Z
Zack
ON> Main Hospital, Osman City Ragna-City
Josward tried to keep up the pace as best he could... but he was only human, and only about half the size of Rip, which meant that even at a brisk walk it would feel like he was taking his time,
"So what's it like out there?" He asked, "I suppose I've heard a little about who is out there... but not a whole lot about where you guys come from. Does everyone fly about in those fancy armors?"
"No, these are military issue mostly, a lot of people just walk on their own two feet or use specialized vehicles to move about, you can carry more stuff with them more easily, and our infrastructure is set up for it. Powered Armor is when you need a lot of versatility or armaments as well. I can tell you a bit more about where I'm from if you like over drinks," he said as they walked to the hospital.
It wouldn't be long before the hospital would come into view either. The stench of death was certainly upon it, there were wagons being loaded with the dead outside of the structure, a building only about a floor taller than everything else around it, made of a heavily rusted metal that was covered by wooden planks. The walls all seemed to slope inward slightly, making the entire structure look a bit like the bottom of an unfinished pyramid. There were additional bodies outside of the door which had been propped open with a heavy rock, and he could see right through the structure out to the other side, a long hallway leading all the way to an exit on the other side.
Rip sighed, and began to activate the protocols to slip out of the powered armor he was in, the chassis and various functions unfolding around him, and letting all 9 feet of him out. He raised his mechanical arm up to his neck and twisted a crick out of it, before reaching for the medical kit on the side and pulling it free. Pulling open his datajockey, he called to Uso, "Uso, I've got the basic supplies to do Triage, but please see to it that the rest of my medical supplies are dropped off at my current location, preferably outside. I've got my power armor on lock down just outside and looking all menacing, so I doubt anybody will try anything. Just tell me when it arrives, though I'll probably hear it." He slipped the Datajockey back into one pocket and turned back to Josward, "Do you know who is in charge here? I need to speak with them before I just charge in and begin my work. I don't want to cause issues."
"This sounds like something Cyrus should be doing... CYRUS!!! CYRU..." Uso's transmission cut out as she yelled for her Ragna-wrangler to deal witht he medical issue. Meanwhile Josward would be waiting patiently for Rip to get out of his armor.
"That arm," He asked, as he looked around. "Is it like your armor?" The hospital itself seemed to have a few nurses running around, but there didn't seem to be anyone that looked doctor-like. "... as for who is in charge... uh.... I guess I will need to ask... Maybe wait here a moment?"
He would hurry off, chasing down one of the nurses carrying a soldier that was missing a leg... and after a few brief moments talking he'd run on back.
"So, it looks like the doctor in charge ended up exploded during the fires in the city. Everyone sorta has their jobs but there isn't anyone running the place..."
Rip pinched the bridge his nose, "alright then, bring me to the most senior member of the staff, I'll start working with them," he was already moving as he said this, he pulled out his datajockey, the one with the library of treatments, and pulled a line from his arm's medical module, plugging the hardline connection directly into the datajockey as he passed by still living patients. The AI within would begin taking the information provided by his eyes, cataloging patients, gaining information on them from visuals, cataloging it steadily, each patient receiving an AR designation in Rip's sight and coloring and prioritizing them based upon standard triage. "As for my arm, no, it's not armor. I lost it in a car accident. Funny really, I've been nearly blown to hell god knows how many times and I actually lose everything below my left elbow because some jackass wasn't paying attention to the road." he stretched it, turning to look at Josward, "I had the boss ship a few hundred much lower grade prosthesis, things that'll help people get back to their lives with a little rehab, once we've gotten people STABILIZED here, I'll be not only helping install these on people who want them, but teaching your own medics and doctors and nurses to preform the same surgery over time."
"So... Are they going to be able to do that too?" He asked, pointing to the cables and the data jockey. "And uh... excuse me for a moment."
Josward would make his way around the hospital, rounding up a few of the people working there, a mix of two male and three female nurses showing up with him once he had finished the rounds,
"These are the most senior staff... and they have asked me to inform you that while the respect your authority... they uh... are quite busy..."
