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| Infirmary - Camp Jaha |
| This was only intended to be a secondary medbay, a backup to the main Go-Sci labs. Unfortunately, Go-Sci is still in orbit. There are 20 medical beds, and space for another dozen or so cots, any more casualties have to spill out into the hallways or nearby rooms. Each of the beds has a computer readout alongside it, and several more line the walls, displaying information or patient scans as necessary. Imaging equipment folds back into the wall or the ceiling, and racks of additional equipment line the walls, all the way up to where the top corners angle in to make the ceiling narrower than the floor. |
| 62 Days After Landing |
Lionel Weeks is not doing too hot. Well, that's not true. He's actually quite hot, but it is due to a fever instead of a spectrum of state of well-being. He is bleeding profusely from a through-and-through bullet wound to his abdomen, and grenade shrapnel has torn up the shirt under his guardsman jacket. He has been transported here after receiving some rough first aid on the field, but that stomach wound has been a source of some concern. The medical labs are still in low supply, with pain killers and antibiotics completely burned through. A Grounder, though, hooked Lionel up with some very potent poppy tea, so he seems to fluctuating between deliriously pain-free and sharp agonizing awareness.
Wyst is well-aware of her pain and surroundings. The neck wound was treated on the field as well as the more serious wound on her leg that punctured an artery. She was forced to come back with the transport that brought Lionel. While she has done her best not to complain, she's been focused on chewing on the tree bark some Trikru healer gave her than making trouble of herself.
A droplet of sweat rolls down Tori's forehead, and she reaches up briefly to use the sleeve of her scrub suit to wipe it away. "I think we've caught most of the small bleeders. Keep tight on the clamp. Lionel, try not to roll off my table. Your abdominal aorta is intact - not even a nick. Count yourself a lucky bastard. Someone irrigate this please." With calm precision, she tends to the wounds left behind by the AR blast to the gut, marveling as she goes at the lack of serious injuries to organs and major blood vessels. One of the lucky Guards left behind has his hands on Li's shoulders to brace him, because stars only know just how well that poppy crap is going to keep him down with Tori's hands digging around in his belly. "Bear through it, Li. Two more to go and I can close you up. Then I get to dig metal out of your chest. Aren't you a lucky man?" Briefly her gaze flicks up from her friend's body to take in the scope of the other patients laying about in various stages of healing.
"Roll off your table?" Lionel asks, his words tight and syllables a bit sharp. He keeps his eyes focused on the ceiling, staring at the circular lights as if they are the most fascinating things on the planet. When she starts on those last two, the guardsman cannot help it… he weakly makes a buzzing noise like that awful and terribly simply Operation boardgame. "Oh no, Tori… I think you hit my spare ribs." Hee. He then clenches his fists, looking away as he feels another wave of nauseating pain sweep through him.
Wyst doesn't look. Nope, she is not looking over to where Tori is playing Operation on her friend. She is clearly looking in the other direction, chewing her willow bark and not thinking about that damn leg that has pain radiating from it. Although when he does make mention of hitting his spare rib, Wyst gets the joke and snickers.
All in all, Nathaniel wasn't hit that badly. Sure, he's going to need a crutch for a week or two, and he can't bend over for a few days without searing pain from the side of his stomach, but he's certainly doing better then a lot of others.
Right now, Sargeant Breen lays down on his bed, reading and writing onto a dataslate he requested. He's a quiet patient.
"Shut up," Tori replies abruptly, frowning in concentration as she finishes closing off the last two small bleeds. "Your spare ribs will be fine. Your kidneys leave a lot to be desired, but we'll just have to wait and see. Irrigate." The assistant juggling both clamp and water does as ordered, and for once something comes up good: a trickle of blood, but nothing more. "Whew, this makes, what, ten to me and one to you? You have a lot of catching up to do, Li. Now for the fun part." The clamp gets released, and she begins the far less painful process of stitching him closed. "If you think this is the worst, you're in for a treat. I'm betting my dinner that plucking metal shards from your chest is going to hurt so much more."
The infirmary is filling up slowly with the mostly walking wounded. Med-techs, doctors, and anyone who can handle bandages are busy working. Wyst occupies a nearby bed and is currently staring at anything that isn't Lionel. Li is laying out on a table and currently suffering the attentions of Tori.
Wyst winces as the doctor tells Lionel that it's going to hurt even more when she plucks out the shards. She chews on her willow bark some more. It tastes bad but it helps…a little…well not so much but it keeps her mind off what Tori is doing. She sighs as she lays there, trying to keep her mind off things.
