NLRS Valiant
Corridor 127A, Section 32D
March 16, 3345
0733 hours
Fluttershy made her way down the corridor to her new assignment. The med bay for the Valiant was going to be huge, full of medical equipment and other ponies. The thought of all the action that was going to be surely happening in the bay made her stomach sink. She was used to med bays on small frigates and support ships. Her largest ship had been an old battle ship named CINS New Dawn three years ago. Nothing on the scale of a super cruiser though. The amount of chaos and movement that was going to be happening in the next few years was going to make her very nervous, and she felt as if she was already on the verge of a panic attack.
“Get yourself together Fluttershy, you weren't always like this...”
“Remember why you're like this though, you failed...”
She stumbled a bit as her own mind betrayed her and flashed memories of the accident. She extended a hand and steadied herself against the bulkhead. She clamped down on the memories and stopped them.
“Not here, not now.”
She took a few deep breaths and continued shakily down the corridor. She had a job to do after all.
She reached the med bay a few minutes later. The trip from the boarding ramp to her new working quarters had taken her nearly 45 minutes. She had gotten lost twice, but even without those detours the trip would have been long. The Valiant was huge, 13 kilometers long and 4 kilometers in width at it's widest part. The ship was its own world. With a crew of next to one million it could very well be a small nation. Massive rail and elevator systems had to be used in able to keep the flow of personnel and supplies moving. She had taken three trams, and four elevator systems to get here.
The door to the med bay was large. It had to be. As the main medical aid station aboard this vessel, it was expected to be able to take at least 30% of the Valiant's total projected casualty numbers during an unfavorable battle. That was nearly 30,000 sailors and troops. The scale of the bay itself would have been mind boggling, and Fluttershy felt as if she was going to shrink to nothing.
She stood at the control panel to the door for a minute. There was no way out of it. This was a prestigious opportunity, and it wouldn't have happened if not for her skill back aboard the New Dawn.
“Just because you took over a chaotic situation and took control of all medical personnel despite your being under-ranked by many of them, doesn't mean you're qualified for a position of such responsibility.” She belittled herself.
“You know different though, you remember what happened. A crew of 4500, and nearly 3000 wounded or dead. Remember? You helped save nearly 1200 with your assertiveness. Remember?”
She remembered all too well. Flashes of what happened aboard the ship danced in her head, before plunging her into total recall...
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Jan. 23rd, 3342
Sector 29-D, CE defensive line
Battle of Horse Head Nebulae
1245 hours...
Fluttershy was elbow deep in the stallions thigh, trying to clamp off the torn artery.
“HOLD HIM DOWN!” She yelled.
Normally she was meek and timid, shy and scared of almost everything. But she knew just as well as any pony else, that when the seconds counted, she did her job.
The Stallions squad mates were trying their hardest, holding down the stallions arms, legs, head, and one was even pushing down on his torso. The stallion was a Celestial Army trooper, and he had been tasked to a unit with the responsibility of repelling boarders. They had succeeded, but not before NLR Marines had pushed almost halfway through the ship. It was a miracle that they had pushed the boarders off the ship. But the damage had been done. New Dawn's personnel and critical systems had taken heavy losses. The ship was crippled, and what was left of the crew was desperately trying to get the ship out of danger. They were alone, the battle group they had been with was decimated, and she refused to look out the med bays armored view port because she knew she would see the floating debris and wreckage of the other seven ships. All those lives lost.
“Which is why you have to keep working, keep what few we have left alive. You owe it to them...”
She shook her head a bit to get back on track. The trooper had taken shrapnel through the inside of his thigh, close to his groin. When she saw him, she immediately knew that he was in grave danger. And the arterial spurt from when she ripped the trouser leg open to get to his leg only confirmed her fears.
“Firedust, you have to keep still, if you keep moving, I won't be able to help you, and you WILL DIE. So shut up and stay still”
She fixed him with a look to show how serious she was. Even in his panicked state, his fear filled eyes managed to convey understanding. He started to hold still, and she continued.
“I can feel blood pulsing on my fingers, but where the hell is the...”
She pushed her hand in a little further. She had to guess that she was close to his hip socket by now, so the artery was starting to draw into his pelvis. If she didn't find it soon, It would draw all the way in and she wouldn't be able to reach it with the clamp. She moved around a bit more feeling warm blood through her gloves, as well as fat and muscle, and she found it. A spongy tube about the size around as her thumb.
“Gotcha.”
Pinching down on the artery with her finger and thumb as hard as she could, she started to pull the artery towards the original wound. Firedust was yelping and whimpering, clamping his jaw down hard on the rubber tubing they had given him. His eyes were screwed shut and tears were running down his cheeks. His fist were clenched to the point that she could clearly see the muscles and blood vessels all the way up through his arms and his neck. The artery became visible, and she quickly brought her steadying hand up and removed the clamp from her mouth. As quick as her limbs would let her, she locked the clamp down on the artery half an inch from the tear. The blood flow stopped, and with a sigh of exhaustion and relief, she slowly released the artery. The clamp slid into the wound all the way up to the finger holes, but it stayed on the blood vessel, and nothing else tore.
