The operating room was not a place for idle talk. Even though modern medical science had eliminated the need for cutting into a body and all of the delicate work that required, manipulating the inside of any body - whatever the species - was delicate work and would always be so. One wrong move, just one, could cause severe or fatal damage to the patient.
Leo was grateful to feel the cool sponge pressed to his brow to clear off the sweat. His hand remained in precise place, holding the director wand over the chest of the comatose young girl while his other hand utilized the controls that directed the system in what he was doing. They had made four incisions in the chest to accommodate the need for an external pump to circulate blood while this critical part of the operation occurred. With the wand and the attached system Leo was finishing the last cut, removing the sickly, dying heart completely from the girl's overtaxed body.
"Inferior vena cava is now cut," he announced. "Moving on to the superior."
Ocasio was standing nearby, checking the measurements of what Leo was doing against the fresh human heart inside of the replication chamber. With their patient's blood type and cells the heart had been crafted specifically for her body, easing the transplant process and reducing the risk of any sort of rejection. Crusher was across from him monitoring vitals. "Pulse rate is remaining steady," she said.
"Beginning final severance." Using the holo-display projected by the wand, Leo ran the instrument along the superior vena cava. Micro-transporters removed cells and organic matter, effectively cutting the massive blood vessel. Leo kept his movement slow and deliberate, cutting away only as much as he needed to. "Superior vena cava is cut away," he said.
"Activating organ transporter." Crusher pressed a key on a control panel beside her, then several more in sequence. The Jane Doe's heart appeared in a flash of white light in a nearby receptacle. "Preparing to transport replacement. All vitals are still holding steady."
"Transplant is ready," Ocasio said. "All measurements match."
Leo allowed his arm to relax for the moment. Now was the hard part; putting the heart back in and getting it started. He looked to Nasri who ran the sponge on his forehead again, clearing away the sweat again.
"Transporting."
Crusher's gloved finger hit the appropriate key. The systems lined up the new heart and beamed it in, every vessel lining up as was necessary. Leo brought the wand back up and began using the regenerator function. It was the dermal regenerator writ large, carefully calibrated so that the regenerator field was precisely small. The cells of the superior vena cava began to link up to the cells of the heart transplant, reforming the vital vein.
Slowly, precisely, the work continued.
In the abandoned husk of Field Hospital Bravo, Lucy's omnitool whirled around her left hand, hovering over the access control for the pharmaceutical storage vault. One last character, in Latin alphanumerics, was displaying on her omnitool screen. "Here we go…"
A "Y" appeared and the omnitool blinked green on its display. The door slid open.
"Excellent work," said Fallina.
With two exceptions, the Asari commandos followed Lucy into the room. The pharmaceuticals had been only partially removed. Lucy pondered that fact as she examined shelves full of hypospray-compatible vials and pill bottles. "It looks like at least half of the stocks weren't pulled out," she said. "That's a little odd. I know it was an emergency evacuation, but Bravo had time to pull out all of the patients. Why so little of the pharmaceuticals?"
"Miscommunication," proposed one of the other Asari. "Evacuations can be chaotic."
"Yeah." Lucy thought of evacuations and remembered the Facility and the evacuation caused by the Daleks. Everyone had gotten out, but she was sure they'd left behind more than a few things. "But something feels off about this…"
"I think I know why the dextro-meds weren't taken in the evac," Fallina said. Everyone looked to her and to shelving marked with both Latin and Turian alphabetic characters.
The shelves were empty.
"What the hell?" Lucy walked up and scanned the area with her omnitool. "This doesn't make sense. Where did they go?"
"Nowhere, according to the Hospital inventory." The computer expert of Fallina's team was operating one of the computer terminals. Lucy thought she remembered the name Niara for the Asari. "They're supposed to be there."
"Then where…" Lucy continued scanning and looking. "Maybe they got misplaced."
"All of them?" Fallina's skepticism was evident in her voice.
"I know, it doesn't seem likely." Lucy smirked. "But you would be surprised what people can misplace when they're not thinking." A thought crossed Lucy's mind. "Niara, isn't it?"
"Niata," corrected the computer expert commando. "Yes?"
"Niata, do you have the inventory codes for the dextro-meds?"
After a moment of checking Niata answered, "I do."
"Transmit them to our omnitools," Lucy said. "Then we'll just scan through the room until we find a hit."
A small grin came to the Asari's face. "I wish I'd thought of that first." The tones of Niata working away on the hardlight keyboard sounded for a few moments. "There we go, I just transmitted the data."
Lucy activated the scanner function on her omnitool and started waving her forearm around. Fallina and the others were copying the same. "Wait," said Fallina. "I think I have something."