"My kidneys are fucking beautif — " And the pain gets to be too much, and Lionel is almost wretching when the clamp releases. His entire body rejects everything Victoria is doing, plotting systematic destruction of the doctor. Lionel himself seems to be a bit relieved, cold sweat cooling the fever on his brow. He then looks up at Victoria, blue eyes a bit dazed as pain and poppy fight for control of his brainwaves.
Something shut Lionel up? Probably a plus. Constant pop culture references while on duty was bad enough, but right now Nathaniel has a report to write, and silently thanks Victoria for the small mercy. His only comment as he uses the Dataslate? "That looks painful." An idle comment as he glances in their direction, before he gets back to his writing.
Tori pauses momentarily, and the Guard tightens his grip on Lionel's shoulders - most likely just the barest hint of pressure buried beneath the rest of his pain. When he settles, she resumes stitching him closed and ties it off before snipping it close. "You're gonna have a hell of a hangover, love." With a happy sigh, she leans back and stretches her arms before snapping off her gloves and disposing of them in their crudely marked biohazard container. "I'll give you a minute or two to rest, and then we'll get started on the chest. You're not bleeding now, but you might have a cracked rib or two. Breathe slowly, if you can, hmm?" Leaning over, Tori touches a hand to Lionel's forehead and frowns slightly, but the expression fades quickly. "I'll be back in a few minutes."
Stepping away, she works between the crowded beds to glance over the work being done, but the triage was effective; no urgent bleeders or screaming patients. So her steps bring her to Wyst's bedside, and she eyeballs the bark with a faint moue of distaste. "Who gave you that? They should have made it into a tea to dilute it. How much have you had? You aren't swallowing the bark, are you?"
"Some Trikru healer gave it to me," Wyst tells Tori with a look as if she's not sure if she should spit it out now or what, "And I've been chewing it…just chewing, not swallowing…why?" She gets that weary, oh shit look, "Did they poison me or something?" She spits what's left in her mouth into her hand, "I might have swallowed some of it. I wasn't really thinking about it." It's like when you chew gum and you swallow a few pieces. Everyone swallows gum, it doesn't hurt you.
Breathe slowly, breathe slowly. Then Lionel rests his head back into the pillow, staring at the ceiling again. He listens to Tori even while his brain continues to sort through his pain. He nods slightly, and belatedly, when she steps away. He doesn't say anything while he focuses on his breathing, and the exhale comes in a whoosh out his nostrils. He then glances toward Wyst, and snorts — and shit, that hurts.
"Trikru healers are useless. I saw one of them using a heated knife for wounds during the raids aftermath. I'm amazed they survived their Ice War without losing most of their troops." Nathaniel comment as he writes, "I get we need to work with them, but we're centuries ahead of them… and we're doing a 'cultural exchange'? So far, the only thing I can say that's good about their healers is their knowledge of herbs is a bit ahead of ours." Nathaniel fidgets his shoulder, his legs stay still, on account of the rather big hole in his right leg that still needs tending.
Victoria sighs deeply and strips out of her surgical gown, wadding it up to dump into the trash. "No, they didn't poison you. I don't think anyone would be that crude." She sidles around someone bent over a patient and washes her hands up to the elbows, frowning thoughtfully. "They were probably in a rush. It's crude, but it works, but you don't want it in big doses. Here." She signals her assistant over, who reaches out a hand to Wyst for the bark. "He'll make it a tea. Drink it slowly. You'll be fine."
Shaking out her hands, Tori turns back toward Lionel, but she stops halfway in his direction. Her gaze cuts to the side to take in Nathaniel briefly. "Ah, a meathead? Fancy that. Stick to what you know: guns and killing. And if I hear you're harassing anyone in my infirmary, I will personally make sure we reset your next broken bone without any painkillers." Her attention returns to her patient, and she snaps on clean gloves before poking at a few of the visible pieces of shrapnel. "Ready for the next part?"
Wyst hands over the bark gladly, cause it really didn't taste that good in the first place, "Ummm, here." Then she lays back in the bed, glad that the Trikru didn't screw up with the instructions, "Thanks…" She makes a face because that bark really didn't taste very good. Then she remembers and pulls out a few more pieces, handing it over to Tori's assistant, "He gave me more…for the road." Better in the doctor's hands than in hers.
"Nathaniel, would you stop being a moron?" Lionel says through his teethw hile he still tries to focus on his own breathing and pain. "Because, seriously… you sound like a moron… a big one… double-wide… triple-shot… extra sprinkles." He does not seem to care that Nathaniel, when on duty, is his superior… because they aren't on duty, and he's in a lot of fucking pain. "So, shut up." Then he looks at Tori and gives a slightly shaky thumbs up. "Make love to me, Doc." And his mouth twitches slightly.