“I've stopped the bleeding, but you're going to have to go into surgery immediately. All the surgeons are busy though, so I'm going to give you a sedative to keep you from moving around and tearing this again.”
Firedust's squad mates all breathed a sigh of relief. She grabbed a pre-loaded syringe from the tray, and injected it directly into his neck. When she pushed the button, there was a quick click as the needle punched forward and injected the pre-measured dosage. Firedust almost immediately went limp, a combination effect from exhaustion, shock, and the powerful drug now flowing in his system.
“You guys did good. Thanks to you, he's gonna be alright.” she tried to comfort the troopers who had brought Firedust in.
The troopers all nodded. They were exhausted from the hours of fighting and running. She had to give them credit though. All CE Army troopers were trained in combat lifesaving, but their care under fire had saved this stallion. Even though their emergency tourniquet hadn't been tight enough, it had at least slowed the bleeding down enough for them to move Firedust to the med bay.
“Manner! You have another one as soon as you're done!” she yelled to one of the surgeons.
“Got it, place the tag on his gurney, and I'll get to it... OH SHIT! HE'S GOING INTO CARDIAC ARREST!!!” Bedside Manner was cut off as she and her assistants began to go into a frenzy to save their current patient.
Fluttershy looked around the bay. Everywhere there were casualties and medical personnel. The bay had been in full workload for nearly six hours now, and the casualties kept coming in. Some walked, some limped, and the less fortunate were carried. She looked over to the entrance and saw all the bags and blankets covering those they couldn't save. 327. The bodies extended out the door well into the corridor. 327 confirmed dead, and many times that wounded. The New Dawn was large, and she feared how many more were to be added to the tally when they finally finished tending to the wounded and when search efforts stopped.
“This is terrible, but I'm not even phased right now...”
Not for the first time in her medical career did she stand wondering how she could be so calm in a horrible situation like this, and yet so terrified all other moments. She knew why, and she also knew that she'd be crying in her quarters for hours after this was all over.
She looked at a trooper who had walked in ten minutes ago. He had been carrying his left arm in his right hand. Not cradling it like a wounded limb, CARRYING it like a duffel bag. His bloody stump had been pouring blood all over the floor, and technicians were scrambling around him to stop the bleeding.
“This is war. It changes you, and Faust knows it's changed me...”
She looked down at the deck where the stallion had walked in. Blood had pooled there, and small cleaning drones were moving their way towards it. She stared, thinking about how odd it was that such a precious liquid, was being wiped away so insignificantly and in such quantity in this place. In this war.
Something rolled into the blood. A small sphere, with a square on one side.
Fluttershy's eyes went wide with panic.
“GRENADE, GET DOWN!!!”
She dived for cover as the grenade blew. Her ears rang, and she forced her eyes to open. What she saw was sheer panic. Medical technicians were running everywhere in terror, most of them were civilian contractors and not actual soldiers. Troopers and techs alike lay strewn about the deck and gurneys, each in various arrays of injury or death. She peeked over the table she had taken cover behind to see the door.
Nothing was there, just five CE troopers running in.
“Where in the hell did that come from?”
She looked everywhere. The vent system, the door, even the view port. Nothing, not a trace of a NLR Marine in sight. She looked back at the door, puzzled and scared. There weren't any NLR Marines anywhere.
The CE troopers caught her attention again. They were all walking fine, moving in sync as if clearing a room.
“Wait...”
They all had the same bandage on their right arm. No blood, just a white bandage tied exactly the same way...
“Oh Faust...”
Fear seeped in as she realized what happened, the CE troopers weren't Celestial Army at all...
They were NLR Marines.
“IMPOSTERS! EVERYONE GET DOWN!” She yelled as she drew her sidearm. Normally she didn't carry it, but when the NLR had boarded, she had secured it from her locker. She didn't like weapons, not anymore, but she would defend herself if she had to.
And now seemed like a pretty good damn time.
She drew a bead on the first marine as he realized that she had caught onto their ploy. She hesitated for a fraction of a second, but when he started to bring his rifle up, the decision was made for her.
Her combat training from long ago kicked back in, and she fired.
The round struck him in the open collar of his armor, and he fell. The other four rounded on her and brought their weapons up even as she fired five more shots at them. Three hit the next marine, who stumbled as two hit his chest-plate and one his exposed shoulder. The other three fired as she ducked back behind the table.
She screwed her eyes shut until the fire stopped. She popped back up and fired another two rounds, finishing off the marine she had hit in the arm. The other three opened fire again, and again she took cover behind the steel table.