Lucy looked to the Asari and followed her scan returns to some of the shelving further in. They converged on it with the others. Lucy read the characters along the shelving side and frowned. "This shelf is for the Dorei-specific medications," she said.
Fallina picked up a vial and scanned it. "This is an antibiotic, dextro-compatible," she said.
"They're all dextro," another of the Asari said, running her omnitool over the entire shelf.
"But look at the labeling," Lucy said. She held one up and read the Latin characters. "This is Turian medication, but it's listed as Dorei."
"That's not right." Fallina was frowning. "The Dorei aren't dextro-compatible, right?"
"No," Lucy said. "They're levo-compatible, just like us."
"Then if this medication had been given to them…"
"...it would either be entirely non-effective, or fatal," another of the Asari said.
Lucy swallowed. No wonder she had felt something was wrong. "This isn't just an accidental mis-shelving," she said. "This is sabotage. Someone was trying to sabotage us from the inside. I mean, think about it. Dorei dying because someone replaced their meds with Turian meds? The Turians would be accusing our people of incompetence, and we'd probably claim the same on their end."
"Reich agents must have gotten in here."
"Maybe." Something about that didn't seem right either. Would the Reich have cared about something so small? Then again, a small-time operative might have just been looking for minor sabotage. "Anyway, we need to get going."
"Selmissima." Fallina looked to the tall Asari with the assault rifle and medical containers. "Let's get these things packed up."
"We'll let the pharmacists back at Charlie sort through them and figure out which medication is which," Lucy said. She sniffed. "Is it just me, or is that smell worse in here?"
Now that they'd found their objective, the stench of dead flesh was something they were noticing more easily. Fallina nodded and agreed. "You can join Niata in looking for the source, if you want." She was already accepting one container from Selmissima. "We'll get the Turian meds secured, and any other meds from the doctors' list we can find."
Lucy nodded and walked back to the computer desk, where Niata was already standing up. The two started exploring further into the vault, toward the rear shelves. "Cold storage is back this way," Niata noted.
"Anything we need from there?"
"There might be a couple meds, but the critical items on our list wasn't listed for cold storage," Niata noted.
"Still…" Lucy felt a tremor within her being, like if she was a living metal detector and cold storage was a piece of metal she was coming into contact with. She followed that sense until they arrived at the heavy metal door. "Is it just me," Lucy began, "or is the smell coming from inside?"
"That wouldn't make sense," Niata said. "The cold storage vault is supposed to be…"
"...sealed." Lucy pointed to the area near the door handle, where there was a clear gap in the frame. "But it's not."
"That… that looks like damage." Niata showed bewilderment. "But that's not from a weapon. It's like something strong gripped so hard that it warped the seal."
That worried Lucy. "I don't see how anyone could have done that. Not with this material."
"Maybe a Krogan," Niata said. "Maybe."
More curious than ever, Lucy grabbed the lever lock and pulled it. Niata opened the door.
The stench was almost physical in its intensity. That horrible smell of rotting flesh and waste from a dead body, something Lucy was all too familiar with when raiding nasty places in multiple worlds back in the Facility days, directed them into the cold storage room. The air still had a hint of cold to it, but it was obvious that the cold had been turned off.
"Someone must have shut down the locker during the evacuation," Niata said.
"Or the generator was taken. The vault door's battery backup must have maintained the security system and internal computers, but wasn't enough for the cold storage air conditioning." Lucy activated her omnitool's scanner. Immediately she got a result. "No point in picking up these meds, the lack of cold will have spoiled them. But there's something this way…"
They walked through the dry room, past the shelves of ruined medication, and thus toward the back of the cold storage vault. The smell grew in intensity and rankness as they walked. Lucy wished she had a breather unit, anything to get away from this horrid stench.
The body was in the last row. There was no telling who it, or rather she, had been, just the remains of what looked like a standard medical jumpsuit. Someone had smashed the dead woman's face in with such raw fury that there were no facial features, no jaw or dental remains, that could identify her. There was no hair left either. "Somebody didn't want this woman identified," Niata said.
"At least not quickly." Lucy knelt down beside her. "We need an empty vial. Something to collect biological samples from for DNA analysis." She activated her omnitool's scanning function again and looked to see if it could read the DNA. But her engineering-specialist omnitool had no such function, nor any way to help secure samples.
Niata leaned over with what looked like silk in her hand. She dabbed the cloth in the dried blood of the woman's ruined face. But it wouldn't take. Not to be deterred, Niata took her combat knife from her waist and began scraping at the blood. The scrapings she put in the silk cloth before tying it into a bag. Seeing Lucy's look, Niata smiled. "I had a lover who's in C-Sec. He told me a few stories about evidence collection on the sly."
