Warnings:

Character deaths. Graphic violence is graphic.

Sic Itur Ad Astra

Dr. Karin Chakwas was in the process of removing an application of medi-gel from Serviceman Tomas Granger when the call for injuries came.

"Medics needed in the cargo bay," Joker announced. "Shepard says it's bad."

The doctor was already moving, gesturing for Private Lu to finish removing Tomas' patch—a burn from a short in his omni-tool wiring. The skin on back of Tomas' hand had puckered under the nodes of the glove where the haptic interface was attached.

Karin suited up. The cargo bay was still open and the sanctuary planet they were currently discharging on had no breathable atmosphere—for humans at any rate.

"Any exsanguination?" she asked as she slipped into the form-fitting envirosuit.

Joker's voice sounded distant when he answered. "Bleeding?" He paused a beat. "Yeah. Yeah, there's a lot of blood."

Karin had never known Jeff to be squeamish, what with his love of macabre horror vids. She checked the emergency kit and left the infirmary, trotting past the mess hall.

"You've got an external camera, Joker," she said as she stepped into the elevator. "I don't. Tell me what happened."

"The cable snapped," he told her quietly as the elevator descended. "When they were loading the Mako. She—" He took a deep breath. "Karin, one of the crew...they... they don't have their head anymore."

Overcome with sudden despair, Dr. Chakwas braced her hand on the wall. Dear God. What could have gone wrong down there. "Anything else?"

"One of the new guys doesn't look like he's got an arm. And there's... there's guys on the ground. Shepard managed to jump over the cable, but it tripped up Kaidan and Garrus. Tali was clear." He was silent until the elevator door began to slide open to Hell. "It looked like Beck's suit. Beck pushed Tali out of the way."

Karin knew the dangers of offering hope, especially when it came to Joker, but disregarded the first response that came to mind—the first response that came with the job of Chief Medical Officer. "I'm sure there are other hardsuits that look like Lieutenant Hendricks' make, Jeff."

He said nothing as Karin rushed in to work, calling several off-duty medical personnel. This had not been war. This had been an accident. Random. Completely random. Chaos. She couldn't even get to the dead. She had to see to the injured first. She couldn't reassure Joker that Hendricks was still alive.

Ashley entered the infirmary and did a double take. It was a flurry of motion and bodies—not just the bleeding ones. Every bed in the room was full and two marines were being treated from chairs. Between the doctor and her hospital corpsmen and the injured not able to be properly treated by the AutoArts, the infirmary felt small and compact.

Ashley frowned. So much for getting the medi-gel on her ribs removed this go-round. Not that she would begrudge any of the wounded men and women their time with the Doc and her crew, especially since the accident on Casbin. She'd heard something had happened down there, had heard it loud and clear over the comm, but she wasn't expecting to come off duty and find a very literal bloodbath in the infirmary.

"I can't help you right now, Ashley," Dr. Chakwas confirmed over treating the nearest wounded N.

The N4 in question was a young man named Dawson. He was held down by Private Lu, Alenko and—damn it, what was her name?—one of the FNG marines that were part of Operations Chief Naomi Noble's fire team.

Chakwas was performing laser surgery on the man's torso with the help of the AutoArt—the automated articulating surgical system. The technical term was AutoArt, but most of the sailors on board called the system the AutoASS or A-ASS—when the Doc was out of hearing range.

"Grafting commencing, Doctor," the robotic arm's VI announced. Unlike most medical VI's Ashley had encountered over the years, the Normandy's medical VI had a male voice. It ran on a separate system than the Normandy's integrated VI—whom everyone called Bitchin' Betty or Betty Bitchbox. Ashley couldn't remember what her real designation was.

Ash put a hand to her mouth when Dawson bucked suddenly, blood splattering each of the hospital corpsmen and Dr. Chakwas.

"Damn it," Alenko said, reaching for a better grip of the young man, "he's seizing again."

