Chapter 2: Triage

Kauri liked to walk. No matter where Xe ended up, it was always nice to walk around the place, take in the sights and sounds of everywhere…

That’s a lie. Kauri very much does not like going on these little walks. In fact they made xyr mind rush all sorts of places, never leaving xyr hab building without letting thick sheets of bark practically coating xemself. Anything less and it made xyr feel naked… vulnerable. Dirt why did xe have to do this every day? Xe knew the answer well enough, it was a promise that xe made with a lover. That’s why xe kept doing this to xemself, because that’s one of the few things that still lived.

Kauri grimaced as the door exiting the Affini hab block opened and xe was hit with the mildly unpleasant air of station Gamma 5523. The Terran name was something along the line of the ‘Angel’s tear’. Whatever the name it was a shithole, pure and simple. Some cargo or mining or refining ship years before the Affini made first contact had crashed into an asteroid, which the owner of the ship promptly claimed as their own little empire… that lasted all of five seconds apparently until some thirsty corporate type took over, but that’s beside the point.

What was once a structurally unsound amalgam of steel plate and rock was now a structurally unsound amalgam or steel plate and rock which supported nearly 250,000 Terrans and several key terran ore refineries. Health and safety in this sector had a full time inspection crew that’d spent the last two years since the capitulation carefully going room by room and cataloguing all the hazards and improper building practices. For a station that had such a small relative size compared to the Affini’s this place seemed to outshine the entire Affini armada for technical faults and horrifyingly accident prone problems three fold.

Above all the engineering nightmares, the fire hazards, and the bulkheads that were one knock away from venting half the station into space, xe realized that the worst part was the smell. Xe was told that before the Compact arrived the refineries didn’t bother to pump anything but the most immediately toxic gas byproducts of their operation into space. Rather it was given a rudimentary filter that was barely worthy of the name and flowed into the main air circulation circuit that kept the whole place allegedly breathable. The severity of lung patients’ conditions at the Affini run clinics were as horrifying as the lines were long, a crash program to build more clinics was already under way but it’d take too long before they had the capacity, which led to why Kauri was here.

Xe worked as a technician preparing to integrate the terran health database in Angel’s Tear station into the local Affini health network. An Affini command ship was en route to offer its medical decks to help intake all the patients and examine them as the compact began to understand the sheer scale of disease and lung injury that permeated every stratum of the station, normal clinic ratios here were nowhere near enough, and they had to triage what was likely 90% of the population.

There was a second reason though, this station was also one of the few places where it was believed the few remaining rebel elements in this sector would grab supplies, parts, and recruits. Kauri wasn’t officially anywhere close to the Intelligence organs, but xe was called upon to examine if the transfer database set up by the protectorate government was too half assed to turn a blind eye to. Funnily enough it was a complete and utter disaster with nearly as many security holes as the Angel’s Tear had actual holes in the hull… and yet Kauri couldn’t find any of those holes to be obviously deliberate, only poor and pitiful craftsmanship from a labour pool with a good half developing dementia or other severe neurodegenerative conditions by age 60. Xe recommended a year ago that an Affini designed database replace the old one with some basic hack-tracing features. It apparently nabbed their IntDiv, the last of the rebel hacker group in the sector.

And yet, deep down, despite everything xe was presented with, Kauri found this place fascinating. The whole station seemed to exist purely to spite fate, from its slapdash founding to its population that managed to still squeeze some small level of joy between their 14 hour shifts and crushing rents. Tenacious in the face of a purely adversity based existence, making the best of a bad existence. It never excused the many many crimes inflicted on it’s people, the Affini would make sure of that, but it was oddly compelling.

Kauri looked up for a moment, taking in the crowd of Terrans in a small square, recently confiscated from its private refinery boss to comply with public space requirements. Malnourished and scab covered youths managed to play enthusiastically as the adults watched with a mixture of depressed haze and liberated joy. The kids certainly were spiteing fate with their play.

Watching them all, Kauri felt the conflicted twitch of its vines at once trying to retract to pull the protective bark shell tighter and relax at the joy the kids had. Xe felt conflicted, it wanted to go closer but it was afraid of what it’d cause, already people on the sidewalk were giving xem a wide berth. And what if xe hurt one of the Terrans? Xe would never forgive xemself if something were to happen again…

Xe blinked and hurriedly walked away from the square, a lot weighing on xyr mind already, xe didn’t need this extra layer of it thrown on top of it all.

Turning a corner xe came to a stop resting and bouncing the heel of xyr feet while leaning against a wall, trying to decompress, hoping to hope that none of the humans for xem or took xyr look as a threat, oh dirt xe hoped xe didn’t come off like that at all because then they’d probably be scared shitless and trust the Affini less than they did already and…

calm

Xe stopped fidgeting with xyr feet and hands and took a long pseudo-breath. Naturally xe didn’t didn’t breathe with lungs, but it was endearing and weirdly effective enough in humans xe tried doing it, which worked… at least some of the time.