"I understand," he nodded to them, "I won't keep you long, but I wanted to know where your worst cases were? The ones you might normally write off? I don't mean those who won't survive unless you could entirely replace the missing organ, but if they're missing a limb, or just have grievous infection or similar, those people I can get to helping immediately. I'm having advanced medicinal supplies delivered presently, I'm going to be using them, and I'm going to be teaching you how to use them as we go. That's all we need to talk about right now." As he said this, he rolled up his sleeves to beyond both massive elbows, and then looked to the senior staff. He wanted to ease into this, he wanted to see their own medical proficiency and how well they could tirage patients when given the parameters he set. This would let him know the limits of their own medical knowledge, their own experience, and a wealth of other information. "Now, let's get down to work. Lead the way."
Those in front of Rip were just looking up at him, half exhausted, half stunned at dealing with a human nearly twice their height,
"Well... We have a few nasty gut-shots." One of them said, the nurse turning towards the outdoor areas. "Come this way..."
It wasn't hard to find the worst cases, most had been written off and left outside, a series of soldiers in blue and grey that had gut-shot injuries. The battle had been a while ago... and these men had been dieing slowly for weeks... much of their stomachs having turned green with rot, but not quite having died yet. Most had already passed out, many would not be waking up again.
Rip sighed, this was bad, but not as bad as it could be, his eyes flickered once as they went into scanning modes, and he started to triage cases. A good half of them, any who had gone entirely septic, were entirely lost. He thanked the foresight of asking Uso for additional medical supplies and bringing along the additional basic painkillers. Their internal organs would need to be replaced, all he could do is make their going more painless, in those cases of those who had not already passed out. To those who had not, he administers a dosage of Klempsomorphirine, dulling the pain for them, and leaving them in their daze. To the next series, those who required the least work, he first injected Klempsomorphirine from his neplesilian medical kit, his arm ratcheting open with the injector and then pumping the drug into their vein precisely over the affected area, then next came out the laser scalpel, cutting into them and beginning to cut away the small areas of effected tissue, cleansing away the small areas of tissue that had gone septic, or sealing blood vessels in preparation for what came next.
Next he pulled the NAM NCS Hypolathe out of his medical kit, and began tissue reconstruction of the damaged internal organs, focusing around getting them serviceable and to the point where they would heal themselves, conserving the nanites inside of the Hypolathe as much as possible, before returning to usage of his laser scalpel, or to the suturing tools installed in his arm, to cleanly seal closed the wound. Within minutes he had finished with the first case, and began moving onto the second, then third, and so on. Losing track of time as he went from case to case, occasionally asking for supplies they had locally, describing the effects he needed, and inquiring about application and side effects from whoever was around to ask.
For those soldiers who upon opening up found the damage worse than it had been apparent to his cyber-eyes, he did his best to ease them on, or reordered them. He went from those who needed immediate attention, and could be healed the fastest, to those who needed immediate attention and would take the longest amount of time. Then to those who were in less severe condition, and so on and so forth, repairing their damage, getting fluids down them, using Droksin on a few who were suffering from blood loss, though he had only four such auto injectors until the medical supplies were delivered.
The work got progressively messier, and he had them bring him water, boiled, as often as possible, both to clean his own hands and instruments, often dipping his hands directly into the still nearly boiling water and scrubbing them before having them pour the stuff out, making it clear the blood dirtied water was to be poured away from wherever it might be in danger of leaking into drinking water supplies, and continuing his work. An observer might note that the tools in his arm seemed to never stay bloody for long, but instead any blood or fluids on them inevitable 'evaporated' mysteriously, as if the arm itself was simply being cleaning the tools with tiny invisible hands. In truth it was the nanetic cleaning system within the tools that kept them free of foreign, especially organic, matter when not in direct use such as during an injection.
The nurses at the hospital didn't seem to question what Rip was up to, they certainly hadn't seen tools like what he had available... and the surgeries that he was preforming were far more invasive than what they had expected. Of course, they were also too busy to watch him for long but there always seemed to be at least two ore three people who managed to find time from the rounds to observe what Rip was doing. They didn't speak to him much either, though as they watched the results of his first few surgeries, the towels and the water would start coming to him faster and more efficiently. A silent understanding forming between those that were at this hospital, and the new comer from the stars.
Then a loud rumble would fill the entire building, the Queen's slave moving to over over the area as the pilot looked for a spot.
"HEY! Doctor Hardbody!"
Ivory was using the all hands channel to get ahold of him. Uso's personal medical officer... though she hadn't yet gone outside of the ships aside from a few ventures with Ragnarok people closely watching her,
"There doesn't seem to be a place where we can set down without crushing something... and I don't want to just drop this stuff from here. I can get your gear to the rear loading door and have it ready for you to fly down... I think the pilot can get us just a few meters up from the ground so it shouldn't be that bad."