My God. Ashley backed out of the infirmary before she was privy to anymore nightmare fodder, swallowing the bile that had risen.

She turned and came face to face with a grim-faced Commander Shepard.

"Oh, Commander," she gasped, surprised, snapping off a salute.

"How's Dawson doing?" Shepard asked, inclining her chin towards the door, her eyes wary.

How the hell was she supposed to answer that? Ashley wanted to know, but thankfully she bit back the response before it popped out of her mouth. She gave a shrug. "Way out of my league, Skipper," she told her CO. "They're doing surgery now."

Shepard blinked, then eyed the door pensively. "Still?"

"I-er," Ashley hesitated to report what she had just seen. "I was on duty when the accident happened, ma'am. I don't even know how most of them got injured."

"Two cables snapped when the engineering crew were loading what's left of the Mako into the cargo hold," Shepard explained, her eyes becoming flat and unreadable. She shook her head. "Six injured. Two dead." She ran a shaky hand through her chopped brown hair.

"Ma'am, when's the last time you ate?" Ashley asked, concerned.

"I'm fine, Chief."

My ass. "Commander," Ash began, but the woman standing in front of her cut her off with a raised hand.

"Drop it, Williams," she ordered. "I lost two good men and may lose a third tonight because of my mistake. That's four down in a month." She laughed depreciatively. "Heaven forbid should I break my record. I wouldn't have a crew left."

"It wasn't your—"

"Tell that to their families." Shepard shouldered past Williams and walked into the infirmary.

Dr. Chakwas' voice greeted them. "I'm sorry, Commander," her tone was calm yet fragile. "We lost him."

Ashley turned to look and regretted it. Dawson's still form-chest wide open and still bubbling blood-his eyes looking at her lifelessly, wouldn't be an image she would soon forget. The doors slid shut, cutting off the sound of blood dribbling to the floor, a calm plat, plat, plat, that seemed to echo against walls that normally didn't, and the Chief bolted for the nearest head, her stomach rolling.

Usually on Alliance warships, no matter the size, the starboard side head was designated as the officers' head and the port side designated as the enlisteds'. Since the addition of the two extra fire teams, the Commander and XO had loosened the regs a bit when it came to the mingling of officers and enlisteds—specifically when it came to using the on-board bathroom facilities, opening up both rooms to all personnel. It was the only way to accommodate everyone on such a small vessel.

The starboard head was the smaller of the two rooms with two shower stalls, two toilets, a urinal and a sink with a mirror. The port side head had four shower stalls, four toilets, two urinals and two sinks with a counter top and a mirror that spanned one wall.

Kaidan had picked the port side because the starboard side was full—as usual. He was hoping he would get lucky since most of the crew was still on duty and have a shower to himself.

So when Kaidan entered the small room with the intention of showering Dawson's blood from his hands, face and hair, the last thing he expected was to find Williams with her face in the shitter.

"You okay, Williams?" he asked, setting his towel and toiletry kit on the sink counter and reaching down to unlace his boots.

The Chief's answer was a gargling moan and: "Herp. Urp. Hurk."

Yeah. Me too. "Good talk, Williams."

He thought about waiting for Williams to finish blowing her grits but cleanliness over gentlemanliness prevailed. So he turned on the shower, stripped and climbed in, the shower door immediately going opaque to simulate privacy. He'd served in the Alliance long enough and on enough vessels to know that there was no such thing as privacy in the Navy or in Marines.

But he couldn't very well enjoy the hot water as it pelted him because of Williams gargling ode to all things ill. It wasn't like he would enjoy it anyway as the water rinsed the droplets of another man's blood from his hair and body, the water tinting dark pink momentarily. He stared at his feet, leaning his head against the wall under the shower head, watching the droplets spatter against his skin and the steel plates of the shower floor.

It had certainly been a frustrating last few hours as they had struggled in vain to patch a marine who had been split stem to stern by a snapping cable. As he thought back, he wondered if there was anything they could have done differently to save Dawson, Le Souef, or Guo.