"A lot more to me then guns and killing, Doctor. Still, if you say they aren't useless, I can take that back." Nathaniel shrugs, then he looks to Lionel with a big smile, "Mr. Weeks, if you want to go into 'who's a moron' more, how about the man who constantly qoutes pop culture from the old world while on duty to the point of distractiom for the rest of the Guard?" Then he smirks, "I mean, once or twice is fine, but you're like a man on a mission. A mission to make us learn every movie from the 21st century."
More relieved by the nonsense (read: references that go way over her head) spewing from Lionel's mouth than the thumbs-up, Tori offers him a gentle pat on the shoulder before pulling up a makeshift stool to settle down beside him. No gown is required; this is not likely to be as messy. Someone deposits a tray of sterilized tools beside her. "We can't do any scans, so I'm only going to get the surface pieces. Cross your fingers and pray nothing wedged itself too deep. The small ones shouldn't hurt much, but the big one will. I think there's a nice fat piece lodged in the intercostal space here." She touches the jagged edge of something foreign protruding from between two of Lionel's ribs. "This'll be the bitch." Without further preamble, she sets to work. Tiny pieces of metal make a faint *tink* sound as she tosses them into an empty can. "I say the Trikru know an awful lot about the 'crude but effective' measures we're going to have to take until we can find more supplies. They aren't useless by any stretch considering we're in dire straits."
Many minutes (and many pieces of shrapnel) later, the assistant returns to Wyst with a cup of hot tea of a dark, ruddy brown and an armoa that is far more palatable than the raw bark it was made from. "Here, miss. It's hot, so be careful."
"I have no idea what half the things that come out of his mouth mean," Wyst admits to the two other guards, "Lionel talks…and I just nod like I get it but I don't cause it doesn't make any sense but I go with it because if you argue then he just gets worse." There, Wyst had her confession, "And Lionel…I would hold your hand but my leg hurts too much to get off this gurney and plus, I'd pass out and hurt myself some more so I'm sorry but I can only sit here and not look."
Lionel just looks at Victoria, narrowing his eyes. "I don't have to answer that, right? He realizes that he sounds even more like an idiot, right? Eden bless, I don't even know what to say." He does sober a bit when Victoria continues her work. He grimaces, winces, and even yelps a bit when she hits tender spots — and all spots are tender. He focuses now on this.
"Probably for the best, Ms. Fairchild. You'd need to spend months in the computer lab just to get the movie names right." Nathaniel looks up to Wyst now, pointedly ignoring Lionel. "At least his thing is only talking way too much. I've seen far worse in my time. Paris Grey comes to mind." Another fidget of his shoulders, going down to his arms as he writes into the Dataslate, his eyes going back to it.
Fiona makes her way into the infirmary. Is she injured? Well, no. But she seems to have a different intent than any injuries she may have incurred, and instead makes her way to talk quietly with one of the wounded. A few moments is spent with one before moving onto another.
Tink. Tink. Tink-tink-tink. "Holy shit, *how* did you get this much crap in you, Li?" Tori mutters, frowning as she cleans out the rest of the wounds and leaves them be for now. The mother of all shrapnel, however, glints menacingly in the light - mocking her. Her assistant has rematerialized at her side, much to Tori's relief, and she uses her forearm to buffet Lionel's shoulder affectionately. "Grit your teeth and bear it." Blahblahblah, extraction, blahblah, no crazy bleeding, yay. She presses the cloth to the wound, and the shard thunks hollowly into the can of debris, causing the other pieces to rattle. "Ahh, now isn't that better?"
"Just because he's a cardboard cutout of a really ugly man doesn't mean that the rest of us are boring dullards," Lionel protests to no one in particular. He then blinks at Victoria's words, dully replying, "Guns… go bang-bang… cause things to go…" And he makes his best interpretation of an explosion between his hands. But he is immediately interrupted when his kindly Doctor goes straight for the kill. He gasps harshly, and he is now about the shade of paper with his brow heavily drenched. He grits out, "Fairchild… remind me why I do this shit?"
Wyst looks over at Nathaniel, cause it's safe to and rolls her eyes at him because she's off duty and can get away with it, "Yeah…Paris was a brute…" She's not going to deny that, "But the son…has promise." Wyst likes Grey and she's not going to hide that from Nathaniel, "A little undisciplined but that can be worked out. But mean…you can't solve for that." And Paris was one of the meanest.
