Survival Among the Stars

Chapter 7: Field Medicine

Matt hadn't moved from the ground; he whimpered in pain.

I pushed through the other prisoners and knelt beside him. A massive, bloody gash was visible through the gigantic tear in his pants, positioned above the knee. I needed something to staunch the bleeding; my purple over-shirt was fairly clean and didn't serve much of a purpose, so I peeled it off and used it to apply pressure to Matt's wound.

"He was trying to get me sent to where my dad is. He was trying to save me," Matt gasped.

"Makes sense, but you need to quiet down and save your strength," I muttered.

Two alien soldiers approached from the back of the tunnel. The sentries must have signaled to them. One crouched down near me and snorted.

"Great, he ruined this one. He won't be fit for the arena now. Should we have the leg removed and replaced? Or should we just dispose of him altogether?" he asked his companion as if we weren't right there hearing every word.

"He is pretty scrawny," the other solder commented. "He might not be worth the trouble of a prosthetic."

"Or we could do neither of those things and just let me patch him up!" I protested. "He doesn't have to lose his leg. I'm trained to fix this sort of thing."

The crouching soldier looked at me incredulously. "A Galra soldier could never keep a limb this damaged."

"Humans are pretty resilient, and he's basically just a kid, so he'll bounce back well enough to go to a camp," I said. "I just need some sterilized salt water, fresh water, and clean bandages."

The soldier looked at his companion, who nodded. "That's a pretty small investment to save a laborer. We can do that. Move him to the back of the tunnel, and we'll be back."

They left, and the other prisoners helped me move Matt out of the way of the arena's gate. Shouts, roars, and cheers could be heard from inside, so obviously something sickening and 'exciting' was happening with Shiro.

"How bad is it really?" Matt inquired weakly.

"You know, for someone who was never really into biology, Shiro sure did a good job of missing everything important. It's quite literally a mere flesh wound. It's deep, and it'll leave a pretty gnarly scar, but there is no bone or tendon damage that I can see. It's mostly just really messy," I sighed with relief along with Matt.

The soldiers returned with a box of the supplies I had requested: a bottle of clean drinking water, fresh bandages, and some sterile saline water. I set to work, the soldiers and a few prisoners watching intently. The rest watched the match, which was remarkably still going. Matt lay on the ground on his back, his leg elevated in my lap. I ripped the shreds of his pant leg off to prevent them from getting into the wound.

First, I removed all the supplies I had tucked in my unitard. These would be invaluable. I opened a packet of painkillers and handed them and the drinking water to Matt.

"These won't kick in soon enough to help while I'm working, but you'll be glad to have them later," I said. Matt nodded gratefully and swallowed the pills.

"Hold on; where did you get those?" a soldier demanded.

"I held on to them when we were taken; you can punish me later," I answered shortly. "The next thing I'm going to do is rinse the wound with the salt water. It is going to hurt like a mother, but it will prevent infection and further reduce bleeding. Brace yourself."

As I rinsed, Matt grimaced, grunted, and groaned, but when I was done, the wound looked a lot better. I hadn't touched the wound with my hands yet, but I was about to, so I rinsed my hands as well and wiped them with an antiseptic towelette. I used a clean towelette to further sanitize Matt's wound. He screamed for that part.

"Sorry! Normally, I would have been able to numb the area before I did that."

With the wound all clean, it was now time to close it up. Matt was going to need a full row of deep-dermal sutures, so I selected a nylon suture kit; a versatile material for permanent stitching in muscle tissue. I soaked the needle and the nylon in the remaining salt water before starting the stitches. I had gotten through the first deep-dermal when a thunderous roar erupted from the crowd in the arena.

"Unbelievable! The Earthling defeated Myzax!" one of the prisoners near the gate exclaimed. "Many thought it could never be done!"

"Will Shiro be coming back, then?" Matt asked, but a soldier scoffed at the question.

"Certainly not. If a prisoner wins a match, he becomes a full-time gladiator. Your fellow Earthling will be held with the others back at the main fleet."

I kept working on the wound as chants of "Champion! Champion! Champion!" could be heard from the crowd. The gate opened, and sentries entered the tunnel and began lining the other prisoners up.

"The Emperor is satisfied with his entertainment for today. We are to return the prisoners to Commander Sendak's ship," a robotic voice stated. The alien soldiers nodded in acknowledgment.

"We will continue to monitor these two until the healer has finished her work. We will then determine what Commander Sendak wishes for us to do with them," one of the soldiers explained.

The sentries escorted the other prisoners past us as I finished the deep-dermal stitches. I began a second, superficial row. Matt was still wincing, but it seemed the painkillers were working. After a few minutes, I had finished the second row of sutures, so I opened my only packet of antibiotic ointment and rubbed it gently into the gash. I finished by wrapping the leg in the bandages.

"Well, you're all put back together. It won't be pretty, but it will do the job," I said as I wrapped. "And who knows, maybe some girl or guy back home will think it looks super cool someday." Matt looked at me with wide eyes. "Oh, come on, of course I noticed. When we get through all this, you may want to consider coming out. The closet is a nasty place to live, and your dad is one of the most understanding and supportive men I've ever met. There are hardly any homophobes still out there on Earth, and your dad is certainly not one of them."

"You've been in the closet?" Matt asked incredulously.

"I'm a biromantic asexual. My family loves me dearly, but they are pretty old-fashioned, so there are some things I don't think I'll ever be able to share with them. So very few people still have a problem with non-heterosexual people, and I landed in a giant family full of them. I can't tell you what to do, especially about something so personal, but you are almost certainly luckier than me in this way, so you might want to take advantage of that. Just something to think about," I sighed as I finished tying off the bandage. "And you're done! These bandages will need to be kept clean, so remember that."

"That was a touching conversation, but it is now time to go, and neither of you will ever see your home again," a soldier declared as one grabbed each of us and pulled us to our feet. Without even giving me a chance to rinse the blood off my hands, they led us out of the tunnel to whatever fate awaited us.