Shane was 100% right about my usefulness as a nurse.

At first I argued with him–the medbays here are autonomous, there's no actual medical work for me to do.

He convinced me though.

"People need advice and support when they're sick. You can provide that. You can schedule stuff so that beds stay available for emergencies. And we shouldn't just let any layman operate the medbay. What if they mess something up? Break something or waste limited supplies?" He rubbed my upper arms encouragingly, "I'm not saying you have to work as a nurse. You don't. But if you really want to stay busy and contribute or whatever, you can."

The next day I took Shane’s lecture to heart, and I recruited Rick and commandeered an electric cart for us to ride around to each medbay on the station and do an inventory. We made sure everything was ready and operational for when the shuttle and then the refugee barge arrived. Then the next day I sent everyone on board, all ten people, a message letting them know that I was a nurse available for medical consultation. When the Hillco board arrived, I introduced myself as a nurse and helped two elderly Hill relatives with a physical exam and a prescription refill.

Nobody questioned it. Everybody seemed totally okay with me taking over the medbay operation. Even though they all knew who I was and my history with SynDeCorp and Shane. I was tense, waiting for the other shoe to drop, for someone to make a comment or something. Nobody did though and after thinking about it, the board is at least three levels up in management from the engineering department. It’s possible that what happened just isn’t important to them. Right now, I’m useful to them as a nurse so they aren’t even worried about who I am and why I’m here.

It made me feel secure and confident. I'm not just ‘Shane's Cyborg Wife’ or whatever. I have a purpose here. And it's a good thing I stepped up, too, otherwise that refugee situation would have been a total cluster-fuck. There would have been a riot or something when the barge arrived with thousands of refugees. Everybody would have been trying to use the medbays at once. At least I prevented that. I even managed to recruit all the snooty rich people who had arrived previously to help organize the refugees today. And it went off without a hitch.

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

Well, maybe there were a few hitches. But everyone is settled in now, no rioting necessary.

I triaged all the refugees from the barge–thousands of them. Most of them were sick and malnourished. They didn't have enough food to make it here, just as Rick predicted. This led to rioting, violence and at least one incident of cannibalism on the trip over. More than three hundred people had died, that we know of. And it's miracle it was so few.

There are ten medbays on this station with fifteen beds each, and all of them are automated. I didn't need to treat anybody, thank god, but I did need to organize them according to severity so that the people who needed it most got treatment first. I was sorting through all these people as fast as I could and handing them off to others helping to direct them. All of them needed treatment. Every single one would benefit from intravenous fluids at the least. But a few needed immediate, life-saving attention. One had died in spite of our efforts.

After hours and hours of sifting through people assessing them and assigning care, I am beat.

As Rick and I pass a few people in the corridor, acknowledging them with nods or waves, I'm still amazed that there are people here. So many people that there's traffic in the corridor late at night. It's a marvel.

Rick holds my hand and leads me home and whenever he looks at me it’s with such adoration, I can’t help but smile at him. When the board first arrived here, Shane took the initiative to introduce me and Rick as ‘my wife, Honey and our husband, Rick’. I was shocked, but Rick was so pleased. His smile was beatific as he shook everyone’s hand then he looked at me and that smile dimmed just a bit, so I quickly started shaking hands and making small talk. I assured him afterward that, of course I’m on board with him being our husband, I was just surprised. Of course he’s an equal partner in our three-way relationship, he is just as much my husband as Shane is.

We debated for a while whether we needed a ceremony to make it official, but that seemed silly. Who would we invite? Why?

It just feels surreal.

This is really my life. Here on this space-station, working in the medbay, both Rick and Shane are mine. It couldn’t be any more perfect.