Dem Calavia
New member
It's going to be bad.
I know that it's going to be bad the moment that I see the blue lights gleaming on the guns lying scattered on the floor. Once again, as I pull the BMW Fast Response Vehicle into the layby, I question my own sanity. Why am I here, on this piece of shit island, surrounded by madmen, mayhem and murder, when I could be making a fortune as a doctor on Thessia? Why am I here when I could be serving my Imperium more proactively and more productively in a million other places? Always the same question, and always the same answer. Because you've always been a sucker for a challenge, Dem, now get out there and work your magic.
I pop the door and climb out, my boots crunching upon the dry hard earth outside the wagon. I walk around the car to the boot, grabbing my bag of tricks and swinging it onto my shoulder, my back barely bending beneath the weight of equipment stashed within. Treatment equipment from the mundane to the almost mystical. Corrective agents that can fix smashed bones and shattered nerves with the prick of a needle and the gentle squeeze of a trigger. Scanners that can determine everything about a person right down to their mother's maiden name. Splints that can let a person walk again, and a canister of anesthetic that could paralyze an angry hexapuma. Litres of blood and miles of bandages. All stuffed into an infantry bergen.
I shake my head, forcing my mind to stop dwelling on the little things. Locking the car, I step out of the circle of the car's headlights into the darkness of the night. I can hear raised voices and I can see movements among the hedges and bushes around me. Flicking my NVGs down, the world is instantly transformed into a shifting sea of shimmering green and white... and the muzzle of the rifle thrust into my face suddenly snaps into vivid focus.
At once my heart tightens in my chest and I take a deep breath, hoping that whoever's on the other end of that rifle has the common sense to recognize my green uniform, to see the bright reflective stripes on my vest and recognize I'm not a police officer. Whilst it's illegal to shoot first responders and the various nutbars have generally respected the law where we're concerned, nobody wants to be the exception to the rule.
"Medic, over here." The voice at the other end of the rifle growls as the gunman lowers his weapon. He's a military age human male, about my height and broad, solidly built, in the hexagonal pattern camouflage fabric of the defunct CSAT, not that it matters. People here wear what they want, when they want, how they want, and only we paramedics, the police and occasionally the UNMC bother with any sort of uniform.
"What have you got?" I ask as I follow him through the brush into an open clearing, where a bunch of his mates are standing around a group of groaning policemen that have been dragged into a loose line. I bite my lip and force myself to walk on as I catch one of the other militiamen shaking his head at me.
"Some of my guys were in a car crash, we need you to fix them up." The man says, his voice surprisingly level, almost cheery.
"Righto, let's take a look then." I say, forcing myself to sound equally airy and cheerful. It's important to be calm and relaxed around patients, because if you're not, they'll sense it and that could cause all sorts of problems. Panicking patients have a habit of dying, you see.
He leads me over to a corner of the clearing where his two buddies are lying. Both of them have already been given rudimentary battlefield first aid judging by the tourniquet on one of them and the morphine syrrette punched into another's sleeve... and neither have been anywhere near a car crash. You don't need my trauma experience to see the signs that both have been in a gunfight. Empty mag pouches, bullet holes and the lack of wrecked cars in the vicinity are something of a giveaway.
I walk over to the one with the tourniquet first. He's moaning softly and sweating, and there's a rasping wheeze to his gasping breaths that concerns me. The other guy is mumbling in a morphine trance and his wounds are bandaged up already, even if they will need looking at. At once, the medical VI built into my helmet is analysing the guy even as I'm kneeling down beside him and tugging back his sleeve to intubate him.
"What's your name?" I ask, even as I stick a pair of IVs by muscle reflex alone. He doesn't respond, and so I tug the breastplate of his armor off, careful not to agitate a possible spinal injury. Fortunately he's wearing a UBACS, even if that UBACS is currently slick with his own blood, and what appears to be fragments of the kevlar plate. The VI in my helmet warbles, rattling off a list of probable ailments. Lung damage, three broken ribs on the right side, four on the left, plus a broken arm. I nod, pursing my lips as I reach into the pockets of my fatigues and pull out the yellow pouch, which I undo to reveal the treatment gun and a collection of different coloured phials. I select two red and one blue, sliding them into the gun's loading tube before I flick off the safety catch, press the muzzle to the patient's chest and pull the trigger.