"You do this because you think you're Captain Kirk on the Starship Enterprise and your mission is to hit on every alien female you meet," Wyst says after a moment, showing that maybe she did pay a little attention to those silly shows that Lionel likes.
Nathaniel shrugs, "I said as much to him when he came to me after the reaper captures. I think he didn't appreciate the compliment." Nathaniel smirks, "apparently wanting to help a person improve themselves is an insult. Still, I did say I'd be willing to help him learn, since he didn't finish Cadet training." He spares a glance over at Lionel as he mangles the english language. "Mr. Weeks, It's BOOM, not bang bang."
Lionel is getting worked on, and so Fiona proceeds to the next person, which just happens to be Wyst. "Guardsman Fairchild," she greets with a smile, "You look like you're recovering well. Is there anything you need?" The question has a slightly official air to it.
With a smile of appreciation, Tori proceeds to stitch close Lionel's last visible wound. It only takes a minute or two, and when she's done she discards her gloves and props her elbows on the table. Her shoulders slump, and she finally has a moment to scan the infirmary for anyone in immediate need of assistance. Her gaze touches on Fiona briefly, and she watches the girl for a few seconds before looking away. "Your prognosis is good, Li. You're going to live, somewhat to my dismay. You will singelhandedly empty the last of our supplies if you keep this up."
"I'm often told I kinda look like Captain Kirk," Lionel says in a matter-of-fact voice. "Besides… who the hell do you think you are with those twin batons of yours? Mockingbird?" Two can play at this game, Wyst! Lionel is then immediately distracted by Victoria finishing up tending his wounds. He smiles at her in a vague delirious note. "So… dinner later?" He just gives Nathaniel a look. Then he looks back to Tori, and offers her a wry little tilt of his head. "But, I will look damn good while I do it." It is then he notices the Councilor, and he offers her a vague nod.
"Why no Councilwoman Kattegat, I am just fine," Wyst tells Fiona, immediately responding to the formal tone and returns it, "If they managed to salvage some of the drugs from the mountain to assist with the healing of our guardsmen, I would appreciate the effort." She gives a smile, "But only if the salvaging doesn't cause an issue with the Trikru." Then she looks at Lionel with an annoyed look, "Who is Mockingbird? That silly girl with the bow and arrow that shoots other teams in some sick reality tv show to entertain the Capital?"
"The Chancellors probably negotiating for that now, Ms. Fairchild. Anyone with a brain knows we need what's in there." Nathaniel puts down his Dataslate a moment into his lap. He's laying on the bed with a small hole on his stomach area and a larger hole in his leg, but he's not nearly as bad off as some of the others. He does, however, pay attention to the exchange between Lionel and Wyst. Great, more movies he hasn't seen. "It'd probably be easier to just write up a bullet point list and put it in the Guard Post at the wall." Natheniel brings up a hand in a back and forth gesture, 'reading off', "here are the movies I want to talk about this week. I might actually get some of what you're talking about."
"I haven't gotten any updates on the salvaging projects yet, but I'll make sure to inquire." Yeah, it is perhaps a little formal, but she was given a job to do, and it's important to her that she show her appreciation by doing it right. She smiles then a little more broadly and relaxed, assuring, "We definitely want to make sure all of our combatants get the best care we can give them, even with the limited resources." She lolls her head over to Lionel, smirks, and and remarks to Wyst, "Though I kind of think what might serve him best is being dumped in the lake to cool off."
Wyst is sitting there talking to everyone but the funny thing about the willow bark that she's been chewing on. It makes someone sleepy, very sleepy and as the folks are talking around her, the noise starts to get less recognizable and she finds herself drifting off. She gives a smile to Fiona and then she falls asleep right there, right in the middle of everything.
"I have no freaking clue what in the hell you're talking about," Tori mutters to Lionel, rolling her eyes toward the ceiling. She sighs and finally slips off of her stool with a groan, stretching her arms over her head. "I'm going to take a break and grab some food. You're such an exhausting patient. Send someone for me if anything comes up while I'm out." She shoves the stool back out of the way, offers Fiona a polite nod and quiet "Councillor," and glares warningly at Nathaniel before heading out.
"That's Mockingjay," Lionel corrects without thinking twice. He then looks at Wyst when Nathaniel goes on being his rather brusque and mildly insulting self. "I think he just said you don't have a brain, Wysty… you gonna let that stand?" Then he grunts, relaxing back on the bed as his body continues to work its way through pain and poppy. Then he releases a soft exhale, his entire chest deflating. "Hey… Tori… before you go?" He looks at her. "Let Hector know I'm okay, okay?"
Tori reaches up a hand to wave to to Lionel that she heard his request.