Rip turned his attention away from his latest patient, sewing up the last few sutures and cleaning the outside of the wound, he turned to those who had been helping him, finishing off an explanation of the necessary post-surgery treatment, "He'll wake up in a lot of pain, we don't have the painkillers necessary, yet, and what we do have will need to be rationed for the moment. If he wasn't already completely passed out from the pain, what little pain killers I had wouldn't have been effective. We can begin moving onto other folks now," he started walking, talking to both sets of people, "I need as much room as you can get under a guard and cleared, your own medical storage rooms preferably, you have them right? I doubt you put anyone in them given the nature of such rooms, but I'll be helping bring down supplies, I'll tell you what the nature of them is, and I need you to work with me to store them," he continued as he walked through the hospital back to his armor, beginning to patch into it and looking for the shuttle that was bringing the supplies in. "This stuff is valuable, as I'm sure you can guess, but without the know how to use them, they'll just get a lot of people hurt if they're stolen, so it's necessary that you keep them under guard wherever you put them." he nods to them, taking off, having been talking into the radio as well to Ivory.
"Sounds like a good, moving to begin moving stuff down, already started some good will building exercises just healing those who could be with gut wounds. Might be able to save a few more with these now."
"Sorry... I would be down there but...." Ivory motioned towards one of the Ragna-guards standing near her, "We're running short on power armors thanks to the incident with Ace, and Uso has forbid me from leaving the ship without one... How is it going down there?"
The guard that was watching Ivory move the crates of materials towards the back area of the ship for unloading was keeping his eyes on her intently. Uso had threatened him with a very punchy death if Ivory got hurt, so he was focusing on his job.
Meanwhile the workers inside the hospital were doing their best to free up some spare room. Just about everywhere was filled with injured still, though Rip's activities had cleared a few spaces here and there. The nurses setting out to the task of consolidating people out of one of the rooms to make space.
"Slow, but we're getting things done. I don't think you have much to worry about in terms of coming down without power armor," he said as he continued the unloading process. "Things down here are bad, I mean, there's going to be a lot of maimed folks, I'm glad I asked for so many prefabbed prosthetic limbs, a lot of these people will be in trouble. I think I can save almost all of the remaining folks with gut-shot wounds though, we'll begin moving onto other stuff as well." He continued to unload as he went to the last set of stuff, this one he'd chosen to be last for a very specific reason.
He gathered up the nurses at this point, offering up the first of the hyposyringes, a small pen sized device, each loaded with a single shot of a general antibiotic and system purifier nanosystem. "This is an antibiotic, I don't know if you've invented this yet, and I apologize if I'm condescending, but we don't have time for me to play 20 questions with you folks." He said, "Each patient in the hospital gets ONE of these. Apply them to the major artery in the arm, or the leg if they are missing that, failing either, then the neck." He looked around, "Please, be very careful not to apply multiple such devices to the same person. This will clear out bacterial infections in them, but then their own bodies will attack the antibiotic and clear it out before it can damage the benign bacteria inside of their bodies. This is not a guarantee against them getting sick or infected from their wounds, and once applied, they still need to have their bandages cleaned and changed regularly. Part of the supplies you brought in are going to be anti-bacterial material forged surgery tools, wound dressing, and similar. They don't let microbial life, that is to say, bacteria and germs, live on them, so they're much easier to keep clean. We'll start distributing those shortly, but first start getting these out to the patients, we can probably head off the worst cases of infection and disease right now if we get to work immediately."
What he had just described would have been a miracle cure all in a similar time period of other planets. Antibiotics were not a common thing at this level of technology most of the time, and bacterial infection, as opposed to viral infection, was always far worse of a risk on alien planets. Making full spectrum antibiotics that gave the bacteria almost no chance to adapt to them had been essential to the expansion of humanity across the stars. Viral infections that were cross colony were important too, but viral diseases had been almost entirely eradicated in many places, and decontamination routines on this sort of trip were stringent and harsh. No point in making first contact if you were going to wipe out 90% of the population in a pandemic you brought along.
"Not a chance. Uso said she'd literally kill us if we let her go out without a power armor." The guard said that was watching her, "... I think she'll do it to."
