Dreamcatcher

"Fekk it, hold him down!"

The other medics struggled to do so, but the struggle wasn't from lack of trying. The marine on the stretcher had been removed of his armour, but he was strong, he was furious, and he was a few neurons off from being insane. For all that, she pitied him. But as his fist made contact with the cheek of Private Shannon, pity had to take a back seat to doing her job. So as the medics did their jobs in holding down Corporal Drake, she did hers by injecting him with an anaesthetic. Taking much, much longer than it should have, the man before her began to quieten down. His eyes grew less wide. His fists unclenched. His screams and roars became murmurs.

"Biting…tearing…mind, it scratches…always scratching…scratch and tear…scratch and tear…the needle, the nail, the hammer…always scratching…"

She looked at Shannon. Take him to the IC unit."

"IC unit's full."

"Then put him outside the unit."

"It's a long line Lieutenant."

"Then add him to it." She yawned. "I'm taking five."

The looks among her support team told her that they didn't like the idea of her taking five, even if they'd taken fives and tens themselves. Maybe it was because she was their superior, and was meant to set an example. Maybe it was because she was an Earther, and like any member of the UED fleet that had joined the Dominion, there was always going to be some level of suspicion. Maybe it was something else entirely. Right now, she didn't care. She just needed to get out of the tent and into the open air of Dunh VII. Or, this part of Dunh VII. She didn't know what the air smelt like in other parts of the planet, but she doubted it carried the scent of sweat and blood.

But she had to get out. The smells, as bad as they were, were still preferable to hearing the screams. Screams that she could do little to stop. Her experience was with the body, not the mind.

"Lieutenant Morales."

There was another sound in the cacophony of Camp Bravo – the clump-clump-clump of power armoured footsteps. She'd gotten out of her CMC-405 hours ago, so when she turned to face Commander Raynor, the height difference between them was even more pronounced.

"Commander."

He looked like hell. Not as hellish as some of the other souls she'd treated over the past few hours, but like hell all the same. The exertion of not only leading men into battle, but the knowledge that every death was on his head, coupled with the knowledge that it might all be for nothing.

"How are things?"

"As good as could be expected."

"So, not good then?"

She shook her head.

"Fekk."

It was clear to her that the commander was just making small talk. She would have enjoyed using her fiver to get some rest and relaxation, but small talk was his prerogative. After all, the only people he could talk to here were his fellow terrans. Protoss weren't the most chatty of alien species, and the ones that they'd fought here even less so. Red eyes, red blades, their technology cutting down soldiers by the dozen. They killed in silence, and died in silence. From what she understood, they were being controlled by the same intelligence that had enslaved the zerg and Moebius Corps that were wreaking havoc across the sector, but whatever the nature of that, it was clear that the exertion of control hadn't diminished the aliens' ability to kill.

"Sir, if I may ask…" she began, "what's our plan?" Raynor looked at her, and she pressed on. "I mean, I guess there's no reason for us to stay here, so…"

"There isn't," he grunted. "So right now the plan is to get the living, dead, and wounded settled in, then bug out."

"And after that?"

He remained silent. She didn't blame him.

"Listen, I know you're not a psych, but I have to ask…what's your assessment of the…damaged?"

Likewise, she couldn't fault him for asking that either.

"I can't say Sir."

"Indulge me."

She sighed. "I think…that they're safe?"

"Yeah?" He looked down at her. "Safe enough to bring them with us?"

She frowned. "You looking for a reason to leave them here?"

"No, I'm looking for a reason to bring them with us."

"And you need me to ease your conscience."

"Need? No. But would it help? Yeah."

"Well…" She trailed off. "I don't think I'm the one who you talk to about conscience."

"Why?"

"I've serving the same government I once tried to overthrow." She smirked. "Gives a woman perspective on what conscience means."

Raynor didn't' say anything. The two of them just stood there, in the throng of humanity around them. They'd won this battle, they could drink the bitter beverage that was victory, while mulling over what they'd seen.

Morales had seen PTSD. For all the technological advances that had been made in warfare, the human mind remained as frail as it had centuries prior. Even with the UED, even as they had achieved victory after victory, she'd seen men and women crack under the pressure. The 'cracking' had picked up in pace after their gains were lost just as quickly, right up until DuGalle's fleet was shattered, and the survivors were scattered to the astral winds. In the nightmare that was the Koprulu sector, she'd seen the same things. The same frailties. Up until a few months ago until everything changed. When the Dominion had found itself not just up against fanatical terrans, protoss, and zerg (not that zerg could really be "fanatical"), but the abominations that were leading them. Hybrid. Supposedly hubs of the psionic link that were directing Amon's (or whatever he was called) armies. By themselves, they were terrifying. But more and more, she and others were seeing the effects they had on the soldiers they faced. The ones that survived. Trauma and nightmares that went beyond normal PTSD. As if their minds had become scarred just by being in the hybrid's presence.

