Ravens of Eternity

183 Working Hard, Pt Amal walked deeper into the clinic, led by the nurse receptionist. She noted how the clinic itself was close to immaculate, and how the smell of disinfectant permeated the air. Unlike most others, she was comforted by that smell.

As they walked down the hallways, she noted the few rooms where a number of bed-ridden patients were recovering. Most seemed content, or at least, opposite of miserable.

A few other nurses walked between these rooms and patients, and tended to them carefully.

Amal realized that the settlement’s clinic was incredibly well-staffed, and probably had the best operational budget in the settlement itself. Everything was nearly spotless.

The nurse in front of her knocked on a door when they reached near the end of their hallway, though the door itself was wide open.

Inside, sitting at her desk was a doctor, who was reviewing stacks of medical records on her terminal. She looked as though she was in her late 50s, although her olive skin still had a glow about it.

“Hey doc,” said the nurse, “I’ve got a present for ya.”

The doctor looked up from her work, and smiled widely when she noticed Amal right behind the nurse.

“Oh, hello!” she said. “Come in, come in. Have a seat.”

.....

Amal ducked into the room while the nurse walked back to reception.

“I’m Belinda Shan,” said the doctor, “Parnos’ resident physician.”

“Call me Azrael,” said Amal. “And you’re the only practicing osteopathic doctor here? Really?”

“Pretty much. Only doctor in town, period. Probably three on the entire planet. I mean sure, there’s lots of nurses and orderlies, but not a whole lot of specialists.”

“That’s not good. Hell, that sounds incredibly stressful.”

“You don’t even know the half of it. Anyone who’s sick in the other settlements are forced to make the journey here to find treatment. If they make it here at all...”

The doctor looked away momentarily, perhaps out of shame or sadness or regret or all three.

“Anyway,” she continued, “how can I help you?”

Amal pulled out a small datapad, scrolled through it for a few seconds, then presented her credentials and certificates to Doctor Shan. The doctor took the pad from her hands and reviewed her info, even as she spoke.

“I’m here to help fulfil a couple of your contracts,” said Amal. “You put out an emergency for a MedTech, right? And also you put out a call for medical analgesics. I can provide that, too.”

“A MedTech, huh?” said the doctor. “Looks like you just graduated from the academy, too. Congratulations! I can definitely use your skills.”

“I saw you’ve got plenty of nurses working for you. So I’m curious – can’t they assist you with what you need?”

Shan shook her head.

“Sadly, no,” she replied. “They’re incredible in terms of care, but have little experience with surgical procedures. I’ve been teaching a few of them here and there... But they aren’t enough to really help me with a few special cases.”

“Is that about your wounded hunters?” she asked. “The sheriff told me a bit about them. She said it was some sort of accident, right? But I mean, hunting accidents shouldn’t exactly be uncommon on a planet like this, I don’t think.”

Doctor Shan grimaced as she nodded in confirmation. Then she stood up with little hesitation.

“Follow me,” she said.

She then led Amal to the double doors at the end of the hallway, and went up the ramp to the second floor. They headed straight towards a large observation room that was adjacent to a fully sterile quarantine.

A large transparent window allowed them to observe everything that was happening inside the quarantine room. A few terminals off along the observation window revealed the status of the patients inside.

Inside the quarantine were a half dozen beds, each one with a heavily bandaged patient in them. It appeared that they were applied with sutures, but blood still soaked through. As though the sutures failed to work.

All of them moaned and groaned in pain.

“It was only a few cycles ago,” said Doctor Shan. “They went out on their usual hunt – they typically set their sights on both small game and large herbivores. Helps keep our meat provisions relatively well stocked. Which means every cycle they’re laid out, the more our provisions dwindle. We’re not gonna starve anytime soon, but not having meat causes discontent.”

“Were they attacked or something?” asked Amal. “Their wounds look really deep. I’m literally watching their bandages soak up their blood as we speak. That can’t be good, you know?”

“Good eye. Yeah, they were attacked. Ambushed by one of the planet’s predators while they were chasing down their own prey. They fought it off and killed it, but it seriously wrecked all of ’em.”

“They’ve gotta be in serious pain.”

Amal was incredibly alarmed at seeing their state. Although the doctor mentioned that they were attacked a few cycles ago, it looked as though their wounds were still fresh. They bled as though they were attacked only hours prior.

“They’re not doing well at all,” said Shan. “I’ve stitched them up multiple times in the past two cycles, with nanites and with traditional synthcord. But their wounds keep opening up. From my bioscans, they’ve got some alien infection coursing through them, and it’s stopping their blood from clotting properly.”

“Wait, what?!” said Amal. “They contracted hemophilia? Isn’t that a genetic disorder?”

The doctor nodded solemnly.

“Most of the time, yeah,” she said. “Somehow, they contracted it during the attack.”

“Was it from whatever attacked them?” asked Amal. “If that’s the case, send me that data. I can probably synthesize a neutralizing agent and undo the damage.”

“I could too,” said the doctor. “Problem is that the animal didn’t cause the infection. Though, it was itself infected. I’m thinking it’s got something to do with the environment they were hunting in. But I can’t go out into the field to find out – I’ve gotta stay here to keep an eye on them.”