Ivory huffed, "I can't play doctor from up here though..."
"That... really isn't my problem." The guard replied sternly.
The nurses would do as instructed, taking the injectors and then splitting the hospital up among themselves to determine just how they were all going to inject everyone.
"Tell Uso that I'll take full responsibility for it. She wants to kill somebody, she can try to kill me if Ms. Ivory has so much as a hair misplaced on her head. I need the assistance down here from someone who can help teach the use of this equipment." He said it as he helped haul two entire creates under each massive arm into the building, ducking down low and moving with exacting care and precision. He then took the most senior looking nurse, and began working with them on which bits of surgery equipment they were most familiar with, focusing on the nonmechanical or advanced stuff for the moment.
"Now I know things have to move fast, but it's critical you clean off the instruments after you finish up on one patient, it's best of all if you clean them up before moving to different WOUNDS on the same patient. What is infecting one wound, may not yet have infected a different one, and again, stop me if you know these protocols already, I'm just moving fast. This stuff will keep itself clean of bacteria and infection, but that won't help the patient if you don't clean off fluids and grime from the tools themselves after each use." He was starting them off on tools they knew and understood, that would give them an immediate return on effectiveness. Scalpels and saws that didn't lose their edge, and we far lighter and easier to use, and other anti-bacterial medical devices. "We focus on saving as many lives as we can NOW, when we've gotten people out of the worst of this, we'll start on distributing training materials and doing exams on using the more advanced stuff."
He looks closely at the senior nurse. "Excuse me, I just realized... in all the excitement, I never got your name,"
The nurse looked up at the doctor for a moment, staying still quite a while before answering,
"I suppose we have to deal with you at some point..." She admitted, having the rest of the nurses head back out into the hospital, "I'm Serza. I have been a nurse here for nearly four years, and I think we're all just as afraid as anyone that we're going to get blown up by you space-men, 'cept we have a lot of injured and dieing people here that we have to take care of, so we can't exactly hide in our homes and hope that this all blows over.
I think we were all expecting you to start cutting people up or making monsters like in the stories of monster from beyond... but. It seems like what you are doing his helping, and if you say that these injections will help, then perhaps we should trust you a bit.
I am sure you space-men do this all the time, but it is our first encounter with creatures not of this planet." She explained.
Meanwhile Ivory was considering jumping down, when she saw a rising brown cloud on the horizon,
"Um... Dr. Rip! I think a storm is coming!" She shouted from her spot up above on the loading ramp of the ship floating overhead, her guard desperate to keep her onboard the ship, holding tightly to her arm.
Serza didn't waste any time, she'd run towards the hospital wall and quickly climb up to the top, ".... SANDSTORM COMING! WE NEED TO GET EVERYONE INSIDE!" She shouted, causing the people in the streets to scatter as the remaining nurses quickly started to get the hospital ready for the storm... bringing those who were still alive inside, while others started placing special blankets over the walls to help blunt the impact of the storm itself.
Rip wasted no time, he began to move fast and quickly, picking up entire pallets with a care and precision that could only come from daily jazzercize routines (amongst other things) and bringing in a pallet in each arm before carefully putting them down. From there he starts taking what he can, using his cybernetic arm and a supply of various other field medic station supplies. From the thick tarps and pitons used for setting up tent materials, climbing up carefully onto the building walls itself, helping batton down windows and shutters against sandy intrusion from various angles.
The city around them also seemed far more active than it had before. There were certainly others padding the buildings with blankets, and covering what few holes or slits remained in the wood and stone. There also was suddenly a lot more wagons around the town, moving about, some heading towards the palace. The guard with Ivory also pulled her back inside and closed the door... no way he was going to let her out in that!
"I Uh... suppose this is going to be your first storm?" Serza asked.
"On this planet," He said, digging in his pocket and pulling a cigar out, glaring at it, then putting it back. "No place to be smoking, you don't have the air filters to make it unobtrusive to the patients yet," He said, gritting his teeth as he pulled out his pad. "Anyway, I've been in sand storms before. They can get pretty nasty. One planet I was on would strip the paint off of the armor we wear, and the biggest danger wasn't being caught out in the open without armor so much as being burred alive in your armor, a couple tons of sand will slow even the heaviest duty armor down... any munitions you'd use to break free would go off too close to the armor and kill ya, or glass the sand and keep you trapped like a fly in sap." He begins to move slowly, carefully about, "anyway, question for you. How do you deal with your dead? Burial? Cremation?" He asked, not really wanting to go down this line of inquiry, but knowing it would be necessary.
