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        The ship I was on, the Galactic Terran Marine Corps – Medical Dropship Freedom, shook as it began to enter the atmosphere of the strangely quite world.  I didn’t know what kind of social life the Vasudies had, but even Earth was bustling with ship activity of all sorts.  But then again, everyone I heard from said the whole planet was a mess.  Vasuda Prime, the whole damn planet, destroyed.

        I didn’t know what to think though.  Orders from upstairs said we were here to provide relief.  Go in, help the Vasudies, and get out.  Maybe it’s just me, but only a few weeks ago we were killing them, not helping them.  It’s a hard feeling to swallow down anyway.

        I called out to the pilot, maybe he knew something from all the drops he made so far.  “Hey, Captain, do you know what’s happening down there?”

        He shook his head, “FUBAR.”

        I snorted.  All these years and we still use something as stupid as ‘FUBAR’.  Anyhow, that didn’t really help me out at all.  “Well, anything more specific?”

        The ship began to shake before the pilot could answer.  I turned to the rest of my squadron, “Make sure you’re strapped in, this is it.”

        Making an example of myself, I clipped the seat buckles together and grasped the chair arms with my hands.  I turned my head to look out the small window behind me.  As much as I see it, it’s still spectacular.  I could almost see fire against the hull of the dropship as we descended.  The planet was getting larger and larger.

        I was almost flung out of my chair as we hit turbulence, my head snapping back to its prone forward position.  I saw the others, they were all nervous, clinging on to their chairs as if they’d die if they let go.

        The pilot called back, “All right, drop in 30 seconds… you can stop pissing your pants now.”  There was a sudden jolt as our speed decreased.

        I unbuckled myself and got up, “Don’t worry, the worst of it’s over.”  The sound of the dropship’s landing gear detracting rang through the ship’s hull.  

        “Almost there.”  The ship touched down, confirming my words.  The pilot punched a button and the rear ramp descended.  “Alright let’s go!”

        The rest of my squad unbuckled and started to stretch.  I called out again, “Did you hear me?  You can do that outside!  Let’s go!”  They groaned and grabbed their gear before leaving the ship.

        As I took my turn leaving the ship, I was greeted by the full blast of a strong wind carrying very grainy sand.  I grabbed my helmet, which was dangling and banging against my right thigh, and put it on, closing the visor.

        The others had already beat me to the punch, having put all their helmets on.

        “Hey, get out of the way!”

        I turned my head to the direction of the voice and saw a few men guiding anti-grav stretchers.  I stepped out of the way and watched as they shoved the stretchers into the dropship.

        I felt a tap on my shoulder,  “You with our relief?” I heard.

        I turned my head and was greeted with the sight of a marine medic.  “Yeah, Captain Vescarzo, 32^nd Medical Corps,” I replied.

        “Captain Melso, 31^st.”  He extended his hand, and I shook it.  “Glad you could come so quickly.”

        I smirked quietly, “Sorry about that, we ran into some Shivan problems.”

        “Well, you’re not rid of them yet.  Damn Shirks are crawling around all over the place here.”  He began to walk back to a camp in the distance.  I turned around and signaled for the rest of the squad to follow.

        “I thought the Shivans just bombarded the planet from orbit?” I asked, “That’s what the intelligence reports said.”

        He began chuckling, “When’s the last time the GTI actually got something right?”  His chuckling slowly diminished and he continued, “The Shivans sent some of their own marines, or whatever they call themselves, down to mop up.  Our boys from 101^st and 57^th have been engaging them since we got here.”

        I knew what that meant, “Wounded?”

        Melso nodded, “The Shivans really played us over.  Lots of neurological damage, 4^th degree burn cases, minor and major puncture wounds and some “claw” wounds… among the living that is…” He shook his head, “Most of the marines that engaged the Shivans end up dying.

        “I’m really glad you’re here, we’re completely understaffed.  For every Vasudan or Human we save, another two dies.  You know how hard it is to choose who lives?”

        My face contorted.  I have been through this before, during the Vasudan war.  If the Operating Room were overcrowded, you’d have to pick the ones that have the most chance of living.  Of course, that meant that the other wounded didn’t have a chance at all.  “Yes, I know.”

