They didn't care whether she believed in the war or not. All they cared about was that she did her job right as a field medic. The rapid sound of gun fire and exploding grenades resounded all around her, momentarily stealing her senses as she ran across the battle field to one of the wounded. She wobbled slightly but kept going, her feet heavy as she ran. Adrenalin pumped through her system with every step, every breath she took, pushing her forward when she knew under normal circumstances she would have fallen flat on her face from exhaustion. She moved over the rocky terrain as quickly as her feet would take her till she came upon him. He lay on his back, his left hand clasped tightly at his side just above the hip. Dropping down to her knees beside him and pulling her pack off in one smooth motion. With little effort she batted his hand away and pulled his shirt up to expose the wound. The solider gave a stifled groan of pain as she inspected the wound or rather wounds she found. Deep incisions and puncture wounds lined and criss-crossed his side. She frowned as she pulled gauze and medical tape from her pack and patched up his wounds as best she could. She didn't have the necessary supplies or time to tend to him properly so she did what she could. Stopped most of the bleeding and wrapped the wounds.
"Don't worry," she said as she patted his shoulder, yelling slightly so he could hear. "You'll live."
She didn't stay to hear a response. She didn't have the time; others required her attention as well. She was up and running, hunched over slightly in an attempt to make herself unseen. Which was foolish really but it gave the woman a level of comfort that she needed on the battle field; though, after hours of tending wounded and fighting herself she was exhausted and weary. The battle field resembled a brawl more that a fight between two nations. A battle that had no real meaning.
She ran on nothing but adrenalin as she made her way from one fallen to the next, doing what she could with the supplies she had. Some she could help, others she could not.
She pushed herself to move faster, her muscles screaming in protest as the adrenalin in her system began to fade. Heaving breaths, heavy limbs and exhaustion slowed her as she dropped next to a wounded soldier. With tired limbs she dropped her bag next to her as she leaned over to get a better look at her patient. It took her tired brain far too long for her liking to realize that the man who she now inspected was part of her platoon: Private Jose Adam Culcek. Her breath caught in her throat as she looked him over. His side and belly had been torn apart by shrapnel, his innards visible as they threatened to spill out of his body that seemed to only be held in by a strip of flesh. He was looking at her then, and the look on his face made her want to cry. His eyes were clouded with pain and something she couldn't quite place. Acceptance? She wasn't sure, but it didn't sit right with her. It made her chest hurt and the feeling threatened her to tears.
"That…you, Kid?" His voice rang out loud and clear despite the background noise.
She could barely formulate a response as she looked at him. "Yeah…" Her voice broke and shook as she spoke. "It's me."
She had never seen someone in her platoon get hurt let alone die. They seemed invincible. They were strong and cunning when on marches. Careful and collected under fire. No one ever got hurt it seemed, and if they did it was never anything major. Seeing Jose broken and dying shattered her in a way she couldn't even begin to express. She saw death like this in every battle however, it was different seeing someone you knew dying.
"You're….still k-kickin'," he slowly said, breath labored. "That's g-good…kid."
His body gave a violent shudder as he fell into a fit of coughing. Blood poured from his mid-section as well as sliding down his chin, dripping off his jaw. A surge of panic went through her, causing her to tightly grip the medical supplies and quickly push the gauze against his mangled side.
"I'm gonna help you out. Okay," she said in a shaky voice, quickly pulling out a shot of Morphine. It would put him under, though, in his weakened state, he would never open his eyes again. He would forever be in a dream, floating in his personal heaven. That thought certainly didn't soothe her. The thought of losing him brought about a great feeling of hurt that she couldn't possibly comprehend. Jose was a funny guy, loveable even though he had a knack for saying things at the wrong time. She placed her hand on his shoulder, using her other hand to push his dirty hair to the side. In a way she was finally beginning to fully understand, it was different tending to a comrade on Death's door opposed to someone she didn't know. The emotional attachment was there while, with an unknown face, there was none.