Lucy, meanwhile, had her own idea. She took a tool from her belt, a powered bolt wrench, and scraped the edge along the visible flesh of the dead woman's arm. Dead skin cells, pale bronze in coloration, flaked off under the strength of the scraping. Lucy made sure to collect an ample amount of dead skin before she stood up. Too bad I don't have an evidence bag or something, she thought to herself.
Just as the two emerged from the cold storage part of the vault, Fallina's omnitool activated. "What is it?" she asked. "Given your faces, whatever you found wasn't good news."
"Nothing from cold storage. The climate control was off." Lucy frowned. "And we found a dead woman in there who had her face turned to hamburger."
Fallina frowned and shook her head. "It may be linked to our medical saboteur."
"That's it," said Selmissima. She stood up with the last container and thrust it into Niata's hands. "We have everything we can carry."
"It's time for extraction." Fallina gestured to the door while triggering her omnitool. "Karina, Casari, we're ready to get out."
"We're clear of enemy forces here, ma'am, but I suggest you hurry."
"Why?" Fallina asked.
"Because we just got word from General Lukasian. The enemy's just launched a new attack." The sniper's voice remained matter-of-fact. "It looks like they're trying to pound their way through to New Rennes. And Hospital Charlie is right on their line of advance."
"We're on our way." Fallina gestured forward. "Come on, huntresses, double time! You too, Lieutenant Lucero, and I hope you can keep up."
Lucy, despite the situation, grinned at that. "Funny," she said, "I was about to suggest the same to you."
And she began running with them, keeping pace with almost contemptuous ease.
Leo had made it through to the last attachment, the aorta itself, when the machines began beeping.
"Her vitals just dropped. Respiration rate and O2 levels are lowering."
"I've almost got it." Leo continued running the wand along, directing the tissue regenerator to bind the new heart to the Jane Doe's aorta. "Just another minute."
"She may not have a minute."
Leo nodded at Crusher. Sweat dripped dangerously close to his eye. "Sponge," he said, and Nasri immediately tended to him.
"I'm setting the oxygenation rate of her blood higher." Crusher was back at work. "But it looks like her lungs may be failing."
"Do we have any dizaproregene ready?"
Crusher gave him a harsh look. "With how weak her body is, dizaproregene is enormously dangerous."
"A measure of last resort," Leo said, even as he focused on reconnecting the aorta.
There was no reply from Crusher about that. Leo wasn't surprised. He knew that if he was turning to dizap, the girl was already likely to die. But doing anything less seemed criminal.
"Honestly, if you get to that point, we're facing the triage question."
Leo refused to look her way. He wanted to. He wanted to look into Crusher's eyes and see if there was pain there, or resolve, or guilt. "You think we'd be wasting it?"
"In our resource situation? Yes, Doctor, if you use dizaproregene on this patient, it will be a waste. Her survival chances are already going too low to justify it."
"She'll stabilize as soon as we get this heart pumping." Leo remained focused on that task. Almost there…
A very low tone came from their omnitools. Ocasio was the only one who could safely check his. "There's an emergency alert," he said. "Doctor Galerius needs us in Triage within the next ten minutes."
"We'll be done by then," Leo said. "One way or another."
"What's the alert?" Crusher asked.
Leo couldn't afford to turn and look at Ocasio. He couldn't see the grim look on the Hispanic doctor's face. "The enemy has thrown more troops into the battle," Ocasio said. "They may be advancing on the hospital."
The gulp nearly finished forming in Leo's throat. But he wouldn't let it. One crisis at a time. That's all he could deal with.
Fallina was the last to jump into the shuttle on the hospital roof. In the distance Lucy could see small forms moving toward the hospital. Forms too large, at this distance, to be ordinary soldiers. "Looks like we just missed a fight with Panzergrenadiers."
"They make a mess inside of those suits if you hit them with the right biotic combination," one of the Asari - T'Sani? - said.
Lucy was already feeling sick from smelling the dead bodies in the hospital. That mental image was something she wasn't eager to contemplate, not even for Nazis. She glared at the Asari in question.
Fallina was already on comms, reporting their success and issuing a security alert. "We need to find everyone who handled logistics in the Bravo Hospital," she was saying to the images of General Lukasian and General Chaganam on the wall of the shuttle's passenger compartment. The Turian general had joined Chaganam, in the field uniform of a Free Worlds League officer, at the main HQ for the Coalition forces on New Brittany. "Someone labeled the dextro meds with labels as Dorei-specific medications."
Both commanders gave her an uncomfortable look. "I am no physician, but wouldn't that be poisonous to the Dorei troops?" Chaganam asked.
