The Vanguards: Requiem - 9.124

[Cirrsseeto Quez]

Dac



The wounded, burned hull of the Novgorod rested across a massive open tarmac at the edge of the city. Whipping sheets of rain cascaded across her pocked and scored contours, downspouts of water finding their way into the occasional jagged scar of a hull breech. The damage control teams stood under an awning of a nearby hangar bay, seeking refuge from the storm as they waited their turn to tend to the wounded. The medical staff picked the bones first, rushing up the gangplank two at a time, deploying collapsible trauma cots and gurneys and an array of equipment designed to save the ones closest to death's door.

"Dead, move on."

"Low priority, move on."

"This one's too far gone."

Triage was medicine at her most cruel. Weighing a life on a scale, and in an instant moving on. The smell of death in the corridors merged with the stink of ozone.

"Goner."

The doctor looked down at the Cizerack on the cargo bay floor. Leg sheared off at the knee and five kilos of a shard of durasteel armor sticking out his torso just below the ribcage. The field medics had cauterized the most grievous spots, but the color of his lips was enough to tell anyone that blood loss had taken its toll. A weak, shaking hand still clung to the chunk of metal that skewered him, trying to will the strength to remove it.

"Wait."

The second doctor accompanying the triage team hunched down, pulling apart eyelids to shine a pen light in. A glazed eye struggled, focused, and tried to blink.

"Move him to priority."

[Ledo G. Prent]

With the coming and going of medical staff up the gangplanks, it took a bit of artful dodging to get off the bloody ship. Doubly-so when you had to literally lean on someone else's good graces to do it.

Ledo hobbled down the gangplank, his left arm held tight around Sadie's shoulder to prevent him from faceplanting down the steps on account of a bum ankle. But by various unnamed Gods, he hobbled like a man. Slugthrower held by his side, he paused for a moment once they'd gotten far enough out to get wet in the rain. A frown formed on his craggy face as he only-then noticed the extinguished state of the stump of a well-chewed cigar at the corner of his mouth. That's what bothered him. Not the shrapnel in his foot. Not the graze on his ribs. Not the ridiculous patches of red and sensitive scalp on top of his head where some of his hair had once been. No, it was his cigar. A Moff Contressor. His savie, reserved for years in a vacuum tube he kept in his jacket pocket, to be smoked only at the time when he was nigh-certain he was about to pop his clogs. That was the way to die, by Gods!

And he couldn't even remember smoking it, much less when the damn thing went cold on him. Looking like a boy forced to bury a beloved pet, he spit the stump from his mouth, a thin tracer of saliva marking its descent from his chin, past his hastily-made necklace of Ssi-Ruuk teeth, to the gangplank below them.

"Sadie-luv..."

He heaved a sigh.

"Ah fink ah'm gonta take a holiday affa dis."

[Sadie K'Vesh]

"You 'n e'rebody else, ol' man." Jab was lackin' a bit of the usual gusto but Sadie weren't gonna put too much thought into it. Hardly could be blamed given the rough patch they'd all just endured.

Her head still felt like it'd taken the beatin' that was reflected on just 'bout everyone else. Where others had given all they had physically she'd just 'bout run the tap on brainpower and when all was said and done she could see the white flag that was mentally gonna be raised long b'fore it came. Not that the rest of her had gotten out all shiny either, she was sportin' a fair amount of scrapes and bruises and the shoulder that wasn't busy bein' leaned on was out of sorts and was leavin' her other arm hangin' a bit limp at her side. She was downright ready to wave off the first overbearin' medic that came her way, though.. They had bigger things to deal with than a reoccurring pain in the arse shoulder injury that had gone and been bothered when she'd had to pretty much slam herself into some cover at some point durin' it all. Was stupid but damn if jammin' the thing back into its socket on her own wasn't gonna make her feel like she at least wasn't bein' a burden on everybody else given how bad some of them had it. Still hurt like a son of a bitch, though. Aw well, gave the headache somethin' to compete with.

At least she could walk on her own accord. Of all the things in a galaxy she could have been doin' after helpin' blow up some huge ass alien imminent doom machine, helpin' Ledo slog through the rain was bout as far from what she'd gone as pictured as could be. Not that she was surprised he'd survived, damn pirate seemed too stubborn to die.

Once in the hangar she helped him drop onto one of the quickly fillin' cots. "Maybe you'll get lucky an' by th' time they get t' ya all that'll be left is th' bonny nurses who aint got th' stomach f' th' more gruesome acts."

As she was mentally preparin' to take care of her own self Sadie couldn't help but notice among others weavin' in and carryin' stretchers was a figure stridin' into the hangar like he had the weight of the entire verse placed on him and he was gonna crash it on the first sorry sap that tried to talk to him. She wasn't sure of what sort of fallout came from a thing like they'd all gone through, not for someone like him who actually would have to eventually find the time to deal with paperwork, who had to go an' quantify losses and such. Her and Ledo? That was easy, nothin' some downtime in a bar couldn't fix. For Glayde, though? Well, Sadie wasn't even sure where to guess the healin' began.