"We leave them on top of the hospital." She said, "Bodies don't stay burred to well here, and dumping them in the water makes us kinda iffy about eating the algaiea that comes from it... so we leave them on the roof right before a storm. Usually most of the flesh gets stripped off." She explained. "Liquids and such inside the body tend to get pulled away by the sand or it all kinda gets turned into mud. What is left over is a lot easier to bury."
"Would any of the dying or dead be adverse to giving up their bodies for medical science?" He asked, waiting for her inevitable horrified expression, no doubt worrying about the patchwork monsters thing she had mentioned before, "No, I don't want to use the bodies for arcane or alien experiments, I need teaching materials. I don't want to requisition any bodies, or force anyone's family to give them up, but if I'm going to be teaching you folks how to use advanced medical devices and techniques, then I need to have cadavers to practice on. The bodies will end up mutilated before it's all done, but they won't be treated with disrespect, or used for anything other than teaching purposes." he holds up his own mechanical arm. "I'm sure that everyone will be far happier if your people get practice grafting on cybernetics to cadavers rather than practicing on living patients." he maintains eye contact with the woman, moving to a full sitiing position so that his massive bulk is less intimidating as he holds eye contact. "I'm not here to set up an empire, or my own personal wants and desires. I'm here to set up a foundation for you folks to carry yourselves to the stars, and part of that means reducing your avoidable death rate by teaching you not only how to use the tools I use, but also the techniques your OWN medical base can maintain." He thinks for a moment, "Also jazzercize. But that'll mostly be for those folks who need to undergo a rehabilitation period following cybernetics grafts or prolonged bed rest."
"I mean... sure I guess... I don't think they are using them anymore." She laughed a bit at her own gallows humor. "..... but, does that mean we will have the same sort of abilities as you? I mean, if we choose to have these Cybernetics and Jazzercize grafted to our bodies?"
As the storm approached, most people were starting to get fully indoors, though there were a few covered wagons passing by in the street... Though once they passed Rip they would come to a stop and a small group of men would get out, dressed in heavy protective gear, "Ma'am... do you need any help getting ready for the storm?" One of them asked, as the other four went and stood by the doorway of the hospital to get some protection from the steadily increasing winds.
Josward tried to keep up the pace as best he could... but he was only human, and only about half the size of Rip, which meant that even at a brisk walk it would feel like he was taking his time,
"So what's it like out there?" He asked, "I suppose I've heard a little about who is out there... but not a whole lot about where you guys come from. Does everyone fly about in those fancy armors?"
"No, these are military issue mostly, a lot of people just walk on their own two feet or use specialized vehicles to move about, you can carry more stuff with them more easily, and our infrastructure is set up for it. Powered Armor is when you need a lot of versatility or armaments as well. I can tell you a bit more about where I'm from if you like over drinks," he said as they walked to the hospital.
It wouldn't be long before the hospital would come into view either. The stench of death was certainly upon it, there were wagons being loaded with the dead outside of the structure, a building only about a floor taller than everything else around it, made of a heavily rusted metal that was covered by wooden planks. The walls all seemed to slope inward slightly, making the entire structure look a bit like the bottom of an unfinished pyramid. There were additional bodies outside of the door which had been propped open with a heavy rock, and he could see right through the structure out to the other side, a long hallway leading all the way to an exit on the other side.
Rip sighed, and began to activate the protocols to slip out of the powered armor he was in, the chassis and various functions unfolding around him, and letting all 9 feet of him out. He raised his mechanical arm up to his neck and twisted a crick out of it, before reaching for the medical kit on the side and pulling it free. Pulling open his datajockey, he called to Uso, "Uso, I've got the basic supplies to do Triage, but please see to it that the rest of my medical supplies are dropped off at my current location, preferably outside. I've got my power armor on lock down just outside and looking all menacing, so I doubt anybody will try anything. Just tell me when it arrives, though I'll probably hear it." He slipped the Datajockey back into one pocket and turned back to Josward, "Do you know who is in charge here? I need to speak with them before I just charge in and begin my work. I don't want to cause issues."