"It would," Lukasian confirmed. The Turian's concern was clear. "Either poisonous or completely ineffective. Either way, dozens of Dorei soldiers might have died if Bravo hadn't been evacuated."
"Someone might be attempting to interfere with our alliance." Lucy stepped up beside Fallina. "Someone trying to turn us against each other."
"The Nazis having agents in the planetary population is the most likely cause."
Chaganam had made a good point. But something about this felt familiar to Lucy. Something was nagging at her about this.
"That's a priority for later." Lukasian raised a three-fingered hand and gestured as if to move away the issue. "Right now you're needed back at Hospital Charlie. A fresh enemy division is moving into the area."
"The 3rd Battalion of the 2nd Legionnaires is in position to counter-attack them on that front. But we may not be able to keep them out of the hospital grounds. And there's not nearly enough time for an evacuation."
Lucy didn't need Chaganam to say more. The SS, if they got into the Hospital, would start killing patients and medical staff left and right. There would be no mercy. Leo, Nasri, Hargert, they're all in the line of fire.
"We'll do what we can to protect the patients, General," Fallina pledged.
"Spirits go with you. HQ out." Lukasian cut the line.
"You all heard that," said Fallina. "As soon as we get back to that hospital, we'll find a defensive position and coordinate with hospital security."
Lucy found herself nodding with the others. Now she really regretted not wearing her body armor.
Leo felt a surge of misplaced relief when the last strands of regenerated tissue finished linking the Jane Doe's aorta to her new heart. "Okay. Let's begin cardio stimulation and get this heart going."
"Her O2 levels are still in decline."
Leo nodded to accept that while Doctor Ocasio manned the cardial stimulation device. Using remote, wireless receivers placed into the transplanted heart, the machine began to jolt the muscles in the replicated organ to bring it into operation.
Of course, this was the trickiest moment of the operation. There was no one hundred percent guarantee the new heart would function. Anything from a flaw at the cellular level to too much energy through the stimulator could keep the heart from starting to beat. And if that happened, the patient would die, pure and simple.
"Beginning stimulation," Ocasio said. "Cutting power flow… no response."
"Again."
"Respiratory rate is in decline." Crusher shook her head. "It looks like cellular damage to the lung has shut down several bronchi clusters."
Leo couldn't hide his frustration at that. Whatever had been done to this girl, the cellular damage was clearly the worst in terms of her ability to live. How did they manage this? Was this a new Nazi weapon?
"Still no response to cardial stimulation."
"Again," Leo said simply. They had a few more tries left, certainly. But once he was past the sixth… no, no, that wouldn't happen. This wouldn't be for nothing.
"EEG readings are declining."
"Push the oxylin."
"20ccs." Crusher did so.
"Third pulse. Still no autonomous heartbeat."
"Again."
"Even if her new heart starts beating, her lungs may not last," Crusher warned.
"5ccs of dizaproregene will deal with that."
There was disapproval in Crusher's eyes. "That's too much. Her system won't handle it."
"Anything less and she won't regain enough lung function."
"Then call it," Crusher said.
"Fourth pulse. Still no response."
Ocasio's report was met with an immediate "Again". Leo didn't take his eyes off Crusher's. There was challenge in them. She could overrule him. She could assert her seniority as a physician, as a medical officer, and order Ocasio to give up. Ocasio could make the same call, although as a civilian volunteer physician with little surgical experience, his authority over them was more uncertain.
But she didn't.
There was silence as they waited to hear from Ocasio on whether this worked. If it didn't, Crusher would be right. A sixth attempt might work, but at this point, if the heart wouldn't start… Leo knew it would be the end. And Galerius, Lang, and the others needed them out in Triage. Especially with combat casualties coming in.
If there was no response, Leo would have to give up. He would have to let another child die.
And it was clear that Crusher could see how much pain that thought was causing him.
"Fifth pulse." Ocasio's voice made clear the result.
Leo let out a breath. His heart began to ache.
"Wait." Now Ocasio's voice picked up. "I am getting a response. The heart is beating. 70 beats per second."
This time Leo's exhalation was one of relief. Relief that was not entirely earned.
"The O2 count still isn't stabilizing," Crusher said. "The damage to the lungs is too extensive."
"Do you have the 5ccs of dizaproregene?" Leo's question hung in the air for a moment, even as the machines toned away in relation to the dying girl on the bed. "It may be our last chance."
Crusher looked at him intently. "You could kill her."
"She's dying already."
