarah is badly injured and unconscious and I am too busy.”
“They know about Sarah,” she said, “and they want to know what happened.”
“Tell them she fought. Katy and Sarah are deadly shots with sniper rifles. Jesan fought too, as a gunner, and all of us are injured, Katy and Sarah badly. Katy has had to go to the Okme hospital or she would have died. Sarah was treated by an Okme mobile unit and will eventually recover.” Dai was grimly determined that they would all get credit for what they had done. He knew Jesan’s reputation. This would help him too. The media still insisted on calling himself a playboy. He had been one, briefly, following his treatment. An old man with sudden youth and raging hormones. What did they expect? But that was decades ago. As soon as Jesan was on the way, he had quickly grown up. A pity Leasan hadn’t. Well, maybe not. He had Sarah now and Jesan too.
Jesan was jolted awake and guiltily struggled out of his bag, shocked. It was morning! He had slept all night! Sarah! He quickly checked, yelping as he mistakenly went to use his arm. She was asleep. He heard the door monitor and realized that was what had woken him. He went quickly through the Cleaner, ran his fingers through his hair and checked the door monitor screen. Ludmilla, Kudales and it looked like Katy. He opened the door.
“Hi, Jesan,” said Ludmilla. “We picked up Katy on our way back from the Okme.” She guided Katy’s floating stretcher into the apartment.
“Were you injured?” Both had “1” on their foreheads. It was getting to be a fashion statement, he thought. Kudales was moving carefully and had a spectacularly colored face with some extra lumps where nature did not design them. Ludmilla was favouring an arm and limping.
“Mostly bruises,” she answered cheerfully, “but we had to deli
ver a couple of our shipmates to an Okme center.”
The shipmates must have been critically hurt to need the Healing Center. He looked at Katy and asked, “Will she be all right?”
“We don’t know.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s a head injury, Jesan. They’re unpredictable. So is recovery. She may have lost some memories or abilities.” Ludmilla heard a sound and saw Sarah standing, holding onto the doorway.
Sarah walked over, keeping one hand on the wall and looked down at her child. “We’ll manage,” she said. “She’s alive. The rest we can cope with.”
Ludmilla leaned over Katy. “She won’t have to cope with pain, thanks to the Okme. No migraines. That should make her less irritable. But the damage will be serious, Sarah. That wound should have been fatal. There may be personality changes, frustration, possibly anger. She she may not be able to multitask. Her memory and concentration will probably be affected too. You will all have to watch her carefully for a while and later reteach her some things. She may have had a slight stroke but the Okme doctor said she isn’t paralyzed. She has reflexes, although very minimal ones, so there could be weakness. That her muscles are moving doesn’t mean they are strong enough to hold her weight, nor does it mean the muscles can co-ordinate or receive correct nerve signals. She may not be able to walk.
“The Okme medic who released her to us apologized and said said they would usually have done assessments, worked out what was wrong, and advised several weeks of rehabilitation, but there are no staff available. They are prioritizing life. She has some other injuries as well and will be left with some scarring, but she won’t see them. Those wounds are all on her back and legs. They’re minor, medically speaking.”
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