"This sounds like something Cyrus should be doing... CYRUS!!! CYRU..." Uso's transmission cut out as she yelled for her Ragna-wrangler to deal witht he medical issue. Meanwhile Josward would be waiting patiently for Rip to get out of his armor.
"That arm," He asked, as he looked around. "Is it like your armor?" The hospital itself seemed to have a few nurses running around, but there didn't seem to be anyone that looked doctor-like. "... as for who is in charge... uh.... I guess I will need to ask... Maybe wait here a moment?"
He would hurry off, chasing down one of the nurses carrying a soldier that was missing a leg... and after a few brief moments talking he'd run on back.
"So, it looks like the doctor in charge ended up exploded during the fires in the city. Everyone sorta has their jobs but there isn't anyone running the place..."
Rip pinched the bridge his nose, "alright then, bring me to the most senior member of the staff, I'll start working with them," he was already moving as he said this, he pulled out his datajockey, the one with the library of treatments, and pulled a line from his arm's medical module, plugging the hardline connection directly into the datajockey as he passed by still living patients. The AI within would begin taking the information provided by his eyes, cataloging patients, gaining information on them from visuals, cataloging it steadily, each patient receiving an AR designation in Rip's sight and coloring and prioritizing them based upon standard triage. "As for my arm, no, it's not armor. I lost it in a car accident. Funny really, I've been nearly blown to hell god knows how many times and I actually lose everything below my left elbow because some jackass wasn't paying attention to the road." he stretched it, turning to look at Josward, "I had the boss ship a few hundred much lower grade prosthesis, things that'll help people get back to their lives with a little rehab, once we've gotten people STABILIZED here, I'll be not only helping install these on people who want them, but teaching your own medics and doctors and nurses to preform the same surgery over time."
"So... Are they going to be able to do that too?" He asked, pointing to the cables and the data jockey. "And uh... excuse me for a moment."
Josward would make his way around the hospital, rounding up a few of the people working there, a mix of two male and three female nurses showing up with him once he had finished the rounds,
"These are the most senior staff... and they have asked me to inform you that while the respect your authority... they uh... are quite busy..."
"I understand," he nodded to them, "I won't keep you long, but I wanted to know where your worst cases were? The ones you might normally write off? I don't mean those who won't survive unless you could entirely replace the missing organ, but if they're missing a limb, or just have grievous infection or similar, those people I can get to helping immediately. I'm having advanced medicinal supplies delivered presently, I'm going to be using them, and I'm going to be teaching you how to use them as we go. That's all we need to talk about right now." As he said this, he rolled up his sleeves to beyond both massive elbows, and then looked to the senior staff. He wanted to ease into this, he wanted to see their own medical proficiency and how well they could tirage patients when given the parameters he set. This would let him know the limits of their own medical knowledge, their own experience, and a wealth of other information. "Now, let's get down to work. Lead the way."
Those in front of Rip were just looking up at him, half exhausted, half stunned at dealing with a human nearly twice their height,
"Well... We have a few nasty gut-shots." One of them said, the nurse turning towards the outdoor areas. "Come this way..."
It wasn't hard to find the worst cases, most had been written off and left outside, a series of soldiers in blue and grey that had gut-shot injuries. The battle had been a while ago... and these men had been dieing slowly for weeks... much of their stomachs having turned green with rot, but not quite having died yet. Most had already passed out, many would not be waking up again.
Rip sighed, this was bad, but not as bad as it could be, his eyes flickered once as they went into scanning modes, and he started to triage cases. A good half of them, any who had gone entirely septic, were entirely lost. He thanked the foresight of asking Uso for additional medical supplies and bringing along the additional basic painkillers. Their internal organs would need to be replaced, all he could do is make their going more painless, in those cases of those who had not already passed out. To those who had not, he administers a dosage of Klempsomorphirine, dulling the pain for them, and leaving them in their daze. To the next series, those who required the least work, he first injected Klempsomorphirine from his neplesilian medical kit, his arm ratcheting open with the injector and then pumping the drug into their vein precisely over the affected area, then next came out the laser scalpel, cutting into them and beginning to cut away the small areas of effected tissue, cleansing away the small areas of tissue that had gone septic, or sealing blood vessels in preparation for what came next.
