Draun station was a moderately sized relay station built on the agricultural world of Renoural in the Rentix star cluster. The site sported one of the best medical sites, spaceport, and city the Galactic Union had to offer. While it was one of the most far out there locations the Galactic Union had, it is considered one of the prime examples of what the Union should be, with aliens of all sizes, shapes, colors, and compositions living and working side by side towards improving each other's lives.
Those who moved out here for the opportunity to see the city and start their lives anew found the location pleasant and inviting. In contrast, the personnel assigned here by the Galactic Union were strong-armed to go to the station. Sent out here as either part of a “wizening experience” to help give them a proper perspective on what the universe could be like or as a commitment so they will be allowed to continue to advance their career.
Harnsis had been sent out as part of the latter, being told by his director at the time that if he did not take the assignment, he could forget about ever being put in charge of a hospital and claiming the coveted position of Director.
Before Draun, Harnsis had spent four standard years working on a cushy assignment on his home world of Thur’atak. Where he was a middle manager for a Trauma Unit at a minor collective high in the mountains, calling where he worked a trauma unit seemed like a joke in retrospect. The most trauma he would see was a young fledgling who needed their broken wing splinted or a panicked first-time mother whose hatchling was having trouble during their first molt.
In comparison, Draun was a rude awakening to what a trauma unit could genuinely be. Each day was a new challenge and experience. He had confronted millions of injuries in the last three standard years, ranging from superficial lacerations that take little more than some hemostatic or glue. On other days, he would tackle far more complex radiation burns that would have him performing surgeries for almost an entire local cycle.
The difficulty of always thinking on your feet was only complicated further by having to constantly refer to deep lexicons of medical journals regarding each species that ended up in the ward's beds.
Before his arrival, Harnsis never knew he could learn on the fly how to remove a necrosed flight bladder from a Rulian’s gut while his triage nurse held a datapad with instructions on how to do so, but he knows that he can now. The challenges he had confronted and overcame had changed him considerably. He was far wiser and far more experienced than he ever thought possible—there was nothing he and the team underneath him could not conquer if given enough time and resources.
Today began like many others since he arrived at Draun. Harnsis woke up, stretched, and ate a simple breakfast of fruit syrup and water. Afterward, he hustled over to the nearby sporting complex to fly laps to push any remnants of sleep away. Luckily, only a few other early morning risers were taking up airspace around the track today. There were no jostling or crass words about him needing to speed up by far faster and younger flyers. He could simply meditate on his morning and coast through the warm summer air. It was wonderful!
Shortly after that, he fluttered his way down the busy streets of Draun City proper, weaving around the other residents as they started their day. The bright twin suns gradually rose over the Horizon, interlocked in their eternal cosmic dance. Their radiance illuminated the thin fog coating the city, giving the streets a brilliant orange glow.
Once Harnsis had made it to the office, he settled into his usual duties of overseeing simple procedures and making diagnosis calls based on the triage nurse's information. He had almost reached the end of the work shift, with little else other than day-in, day-out treatments. A broken bone here, a laceration there—nothing he had to think too much about.
He sank into his plush leather chair and stared at the clock, watching the hands tick ever closer to when he could hand the ward over to his nocturnal counterpart, Dr. Faru’os. The lingering ticking almost hypnotized him, and his mind wandered to imagining the lovely dinner date he and his wife would be out on shortly.
Harnsis nearly fell out of his chair in shock when alert alarms screamed at him, ripping him from his daydreaming. The sudden sirens sent a wave of anxiety through him, causing the bone-like hackles on his shoulders to rise briefly, readying themselves to fight or flee from a non-existent predator.
Alert alert trauma black to treatment room five, ETA now. Alert alert trauma black to treatment room five, ETA now.
A black code was something he had never experienced in his medical career—few ever did. That was simply because a code with black as its precursor meant that the species was unknown to the Galactic Union or was so new to being brought into the fold that it might as well be a complete mystery.
“Well, so much for my dinner plans,” Harnsis chittered to himself as he slammed open his office door and rushed toward the trauma ward.
Ahead of him in the glistening white hall, his triage nurse and the Xenohematologist hurried toward the emergency location. He fluttered his wings faster and quickly closed the gap between them. Harnsis landed next to Nurse Putrik and Varil, taking to running with the two of them. His skittering landing grabbed Nurse Putrik's attention.
“Good afternoon, Doctor. Are you going to tell your wife you will be late? or shall I?” The short, fuzzy alien said jokingly.
