Lowering of the Colors
* * *Still just a rough draft.
Scene: Boros - Alliance Military Hospital outside of Vandenburg
25 Aug 2523
[Corresponds to Mutineers Episode 705]
She couldn’t sleep. Dr. Grace Tian was beyond exhausted and her job was nowhere near completed, but every time she closed her eyes she relived having to give the order. Triage based on severity. Take the severest ones that have a chance of survival directly to the trauma rooms and surgical bays. The ones with no chance… put them in the third ward, make them comfortable.
No doctor ever wanted to give that order, but military doctors in wartime had to make tough choices. She was no exception. She didn’t really have final say over who lived and who died… she only had final say over who would be treated and who would not. But she’d had only 3 trauma surgeons and 1 other ER doctor besides herself in the emergency center when the base was hit; resources had to be spent to save as many as possible.
Rolling over in her bunk, Tian buried her face in her pillow and cried. How many died on my orders today?
The summer had been so low-key. A number of ship battles fought in various parts of the system early on, patients coming in with mainly blast traumas. She'd watched it begin to escalate into more terrorist-style attacks throughout the summer, though: IED injuries and gunshot wounds mostly. But tensions continued to rise; there was a sense of expectation in the air as the situation slowly worsened and then all hell broke loose and the powder keg that was Boros exploded. Word came down that the Governor's mansion was gearing up for rioters on the ground, but it was so much bigger. Enraged citizens and Independent Forces attacked Vandenburg itself. Alliance personnel in the hospital were warned told to respond with non-lethal force whenever possible, but the base was under-protected and its personnel spread thin on the ground; it was hit with a full-scale riot assault including aerial bombardment.
The scene in the trauma center was beyond chaos. Soldiers were being brought in a steady stream of ghastly, horrifying injuries, many of them well beyond any help that she or anyone else could offer. The uninjured (or semi-injured) soldiers were dropping off critically injured comrades and returning to the streets with grim expressions. Her emergency room was swamped and undermanned, completely overwhelmed handling the level of incoming wounded. The sounds of bomb blasts and screams could be heard even through the walls of the hospital itself. Comms were a thing of the past, and she was just stepping out of yet another dead soldier’s triage unit, stripping blood-stained gloves off her hands, when an Alliance soldier appeared at her elbow.
“Dr. Grace, we have to evacuate. A transport is being held. We have less than ten minutes to fall back and take anyone who is mobile with us.”
“Make the announcement,” she instructed. “Anyone able to travel needs to go. Anyone able to help other wounded move should do so.” She paused and her chin came up. “And I’m taking volunteers to remain behind with me.”
“What?” the lieutenant demanded sharply.
She gave the young man, who was probably not seeing his first combat but was clearly rattled by the scope of being in a full-fledged war, a stern look. “You heard me. Any medical personnel who are willing to stay are welcome to do so. We have a building full of critically wounded soldiers. I’m saving as many as I can."
Yanking on a fresh pair of gloves and joining the nurses and medics meeting the incoming injured, Tian waded into the fray once more. There were bodies everywhere; the place looked like a cross between a food riot and a morgue though orderlies were doing their best to remove the dead and dying as fast as possible so the doctors could get to the living.
So much misery. There were few tears, for which she had an abstract moment in the middle of it all to be grateful. It was one reason she preferred working on soldiers: They weren’t prone to histrionics. But she remembered the feeling of being underwater, the whole hallway seeming a surreal nightmare.
That was 42 hours ago. She’d been certain that when the hospital was overrun Alliance military personnel left behind would die. But she would die upholding her oath. Catching her breath, the sobs easing, Tian remembered that feeling of certainty. The knowledge that she would probably be dead soon and that what she was doing at that moment, saving lives, would probably be moot—rebel forces were bombing Boros to hell; they were unlikely to leave any stragglers alive.
And yet they did. They hadn’t threatened her or the other medical personnel who remained. They hadn’t even asked whether the injured would be accepted in the hospital. They had merely come. In droves. Soldiers carrying civilians, civilians bringing in soldiers from both sides, Independents carrying Alliance injured as well as their own. It hadn’t mattered. Her skeleton crew couldn’t help everyone, but they also had help from anyone and everyone who was injured but still mobile offering their own sometimes meager medical skills to assist where they could.
Thousands died; the wounded had to number in the hundreds of thousands if the number of people treated in her clinic were a representative sample. The task in front of her seemed never-ending. Every time she thought they’d finally reached a balance point more wounded and dying patients came through her door. She felt like the legendary Sisyphus.