Crusher clearly went to say something but stopped herself. Her mouth moved as she played out the conversation to come. Leo could see she was not convinced this was the best way to deal with the situation. Every minute they were fighting to save a girl who might never wake up was a minute they weren't saving the lives of soldiers and civilians coming into their hospital. Leo knew that if she made the decision to withhold the medication, it was medically justified. It was perhaps one even he would make one day.
Crusher, in the end, did not assert seniority. She simply reached over to a medical tray, pulled the appropriate vial out, and after a moment placed the hypospray over the girl's neck on the jugular vein. A very slight, virtually inaudible hiss sounded and the vial emptied its contents right into the Jane Doe's body.
For several seconds there was no response. The only sound in the OR was the machine reading the patient's heart beat and neural activity. Leo felt almost numb with tension. Possibilities raced through his head. Had he done everything right? Had he made the right calls? Had he wasted time and resources on someone who simply couldn't be saved? Was he, even now, causing deaths by not giving this up?
Dear God, please, he pleaded in his mind and in his heart. Please, I've done everything I can. He put his hand on the girl's shoulder, as if to wake her. Please.
"Doctor Gillam." The sound of Crusher's voice led him to look her way. Her eyes had a gentle look to them now, and the same was true with her voice. "There's nothing more we can do. It's out of our hands now. We should go."
"Doctor Crusher is right." Ocasio spoke up next. "I will stay and monitor her condition, but you are needed in Triage."
Leo closed his eyes. He needed to. They felt so heavy. His heart felt like a heavy lump in his chest. All he could think about was if he did something wrong, if he missed something, if he had failed to save this girl…
"Right," he breathed. "I'm sorry."
"I know. We're all tired."
Leo drew in a breath and nodded to Crusher and to Ocasio. "Let's go."
The assault shuttle was flying in low and fast, a dark shape with low-slung engine nacelles against the debris of the countryside outside New Rennes. From his place of prominence in the cockpit behind the co-pilot, Fassbinder observed with appreciation the burning remains of enemy war machines and soldiers. One of the F1S1 "BattleMechs" was a broken mess zooming by on his right, undoubtedly victim to SS Panzers.
They were arranged ahead, those same machines. Tracked with anti-grav backup mobility, large disruptor cannons mounted on turrets much like the old chem-propelled tank guns of Hitler's panzers, the same panzers that had conquered wide swaths of Eurasia and Africa for the banner of the Hakenkreuz. SS lighting bolts and that same Hakenkreuz were displayed proudly on the turrets of the war machines, as they were on the great armored Panzergrenadier soldiers fighting alongside them.
Ahead of the shuttle, SS aerospace bombers already blasting enemy troops. One of the bombers blew apart after taking a mass effect-propelled anti-air shell from one of the Turian AA emplacements. Said gun blew up seconds later from another bomber's attack.
"Gruppenführer Fischer has a new alert, sir," the co-pilot said. "Orbital visuals confirm that an enemy force is moving to counter-attack. Our troops may not make it to the target."
"Then we will make do." Fassbinder looked back to his men, a squad of four Panzergrenadiers and two squads of light combat-armored Stosstruppen from the Waffen SS. "Remember the briefing. Our primary objective are those individuals. They must not be killed."
"And the untermenschen?" asked a Unterscharführer.
"Consider them a secondary target of opportunity." Fassbinder smirked. The hospital loomed ahead. "If we must, we'll leave some alive in order to secure the targets. If we have the chance… exterminate them."
Leo and Nasri were working together as the combat casualties came in. A Free Worlds League MechWarrior was the next to be brought up. Leo looked over the woman's plentiful cuts and lacerations, creating angry red splotches of blood on dark skin, and immediately ordered Nasri to administer a painkiller while he examined the scan. "Injuries consistent with a partial canopy collision. Blood loss is severe but not critical, no critical damage to organs… but it looks like the toxic coolant in her cooling vest got into her bloodstream. Mark yes and send her to Doctor Lang for priority chelation and synthblood transfusion."
The next patient was a Turian trooper with disruptor burns. Leo was in the middle of marking her to be treated when the first explosion sounded outside.
The Triage Ward entrance was controlled chaos at the best of times. But clear panic was coming as some of the orderlies, heading out with medics to bring in more cases, returned screaming. "We're under attack!" one voice shouted, then another.
Galerius straightened up from where she was treating another Turian. "What's wrong? What's going on?"
"Enemy assault craft, they're landing outside of the hospital!"
As she demanded to know how many, Leo thought back to what Lucy had said. That she'd been worried about something. His finger went for his omnitool's comm key. "Gillam to Security, I need defense teams to Triage Ward, now! They're attacking the hospital!"
"Teams already on their way."
"Evacuate the Triage Ward, now!" Crusher was in motion as well. Orderlies and nurses, including Nasri, began to grab beds and push them toward the door.