Next he pulled the NAM NCS Hypolathe out of his medical kit, and began tissue reconstruction of the damaged internal organs, focusing around getting them serviceable and to the point where they would heal themselves, conserving the nanites inside of the Hypolathe as much as possible, before returning to usage of his laser scalpel, or to the suturing tools installed in his arm, to cleanly seal closed the wound. Within minutes he had finished with the first case, and began moving onto the second, then third, and so on. Losing track of time as he went from case to case, occasionally asking for supplies they had locally, describing the effects he needed, and inquiring about application and side effects from whoever was around to ask.
For those soldiers who upon opening up found the damage worse than it had been apparent to his cyber-eyes, he did his best to ease them on, or reordered them. He went from those who needed immediate attention, and could be healed the fastest, to those who needed immediate attention and would take the longest amount of time. Then to those who were in less severe condition, and so on and so forth, repairing their damage, getting fluids down them, using Droksin on a few who were suffering from blood loss, though he had only four such auto injectors until the medical supplies were delivered.
The work got progressively messier, and he had them bring him water, boiled, as often as possible, both to clean his own hands and instruments, often dipping his hands directly into the still nearly boiling water and scrubbing them before having them pour the stuff out, making it clear the blood dirtied water was to be poured away from wherever it might be in danger of leaking into drinking water supplies, and continuing his work. An observer might note that the tools in his arm seemed to never stay bloody for long, but instead any blood or fluids on them inevitable 'evaporated' mysteriously, as if the arm itself was simply being cleaning the tools with tiny invisible hands. In truth it was the nanetic cleaning system within the tools that kept them free of foreign, especially organic, matter when not in direct use such as during an injection.
The nurses at the hospital didn't seem to question what Rip was up to, they certainly hadn't seen tools like what he had available... and the surgeries that he was preforming were far more invasive than what they had expected. Of course, they were also too busy to watch him for long but there always seemed to be at least two ore three people who managed to find time from the rounds to observe what Rip was doing. They didn't speak to him much either, though as they watched the results of his first few surgeries, the towels and the water would start coming to him faster and more efficiently. A silent understanding forming between those that were at this hospital, and the new comer from the stars.
Then a loud rumble would fill the entire building, the Queen's slave moving to over over the area as the pilot looked for a spot.
"HEY! Doctor Hardbody!"
Ivory was using the all hands channel to get ahold of him. Uso's personal medical officer... though she hadn't yet gone outside of the ships aside from a few ventures with Ragnarok people closely watching her,
"There doesn't seem to be a place where we can set down without crushing something... and I don't want to just drop this stuff from here. I can get your gear to the rear loading door and have it ready for you to fly down... I think the pilot can get us just a few meters up from the ground so it shouldn't be that bad."
Rip turned his attention away from his latest patient, sewing up the last few sutures and cleaning the outside of the wound, he turned to those who had been helping him, finishing off an explanation of the necessary post-surgery treatment, "He'll wake up in a lot of pain, we don't have the painkillers necessary, yet, and what we do have will need to be rationed for the moment. If he wasn't already completely passed out from the pain, what little pain killers I had wouldn't have been effective. We can begin moving onto other folks now," he started walking, talking to both sets of people, "I need as much room as you can get under a guard and cleared, your own medical storage rooms preferably, you have them right? I doubt you put anyone in them given the nature of such rooms, but I'll be helping bring down supplies, I'll tell you what the nature of them is, and I need you to work with me to store them," he continued as he walked through the hospital back to his armor, beginning to patch into it and looking for the shuttle that was bringing the supplies in. "This stuff is valuable, as I'm sure you can guess, but without the know how to use them, they'll just get a lot of people hurt if they're stolen, so it's necessary that you keep them under guard wherever you put them." he nods to them, taking off, having been talking into the radio as well to Ivory.
"Sounds like a good, moving to begin moving stuff down, already started some good will building exercises just healing those who could be with gut wounds. Might be able to save a few more with these now."
"Sorry... I would be down there but...." Ivory motioned towards one of the Ragna-guards standing near her, "We're running short on power armors thanks to the incident with Ace, and Uso has forbid me from leaving the ship without one... How is it going down there?"
The guard that was watching Ivory move the crates of materials towards the back area of the ship for unloading was keeping his eyes on her intently. Uso had threatened him with a very punchy death if Ivory got hurt, so he was focusing on his job.
Meanwhile the workers inside the hospital were doing their best to free up some spare room. Just about everywhere was filled with injured still, though Rip's activities had cleared a few spaces here and there. The nurses setting out to the task of consolidating people out of one of the rooms to make space.