“So this is where I come in, right? Investigate the biome for some sort of mutagenic contagion?”

“Either that, or you can keep them stable while I do the field work.”

Amal looked deeply at the hunters, and very nearly felt the pain that they were feeling themselves. She could only imagine the agony they felt as their wounds kept opening up.

“I’ll go investigate,” she said. “Only you know your patients best. And if you were infected by whatever it is that’s out there, then the whole settlement would be without a doctor. Hell, the whole planet would be worse off. And besides, I had top marks in Biogenetics. This is right up my alley.”

“Great!” replied the doctor. “Let’s get working right away.”

Before Doctor Shan could leave, Amal held her back.

“You said you need analgesics, too, yeah?” she asked. “I’m guessing it’s for them?”

“Exactly,” replied Shan. “Did you bring any with you to sell us? We really could use as much as you’ve got, honestly speaking. Not just for these big issues, but for all the little aches and pains the whole settlement suffers from.”

“I’ve got some in my medgun right now, but you’re probably looking for more than 100 milliliters of UF. It’ll take me a few hours, but I can easily fabricate more. Probably about 5 kilograms per cycle.”

Doctor Shan was immediately impressed, and a bit alarmed. Being able to fabricate that much in that amount of time was no doubt an expensive endeavor. Both in terms of credits and time.

“I’m surprised you know how to fabricate hyperopiods yourself,” she said.

“We’re all taught it at the Academy,” she replied. “A few different kinds, to address different problems. It’s really meant to arm battlefield medics, you know? Keep them on their toes during a bigass fight.”

Just as she finished talking, one of the wounded hunters began to scream loudly and cry with abject pain. He pulled and tugged at his bandages and tore them off his body. As he did so, he loosened his stitches and allowed his wounds to pour blood.

The doctor was immediately alarmed, and ran towards the suit-up room.

“Come on!” she cried. “Help me out with him!”

The both of them hopped into the sterile suit-up room and got into surgical outfits as quickly as they could. Once they double-checked each others’ seals, the room sprayed them with some kind of disinfectant and opened up the door into quarantine.

Both of them quickly ran up to the patient and did their best to calm him down.

Shan specifically held him down and tried to strap him into the bed to reduce his flailing. Amal did her best to help, and as she did so, she noticed that the man’s wounds were also pestilent. Surrounding the open gashes were blistering pustules filled with greenish pus.

She fought hard to suppress her gag reflex. Although she was very familiar with copious amounts of blood and open wounds, it was the first time she had seen anything like this.

So she quickly put it aside and drew her MedGun and slid in a vial of concentrated ultrafentanyl, one of the most powerful synthetic hyperopiods in Federation space. Although it was only a small batch it was incredibly potent and effective.

A tiny drop was all that was needed here. Actually, even less than that.

She quickly programmed her nanites for the hunters’ biology, then injected a swarm into his body, right near his wound. He immediately calmed down and stopped fighting, and settled down into an intoxicated bliss.

Doctor Shan immediately took the opportunity to restitch his wounds with her own MedGun, and injected him with her own host of nanites.

“Hope you don’t mind that I dosed him a bit,” said Amal. “Figured he really needed it.”

She withdrew her own nanites and set her MedGun to sterilize itself, then reset its configuration to default.

“Not at all,” replied Shan. “Could you maybe help out the others, too? Give ’em a little relief? I’m happy to pay you immediately for it.”

“Consider it done,” replied Amal.

She immediately went to the next bed over, scanned its occupant, and set her MedGun to his biological needs. Then she injected him with her home-grown ultrafentanyl.

As she did so, Doctor Shan pulled up the first patient’s medical status on a nearby datapad and scanned his body. She was immediately astounded with Amal’s technique. According to the hunter’s records, she delivered the absolute minimum amount of hyperopioids into his system.

She used the nanites to deliver exactly 1.14 micrograms in total, but microdosed him in targeted sections of his body. Specifically right at his neural receptors. This meant that the drugs barely affected his wounds, and yet completely numbed the pain.

More than that, she performed a chemical analysis of the ultrafentanyl that she had used, and noted its chemical makeup. Its purity was determined to sit right at 99.9 percent. Just about pure.

Now Shan was absolutely convinced of Amal’s capabilities. Even a single cycle’s worth of ultrafentanyl – 5 kg – would be more than enough painkillers for the whole settlement for an entire year.

Whatever price she asked, she was willing to pay it.

“You said you made this yourself?” she asked.

“Yep,” replied Amal. “The formulas they taught at the Academy were good, but in my opinion reaaalllly needed an update. So I spent a bit of time and figured out a more efficient formula.”

The doctor watched with awe as Amal went from patient to patient, and relieved their pains with such ease and care.

“Since my ship doesn’t have a ton of room,” she continued, “I figured it was best if I concentrated the formula as much as possible, too. I realize it’s kinda dangerous like this, like if anyone administered it incorrectly, by even a single extra microgram, their patient would die. Though at least they would die extremely happy.”