Blood Impulse

Part 5.3

Thirty minutes ago, Aragonian Sector, Battleship Singularity

Doctor Macintosh had blood all over his white coat and the black uniform underneath. His ears had gone deaf to the screaming. Life as a medical officer on a battleship had rendered him insensitive to such things, even as they surrounded him.

He had lost six patients already, this one made seven, and another eight corpses had been taken directly to the morgue. He pulled down his surgical mask with a sigh, letting it hang on his neck as tears began pricking at his eyes. He blinked them furiously away. He did not have enough tears to shed for all the patients he lost. That was the reality of a trauma surgeon.

He tussled the young woman's hair gently, "Sorry, Yeoman." She couldn't have been any more than twenty-two. No, according to the medical file, she was twenty-one years and eleven months old. Two weeks from now, she would have celebrated a birthday. That birthday would never be had. He picked up her hand from where it limply hung, and squeezed it comfortingly before laying it across her still chest.

He turned away from the blank stare of the Marine that had dragged this patient in. "Where's the next one?" Macintosh asked the nurse, stripping off his sterile gloves.

"Out in the bay," she answered, voice unhindered by the tears on her cheeks. "Third degree burns, legs, torso, chest and face. Another mercy case, Doctor. And then Sanchez has a crushed arm in the other operating room."

Another mercy case. Another crewman who was dead before they had even arrived in the medical bay. They would breathe and maybe speak for several more minutes, but they would still die. Sometimes it took that long for death to set in. His job with them was to ensure they were not in pain for the duration.

"Clean this up. Prep for another patient," he told the nurse. I'm going to go watch another young kid die. Children, that's all they were. Most of the crew was well below the age of twenty-eight. They were only children who had possessed no way of knowing the tragedies that would befall them today. They had never suspected this on what had been a quiet patrol. Not even Macintosh had expected this. If he had, he would have started drinking sooner, in some vain attempt to dull the pain.

"Yes, Doctor." Nurse June took a white sheet from the pile and draped it over the body. There was no need for anyone else to see the mutilated corpse. Someone, somewhere, during the cleanup and repair efforts would find the remains of the yeoman's crushed legs, and have to wipe up the mess. Hopefully, they would not be able to recognize the bones and muscles as the lost half of the pretty young woman who had just died on the table.

Structural damage rendered ugly wounds. It crushed limbs, crushed people and crushed hope when victims became trapped. The ship's structural supports were hundreds of times bigger than any crewman. When they gave, they smashed anyone in the way like bugs – just red smears on the shell of a massive machine. Those victims lucky enough to live often lost limbs or became paralyzed.

The cleanup after such events inflicted psychological damage almost as crippling. Finding half-crushed friends put many in a state of shock. Being forced to cut off limbs to free victims from the wreckage was scarring to both sides. Cleaning up those pulverized remains of limbs and bodies gave nightmares to the teams responsible.

Hull breaches were better. The vacuum was quick when it killed. Even the radiation was better than structural damage. It was painful for the victim, but it was easier to clean. It traumatized fewer people overall.

But the burns, those were the worst of all.

This latest patient did not prove him wrong as he stepped past the curtain that had been drawn around the living corpse. The skin, blood and remains of the clothing were all virtually indistinguishable: black and red, wet and crunchy. Externally, this patient had been baked to a crisp. Internally, they had been boiled alive. Unfortunately, it took the human body time to catch up with those facts.