My head is pounding. I groaned, and started to wonder what would have made my head hurt so badly. Breathing in slowly, I realized the ground beneath me was cold, wait, that isn't right. My bed is supposed to be warm. I opened my eyes slowly, trying to ignore my growing headache. Looking around everything started to come back to me.
I wasn't at home, still on the Arc locked in the skybox resting in bed. No, I was somewhere far worse. I was on the ground. I put my hands flat on the stone floor and pushed myself into a sitting position. Glancing around, the room we were in now was small, but gave our group enough space to sit comfortably. Though, by the look of everyone's faces, no one was really comfortable here.
"Where are we?" I wondered quietly to myself.
"Earth, or did they hit you hard enough to make you forget that already that kid?" a voice grumbled from my right. It was the engineer again.
"My name's not kid," I muttered back, it was the only cohesive response I could come up with. "It's Cole."
"Whatever, how's the head kid?" he shot back.
I groaned as I gently touched the back of my head where the pain was centralizing from. No blood came back on my hand, and besides a small knot everything felt fine.
"Could be worse," I responded. "Where'd they take us too?"
He shrugged before responding, "Some type of underground bunker, though some of the guards and the medic boy from earlier aren't with us anymore."
Lucas, my mind registered. That's right, they had called for a healer and he stepped up.
"What do you think they needed them for? Do you think they're alright?"
Again he just shrugged, "How would I know?"
How helpful and reassuring I thought. I was about to tell him just that when the sound of a lock turning caught my ears. The quiet mumbling of others talking quickly died down as everyone's attention turned to the door.
It was the woman from earlier, who had grabbed the spear, flanked by two warriors still sporting their masks and weapons. The woman scanned the group, her eyes stopping on me. I gulped. She pointed at me and said something quietly to one of the guards next to her, causing him to move in my direction. Those who were sitting in front of me quickly scattered and moved out his path, the thought irritated me for a moment before I realized there was nothing they could do to help me anyways. We had no weapons, none of us sitting in this room were fighters. We were outmatched and at their mercy.
He stopped a foot short of my spot on the floor and glared down at me. He barked an order at me, but it wasn't in English so I couldn't understand. Angry that I didn't respond he said his command again, this time taking a step forward. I looked up at him, shaking my head slightly.
"I don't understand what you're saying."
Growling he bent down to grab my shoulder roughly. His gloves had nails coming up from where his knuckles would be and as he jerked me to my feet one of them ran across my cheek. I hissed in pain as I struggled to stand for the first time since waking up and grab my now bleeding face. What an ass.
"Cole?" asked the warrior woman, who was still standing by the door expectantly. My name sounded almost foreign when she said it, but still I glanced up, still holding my cheek and nodded. How did she know my name? Most of my own group didn't know my name yet.
"Good, come," she said as she turned out the door. The man nearest me pushed me in front of him. They were real stingy with their use of English I thought, could have just asked nicely the first time. Though as I studied the ensemble of the guard in front of me with his belt made of bones and jacket covered in spikes, I realized doing things nicely probably wasn't high on their to do list.
I was lead outside, and followed closely as we weaved our way through trees. They moved quickly and quietly, obviously comfortable out in the forest, but the setting sun and muddy ground made it harder for me to keep up. Anytime I began to lag, or they thought I wasn't moving fast enough the man behind me was quick to give me a strong shove forward.
How nice of him, I thought sarcastically as I struggled to regain my footing. Because the pushing and shoving makes it so much easier to keep up.
It wasn't long until we reached a group of buildings, with a fire roaring in the center. I was led into one of the buildings and again pushed through a doorway before we came to a stop. Makeshift cots lined the walls, some holding bodies, others empty and ready for use.
"Cole, thank God," sighed Lucas, who I had just noticed was crouched near one of the cots. He kept glancing back and forth between our captors and myself nervously. "I, uh, need your expertise." he said.
"This is your healer, yes?" The woman from before asked suddenly. Lucas nodded in response.
