Everything was dark. It was night, though the light from a pair of distant moons still reached the surface of whatever planet we were on. Some of it streamed through a few broken panes of glass overhead. It certainly wasn’t enough.

Our self-proclaimed offensive team jumped down from the container quickly and scouted the warehouse. The defense—me, Carrie, rifle guy, and Carl with a pistol—stayed back to figure out a place we could defend.

“Based on the pictures, the shipping dock is straight across that way,” I said, pointing forward. “They’d be pretty blunt to just walk across and attack head on, so I bet they come from everywhere except the front.”

“I need to find something I can hack,” Carrie said, darting off into the darkness. Clearly, our team lacked any kind of cohesive tactics or plan.

Rifle guy was next. “I’ll get to the roof. Gotta be good sightlines up there.”

That left me and Carl. Great.

“You ever shoot a gun before?” I asked. Based on his overall fidgetiness, I was guessing he hadn’t. It turned out I was right.

Carl shook his head. “I’ve only been here three days. I was a chemist on Earth. I lived in California. No guns.” He shrugged. “I just want to meet some more aliens. Have you talked to any of them? They’re incredibly fascinating. Did you know that there are six hundred seventy three known inhabited planets just in our galaxy? That’s not much in the grand scheme of things, but on Earth we only knew about a single one!”

“No, Carl, I didn’t know that. Thank you for sharing with the class,” I whispered. “You might want to keep your voice down.” Under my breath I called him a nerd.

We were still crouching against the side of the shipping container, and that felt like a bad place. All the eggs were in the same basket.

Looking around the warehouse, there were a bunch of places we could actually hide. The room was big, probably a hundred yards on each side, and maybe seventy percent full with shipping containers. Luckily, none of the containers were in any kind of organized pattern, so there were tons of places to hide.

“Come on, California Carl, let’s find a place to not get shot.” I grabbed him by the arm and led him through a veritable maze of shipping containers until we found a nook with only one entrance. I ducked down into the hole, and Carl did the same.

“Now what?” he asked.

“Like I said, we stay here and don’t get shot.”

Up above on the roof, I saw a shadow pass over a patch of dusty glass, and I assumed Rifle Guy had found a perch. Not a second later, gunfire erupted, and my suspicion was confirmed. Rifle Guy was already in a fire fight. I didn’t exactly count them, but he must have fired thirty shots in the span of two minutes based on the flashes of light and booms from his muzzle. From our hiding spot among the containers, we had no clue if he was getting any hits.

Then a louder, much louder explosion rattled the entire warehouse, and Rifle Guy crashed through the ceiling in a hail of broken glass.

“Shit! He got hit!” I growled, trying to keep my voice low. “Come on. I have to heal him.”

I scrambled through the sea of containers basically right back to where we started at the marked container.

Rifle Guy was in bad shape. He fell maybe twenty feet from the ceiling and hit the side of a container on the way down.

“Can you heal him?” Carl asked, staying a few feet back and clearly unnerved by the blood.

“He has a broken arm, probably some broken ribs, and that cut on his head could be fatal,” I explained. “Wait, I have an ability for this!” I thought of Identify Injury Rank 1, and my aether ticked down to 49/100.

Rifle Guy’s injuries were all highlighted in my vision. “Ok, I have some text. He… oh, come on. All it says is he has a broken arm and a cut on his head. Fucking useless. I’m not blind.”

I unzipped the medical pouch and quickly found some gauze, a syringe labeled as pain killer, and an inflatable splint. Rifle Guy’s namesake rifle was under his body, and I tried to move it, but my hand wouldn’t grasp the handle. I could only touch it by the barrel, but at least I could move it.

“Help me set his arm,” I instructed Carl. I’d never set an arm before, but I had seen it done a couple times in class. In theory, it should have been fairly straightforward.

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Carl reluctantly held Rifle Guy’s hand and pulled while I pressed down on the bones to force them into what I figured looked like the correct shape.

If we were hidden at all before, we weren’t any more. Rifle Guy screamed. He really gave it all he had, too. Every ounce of air in his lungs came hurtling out like a tornado siren. Then he gasped a few times and did it again.

“Shhh,” I scolded, but it was no use. I fumbled with the syringe, tore off the cap, and slammed it into the meat of his thigh. I didn’t know how much of a dose to give, but I had three more syringes, so I just let him take the whole thing.

Next came the splint. That, at least, was easy to operate. I wrapped it around his arm, hit a button, and it automatically inflated into a sturdy aircast.

“Shit, I got two experience points for that. Nice!” In semi-transparent text, I saw my stats flash in my vision and the experience added to my total. “I must have set it correctly. That was actually pretty cool.”