Leo ran over to join her. He took the bed of the MechWarrior he'd examined barely a minute before and pushed her to the door, where a Turian medic took her and moved her on. He turned back into the Triage Ward as, from the far hall, armed security troopers appeared at the door and moved on toward the exit leading to the main entrance.
They barely got there when an explosion blasted through the wall and sent them flying. German-accented voices screamed, "Stop! Stop or you will be shot!" Leo watched as a hulking set of powered armor, one of the Panzergrenadiers, stomped into the Triage Ward beside men in combat armor.
A hand grabbed him and pulled him into cover behind an overturned bed. Crusher and Nasri were in cover with him, as was a League soldier with a tourniquet around his wounded leg. From behind cover Leo heard more shouts and weapons fire. He turned his head in time to see a disruptor beam shoot a fleeing Turian medic in the back. He was vaporized instantly.
"Cease fire and you will not be harmed!" a voice cried out.
Leo felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise. He couldn't keep the shock off his face. "I know that voice," he murmured.
"What?" Crusher looked at him.
"It's him." Leo was still having trouble believing it. "Fassbinder. He's alive."
"Attention," the voice continued. Now it was booming over the hospital PA system. "I am Standartenführer Fassbinder of the Schutzstaffel. I am here to collect several noted enemies of the German Reich. That is my only purpose, and if my mission succeeds, I will leave you without further harm."
Leo felt his throat go dry. He already had a feeling who Fassbinder was after. It would explain the spy, after all.
"I am aware that among you are members of the crew of the Alliance vessel Aurora," Fassbinder continued. "In particular, I seek two officers. Doctor Leonard Gillam and Lieutenant Lucilla Lucero. Upon their surrender I will leave and the SS will spare the remaining staff and patients of this facility. For every minute that I am defied, my troops will execute one of your people."
Leo swallowed. Lucy wasn't here. She was still out with those Asari commandos. Fassbinder would never be satisfied with that. He was about to kill innocent people.
Nasri looked to Leo and frowned. "Don't," she urged.
"I can't let him kill anyone," Leo said. "Maybe he'll be satisfied with me."
"You don't know that." Crusher shook her head. "He might kill you instead."
"No." Leo shook his head. "No, I think he wants us alive. He wants me alive." Leo activated his omnitool and started operating the comm channel. "Without a ship in orbit we're limited by comm range, but I'm hoping Lucy will pick this up."
"Unterscharführer, execute a prisoner."
"Jawohl."
Leo immediately rose above the bed and shouted, "Wait!"
One of the infantryman had been about to shoot a Turian medic in the head. But he didn't. All eyes turned toward Leo.
Leo, in turn, was looking right at Fassbinder. The SS man smirked. "Ah, Doctor Gillam," he said. "It has been a while."
"Not nearly long enough for me," Leo grumbled. "I guess you survived your fall at Gamma Piratus."
"Transporter enhancers are useful, ja?" Fassbinder looked around the room. "Where is Lucero?"
"Not here."
"No?" Fassbinder's smug smirk became more of a smug grin. "My agent saw her earlier today."
"Andre Faqin."
The name drew no response from Fassbinder. "Where is she, Herr Doktor?"
"Like I said, she's not here," Leo said. "She went out into the field."
"Really?" Fassbinder made a show of looking at his timepiece. "You know, your minute is almost up."
"I can prove she's not here," Leo said. "The hospital logs will show her leaving."
"Logs are so easily doctored, though. And I'm afraid I don't have the means at hand to discern real records from fake." Fassbinder looked to his watch. "Five… four… three…"
The far door opened again. Leo looked that way and shook his head. No…
Fassbinder looked to the door. A brief smirk turned into a scowl. "The gelding," he grumbled.
Hargert walked into the Triage Ward still wearing his cooking apron. The old man had a faint, deceptively-welcoming grin on his face as he took another step into the Ward. "The monster," he retorted.
"What are you doing here, old fool?"
"You demanded my presence, did you not?" Hargert stopped walking. "I am a crewmember of the Aurora, the same as the good Doktor."
Fassbinder laughed at that. "You are a pitiful old gelding, a failure to your Race, a mere cook."
Hargert put a hand to his heart. "Oh, such an insult. I am no mere cook."
"No." Leo felt a warmth in his voice that matched the warmth in his heart. A warmth only equaled by his fear. "He's not."
Fassbinder drew a disruptor pistol from his belt holster. "Where is Lucero?" He held the gun up to Hargert.
"She is not here."
"I will shoot you, traitor."