Le Souef, who had been closest to the Mako's lifeless shell, had been the first to get hit by the wayward cord. The cable had snapped just beyond the Mako's chassis and had whipped across the young man's body, severing his torso, exposing heart and lungs and dousing the deck with dark blood. The cable's end had embedded itself into the bulkhead well away from the rest of the crew.

It was the second cable that had done the most damage. The second cable had snapped in the middle of the bay as the team was still dodging the other swinging cord to get to Le Souef's body. It had flicked outward instead of upward, tripping engineers and personnel, breaking bones, severing appendages, splitting open Dawson's chest. The frayed end had caught Guo at the neck and severed his head just after he had pushed Tali out of the way.

Kaidan had been able to jump over the cord decreasing his mass with his biotics to jump higher, but there hadn't been a damn thing he could have done to stop the cables from snapping to begin with.

Not a damn thing.

It frustrated him to feel so impotent. He'd been standing right there. He gave a sigh.

He'd been helpless to save Jenkins too. All he could do for him was shut the kid's eyes and push on. At least Shepard had been gentle about it.

Shepard.

God.

The look on her face when Dr. Chakwas had told her that they'd not been able to save Dawson broke his heart. It was a fleeting instant before her facade fell into place, but it was still there.

As he soaped up, Kaidan vowed to talk with Shepard just as soon as he got the chance. They were on route to the Vamshi system. Maybe Shepard would—

Williams' sounded like she was dying out there. Whatever the Chief had eaten certainly wasn't agreeing with her. Kaidan decided that, after the Chaplain finished Dawson's Last Rites, he would go back to the infirmary and get something for her.

"Give it Hell, Doll," Joker said, hobbling into the head.

Ash only moaned weakly.

"What'd you eat?" he wanted to know as he stepped closer to the nearest toilet. "Because I'm not eating it."

"Go piss over there," she rasped, gesturing feebly to the urinal. "Don't piss by my head."

Joker snorted. "Yeah. Sure," he said, his voice hard. "Ask the cripple to—" The Chief puked again interrupting Joker's tirade, and he shuffled away from her.

"Yeah, okay," he agreed, "I don't want duck sauce on my dick, so I'll be using the pisser as far away from you as possible."

Kaidan huffed a laugh.

The helmsman shuffled to the urinal closest to the showers. "Quit staring at my ass, Alenko," he commented casually as he struggled to balance his crutches, keep from falling on the unforgiving deck, and unzip his pants.

"Quit eying my dick," Kaidan quipped back as he scrubbed soap over his face.

"But it's so small," Joker whined. "Can't look away."

Kaidan rinsed his face and shook the water out his eyes. Self-consciousness and pride made Kaidan look down and inspect himself. Still the same. Just right.

Joker cackled. "Made you look."

The Lieutenant shut off the shower and toweled dry, refusing the cocky pilot's bait. He wrapped the towel around his waist just as the door became transparent again. Ashley was bent over the sink as he stepped out of the stall. She splashed water on her face, rubbing her eyes.

"You all right, Williams?" he asked, his voice laced with concern. He'd never seen her so pale. Not even when she had been running for her life on Eden Prime.

"Yeah—ah, yes, sir," she answered. "Lost it there a sec."

"What'd you eat?" Joker demanded as he flushed and shuffled over to wash his hands.

Williams shrugged. "Not used to seeing anyone's chest wide open."

The helmsman blinked. "Huh?"

"Dawson," Kaidan stated. He hadn't realized she had been in the infirmary.

She nodded.

At the moment, taps blared over the comm and Williams scurried back to the toilet in a fit of dry heaves. Kaidan joined her at the next one.

Funny. He didn't realize he was sick until then when the day's events finally caught up to him.

sic itur ad astra:

"Thus you shall go to the stars"; Virgil - Aeneid book IX, line 641