The patient gasps, his back arching suddenly as he feels another sharp pain in his chest, but this time he's under the influence of the anaesthetic administered via the IV, and so he doesn't even twitch as I pull the gun away to reveal the tiny dart already administering its cargo of nanomachines to his chest. I repeat the procedure twice more, nodding with satisfaction as a pale pinkish surgical foam starts to bubble at the bullet wounds. The nanomachines are fast workers, and by the time I've removed my IV and the pre-existing tourniquets, the patient's skin is already starting to grow back and his eyes are starting to show signs of awareness, rather than the tortured animal look that had occupied them previously.
He gazes up at me muzzily, still under the after-effects of the experimental drugs, but I'm already getting up and swapping my gloves over, moving over to the second patient. This one's simpler. One hand resting on his shoulder to hold him down as he babbles incoherently, I'm already loading the treatment gun up with one yellow and two red to counteract the morphine they've given him and to repair the tissue damage. Simple stuff really. I push back the sleeve of his tunic and pull the trigger again. Thwack Thwack Thwack. Job done.
Standing up, I nod to myself, slipping the treatment gun back into its holster and winding away the IV hoses. These two clowns will make a full recovery. I'm already turning away and heading over to where the policemen are still being held at gunpoint. The man who had met me before is waiting for me, his expression eloquent as he notices the way I'm looking at the policemen.
"I'm going to have to ask you to step away from them, First Aider."
I hesitate, on the edge of doing something stupid. Every instinct cries out for me to go to them, every sinew and muscle begs me to tell him to stick his execution and his rules up his ass. It's not even out of any general desire or respect for the policemen here, god knows how some of them can be arses at times... but it's what's on my uniform, what I've been trained to do. 'I will follow that system of regimen which, according to my ability and judgement, I consider for the best of my patients, and abstain from whatever is deleterious and mischevious.'- Do No Harm.
As I turn away and head back toward my car, I try my best not to hear each bang followed by a sickening wet thwack, each one stinging like a lash applied to my own back. I climb into my car, boot up my dispatch terminal and look at the rash of purple crosses spread across the island. It's going to be a busy night.
I know that it's going to be bad the moment that I see the blue lights gleaming on the guns lying scattered on the floor. Once again, as I pull the BMW Fast Response Vehicle into the layby, I question my own sanity. Why am I here, on this piece of shit island, surrounded by madmen, mayhem and murder, when I could be making a fortune as a doctor on Thessia? Why am I here when I could be serving my Imperium more proactively and more productively in a million other places? Always the same question, and always the same answer. Because you've always been a sucker for a challenge, Dem, now get out there and work your magic.
I pop the door and climb out, my boots crunching upon the dry hard earth outside the wagon. I walk around the car to the boot, grabbing my bag of tricks and swinging it onto my shoulder, my back barely bending beneath the weight of equipment stashed within. Treatment equipment from the mundane to the almost mystical. Corrective agents that can fix smashed bones and shattered nerves with the prick of a needle and the gentle squeeze of a trigger. Scanners that can determine everything about a person right down to their mother's maiden name. Splints that can let a person walk again, and a canister of anesthetic that could paralyze an angry hexapuma. Litres of blood and miles of bandages. All stuffed into an infantry bergen.
I shake my head, forcing my mind to stop dwelling on the little things. Locking the car, I step out of the circle of the car's headlights into the darkness of the night. I can hear raised voices and I can see movements among the hedges and bushes around me. Flicking my NVGs down, the world is instantly transformed into a shifting sea of shimmering green and white... and the muzzle of the rifle thrust into my face suddenly snaps into vivid focus.
At once my heart tightens in my chest and I take a deep breath, hoping that whoever's on the other end of that rifle has the common sense to recognize my green uniform, to see the bright reflective stripes on my vest and recognize I'm not a police officer. Whilst it's illegal to shoot first responders and the various nutbars have generally respected the law where we're concerned, nobody wants to be the exception to the rule.
"Medic, over here." The voice at the other end of the rifle growls as the gunman lowers his weapon. He's a military age human male, about my height and broad, solidly built, in the hexagonal pattern camouflage fabric of the defunct CSAT, not that it matters. People here wear what they want, when they want, how they want, and only we paramedics, the police and occasionally the UNMC bother with any sort of uniform.