        We remained quiet, but my squad chatted among themselves.  Most of them were all newbies, they didn’t know the difference between some damned medical drama and the real thing.  My sergeant was proven though, a combat medic from Operation Redemption a while back.

        The medical camp was right ahead.  I could see medics hovering over men lying on stretchers.  I started running for the camp, eager to get to work before more patients died.

        The first patient I saw was a Vasudan child, a boy.  I admit, the effect wasn’t, nor could it ever be, the same as seeing a Human boy, but it was still chilling.  The boy was missing his legs.

        I took off my helmet and put on a filtration mask.  The mask was specially outfitted so that it would translate anything I said into Vasudan.  Next I put an earpiece into my right ear.  It would translate anything Vasudan into Terran.  Normally, an external computer of some sort would translate for them, but of course, out here in the raw, that wasn’t an option.

        The boy was groaning, his large eyes closed shut.  I tried to comfort him while I began looking at his thighs, “Don’t worry,” that came out as a series of ‘clicks’ and ‘clacks’, “you’ll be alright.”  I put a shot of trizosene into what was left of his thigh.  That should kill the pain and since the bleeding was stopped earlier by another medic, there was nothing else I could do.

        When I looked up, I saw most of my squad working on the other wounded.  Most of them, Chester, Wong, Jackson, Tesla, Grimshoff and Desinski were working on the humans.  The others, my sergeant, Brown and Nescavar, worked on the Vasudans.

        Turning my attention to the masses of wounded, I saw that they were all just lying on the ground, lined up together.  I noticed that the critically wounded were placed furthest from the ones that were already dead, which was always good for their moral.

        I patted the boy on the arm and went over to the next patient, a female human. I could see that she probably had internal organ damage from the way she kept shifting around.  I took out a medical scanner and placed it over her torso.  It confirmed what I had feared.

        Her combat suit was still on and it clearly displayed the Shivan blast damage done to it.  There were a few holes melted open near here torso, caused by extreme heat.  I couldn’t see how she could have suffered internal damage though.  What surprised me even more was that there wasn’t any burn damage on her.  How could her suit be melted, but her skin be unharmed?  It made no sense.

        I decided to operate on her.  I gave her a needle with an anesthetic and saw that she was out only a few seconds later.  I took out a laser scalpel, which used some sort of gas that allowed the beam to be seen clearly, and made an incision at her mid-section.

        I quickly repaired her injured organ, a punctured liver, and sealed her back up.  She’ll live for now and in a while she’ll probably be back on the GTMFR Preserver where her wounds could be further repaired.

        The next person I checked was already dead.  His head was crushed by what looked like a three-fingered claw, probably what the Shivans had.  I tagged the body for removal or burial, whatever happens down here, and moved on.

        “Sir, take a look at this!”

        I turned my head, following the direction of the voice.  It was Brown.  I stood up and called out to him, “What is it, Mike?”

        As I walked over to him, he replied, “It’s a Shivan, I can’t believe it, it’s a god damned Shivan.”

        I moved over to Brown’s side and looked down at what he was looking at.  I’ve never seen a Shivan, the brass weren’t allowed to tell us about them, but I heard the rumors.  Some of them were right.  Though you couldn’t tell from this body, it did look like it hard a very hard insect-like exoskeleton.  I kneeled down to get a closer look.  It had two “arms”, I did find three other stumps, where the arms should have been, so it did seem that it had 5 arms… or legs.

        I couldn’t imagine walking with 5 legs.  But I guess it’d be pretty easy to move around.  At the end of the arms were claws.  Three fingered claws that looked extremely strong.

        I turned back to Brown,  “Get Melso over here, he should take a look at this.”

        Minutes later, Melso returned.  I let him examine the body and asked, “What do you think?”

        “What do I think?”  He kicked the body at its midsection, “It’s a god damned evolutionary miracle.  Didn’t even know they were… what would you call it? Quinpedal?  Even the Vasudies are humanoid.”