Harnsis groaned, thinking about how upset his wife would be about him running late, but he knew she would understand why. After all, she used to work in the medical field, and you never know when an emergency will be tossed into your lap.
“I will deal with that whenever we are done with this code. Thank you for the offer,” Harnsis replied. “On that subject, do you know what has come in?”
Putrik shook her head. “Not yet, Doctor. All we have heard from the on-site nurse is that the subject has a massive hemorrhage.”
“Understood. Varil, as soon as we arrive, start synthesizing as much proxy blood as you can. We still don't know how much the subject can lose,” Harnsis said.
Varil, an extremely old but still level-headed insectoid man, gave him a nod and huff of understanding. Harnsis did not work with the Xenohemotoogist much since arriving at the ward; they could synthesize proxy blood for any known species, but with this being a trauma, black Varil was required to attend. Something that the patient would likely need.
They rounded the corner into the ward and toward trauma room five. Seeing the room's contents made all four of Harnsis’ stomachs churn in his carapace. Three of the nursing staff were sprawled on the ground, seemingly unconscious. Inside the sterile white room between the passed-out staff and the bed, another creature loomed over them.
To Harnsis, its appearance was disgusting. He always had difficulty with aliens that did not have a carapace like he did. He always thought they looked like they had just molted, which was unsettling.
This creature was no different. It had a soft brownish exterior and some form of loose gray covering over its lower appendages. Wrapped around its feet were polished black boots; they looked well-worn but cared for. Two brown forward-facing eyes were nested underneath a small patch of thick black fur atop its head.
In one hand, it gripped a large piece of metal that looked nearly a meter long. The jagged scrap went straight through its torso, and the side bursting out of its back was coated in thick, drying red blood. With its other hand, it gestured frantically at the three staff members on the ground. The sputtering noise it was making reminded Harnsis of some kind of barking.
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
Both Nurse Putrik and Varil fainted on seeing the creature and its horrific injuries. Harnsis also nearly fainted, but Nurse Putrik collapsed halfway onto Harnsis, and the jostling prevented him from losing consciousness with them.
Harnsis took a sharp breath to steel his nerves and straightened out his lab coat before sputtering, “What in the great brood's name happened?”
The creature's head snapped up, and its gaze narrowed on his ID badge. The burning intensity of those predatory eyes cut into Harnsis like daggers digging into his very soul. Every fiber of Harnsis’ being screamed out at him to run away from this thing, especially when its lips parted, and it bared its teeth at him. While it did not have prominent fangs, it still appeared rather aggressive.
Harnsis was about to listen to that little voice of his ancestors roaring at him to escape until the creature spoke. Its voice was soft, calm, and collected.
“Oh, thank god you made it, Doc. I came in and had this thing covered up,” it said, gesturing at the metal impaling it. “Then, when the nurses took my blouse off to see my injury, they fainted.”
Harnsis could sympathize with why the nurses fainted. Nearly every other creature in the galaxy would have died or fallen to shock the moment they had been impaled by something so massive, yet this thing was still awake, talking and making sense. It defied all logic and reason Harnsis had learned in all his years as a medical professional.
A small part of Harnsis that he had long since thought died stirred back to life. That little hatchling deep inside his soul that wanted to learn, that wanted to know every how and why the universe had to offer.
Harnsis held up a shaky hand nervously and spoke to whatever this creature was. “H–h–h–h—how are you alive? Much more, how are you up and speaking?”
It canted its head at him as if he had just asked a silly question. “Oh, never seen impalement before? I won't die for a while if this stays in place. Still hurts like all hell to have it in my gut, though,” the creature said, followed by a small bark that Harnsis assumed to be a sign of amusement. Not that Harnsis saw any reason to be amused by the situation at hand.
“Uh—um I–I–I don't even know where to start with this situation,” Harnsis sputtered in shock.
The creature made that low barking sound again, rested its hand on Harnsis’ shoulder, and bared its teeth at him again. “Don't worry, Doc. Henry Martinez Corpsman Human Navy at your service.”
Human? Harnsis had never heard of that species before, but he would have to deal with that later. For now, the issue of his unconscious staff and helping this Human took priority over feeding his curiosity.
“Human Martinez, you said you will not die if that is left alone for now, correct?” Harnsis clicked
“That's right, Doc, I have a while, maybe an hour, before I start running any large infection risk,” Martinez said proudly.
“Ok, will you sit on the bed while I get the other's help?” Harnsis asked while gesturing to the collapsed staff.
Martinez gave a short salute. “Can do, Doc.”