"What have you got?" I ask as I follow him through the brush into an open clearing, where a bunch of his mates are standing around a group of groaning policemen that have been dragged into a loose line. I bite my lip and force myself to walk on as I catch one of the other militiamen shaking his head at me.
"Some of my guys were in a car crash, we need you to fix them up." The man says, his voice surprisingly level, almost cheery.
"Righto, let's take a look then." I say, forcing myself to sound equally airy and cheerful. It's important to be calm and relaxed around patients, because if you're not, they'll sense it and that could cause all sorts of problems. Panicking patients have a habit of dying, you see.
He leads me over to a corner of the clearing where his two buddies are lying. Both of them have already been given rudimentary battlefield first aid judging by the tourniquet on one of them and the morphine syrrette punched into another's sleeve... and neither have been anywhere near a car crash. You don't need my trauma experience to see the signs that both have been in a gunfight. Empty mag pouches, bullet holes and the lack of wrecked cars in the vicinity are something of a giveaway.
I walk over to the one with the tourniquet first. He's moaning softly and sweating, and there's a rasping wheeze to his gasping breaths that concerns me. The other guy is mumbling in a morphine trance and his wounds are bandaged up already, even if they will need looking at. At once, the medical VI built into my helmet is analysing the guy even as I'm kneeling down beside him and tugging back his sleeve to intubate him.
"What's your name?" I ask, even as I stick a pair of IVs by muscle reflex alone. He doesn't respond, and so I tug the breastplate of his armor off, careful not to agitate a possible spinal injury. Fortunately he's wearing a UBACS, even if that UBACS is currently slick with his own blood, and what appears to be fragments of the kevlar plate. The VI in my helmet warbles, rattling off a list of probable ailments. Lung damage, three broken ribs on the right side, four on the left, plus a broken arm. I nod, pursing my lips as I reach into the pockets of my fatigues and pull out the yellow pouch, which I undo to reveal the treatment gun and a collection of different coloured phials. I select two red and one blue, sliding them into the gun's loading tube before I flick off the safety catch, press the muzzle to the patient's chest and pull the trigger.
The patient gasps, his back arching suddenly as he feels another sharp pain in his chest, but this time he's under the influence of the anaesthetic administered via the IV, and so he doesn't even twitch as I pull the gun away to reveal the tiny dart already administering its cargo of nanomachines to his chest. I repeat the procedure twice more, nodding with satisfaction as a pale pinkish surgical foam starts to bubble at the bullet wounds. The nanomachines are fast workers, and by the time I've removed my IV and the pre-existing tourniquets, the patient's skin is already starting to grow back and his eyes are starting to show signs of awareness, rather than the tortured animal look that had occupied them previously.
He gazes up at me muzzily, still under the after-effects of the experimental drugs, but I'm already getting up and swapping my gloves over, moving over to the second patient. This one's simpler. One hand resting on his shoulder to hold him down as he babbles incoherently, I'm already loading the treatment gun up with one yellow and two red to counteract the morphine they've given him and to repair the tissue damage. Simple stuff really. I push back the sleeve of his tunic and pull the trigger again. Thwack Thwack Thwack. Job done.
Standing up, I nod to myself, slipping the treatment gun back into its holster and winding away the IV hoses. These two clowns will make a full recovery. I'm already turning away and heading over to where the policemen are still being held at gunpoint. The man who had met me before is waiting for me, his expression eloquent as he notices the way I'm looking at the policemen.
"I'm going to have to ask you to step away from them, First Aider."
I hesitate, on the edge of doing something stupid. Every instinct cries out for me to go to them, every sinew and muscle begs me to tell him to stick his execution and his rules up his ass. It's not even out of any general desire or respect for the policemen here, god knows how some of them can be arses at times... but it's what's on my uniform, what I've been trained to do. 'I will follow that system of regimen which, according to my ability and judgement, I consider for the best of my patients, and abstain from whatever is deleterious and mischevious.'- Do No Harm.
As I turn away and head back toward my car, I try my best not to hear each bang followed by a sickening wet thwack, each one stinging like a lash applied to my own back. I climb into my car, boot up my dispatch terminal and look at the rash of purple crosses spread across the island. It's going to be a busy night.