“Can't keep this up much longer...” she thought as she reloaded the .45 caliber handgun. The slide locked forward as she hit the release. This time, the fire didn't stop. She knew that they were pinning her as the other member or members moved up to take her out.
“I'm sorry...” she thought, ghosts of the past flashing before her minds eye.
Gunfire erupted from in front of her. Firedust's squad got into the fight. One other stallion went down. The fire continued for a few more seconds, and then stopped.
She looked over the table again to see that the marines were all down. Dead or too mortally wounded to carry on. She heard boots run up behind her on the deck.
“Ma'am, are you alright?”
She stood dazed for a few seconds, she hadn't been in a firefight with her own weapon in a long time. Visions of the accident flashed in her eyes again, and she screwed her eyes shut and shook her head as she forced herself back to reality.
“Y-yes, I'm fine.”
She opened her eyes and looked around the bay, everyone was in panic. Techs ran around the room, soldiers who had been being treated lay on gurneys or had joined in the retreat if they could, no one was helping save a few steady soldiers and techs who were already trying to stabilize the new wounded.
She looked around for Captain Spade, the med bays commanding officer. She found him, dead on the floor, his eyes glazed over and his body broken from the grenade blast.
“Uh-uh... Everyone, p-please calm down...” she faltered.
“I DON'T WANT TO DIE!”
“WE NEED HELP OVER HERE...”
“OH FAUST, OH FAUST”
“WE NEED TO GET OUT OF HERE”
BLAM, BLAM!!!
Every pony stopped and looked. Fluttershy had given up on yelling, and instead had decided that her .45 would do the talking for her. She lowered her arm from the overhead and holstered her weapon.
“Every pony calm down. Captain Spade is dead, and no one else seems to be in control enough to even calm themselves. I'm taking control of this bay. Every pony, back to your work stations. We have more wounded, and I need you to finish treating your current charges before we can move on to them. I need triage teams to start stabilizing and prioritizing the new wounded. Surgeons, continue working on those who are on the tables, I need dressing and drug runners to start moving supplies back to the stations. Every pony keep working, it's over now, and nothing has changed. We still have a job to do. MOVE!”
Every pony in the bay stood for a split second more, before they simply stopped thinking and coped by following her orders.
She stood still and surveyed the bay for a moment. The fear could still be felt in the air, but it was slowly fading away as every pony busied themselves with the tasks at hand.
“I don't know where that came from, I was so assertive...”
She let the exhaustion from hours of work and the firefight she had just been in wash over her for a second. Her shoulders and head sagged, and she let out a jagged breath. She straightened herself a moment later, focusing on the size of the task she had before her, and realizing that she was probably not going to get any rest for the next 24 hours. The stallion beside her looked over.
“Nicely done ma'am.”
“Thank you trooper, now if you excuse me, I have more wounded to attend to.”
“Sure thing ma'am. Can we help? We're not medics, but we can still perform CLS.”
She looked at the stallion, and smiled and nodded.
“We're going to need all the help we can get, thank you ever so much.”
She felt a familiar thrum start to move up through her boots. The New Dawns engines were back online. The occasional vibrations of the ships guns joined the slight background noise and engine thrum, and she felt a little more relieved. The New Dawn was safe. A small battle group had joined up with them a few hours ago, and had assisted in forcing the NLR ships that had attacked them away.
"It's all over now. Well, not really, I need to report this to higher. The boarders may not be completely gone..."
She started walking to the bays phone just as the first tech started asking her what procedure to use on a wounded trooper.
"Well, you took charge, now it's time to start acting like it."
She put the tech on hold while she dialed the number for command.
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Fluttershy snapped back to reality and sighed.
“As horrible as it was, it showed that you CAN do this Fluttershy.”
For once, her conscience remained silent. She hit the door controls, and the blast door lifted to allow her entry into the bay. HER bay.
The bay was indeed, huge. It was its own hospital. There was a center atrium that showed five floors, each capable of containing 900 patients. Several ponies walked about, but there were more drones than living beings.
"Makes sense, it's easier to staff a ship with robotic techs that have a whole medical database than it is to fill it with so many ponies."
Her nerves calmed a bit, there would be fewer people to worry about now. The drones were autonomous, executing their tasks silently and according to their programming, or orders given to them by medical personnel.
She made her way through the bay, eventually finding her office on the third level. She sighed at the name plate on the door.
"1st Lieutenant Fluttershy, Head Medical Officer"
She sighed as her responsibility finally fully weighed on her, and opened the door.
Inside there was a brown mare in a NLR uniform typing on a computer. The mare turned towards her, stood up and saluted.
“Good morning ma'am, I'm Petty Officer Amahein, your new assistant.”
Fluttershy returned the salute, still not being used to the rank she now carried.
“Hello, and please, forget the formalities. I'm Fluttershy, a pleasure to meet you.”
"Only three years ago, I was shooting, killing, ponies in that uniform. Now I'm working directly with one. When will Faust stop tormenting me?"