TANYA Kornov in

CALL OF THE MEDIC

"Medic, Medic"

A StarCraft Rogue Force Story by SuperMudz

Tanya "Alice" Kornov. A 10th generation descendant of a Russian woman on the Nagglfar multi-generation warp ship, one of the original super-carriers that had brought the "colonists" from Earth to Koprulu on an ill-fated warp accident that had carried them across 60,000 light-years. A much more significant journey than had been originally planned.

She had the whole family line traced, although she suspected some of the names were not original, but bastardised and transliterated in the process of interstellar colonisation with so many disparate groups and length of time – and perhaps also an act of the Earth government so as not to cast a foul aspersion on their families back home.

But she had managed to gain access to the original files, and managed to clear up most, if not all the important elements to her satisfaction, cross-referencing with the Tarsonis archives of Earth. Kornov had been an honoured name (this she did know), but her ancestral namesake was an unfortunate victim of one of the Earth's worst malices, a holy fear of mutation.

She shifted her leg against the rock, trying to feel if the pressure in her CMC was dropping or holding. She inspected every system of the suit herself, but sometimes a bug could crop up just when it was most dangerous. She chuckled weakly to herself at the thought.

Her team-mates had nick-named her "Alice" for some reason – probably due to her pale features that had put them in mind of it. What could she say? They were all dead now. She was laughing and had to stop. The suit didn't seal out all sound.

She found an opening, just as she heard the sounds – she recognised them, had listened to them on tape over and over, so she would be sure to know it when she heard it. The zerg had found her and were coming for her.

The darkness swallowed her, and she escaped into it.

(*)

She jammed her shield hastily into the rock – she put everything the servos in her suit had into it, and it made a satisfying crunch as it wedged in there. That would not stop those metal-rending claws for long, but the shield was made of reinforced rigidium-carbon alloy – it would be something. Better than leaving the door open. Something slammed against it.

She pulled out her disruptor pistol, the chambers warming up, a satisfying energetic green beginning to glow.

You weren't supposed to pull them except in dire emergency, they weren't any good in normal combat conditions. It was better to concentrate on keeping your shield up, and the marines stimmed, as they carried out the fighting work. It was the only thing keeping everyone alive. Keep them safe, and they kept you safe – that was the motto. Only thing was, she couldn't figure out who's it was.

But if there was one thing a medic could count on, it was a team of grunts to hold rifles for her. They weren't so bad.

She fired through the small opening until the pistol hissed empty. Damn.

The sounds from outside had ceased, though, but she wasn't about to move the shield to make sure.

She felt the sweat drip against her temple. You often forgot things like that, minimised them down to the most subtle impulses. You could lose a hand in combat when zerg were rushing you, and never realise until ten minutes after the aliens had been cleared away and the suit told you to report for medical attention.

She crawled further into the opening. Her breath rattled in the helmet, automatically sealing against viral agents. She could see some of them now, spattering against the helmet. It was getting warmer too. She was getting a dread feeling she was crawling closer to one of their nydus tunnels, those big worm monsters that dug under fortifications and spewed out armies. She didn't trust something that looked like that on the best of days – least of all the Zerg's.

She injected her blood-stream with more nanites. She knew the dosage. And kept crawling, her mind swimming almost as it felt like her limbs were. She had a few more reload charges for the pistol, they just needed a minute.

Alice down the rabbit-hole. And she had to stop herself from fitfully laughing again.

(*)

Several hours later, after climbing through strange alien internal organic systems, and crawling through slime, scraping against rock – she saw a faint light. Outside. Her pistol was nearly useless now, she had half smashed it fighting off one of those larvae who thought she was one of their infestation victims.

She was definitely out of optic charges, it had been a better defense than her disruptor. She remembered when the suit was new – purloined from UED stock-piles – taking the fancy new technology into the field. Weren't going to let the UED get the advantage. And now it as like she had always won it, instead of that bulky old thing sitting in the rack, before they had those fancy nanite dispensers. A few minutes and you could suture a marine right up again, flesh or carbon plating. She had been one of the first due to her expertise – it wasn't often they sent their scientists out into warzones. But all medics had scientific training of one kind or another, besides the obvious like terran anatomy. Volunteered.

She felt tired now, so tired. She reached the other hand up, so tired she wasn't even looking, just concentrating on one movement after another, only occasionally daring to spend the energy to look up. If she fell, it was over.

As she reached up, she suddenly felt something grab her wrist. She looked up, and for one brief heart-stopping minute, she saw the insignia that stove into view almost into her face. She had never been so grateful to see the familiar red symbol of the Dominion right now, no matter how she had laughed at it before.

She realised now that was what she had seen. Not just outside – they had been shining a torch for her, and she never knew.

The marine gauntlet envised her, and pulled her up swiftly but gently, heaving her back into the open, into the light, and into the arms of comrades once again.

"Sorry about your team, major," was all the grime-smeared marine said, his face handsome beneath it. They were all looking at her, and she finally realised what a sight she must have been – a quick glance confirmed it. Her suit, helmet, all slashed with blood, alien and human – and various detritus she might have analysed if she had cared.

"Jeez," another said. "She's the only one. The whole platoon is gone, wiped out, sir."

She just nodded and panted, regaining her senses. "Get me to the dropship, marine – before you become one of them."

And Tanya left that world behind and never looked back. She had survived.

THE END