"Doctor, how is he?"
There was a heavy sigh from the older Turian as he sat down.
"Exhausted due to blood loss, he may succumb to his wounds or shock."
He brought a hand to his forehead, he had seen many a Turian come across his treatment tables, often he could do everything from simple patch-up to in-depth field medicine. But this.
He looked up to his Commanding Officer. She was younger than him, but this incident had unsettled both of them very much to the point where they may well have aged a decade. This one alien, a Human, named Gary Vincent had risked his life to save not only his kind but theirs as well.
All told a lot of lives on both sides owed him a debt that was paid for in blood. He truly was a good man and because of his selfless act, both sides called for a ceasefire in this pointless fight.
That was indeed commendable, but the fact that shook them so much was that he was so good-hearted. This was warfare, having a heart was a liability.
Or so they once believed.
Now everything they knew was thrown into question. Neither Turian could say for sure but it felt as though they had strayed from the more noble traditions of their forebearers and their Spirits.
They had tried to take heart and soul out of warfare only to witness what was perhaps the greatest act of those same virtues personified.
And he was now lying in their treatment center because of them, dying.
Neither knew of the beliefs of their former opponents but they silently agreed on this; the young soldier would meet his ancestor's prideful faces and welcome him among them as a true Spirit of what it meant to be a soldier.
Soldiers were not destroyers, they were protectors of what had been built before, and those who dwelled beside them to build it. If they destroyed all that what was the point?
They were soldiers.
They were protectors.
The Doctor reached into his footlocker and pulled out a silvery bottle. He set aside two field cups that came with the ration kits and poured two servings of Turian whisky. He nudged one over to his CO and waited silently as she took it.
They nodded to each other and knocked back the shot as they asked their ancestors to forgive them for forgetting what it meant to be a servant of the people. A protector, not a destroyer.