“Just one step in front of the other, Kauri” xe muttered to xemself, turning a corner down a long side street. A pair of Terrans were talking to each other when one saw Kauri and pulled the other into a back alley. Passing them by Kauri was relieved to see they were making out… it was adorable and meant that they were focusing on eachother more than xem… or they could be using it to try to avoid looking or interacting with the Affini because they were scared xe would attack and eat them which wasn’t true but given the rebel propaganda did they know that it wasn’t true, and did they know that xe knew that they knew it wasn’t true?

Having only just passed out of sight of the Terrans, already deep in another mental loop the sound of a harsh electrical buzz and one of the Terran’s screaming cascaded through Kauri’s mind, turning on xyr heels and immediately running back, hoping to all that’s sacred that the accident wasn’t happening again.

One of the Terrans lay propped up against the back alley wall and the other had some sort of stun weapon in her hand saying something very quickly, no leak no tear nothing from the accident was here Kauri realized as everything snapped into focus.

“HURRY” the Terran yelled at the top of her lungs.

Kauri blinked a couple times, processing what the Terran had just told xem. Looking down at her Kauri nodded, grabbing xyr tablet and punching in the line for the Affini on-call team, shaking a little under xyr plates of protective bark as the human looked up at xem, stared up at them with a mixture of… of anxiety and anger. Oh leaf come on just respond damnit!

Then a chime on Kauri’s tablet, team 4 was on the way, requesting further details. Kauri looked at the Terran.

“Are you sure about this?” xe asked. The look the human gave it was the only needed answer.

“We’re dead anyways if any of the crew see this, and I’m not letting Jax go just to be vented by the captain because I decided to defect” the human said with much more confidence then her body was giving off. Right… those other details.

Kauri punched the situation, the name and docking zone of the ship, that the two terrans were rebels and that one was armed with a stun gun and had used it on this Jax person. Looking more closely at her xe noticed a poorly disguised gash and horrible bruising across the head of the Terran with the stun gun. Just generally she looked emaciated and like she was running on fumes and prayers.

“T…team four is on the way to pick the both of you up. They’re mainly medical, not security, but for both of your own safety you’ll be given some drugs to keep the both of you safe from harming yourselves or anyone else… you are still rebels after all” Kauri said, wincing as xe tried to sound anything but menacing.

“And the ship?” the terran replied.

“Security will impound it, just reported as a rebel ship, and we recently installed a system to log people who enter or exit each ship that docks with us” The terran suddenly looked a lot less tense. “They’ll do a search or something, if they’re as you say they are, well…” the implication was left hanging.

The Terran gave a soft grunt and then sat down next to her unconscious crewmate, letting out a sigh and looking Kauri in the eyes… funny, she has deep dark blue eyes just like… no xe didn’t want to go there.

“Will it hurt?” the Terran asked.

“Will what hurt?”

“When you wipe our minds and enslave us or whatever, will it hurt?”

Kauri looked at the Terran, stumbling for a second over xyr words.

“Why would you think that? I don’t even know if what’s happened will make you fair game under the domestication treaty… I just don’t know”

The terran gave a small smile. “I’ve had enough pain in my life, so please just tell me, regardless of whatever my fate is now… will it hurt?”

“It’s our duty to ensure as little pain as possible if it ever occurs.” xe said automatically… even though it knew first hand that ‘possible’ wasn’t a total guarantee.

“I can live with that”

“Good… well then, now you just need to wait. The team is just around the corner… may I ask your name again, for our records?”

“Juniper… Juniper Glasgow” She said with a smile as team 4 arrived on the scene, already briefed on the situation they injected the Terrans with some class of drug or whatever, carefully lifting them up, and rushing them to the Affini wing for medical and psychological evaluation. Team 4 was gone in less than five minutes, Kauri slumping against the wall and sliding down as they turned the corner, xyr feet tapping the ground compulsively as xe tried to process the last ten minutes.

Rimu Phinophyta, fifth bloom, deputy head of the low risk ward of the Affini outpost on this rock, was having a lovely time. Her ward had reached a platau in terms of the ever present lung patients, ever since they started the expanded clinic here the entire facility had been overwhelmed in short order with the masses of poor terran souls who bore the price of others callousness. Even so, and with her dedication towards her job, saving and improving the lives of those in her ward, there was no greater pleasure than playing with her friends florets, and that’s how she was spending her afternoon break.

Entangled in her vines came the beautiful, soft sounds of the frankly criminally adorable floret Sylvia, a terran with deliciously beautiful brown eyes. With every pet and soft stroke the beautiful little dear would moan and sigh, squirming delightfully under the Affini’s caring yet total embrace. Life on this station was hard work, but the rewards of helping little rascals like these made it all worth it. Sitting across from Rimu, her coworker Hilijan gave approving motions.