"Then shoot." Hargert shook his head. "Do you think I am afraid of you, monster? No. I meant what I said before, SS man. Nie weider. We will never be afraid of you and your filth again. And we will not stop fighting until the German people of this universe are free of you, just as we have been for centuries."
Hargert said nothing further. Leo looked from him to Fassbinder. He was tense with anger and hate and the look in his eye told Leo he wanted to shoot Hargert right then and there. "Just wait!" Leo shouted. "She'll be back soon!"
Fassbinder didn't react immediately. Slowly, with visible surprise to his subordinates, he lowered the gun and returned it to his holster. Leo breathed a sigh of relief, even as he wondered why the SS man had stopped.
That relief turned to outright confusion a moment later when the smirk reappeared on Fassbinder's face.
The SS man brought up his gloved right hand and held it toward Hargert. His fingers looked like he was trying to grip a wire between his thumb and his index and middle finger. His blue eyes locked onto Hargert with an intensity that seemed bizarre for the moment.
A hacking, choking sound came from the old cook. Leo turned and watched in shock as Hargert's hands went up to his throat. He slouched over, as if about to fall to his knees, sharp wheezes and choking sounds coming from his throat. Finally he went down to his knees.
A low, satisfied chuckle came from Fassbinder's throat. "I will enjoy this," he rasped.
Leo wasn't the only one watching Fassbinder.
Inside the Asari-crewed shuttle, Lucy stared at the screen in shock. "That's… oh God," she gasped.
Fallina was watching with her own sense of profound surprise. "How is he doing that?" she asked Lucy. "That's not biotics."
"He's using life energy like I do," she answered. "But wrong. Twisted and dark." Lucy brought up her forearm and began entering commands into her omnitool as it came to life. "And if he sees us coming we're screwed. I need to distract him."
"With what?" Selmissima asked.
"Something unexpected," Lucy replied.
"Herr Standartenführer?" one of the SS field men asked, showing utter confusion.
"How is he doing that?" Crusher asked from behind the bed.
"Stop!" Leo cried out.
"This is the power you deny," rasped Fassbinder. Sweat was pouring down his forehead and toward his eyes. His face was turning red from sheer effort. "Do you not feel death coming, gelding? Don't you fear it? The pitch dark that you belong in, traitor? You and your kind… you false Germans… I will cast you all into that endless void! You deserve only oblivion!" A trickle of blood started to flow down from Fassbinder's nostrils.
Hargert went down to all fours. His lips were turning blue.
Leo tensed up. He wondered if he could break the choke hold by knocking Hargert away. He didn't think he could make it to Fassbinder before his men opened fire. "Please don't kill him," Leo pleaded. "Whatever you want us for, you can use him for too."
Fassbinder didn't seem to care. He kept his death grip up. Leo watched as his eyes seemed to flash from blue to gold for a moment, just a moment. And it seemed certain that Fassbinder would keep that grip until Hargert was dead.
And that there was nothing Leo could do about it.
Several meters away, a humanoid form coalesced into existence. "Please state the nature of the medical emergency," asked the EMH. The hologram looked around with befuddlement.
Fassbinder's head whipped around to face the sudden newcomer. His concentration slipped and with it his grip on Hargert. "What is this?" Fassbinder demanded while Hargert began to breathe again.
"I could ask the same." The EMH looked over the invaders. "Bringing firearms into the triage ward is strictly prohibited outside of security personnel."
One of the SS troopers held up a scanner. "Herr Standartenführer, this is a hologram."
Fassbinder opened his mouth to speak, but was interrupted as another ripple in mid-air coalesced into a second EMH. "What is the nature of the medical…" The second EMH looked at the first, his identical twin. "This is not appropriate use of my program," the second EMH complained.
Leo fought to keep a grin off his face. Lucy was the thought that went through his head.
"Destroy them!" Fassbinder shouted. At that command disruptor beams struck both holograms. Their forms were distorted by the blasts until they faded away.
After a moment, both promptly reappeared. "That really isn't necessary," one stated.
Fassbinder clenched a fist and drew his gun.
That was when the wall exploded.
The commando shuttle flew right up to the side of the Hospital before Fallina and her team jumped from the side. In cooperation with each other, the Asari commando unit generated a massive biotic pulse that blew the first floor wall down completely.
In that moment of surprise, Lucy raced forward. Her lakesh extended to its full length with a sharp metallic shriek. She cleared the fallen wall and the dust, and even as they started to react, she was on top of the SS troopers. Her blade cut cleanly through the arms of one, causing him to cry out as his dismembered limbs, and the gun they carried, hit the ground. She twisted and slashed out again, a cut that found the neck of a second foe, and a third swipe took the legs of the next.
