CHAPTER TWO
"Hey, can I see that picture Col. Ayers gave you about the two we're supposed to go get?" Corporal Keyes asked. Sergeant Kniss handed him a small picture that held the faces of Tris and Tobias.
"Okay, so I think we should start from where that woman was talking at the podium. I saw a lot of teens over there and some of them looked like these two," Kniss told the corporal.
"Speak of the devil!"
The duo approached a group of four gathered around a stretcher. "Somebody, please help!" Kniss and Keyes ran over to the group and found a girl critically wounded and in bad condition laying on the stretcher.
"Please! You've gotta help us!" one boy said. He looked about 14 or 15 years old. Kniss and Keyes squatted next to the frail girl's body. "Medic!" Keyes shouted.
"What are your names?" Kniss asked.
One girl, who looked about 16, said "I'm Tris. Please, can you help Lynn?" The medic arrived on scene and crouched next to Lynn.
"Alright sweetheart, where does it hurt?" the medic asked. Lynn tried to move her hands but was met with an immense wave of pain.#
"Okay. Here's what I'm gonna do. I'm going to start you off with an IV, and start pumping you with medicine. Sarge, call for MEDEVAC. We're gonna have to evac her to O'Hare," the medic says.
"Command, this is Echo 1-1, over," Kniss radios as the medic inserts an IV needle into the vein in Lynn's left arm. Lynn gasps a little at the sudden sharp pain. "Now that wasn't so bad was it?" the medic says with a smile.
"Go ahead Echo 1-1."
"Command, requesting MEDEVAC immediately, over."
"Roger roger, Echo 1-1. Saint 4-0 is in your sector, ETA 15 minutes."
"Copy that, Echo 1-1 out. Tris, I need you to go find Tobias. Colonel Ayers wants to see you," said Kniss looked over to the medic. By now the medic had made an incision into the side of Lynn's chest to relieve the pressure and the bleeding inside.
"Lynn, this is going to hurt a little, but it'll stop the bleeding. Uriah, hold her hands and don't let go. Johanna, hold her head so that she won't see..." the medic continued to bark orders as he pulled out a vial of cayenne pepper.
"Ouch, owww owwww!" Lynn started to writhe under the pain of the pepper touching her blood.
The medic smiled as he bandaged up Lynn's chest. "Now that wasn't so bad! Look, the bleeding's stopped."
Tris returned with Tobias, who seemed kind of confused given the circumstances. The familiar sound of the Blackhawk's rotary blade engine signaled to the troops that help was on its way. Keyes "popped" a green flare to mark a landing zone for the incoming MEDEVAC helicopter.
"Echo 1-1, this is Saint 4-0, hovering over you over," the helicopter radioed.
"Check, we're ready for MEDEVAC," Kniss said.
The Blackhawk landed about fifty feet from the small band of teens and soldiers. Each person grabbed a part of the handle on the stretcher and hauled Lynn's feeble body aboard the red cross adorned bird. The medic attached the fluid bag containing morphine to a stand on the helicopters while Sergeant Kniss gave headsets to the brand new passengers. The chopper took off in the direction of FOB O'Hare, where a M.A.S.H. unit had been set up.