"Let's hope she's better at it than you."
Turning to me she looked at me critically.
"These are our injured. They are hurt because of you," she explained coldy. "Our healer is amongst the injured, you will heal them or you and your people will die."
With no other explanation she left, the two men who had lead me here trailing after her. I turned slowly back to Lucas who, if possible, looked even more scared than before.
"Are you okay?" he asked. I just nodded in response, my pounding headache and scratched cheek no longer at the top of my priorities. Looking around the room there were roughly 12 people laid out on the cots, each in various degrees of alertness and pain.
"What's wrong with them?" I asked, causing Lucas to sigh.
"It seems that when we landed, we landed right in the middle of one of their villages," he explained. "Some of them have shrapnel from the ship breaking down embedded in their skin, others have third degree burns - all of them are in pretty rough shape. I have been able to treat some of them more minor injuries with what supplies they gave me, but Cole, its primitive. Vials of herbs and ground up juices - most of which I can't even recognize."
He paused and motioned to the table in the center of the room. I moved closer to see what he was talking about. Scattered across the table were leather pouches of corked glass vials each with different plants and liquids in them. The knives were handmade and some even looked rusted from use, I grimaced at the thought.
"These three are the worst," he explained, motioning to the three cots closest to where he was standing. "This one, from what I can tell, was their healer before, and these two are important to them, but I'm not sure how."
I nodded in response, and moved closer to Lucas.
"This one," Lucas continued, pointing to the man he identified as the healer before. "Has third degree burns across his body, but I can't find any ointment to treat him. The other two have shrapnel buried deep in their bodies and I'm not sure how to go about getting it out without any anesthetic or sterile tools."
This isn't good, I thought to myself. Without the proper medicines and tools, it was a very real possibility that they would die. And if they die, then we all die. I gulped at the thought.
"Cole, I know this is overwhelming, but can you say something," Lucas asked, practically begging me.
"Sorry," I said. "This is all kind of overwhelming"
"Tell me about it," he said. "So do you have any ideas? Any possibly life saving ideas?"
I just looked up at him and shook my head.
"Without sterile equipment and medicine, I'm not sure what we can do for them," I admitted. "Without a burn ointment his wounds will get infected, and we can't even start to operate on the other two without actual medical tools. None of this stuff they left will work."
He nodded in agreement, "I know, but we have to figure out something Cole. You heard them, they'll kill us if we can't save them. I am at a loss about what to do to, I was hoping that you could help come up with something, seeing as this is kind of your field."
"What?" I balked. "Shrapnel, third degree burns and archaic medicinal practices are definitely not my area of study."
"That's not what I meant," he explained quickly. "It's just that back on the Arc I only handled generic medical problems, like kids getting the flu or cleaning up small bumps and scrapes. You, well, you and Dr. Griffin handled more severe trauma cases - I know for a fact she let you complete one of the surgeries for the guard even though you're still just an apprentice."
"Doing a surgery with an AI to walk you through step by step is different from, well, this," I huffed back. He did have a point though, between the two of us I was trained better to handle traumatic wounds, but even with training we still lacked supplies.
If only we had a medical kit - wait! That's it. The med kits from the ship. They wouldn't be the same as having a fully stocked operating room, but it would be a start.
"Do you still have your backpack," I asked Lucas, excitement in my voice leaking through. He looked at me slightly confused.
"No, they took it from me," he responded slowly, not seeing where I was going with this yet.
"Well we need to get them back," I said. "I had three med kits in mine, I didn't get a chance to go through them, but I'm betting there is at least a sterilizing kit and a scalpel in there!"
He nodded, "Yeah, that would help. But how do you suppose we get them, just walk out into the camp full of warriors who are just waiting to kill us and ask nicely?
I thought about it for a second before tilting my head to the side and smiling, "Yeah, why not."
Lucas just stared at me like I had suggested we take a recreational space walk.
Turning and heading towards the door, I turned before disappearing and called back, "What are they going to do? Float me?"