        “Yeah, but I’m not a xenobiologist, you’d probably know more about this… thing than I would.”  I noticed the holes in the Shivan’s body, they were all over the place, ‘his’ arms, ‘his’ head, and ‘his’ main body mass… well, I’m assuming that it’s a male.  The holes looked like the result of a mass driver rifle.  “Look at all those MDR wounds… how many shots did it take to kill this damn thing?”

        Melso nodded, “Damn thing does have one thick hide.  He probably took a few clips before he finally died.  And even though he lost 3 of his 5 legs, looks like he was still mobile.”

        I shrugged slightly, looking at the body.  “I’m surprised GTI isn’t here yet, they eat this stuff up for supper.”

        “Yeah, we do.”

        I looked up and behind Melso I saw a colonel with a squad of marines loitering behind him.  “Who the hell are you?”

        “Colonel Mackey, GTI.  I think you’ve seen enough, I’m sure the wounded deserve your attention more than this dead body, don’t you agree?”

        I looked at Melso, who replied, “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”  Turning to me, he said, “Come on, let’s let these nice men do their job.”  

        We dispersed, getting back to the job in hand.

        30 hours and god knows how many patients treated later, I finally had the chance to hit the sack.  It was a long day, the lines of wounded didn’t seem to end, in fact, it looked like there were more wounded then when I first got here.  Thank god another relief ship arrived, or I’d still be out there.

        Sleep came to me as easy as putting my head on the pillow and closing my eyes.  My dreams were tainted, images of dead fluttered under my closed eyelids.  Lines of dead, Vasudan, Terran and even Shivan were walking towards… me.  I stood in a cape drawn of golden fabric, guiding my charges towards two doors.  The Vasudan child I had first treated was sent to the door on my left, while the Marine I treated next was sent to the door on my right… doomed to oblivion.

        Soon, I saw my family… lead by myself.  I looked at my own eyes and found fear and hatred.  My mirror image leaned close to me and whispered, “Physician, heal thyself…”

        A sudden abrupt cheer woke me up.  I felt drastically cold and wrapped my blanket around me.  I could make out a group of people staring at a loud speaker… I could barely make out a voice.  “The….have…..routed….planet!”

        I rubbed my ears in an attempt to clear them.  Finally, when I could begin to hear, Brown came in and sat beside me at the foot of my bunk.  “Did you hear?”

        I smiled at the slight pun that only I could understand and shook my head, “No, what’s going on?”  I let out a big yawn, stretching my arms into the air.

        “The Shivans have been routed off the planet.  We saw a few of there ships leave the planet through the Southern Hemisphere.  Our Navy friends may pick them up, who knows…” Brown peered at me and suddenly placed a hand on my forehead, “Are you okay?”

        I nodded my head and shoved his hand off my forehead, “I’m fine, why?”  Suddenly I felt a chill and shivered.

        Brown shook his head, “You got a fever sir.  Pasty complexion, cold sweat… classic symptoms.”

        That’s all I needed, a damn fever.  “Give me some trizecsine, I’ll be fine.”

        Brown placed a firm hand on my shoulder, preventing me from even trying to get up.  “You’re staying here sir, you’ll only get worse if you leave it alone.”

        I peered at Brown and with a serious tone said, “Let me up, that’s an order.”

        He grimaced and pulled me up, “I still think you should sleep it off.  Who knows what kind of fever it is… it could even be Neutraxion fever.”

        “I’ve been immunized, trust me.  Besides…” I weakly moved to the tent’s makeshift door and peered outside.  I could see dropships and transports landing.  They opened up and I could then see medics pushing out loads of stretchers towards the main camp.

        Brown replied, “The Shivans are gone, you should be celebrating!  Sleep would be a great reward.”

        I sighed.  Sometimes, he felt like my mother, always pampering me.  More transports kept flying in.  “For some reason, I don’t feel like celebrating.”

        The voice on the loud speaker changed tones, confirming what I’ve been looking at.  “We’ve got wounded coming in, all surgeons get ready for some overflow.”

        I stood out of the way as the others in the tent ran out to treat the mass of wounded coming in.  I grabbed my own kit, “Come on, it’s going to get crazy out there.”

        Brown looked at me and gave me a small, simple nod.  “Time to fix up some marines, just so some damn General can get them killed later down the line.”

        We walked out, ready to face our decision to become medical officers.

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