The Human sat down on the bed without issue, and Harnsis closed the curtain around Martinez, hoping to prevent any more of his staff from collapsing. He then called other workers to remove the collapsed nurses and aid them. After other nurses retrieved their fallen co-workers, Harnsis returned to Martinez.
He sat in a chair beside the Human and looked at the metal protruding from his gut. “OK, with that done, do you have any documents regarding your species' physiology? Or know anyone on your ship's staff who might?”
Martinez rubbed the back of his head and glanced away from Harnsis, making a much lighter version of his earlier sound.
“Well, I kinda am my ship's medical. So I do have the documents for you,” Martinez said, producing a datapad from his garment pocket.
Taking it in his hands, Harnsis began to flip through the pages upon never-ending pages of medical diagrams and drug dosages. He was shocked that half of what the documents outlined would spell certain death for any creature, yet these Humans seemed confident they could survive these treatments.
“Human Martinez, are you certain these are accurate? I'm not trying to insult your species, but it says here you can survive having your legs amputated,” Harnsis clicked nervously.
“Oh yeah, we can. Sergeant Johnson lost his leg a few months back, but we got it stitched back on fast enough. While he isn’t as good as new, he still runs circles around me,” Martinez smiled.
This is astounding, a creature that can survive losing a limb and having it reattached with little loss in usage, Harnsis thought.
These Humans are a medical marvel. Flipping through more pages, Harnsis found the information on their blood and placed an order for synthetic blood on his datapad. He then found the information on how to treat the injury he was looking at.
If what he had read so far was true, he had no reason not to believe what he was reading, even if it seemed barbaric. This treatment seemed more akin to torture than any medicine he had ever practiced. He pushed that thought aside and decided to trust the Human's words about his survivability and placed the orders for the other tools he needed.
“Well, Martinez, give it a few minutes, and the equipment and your blood transfusions should be ready. Then we can begin,” Harnsis clicked.
“Perfect, I want this thing out. I bet the guys back on the ship are worried,” Martinez said, pondering something while scratching his chin.
They sat there for a few minutes until the items arrived, shoved hastily through the doors by one of the other staff members. While Harnsis did not see who it was, the light fluttering of wings told him it was likely Therin. Once Harnsis had placed all the needed items on a table next to Harnsis, he sterilized himself and Martinez with a quick UV treatment.
His first surgery on a Human was the most invigorating and disgusting thing Harnsis had ever done. He simply had to wrench the item out of Martinez, apply far less hemostatic than he thought he would need, and sew the Human up. The ordeal was done rather quickly, only taking him half the local cycle. It was so short he would likely still have time to take his mate out on their date.
The most astounding part was Human Martinez. He sat and happily chatted while Harnsis was stitching up his numbed torso. The two cheerily discussed what happened to lead to the injury, and apparently, it was just an accident that led to Martinez falling a whole story onto this jagged scrap. The fact the Human fell multiple meters yet had no broken bones was another question Harnsis would have to ask Martinez about later.
The experience was surreal from Harnsis’ point of view. By all logic, Human Martinez should not be alive, but here he was, laughing about how he would get payback on the Human who bumped into him and caused him to fall.
After the surgery, Martinez had to stay under observation for the next two local cycles to ensure no complications occurred. During that time, Harnsis stopped each cycle, brought food to the Human, and chatted further with him. The Human’s talks had Harnsis hooked. He needed to learn what he could about Humans; they were so different than anything he had ever seen.
To Harnis’s surprise, none of the nurses who heard about the Humans' injury would enter his room. They were afraid of him and treated him like some monster. It was a shame; many other species were ostracized for various reasons. Harnsis hoped that Humanity would avoid being added to that ever-growing list. At the same time, Harnsis understood why they would not believe him when he tried to explain how polite and gentle Martinez was. It was still shocking to see who he thought to be some of the most accepting people in the Galactic Union refuse even to approach the door.
Eventually, Martinez had to leave and return to his ship. Before he left, the Human stopped off at Harnsis’ office and thanked him for the help and the company while recovering. Harnsis was more than happy to have helped. Doing so was his job, after all. He wished the Human the best of luck and asked if Human Martinez had ever considered separating from the Human Navy. To Harnsis’ surprise, Martinez said he had thought about doing so but had no plans to leave but may still do so.
Following Human Martinez’s departure, Harnsis sent a message to the Galactic Union Hospital Services Director to ensure that the union sent out adequate information about these Humans. He also attached to his memo a request to have Human Martinez transferred from Naval service to the station to help train his staff regarding his species integration and their treatment.