“You’re really getting into it” it said with a little mischief, “who’d know that one such as yourself would’ve made it into their fifth bloom without even considering some of the lovely sophonts we’ve seen over the years to be your first floret. Sylvia needily sighed as a vine trailed down her spine brought Hilijan’s attention to them for a second before returning to Rimu.”See? You’ve been around enough of them already in some capacity that you’re looking like you’ve been doing it forever.

Rimu rumbled in a chuckle, looking to her friend warmly, the needy floret in her grasp content with their treatment. “Everyone says that, Hili, but to be honest, I just don’t think I’ve found one yet who quite ticks all my boxes.” another sigh from Sylvia rippled out from her vines. “Don’t ask me what boxes are ticked, I don’t even know, but there’s just going to need to be one who clicks, you understand where i’m coming from?”

“Sure, sure. And it totally wouldn’t be you being married to your work, is it?” Hilijan countered, teasing again.

“If you want someone married to their work, go take a look at Nectarios’ workload, all he does is sleep and manage this place, so when I’m into my 40th bloom and I still haven’t found one, you can call me out on it then.”

The two continued their banter, Sylvia having the time of her life cocooned within Rimu’s ever shifting vines until buzzes on both of their personal tablets interrupted their verbal jousts. Pulling hers out and laying Sylvia safely to rest on the couch they were sharing, Rimu quickly scanned the new alerts that’d come through, outside a few of the affini nurses and doctors had already started running here and there in the hallway.

The bold red letters that lit up Rimu’s screen were clear. On call team 4 had reported that a free terran rebel had defected, and revealed the ship she’d come in on. Putting it back into her body, Rimu shot up, if there was a ship there was bound to be casualties, and if there were casualties there’d need to be bed space needed, even more so in the high risk ward than her own, but still a not insignificant number would be coming through her care.

Making her way out and down the corridor Rimu was already trying to devise a game plan. Most of the patients in the ward were mostly here for check-ups and imaging that could be pushed back a bit, those requiring more attention… they’d have to improvise something if there wasn’t enough room. Hilijan came bursting out of the break room a few seconds later, it’s floret secure firmly in its torso.

“You’re not going to keep sylvia on you while you work, are you Hili?” Rimu asked as she pulled her tablet out again, checking inventory levels and the leave roster. Dirt a few were off station today.

“No, of course not” Hilijian replied “I’m going to get the full details of what we’re about to get and have someone drop Sylvia home. I’ve given her some class-E’s so she’s already falling asleep.” A few seconds passed as the pair continued rushing down the hallway, a new alert popping up on Hilijan’s tablet. “Roots and dirt that’s a lot of them” it mumbled as new data came in.

“That meaning?”

“The ship’s been identified, it’s a terran stealth ship, with some stuff welded over it. Normal compliment 289” that was worrying, nearly 300 terran on board would prove an interesting conundrum if they all had gas masks.

“Actual count?” Rimu asked, more passively as she got to trying to arrange sections to be cordoned off.

“There’s… by the everbloom only 73” Rimu stopped in her tracks, the real number way off her expectations.

“That’s surely supposed to be 273, right?” she asked, some real worry rising from her insides.

“No, 73, including the one who set this whole thing off and the terran she stunned to facilitate her surrender”

‘Dirt’ Rimu thought, not being able to decide which was the worse idea, that there could have been 289 of them, or of the presumably 289 of them there was only a fraction left. Neither boded well.

Reaching the main entrance, Rimu grabbed her own tablet again and put out an alert to her staff, a general alert had been put out by director Nectarios already for all available staff to get their bodies into the hospital now, but it was always worth the reminder that low risk was still included by the ‘everyone’ in the general alert.

The doors opened as one of the on call response teams entered. This must have been the defector and the one she stunned, rimu thought as she walked up to the Affini carrying them.

“What’s the situation with these two?” she asked in the most professional tone she could muster.

“This one here had the stun gun. She never offered any resistance, the other one unsure, they were knocked out when we arrived, the affini who called us in said the little one was out before any interaction could happen” the other affini said softly, cradling the sleeping terran in her arms.

Rimu thought for a moment, the occupancy layout of the ward coming together. “Right. This one in the room i’m sending to your pad, the other one in medium risk for observation. Physical states?” she asked, following the other affini as they quickly checked their table while starting off down the hallway.

“This one seems to have some traumatic head injury, it’s buried under some makeup of some kind. Other than that they don’t appear to be too bad on the surface, minus clear malnourishment and poor hygiene”

Rimu quickly jotted down a few notes rough notes and assigned the terran a patient number, as she did so the human’s face seemed to catch her eye, something in that little terran that seemed to trap Rimu for a fraction of a second. The moment passed yet she still remembered the Terran’s face for a moment as she filled out the form. Staring at the tablet she thought for a second as she started moving back to the entrance, tapping herself in the system as taking her as Rimu’s patient.