Wiping at her tears to dry her face, Tian thought back on the past two days, on how the best in people had come out, at least in the hospital setting. And she felt the bitterness well up inside her once more as she thought of all her catatonic patients… and the realization that they’d not been hit by the Independents but by the Alliance—Chempliance was not a weapon the Independents were deploying. At the usual levels it was harmless, but at the levels dropped on Vandenburg.... she had catatonic patients she wasn't entirely sure were going to recover. And reports had come in throughout the day and night. The Independents hadn’t bombed Boros; the Alliance had done it themselves in a scorched-earth retreat, civilian casualties be damned.
She wasn’t sure how to live with the notion that her own government had taken such drastic measures. And for what? Blowing Ares and dropping scores of missiles onto Boros wasn’t going to deter the Independent movement. And Boros itself had always been a world divided—some were adamantly Independent while others supported the Alliance, working jobs in the orbiting shipyard or other such things. They’d all managed a sort of peace with one another, political ideologies aside. Until now at least.
She fell into an uneasy sleep punctuated with dreams of the dying.
Over the next few weeks, Tian found her days falling into a routine. She slept some, got up and went to work. The Independent and civilian doctors welcomed her expertise and despite her status as a prisoner of war, she was treated well and given the freedom to move as she pleased around Vandenburg.
Those on Boros who had wanted independence seemed thrilled. But they were all in the same boat when it came to dealing with the aftermath of the Alliance retreat—war is waged by soldiers but the civilians are always the ones who have to pick up the mess. Tian and a team of nurses and medics made the rounds of the city once a week to help where they could as people looked for lost, dead, or wounded relatives. A dozen refugee camps at the edge of the city housed families huddled around fires built from scraps of their former lives. There were food and water shortages everywhere.
The days were long and the more she was out among the population, the angrier Tian became. NONE of these people deserved what the Alliance had done to Boros. She found herself more and more unwilling to align herself with the military uniform she’d worn with such pride for the past 20 years. Nearly three months went by before she heard anything at all.
“Dr. Grace? Colonel Han would like to see you, ma’am.”
Tian looked up from where she was gently removing the stitches from a 7-year-old girl’s face and nodded. “Give me a few minutes to finish here, all right?”
The soldier nodded and waited for her. When she was finished she smiled at the girl and stripped off her gloves, holding up a small piece of hard candy with a flourish. “For your bravery, Candace.”
The girl’s smile was shy but radiant when she took the candy and hopped off the bed. She peeked back over her shoulder and waved as she and her mother left the clinic. Tian washed her hands then followed the soldier escorting her to Han’s office.
“Dr. Grace,” he greeted her mildly. Dismissing her escort with a nod, he gestured to the chair in front of his desk even as the door clicked shut behind her. “You’re going home, doctor.”
The words created an odd sense of unreality and Tian stared at him. She could feel the blood rush out of her face and her knees went wobbly. Lowering herself to sit in the chair he’d proffered, she struggled with a tightening in her throat.
Han looked concerned. “Are you all right, Dr. Grace?”
Waving aside his query, Tian asked with dignity, “When?”
“There is a POW exchange in four days’ time,” Han told her quietly, dark eyes narrowed on her face. “Your name as well as those of the nurses and the doctor that remained here with you are on the list.”
She swallowed hard.
“Doctor…. Tian,” Han said, leaning forward on his elbows, “what’s wrong? I can see that this is not welcome news. I thought you’d be glad to be going back to the Core.”
Tian hesitated and looked down at her hands, clasped so tightly in her lap that her knuckles were white. “Of course I am, Colonel. It was merely a shock. I will make sure the others are notified.”
“C’mon,” he scoffed gently. “You’ve only worked for us here for three months, but even I can see that there’s a problem. What is it, Tian? Talk to me, maybe I can help.”
She looked up at him and said baldly, “My first duty as an Alliance navy officer is to escape, you know.”
He frowned and leaned back in his chair. “So you think because you didn’t…. what? That you’ll be tried for dereliction of duty or something? That you’ll face sanctions because you opted to stay behind and help us?”
Tian pulled in a deep breath and held it in her lungs. “Part of me is definitely expecting something of the sort, Colonel, yes,” she admitted softly.
Han studied her with a shrewd expression. “So what would you like me to do, doctor?”
“Nothing at all, Colonel,” Tian replied mildly. “I will do my duty, just as I have always done.”
He simply nodded and said quietly, “Then you’re free to go back about your business until the trade. You’ll board a transport to the Core in three days.”
“Thank you, Colonel.” Tian stood, her poise stiffly in place, and paused at the door when he spoke to her back.
“Dr. Grace? I hope that they aren’t so stupid as to punish you for being a gorram good doctor and following your conscience. Your help here has been invaluable.”
Tian merely nodded silently. And that in and of itself may be my downfall when I get back. If it’s not, sir… you may be seeing me again.
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