Posted on May 2nd, 2019 by Velina Tailor
11904.24 Oculus Tempestatis
Between Battles
The Xovul ships were gone, destroyed or chased away by the federation cruisers. Sickbay was full again. Console burns, concussion injuries, broken limbs, and the more serious types of injuries that normally choked the ER ward after one of these conflicts. For the patients, the battle was just beginning. Some won their battles. Some, did not.
The Morgue had tallied a dozen today.
Velina pushed back her tangled hair and allowed herself time to breathe, sitting down heavily in her chair in the soothing dark of her office. She had shut the door against the insistent clamoring of nurses and the other doctors and just leaned back and closed her eyes. Her face was still peppered with purple burn marks from a console’s sparkshower, and her ribs ached from being thrown against a wall during one of the exchanges of fire. She’d deal with those little annoyances in time.
She thought of recording a log about their encounter with the Xovul, but there wasn’t anything else she had to say that would probably be much different than anyone else’s opinion of them. Easy to hate, easy to stir people up to fight against them. She could have spent time moralizing or pontificating that the federation’s values were better, and how could the Xovul curtail the freedoms of their own people by forcing them into a caste system for life against their wills.. or maybe they wanted it that way, or maybe they were just resigned to their fates… but in the end, what right did she have to pass judgement on a people they barely understood, even if they were xenophobic and violent when others did not follow their ways? Pontificating and judgement was for captains and admirals. She didn’t have the time or energy for that anyway. She had patients to take care of. Four more surgeries to go this evening, and then maybe she could sleep.
The Xovul had been defeated, for now. How long would it be before they were back again?
Hopefully long enough for this latest round of patients to heal.
Her eyes snapped open as a new round of red alert klaxons wailed through sickbay.
Or maybe not.
3 Comments
Kuari says: I appreciate Tailor’s rushed nature here, characteristic of a no doubt busy sickbay. Thanks for this slice of prose between battles!
Alexis Wright says: It’s nice to see a glimpse of Velina’s inner turmoil on this matter. Who are we to say what values are right and wrong, and yet how can we say nothing? I, too, liked the bit about captains and admirals, but I got the sense that her feelings were more complicated than that. Where would her thoughts have gone if not colored by weariness or interrupted by red alert klaxons? I love it when logs make me wonder things like that. :)
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Pontificating and judgement was for the captains and admirals — I quite liked that line. She can leave it to them, but she has to deal with the consequences, so it’s back to work. Nice little peek into her thoughts!