I pulled the gauze from its disposable packaging and just wrapped it as tightly as I could around his head. It wasn’t the best laceration repair, but it struck me as good enough. Plus I didn’t know how to stitch a cut. If anything like that happened at Sunnyside Manor, and it actually happened all the time, the nurses on duty handled all the real medical care. I just cleaned up the blood with a mop and a bucket. The sewing kit inside my medical pack would have to wait.

More gunfire sounded from outside the warehouse, basically coming from all directions. “Help me move him. I don’t want to be so close to the special container.” Carl took Rifle Guy’s feet, and I grabbed his torso. It wasn’t easy, but we managed to drag Rifle Guy a few containers away to hopefully keep him safe from the real action.

To everyone’s surprise, Rifle Guy started coming around. Over the course of a minute, his yelling died down, he got a little groggy and sleepy, and then he snapped awake. It was like watching someone go through an entire hospital recovery course that should have lasted hours in just the span of a hundred or so seconds. Whatever the meds in the syringe were, they worked like a charm.

“You alright?” I asked.

Rifle Guy took a minute to answer. “Yeah, just hurts. Health is down to fifty-five. Ugh.”

“Better than zero,” I told him. Still handling the weapon by the barrel like a moron, I slapped his gun back in his hands. “Get back out there. Oh, and you probably have some broken ribs, but nothing I can do about that. So good luck. Have fun.”

Rifle Guy took another few moments to steady himself before getting to his feet and running off to play soldier again.

“Man, that was awesome. Could you imagine that kind of technology on Earth?” Carl was clearly amazed. He just kept staring at me like he witnessed a miracle. If he wasn’t such a nerd, I’d say he was starstruck.

“Close your mouth, Mister Never Shot a Gun, and let’s figure out a plan.”

Before I could say anything else, a huge overhead spotlight ignited, and Carrie’s voice pierced the darkness. “Got one coming from the south!” she called.

I didn’t know which direction was south, but I could follow the beam of light well enough. Whoever was coming was close. “Shit. Better figure out that pistol quick. Come on, up here.” I manhandled Carl to get him climbing up a container. Whatever he lacked in weapons skill he certainly did not make up for in athleticism.

Eventually, we reached the top of a container. Carrie’s light was only a few containers over. I held up a finger to my mouth, the universal sign for ‘be absolutely quiet or we’ll both get murdered.’

Moving quickly, the attacker came running around a corner with a glowing energy sword leading the way.

For some reason, Carl didn’t take the shot. We had a perfect angle, and he didn’t shoot. “Shoot! What the fuck are you waiting for?” I screamed through gritted teeth.

Carl fumbled with his pistol, and the thing clattered from his hands.

“Shit.”

The guy with the sword saw us and charged. There was nothing we could do. In a few steps, he would eviscerate both of us. Then another gunshot split the air, and the sword wielder dropped like a sack of potatoes. From a container top across the warehouse, I saw Rifle Guy flash me a thumbs up.

“You’re fucking useless, Carl. Go get your gun. Lord knows I can’t even pick it up.” I punched him in the ribs, and he dropped down to collect his weapon.

Out of curiosity, I used my ability on the dead sword guy. A bit of text flashed in my vision.

Fatal gunshot wound to the back.

The detail provided by my ability was truly astounding. I was just about to help Carl back on top of the container when another sound caught my attention from behind me. I whirled around, staying low and trying not to make any noise. Two people were approaching at rapid speed, jumping from the top of one container to the next. One of them was the other team’s Medic with a syringe gun.

“Shit, shit, shit. We have to run.” I jumped down from the container and sprinted. From wherever she was either on the roof or near it, Carrie screamed. She had her spotlight trained on the Medic, but the big marked container was still blocking Rifle Guy’s view. Either that, or Rifle Guy was already dead and we just didn’t know. Regardless, no well-placed shot came flying in to save the day.

Quite the opposite, a salvo of bullets rained down all around me, slamming into the containers and the concrete floor. By some miracle, I didn’t get hit, but it didn’t really matter.

The big Medic was on top of us in no time. He grabbed Carl’s leg and swung him into a container, leaving a dent in the corrugated metal and Carl’s brains splattered all over the ground. “Holy shit!” I screamed, running faster than I ever had in my life.

It was no use. The Medic was ripped. He could outrun a horse, and I was nowhere near a horse. His fist slammed into my back, and I went flying. He was on top of me before I could move or even think, and then his syringe stabbed me in the guts. An icy cold sensation washed over my entire body.

All I heard as my vision went black was the big Medic’s sinister laugh.