#1 Good Riddance
"Next!"
The shout, though barely heard above the buzz of activity in the OR, still brought the pair of orderlies who carried her patient off to post-op. The weary surgeon sighed, stripping off her used and bloody gloves and tossing them in the bin of surgical waste before reaching for the fresh pair offered by the circulating nurse. She rolled her shoulders, trying to ease some of the tension in her arms while she waited for the next wounded man to come.
All too soon, a different set of orderlies carried her new patient in from pre-op. Without even looking at the scans of the soldier's abdomen, she knew the damage was very extensive. Had she been in a real hospital, with up-to-date equipment, this would have been a relatively safe and simple operation. However, in this temporary field hospital, it would have to be a quick and dirty surgery.
Meatball surgery.
She absolutely hated these primitive surgical conditions, and the shortcuts which had to be taken while operating would have been seen as malpractice on any core world. Nevertheless, meatball surgery was a necessity here because there simply wasn't enough time to make things pretty. Not if you wanted more than half of the incoming casualties to survive.
For what seemed like the millionth time since coming here, she asked for the vibroscalpel. This man would need his bowel resected, as he had taken several pieces of shrapnel to the gut. Suddenly, a bleeder opened up, spurting out blood that looked almost black in the harsh glare of the OR lights.
"Blast! Shrapnel must've nicked the renal artery. Hemostat!" the surgeon barked, muttering a few curses as she fixed the durasteel clamp to the gushing blood vessel. "Hang another unit of whole blood, stat!"
She glanced at the patient's vitals monitor, and was relieved to see that he was still relatively stable. For now. She continued to carefully pull out the twisted shards of metal, sealing each tear left behind with a glue-stat. Fifteen minutes later, the patient was closed up and ready for post-op. Compared to most patients, that one had been a blue milk run. Unfortunately, her good luck probably would not hold.
"Next!" the tired surgeon called again, although not for the last time that day.
Hours later, the drained surgeon tugged off her blood-smeared surgical gown and dumped it in the scrub room's laundry hamper. Then she all but collapsed on the narrow bench opposite the sinks, eyes shut before she was even fully seated. A few moments passed, and she was sound asleep.
Not long later, however, a short figure hesitantly stepped into the scrub room.
"Um, Dr. Gosling?" the aide began tentatively, "I'm mighty sorry to disturb you sir…I mean ma'am! I, uh…I've got some news I think you'll want to hear, maybe."
The formerly sleeping surgeon stirred at the sound of his voice and mumbled incoherently for a few moments, irritated by the unwelcome intrusion.
"Oli, for the last time, you can call me Goose! We're friends, so it doesn't matter that I outrank you." She grumbled back, without bothering to open her eyes. Or even move, for that matter.
"Yeah, well it just doesn't feel proper-like to call an officer by a nickname…" Oli said defensively.
Goose chuckled softly at the kid's endearing accent. A human native to this world, he served as the commanding officer's personal aide, though he was so young he looked like he still belonged in school.
"Oli, I was just in surgery for sixteen hours, and I'm way past the point of utter exhaustion. Is it too much to ask for a solid ten minutes of sleep?" Goose sighed. "What's the news?" she asked groggily.
"You've been transferred!" Oli answered cheerily.
Goose's eyes snapped open and she sat up so quickly she nearly fell off the bench. She had been begging for a transfer since the day she had been assigned to this mudhole, and that was three years ago. It had felt like a lifetime.
"Are you sure?" Goose asked breathlessly, "I'm leaving Virgillia for good?"
"Yep, it says so right here." Oli began to read from his datapad, "All Republic medical personnel are hereby withdrawn from service in the Virgillian Civil War to be reassigned to new posts in the Grand Army of the Republic-"
While she had been praying for this moment for three years, Goose knew there was no such thing as the Grand Army of the Republic. This was beginning to smell like some sort of practical joke, and she was in no mood for it now.
"Oli, the Republic doesn't have a Grand Army!" Goose interrupted, exasperated. "When did this supposed 'army' magically spring up?"
Oli looked over the report again, nervously.
"A little over six weeks ago, if the date marking on this report is correct." Oli replied slowly, "It came in just a few hours ago, but you know how slow communications are on Virgillia."
Goose groaned. The report had probably arrived at Sector HQ a long time ago, but had never been sent out because of the bureaucratic backwardness of this world. The Republic had a Grand Army, and it had taken nearly two months for the news to travel to this wretched excuse for a planet.
Typical.
"The Republic is at war, with some people who call themselves the Confederation of Independent Systems," Oli continued. "I guess a whole army sort of just popped out of nowhere, and there was this super-big battle on same planet called Geonosis!"
Realizing the implications of this news, Goose sank back onto the bench and allowed her head to thud into the wall.
"Perfect. This is just bloody perfect." The surgeon groused. "I hoped I was finally headed to some cushy job in a Republic MedCenter doing routine surgery, rather than being up to my elbows in some poor soldier's guts every day. Instead, they're moving me from one warzone to the next!"
"Well, you don't know that you'll be assigned to another frontlines outfit. Maybe they'll send you to a rear-area hospital where they only do follow-up surgery!" Oli supplied helpfully.
However, Goose was not consoled.
"Fat chance of that! I'm a trauma surgeon, I'm bound to be assigned to another field unit." Goose sighed and shook her head. "I'm sure going to miss you guys, though, no matter how much I do want to leave. The three stooges will miss me, right?" she grinned, then stopped as if something had just occurred to her. "Hey, when am I going?"
Oli glanced down at his datapad again, and frowned.
"Today at 0900." Oli said sadly. It was only seven hours away. "I guess you better go pack, huh?"
Her grin faltered a little. She hadn't expected the transfer to be so sudden. She was even beginning to feel like she didn't want go. The people here, the doctors and the nurses, were practically family after the three years of hell they'd been through together. But, she had requested the transfer, hadn't she? Goose decided not to let it get to her. Besides, any war is just as good as the next.
"Ha! I almost forgot it was two in the morning. It can wait, Oli. For once I'm actually a little hungry," Goose said with forced cheerfulness. The food there, if could even be called food, had a terrible reputation. It could hardly be classified as edible, even on the best of days.
"Probably not such a good idea, Goose. The only food you'll find in the mess tent now is leftover dinner, and I'm pretty sure it was made out of last night's leftovers." Oli warned, cringing. "I had some, and I'm starting to regret it."
Goose laughed softly and clapped the aide on the shoulder, leading him out into the dark, pre-dawn morning, toward the mess tent.
"Oli, how many times do I have to tell you? The food here is not to be taken internally!" she said jokingly. "Let's just get some caf, then. Okay?"
A/N: Hello, good reader! This is my first work of fanfiction, and I'm afraid I may be a bit rough around the edges. Please take the time to review, any creative criticism would be helpful.