Sensing the intentions of the nearest armored Panzergrenadier, Lucy twisted slightly and avoided a kill-shot from the machine's arm-mounted disruptor. A fourth SS trooper disappeared in a surge of green energy that consumed him, a victim of that miss. She reached out with a hand and let the power within her reach out as well. Her power gripped the armored trooper and sent him flying into a second armored trooper. Both went to the floor.
The third and fourth of the enemy armored troops might have gotten her, but they were already facing a new problem, made clear by the dark matter energy that had formed around them, locking them in place. Two of Fallina's Asari maintained the stasis fields while Selmissima, the tall one with the assault rifle, was sending the light combat-suited infantry scurrying for cover. The two stunned armored troops were left sitting ducks to Niata, who was already ripping the weapons off of one with biotic fields.
Lucy at last turned to Fassbinder. Hearing his voice over the comms, seeing him in the visual channel, that had been enough of a shock. But sensing him, feeling the malevolent cold of his active power, was worse. The idea that the Reich was starting to look for these powers and to train their own, especially SS, in their use… that was a threat that made her stomach churn. The things that these evil men could do with that power, the ease with which darkness could corrupt them...
Fassbinder started to level his gun toward Hargert. "I'll kill the old…"
Fassbinder's threat against Hargert's life stopped abruptly when Lucy thrust an open palm toward him. The power of the energy within her followed her will. Invisible force slammed into the SS man and sent him flying into the nearest wall.
"Lucy, look out!"
Leo's warning coincided with the sense of danger Lucy felt within. She swung to her right with her lakesh and caught the disruptor beam before it could vaporize her. The beam reflected off her lakesh and hit one of the SS troopers. He was blasted back and hit the ground, unmoving.
The trooper who fired never fired again. Fallina crashed into him in a flash of dark blue energy. The biotics-powered charge sent the SS soldier flying into the nearest wall, where he fell and stopped moving.
Fallina turned and faced one of the Panzergrenadiers currently aiming toward her soldiers. The shotgun in her hands went off and blew a massive hole through the torso plate of the enemy powered armor suit. It collapsed to the ground. Fallina turned and fired a shot that caused an SS infantryman's torso to explode in a messy way.
The loss of the fourth and last of the Panzergrenadiers was to the combined biotics of two of the Asari commandos. Intense dark matter forces rippled and coiled over the armored suit until it began to tear away. The weapons went down, and defenses, and soon the entire suit was in tatters and the pilot within exposed. A single gunshot from one of the Asari put him down.
The remaining SS forces, deprived of their heavy support, retreated from the Triage Ward. Fallina spoke into her comm. "What's our status?"
"They're retreating for their shuttle," her pilot replied.
Lucy almost celebrated until she felt the change in the atmosphere. Or, more accurately, the lack of presence. She turned to where she had thrown Fassbinder, just to find that he was gone. "Did anyone see where their commander went?" she asked.
"I thought I saw him run toward the interior of the hospital." The reply was from one of the orderlies in the room. "But I can't be sure."
Lucy frowned and tried to focus on her senses, on her energy, to feel his presence. Given the malevolent nature of it, it would stick out like a sore thumb.
"I think he's this way," she said to the others. "This way."
"T'Sani, Niata, with us, the rest of you, stay and help with wounded." Fallina hefted her shotgun and followed Lucy into the hospital.
Fassbinder felt shame and rage burn inside of him as he ran further into the hospital. Months of training, of pushing his limits, all of his work… and he was still weak compared to Lucero. He would be the laughing stock of the SS for this defeat.
Perhaps not all is in vain, he thought. Perhaps I can hold out until our main force arrives. He knew that was a long shot at best, but he would not give up. Not on this. He was so close to getting what he needed. His plan was all laid out. And he would find his destiny with it
Fassbinder was so busy he didn't see the closet door nearby slide open. As he walked past it his senses came alive with warning. Curious and concerned, he turned toward the door with a hand going to his pistol.
That was when the force hit him, full strength, and sent him into unconsciousness.
The sense of malevolence went away. Lucy stopped where she was and looked around. "Oh come on," she muttered before concentrating. He had to be out there.
But try as she might, Lucy felt nothing.
"Dammit," she grumbled.
"What is it?" Fallina and her team approached.
"I lost him. It's… where could he have gone?" Lucy began looking around again. "We'll need to put up a watch. He's too dangerous to be ignored."
"I'll get in contact with Security," said Fallina. "But if you ask me, I think he took off to the nearest exit. He knows he's a dead man if we find him."
"True." But something about that didn't sit right. Lucy had a feeling that Fassbinder, whatever had happened, was somewhere else, or had some other plan.
And she already knew this would not be the last they'd seen of the SS man, whatever happened.