She didn't envy Commander Raynor, any more than she envied anyone else above her in the chain of command, much less below it. She at least had the excuse of staying a bit further away from the carnage than some others, even if the distance was often much less than she cared for.

"Anyway," Raynor said. "I have a mission for you."

Great. She forced a smile. "Anything, sir."

He handed her a datapad which had a topographic map of a valley. The first thing that caught her eye was a downed dropship.

"I want you in the air with Golf Team in five," Raynor said. "Get out there, find any survivors, bring them back."

She nodded, barely hearing those words, because the second thing that caught her attention was the marking in the valley's centre. A giant, squid-like thing, clearly not natural. It reminded her of the Inca lines on Earth, only this one wasn't an Incan symbol. Rather…

"Yeah, I know, it's weird," Raynor said, as if reading her mind. "But if we win this fight, I'm sure the boys upstairs will get to examine it to their hearts' content."

"You mean the dreamcatcher?"

It was meant to be a sardonic comment, but the look on Raynor's face told her that he didn't get the reference.

"The what?"

So did his words.

"The dreamcatcher," Morales said, pointing to the giant, white, squid thing, that was totally not a space squid but rather something plundered from Earth. "This thing."

"…what the fekk's a dreamcatcher?"

"What? You don't know what a dreamcatcher is?"

The look on his face told her that he didn't.

You poor uncultured swine.

She didn't say that. Partly because it wouldn't be a good idea to call her CO a pig, partly because in hindsight, maybe it made sense. It wasn't as if the terrans of the Koprulu sector had taken every element of Earth culture with them. Some of it, sure – in some cases, quite a lot of it.

"The dreamcatcher was used by Native American tribes," Morales said. "They believed that if it was hung above a person while they slept, it would catch good dreams."

"Right…" She could tell that the commander was sceptical. "And, what, this still a thing back home?"

She shrugged. She didn't feel like talking about Earth's cultures right now. Having been ruled by the UPL for hundreds of years, Earth's culture had become far more monolithic. Militaristic. A melting pot with a spoon looking for trouble. She'd never thought much of it at the time, because she'd never known anything else. And while the Koprulu sector was far from home in every sense of the word, it at least had some variety to it. Some freedom to it.

"Makes you think," Raynor said, taking the pad back. "Could use a dreamcatcher now."

She didn't say anything. Good dreams, bad dreams…she had both. Most of them were memories for her, the level of quality in the dream depending on the memory. Fighting for her life on Char? Bad memory. Being with her family on Earth? Good memory. Waking up in sweats, the visage of a hybrid consuming her mind's eye? A memory that was raw. Sometimes raw enough to make her not only sweat, but scream.

She could see that Raynor had got very little sleep. And she supposed his memories were as varied as hers.

"Anyway," the commander said. "Get on it."

"Yes Sir."

It occurred to her as he headed off that they'd barely even discussed the presence of the dreamcatcher itself. That somehow, a trinket from an Earth culture long extinct had been replicated out here. The galaxy was vast, so she couldn't rule out chance, but if one walked through the orchard, they expected to find the farmer somewhere. If one came across a watch in a forest, presumably its maker could still be found. Who, or what, had engraved a dreamcatcher symbol on this world, and why? Was there even a why? Could a race or being with that power done it simply because they could? Was it just art? Or was there some kind of universality to dreams? Some kind of common need in a species' psyche to bring sense to that which was unknowable?

She didn't know. Chances were she'd never know. Right now, she couldn't even afford the luxury of engaging in such discussions, because discussions nowadays all related to the fight for survival raging across this sector. All she could do now was head for the base's landing pad, meet her squad, and get airborne.

Least it'll take me away from here, she thought, casting one last look at the tent she'd been in. Least it'll be quiet. She swallowed. Least it'll keep me awake.

At the very least, she knew that this dreamcatcher didn't work for her on this world.

Hearing the screams and wails of the lost fade away, she supposed it didn't work for anyone.

A/N

Why yes, this is me overanalyzing the Dreamcatcher multiplayer map, how could you tell?