There was always noise on a Terran ship.  Something that she used to gauge the time, besides for the clocks that were on the wall, besides for the watch on her wrist.  There was the small bell that let her know when it was her allotted time to use the mess hall, scanning her id badge to get her small ration of food.  The alarm that let her know that it was time to wake and shower, take the steadily shrinking dose of her medications before grabbing a drink and reporting to the medical ward.  The alarm that let her know that it was time to put her mask back on, the one that let everyone there see what they expected to when they saw her.

The medical ward where she worked was always the same.  Sometimes the faces changed.  The ones in the ICU where she worked changed, but rarely.  Training accidents, work mishaps…even good old fashioned illness often brought people to her.  Since the war started and she’d been drafted (kidnapped, her mind whispered), she’d seen far too many horrible things that she couldn’t shake.  They’d weighed down on her, making her have horrible nightmares.  THAT, and having to fake who she was to so many people.  That had been…she wasn’t sure.  Perhaps six months ago? 

She wasn’t sure, there was no way to tell, since she wasn’t allowed comms access.  Not since her first and only attempt to contact Terra right after she was drafted, snatched really, from her home on a small colony near KY Cygni.  The ship had jumped into their orbit, sent down teams (raiders, her mind helpfully edited) looking for supplies, and then drafted people with what the Captain called “the requisite skills to beat these damn aliens back.”  She’d never been told what aliens, all that she would be told was that there would be “an informational briefing once we’re underway, Sir.”  When she’d been dragged on board, having had only time to run and grab some basic clothes and sweep every scrap of her medications and a few pictures into a bag, the soldier on board had grinned at her.  “Dude...Welcome to the war.  Welcome to Thors Hammer.”  The welcome had lasted until she’d told them she was a nurse.  “A nurse!?!?!?!”, was the answer she got.  “What the hell kinda dude becomes a nurse?  That’s a job for women”, she’d been told.  And then they’d told her of the war. 

How these horrific plant monsters, the Affini, had appeared one day.  Blasting and shooting, capturing people to either turn them into mindless drones or eating them.  There had been an “information briefing” that had turned into a video showing a colony somewhere that was just…it was empty.  There were signs of a struggle, blast craters, blood stains on the wall.  But no bodies.  Not a single one.  “That’s the thing about these fucking things”, the Captain had said.  “They take every human with them.  I won’t show you the videos we have of them, since it’s not fit for anyone who wants to sleep ever again.  But we are Free Terrans, and we will fight these damn things until the war is won.  You are all summarily conscripted into the Navy of Free Terra.  Welcome to the fight.  Anyone caught trying to run will be subject to the harshest of penalties.”

Life on the ship wasn’t great.  People saw her in her lavender scrubs and either laughed, smirked at her, or openly derided her.  She couldn’t even get respite when away from other people.  The food was a terrible paste that was barely edible, her bunk was so cramped that it might be better called a closet and she had to share it with someone who worked in the maintenance department.  Thankfully, they both worked twelve hour shifts, so they found it easy to make it so that the room was always empty when the other arrived.  The shower either dispensed water that was so hot that it could burn, or so cold that it caused her to shiver for almost an hour after her shower.  The small bathroom had a small mirror in it that she found herself staring into hatefully more and more.  The reflection that stared back at her…..she had to see what she was doing, or she’d cut herself as she got rid of the hair that always whispered that she was wrong, that she was defective.  That she was wrong.  Wrong in body, wrong in mind.  She had ways to silence them, but her options had grown drastically limited as she cut her medications into quarters.  Anti-anxiety meds were NOT something the Captain felt the need to stock or create, regardless of what the doctors told him.  At least she had bandages to help cover the evidence.  And thankfully or not, she’d never had the courage to start getting the other types of meds she needed, so there was no…At least she didn’t have to deal with THAT from the crew as well, she kept telling herself.

The stories that she was hearing on the ship were all equally distressing.  Soldiers whispering in hushed tones about gnawed limbs that they found in ships that were drifting in space.  Bloodstained handprints on walls, videos of people begging for help before these things swooped in.  They frightened her, but they were all that she was able to learn about them, these Affini.  That, and they’d apparently consumed Terra.  “Gassed or eaten, it doesn’t matter”, she was told.  “Dead is dead, and we need to avenge them.  For Humanity.” 

That had all changed a few weeks ago.  She’d walked into the ICU and the Captain had been talking to the doctors.  She’d heard a small bit of the conversation.  Something about not being able to waste supplies on people who couldn’t recover and fight within a reasonable amount of time.  Something about not leaving bodies for the “damn weeds” to eat.  They turned to her, and the Captain glowered as she tried to sidle past them, to check on the first of her patients, a soldier who had suffered severe facial burns after a rifle had overheated and exploded in his hands.  Probably a faulty round that had been a re-shell.  She was able to hear very clearly, “I need able bodied men, soldiers, and this is what I get.  Some defective who plays at a womans job.  No wonder we’re in this situation.”  The words hurt, as they always did, but she was good at ignoring them, had gotten so good at it.  At bottling them all up until she was alone, and then expunging them with silver relief, whispered exhalations, and the small blade her confessor. 

Her patients were stable, and she tended to them carefully, smiling cheerfully, even though most were intubated.  Making sure that each was carefully turned and positioned, making sure that their nutrition, such as it was, was flowing.  “We’re running out of rescue medications, diltiazem, amiodarone, and amikacin”, she was told by the exhausted looking doctor who walked over to her.  “If anyone goes down….we do one round of everything, and then stop.  Captains orders.  Apparently it’s getting tighter out there, fewer resource depots to restock.”

“Don’t you mean raid?”, she’d asked.

“Shut the fuck up”, he hissed, looking around.  “Do you want to get floated for that attitude?  Just…just go and”, and then a monitor had alarmed, blaring to life.  “No nonononono”, he muttered as they both ran over, a third nurse coming up to help.  The monitor showed a heart that was twitching, not beating, and after two minutes of CPR and the rescue medications had all been given, the monitor showed that it was still twitching.

The door opening made her turn, and she saw the Captain standing there, watching.  “Doc…doc, he’s still…we have a chance”, she whispered, and he looked at her, looking as defeated as she felt.  “No…this is wrong”, she whispered.  Lower lip wobbling, she shook her head as she kept pumping, muscles playing under her skin from the workouts she did to burn stress. 

“Nurse, stop!!”, she heard, and she shook her head, still pumping.  Willing a heart to beat normally, for those around her to step up, to save this man whose only crime had been to be in the way of a conduit when the superheated steam blew a coupling and vented onto him.  The next thing she knew she was on the floor, her head ringing as the Captain stepped back, shaking his fist. 

“Can’t even take a punch like a man”, he muttered, and then looked at her.  “Another stunt like that and I’ll throw you out the airlock with that corpse, understand?”

She stared up at him, and he ignored her.  “We’re meeting up with a Flotilla soon, Doctor.  Print me a list of the things that we’re running low on and I’ll see if any of the other ships can spare some.  And kindly educate your staff.  Just because there’s a shortage of medical staff doesn’t mean that I’ll hesitate to vent one that doesn’t follow orders.  We need discipline if we’re going to fight these damn weeds and win.”  He left as the monitor stopped beeping and began a mono-toned lament, red lights flashing on it.

“Nooooooo”, she moaned, looking up at the monitor.  It stopped its wail as the doctor shut it off, sighing.  “Code ended eleven thirty four”, he said.  Then he left the room, leaving the two nurses to look at each other, one standing by the bed, the other on the floor, blood running from a small cut on her ear.