Unfortunately, she didn't have the time to mourn for Jose. A hand grenade went off far too close for comfort, and without a second thought, she was up and running. She stifled a sob as she sought out refuge behind the nearest sandbag pile a good twenty feet away; a perilous run with your back to the enemy. A tingling pinch in her spine forced her to fun faster despite her tired legs that felt like lead weights. In her mind, the trek was much longer than it was in all actuality. The world seemed to move in slow motion, wobbling back and forth before she rounded the side of the sandbag barrier and hunkered down next to another that took safety behind the makeshift wall.
The solder beside her was hunched over slightly, panting as he held his Pulse Rifle to his chest as though it was a life preserver of some kind. She had been in plenty of small skirmishes, seeing people die and killing people herself was something one just got used to after a while. People often thought of how cruel it was to not feel anything when you took another's life, but when you have a military assault rifle firing in your direction you don't feel much pity for the person on the other end. Yet, obviously it wasn't like everyone could stand it. Being fired at, seeing people fall dead and killing had a tendency to make them crazy. It broke them. Poor kid was probably already traumatized, on his way to a plain he likely would never come back from sane. She contemplated trying to comfort him in some fashion, hesitating, unsure. She began to reach over to him and stopped short of touching his shoulder. A voice in the back of her head screamed in protest, saying that coming into the slightest contact with him would cause her to crumble. A pang of guilt coursed through her; however, she didn't feel the need to question it.
So she didn't.
There was no way to really tell how long she and the kid solider sat there behind their simple cover, with him cowering like a puppy and her just sitting there like she was in a complete daze. When her mind snapped back to where she was, she noted the battlefield was unusually silent. Nothing but the sound of heavy foot falls and the occasional cry for help could be heard. She narrowed her eyes in suspicion as her lips pulled into a thin line. Slowly, she pushed herself to her knees and turned, facing the sand bags. Just as carefully, she peaked over the top and saw her side's victory. The enemy army had retreated, surrendering. She was surprised, to say the least. From the number of injured and dead she had seen strewn along the fighting grounds, she believed the enemy had a high chance of winning. What made them surrender?
She shook her head as she turned back around and sat, leaning against the sandbags, letting herself relax. She let out a heavy sigh as she closed her eyes. For how long she sat there, she didn't know; though, when she opened her eyes the solder that was her temporary companion was gone. Others were sweeping the field, tending the wounded and gathering the personal belongings of the dead to be sent to their loved ones. The cries for medics in the air made her realize that she couldn't rest her limbs or mind any longer, that she was very much needed. She stood on legs that felt like limp noodles, forcing herself to jog over to one of the hurt soldiers, beginning to tend to whatever injuries they had. She helped many more after that until the sun dipped below the horizon, and eventually she ran out of medical supplies. Nonetheless, she offered herself to be of assistance wherever it was needed, like getting people onto transports that would take them to the base. This lasted late into the next morning before she herself felt she could do no more.
The flight back to the base was a long one filled with groans of pain, coughing, and bad jokes. Not much of a conversationalist, she leaned back and zoned out. She needed a moment to get away from the things around her and even her own thoughts. So she let her mind drift, relishing the small amount of time to just sit back and drown in her own private silence.
They called it a war, but it was more of a skirmish, or at the very least that's how she saw it. A big and deadly one but a skirmish, nonetheless. It was nothing more but four parties duking it out because they thought their way was the right way. She scoffed at that and how foolish they had been. Lives were lost because of a useless power struggle that was doomed to fail from the very beginning. Of course, pig-headed politicians didn't know that, or they refused to believe the chance that they would fall to the stronger powerhouse they aimed to take down. A great part of her was glad that soon she would no longer be on Earth but living in the great expanses of space for fifteen months on the Warped Calisto, then transported to the military corps to a new settlement planet that was named Prospect by the man who funded the whole operation.
Charles Bishop Weyland.