"Slow, but we're getting things done. I don't think you have much to worry about in terms of coming down without power armor," he said as he continued the unloading process. "Things down here are bad, I mean, there's going to be a lot of maimed folks, I'm glad I asked for so many prefabbed prosthetic limbs, a lot of these people will be in trouble. I think I can save almost all of the remaining folks with gut-shot wounds though, we'll begin moving onto other stuff as well." He continued to unload as he went to the last set of stuff, this one he'd chosen to be last for a very specific reason.
He gathered up the nurses at this point, offering up the first of the hyposyringes, a small pen sized device, each loaded with a single shot of a general antibiotic and system purifier nanosystem. "This is an antibiotic, I don't know if you've invented this yet, and I apologize if I'm condescending, but we don't have time for me to play 20 questions with you folks." He said, "Each patient in the hospital gets ONE of these. Apply them to the major artery in the arm, or the leg if they are missing that, failing either, then the neck." He looked around, "Please, be very careful not to apply multiple such devices to the same person. This will clear out bacterial infections in them, but then their own bodies will attack the antibiotic and clear it out before it can damage the benign bacteria inside of their bodies. This is not a guarantee against them getting sick or infected from their wounds, and once applied, they still need to have their bandages cleaned and changed regularly. Part of the supplies you brought in are going to be anti-bacterial material forged surgery tools, wound dressing, and similar. They don't let microbial life, that is to say, bacteria and germs, live on them, so they're much easier to keep clean. We'll start distributing those shortly, but first start getting these out to the patients, we can probably head off the worst cases of infection and disease right now if we get to work immediately."
What he had just described would have been a miracle cure all in a similar time period of other planets. Antibiotics were not a common thing at this level of technology most of the time, and bacterial infection, as opposed to viral infection, was always far worse of a risk on alien planets. Making full spectrum antibiotics that gave the bacteria almost no chance to adapt to them had been essential to the expansion of humanity across the stars. Viral infections that were cross colony were important too, but viral diseases had been almost entirely eradicated in many places, and decontamination routines on this sort of trip were stringent and harsh. No point in making first contact if you were going to wipe out 90% of the population in a pandemic you brought along.
"Not a chance. Uso said she'd literally kill us if we let her go out without a power armor." The guard said that was watching her, "... I think she'll do it to."
Ivory huffed, "I can't play doctor from up here though..."
"That... really isn't my problem." The guard replied sternly.
The nurses would do as instructed, taking the injectors and then splitting the hospital up among themselves to determine just how they were all going to inject everyone.
"Tell Uso that I'll take full responsibility for it. She wants to kill somebody, she can try to kill me if Ms. Ivory has so much as a hair misplaced on her head. I need the assistance down here from someone who can help teach the use of this equipment." He said it as he helped haul two entire creates under each massive arm into the building, ducking down low and moving with exacting care and precision. He then took the most senior looking nurse, and began working with them on which bits of surgery equipment they were most familiar with, focusing on the nonmechanical or advanced stuff for the moment.
"Now I know things have to move fast, but it's critical you clean off the instruments after you finish up on one patient, it's best of all if you clean them up before moving to different WOUNDS on the same patient. What is infecting one wound, may not yet have infected a different one, and again, stop me if you know these protocols already, I'm just moving fast. This stuff will keep itself clean of bacteria and infection, but that won't help the patient if you don't clean off fluids and grime from the tools themselves after each use." He was starting them off on tools they knew and understood, that would give them an immediate return on effectiveness. Scalpels and saws that didn't lose their edge, and we far lighter and easier to use, and other anti-bacterial medical devices. "We focus on saving as many lives as we can NOW, when we've gotten people out of the worst of this, we'll start on distributing training materials and doing exams on using the more advanced stuff."
He looks closely at the senior nurse. "Excuse me, I just realized... in all the excitement, I never got your name,"
The nurse looked up at the doctor for a moment, staying still quite a while before answering,
"I suppose we have to deal with you at some point..." She admitted, having the rest of the nurses head back out into the hospital, "I'm Serza. I have been a nurse here for nearly four years, and I think we're all just as afraid as anyone that we're going to get blown up by you space-men, 'cept we have a lot of injured and dieing people here that we have to take care of, so we can't exactly hide in our homes and hope that this all blows over.
I think we were all expecting you to start cutting people up or making monsters like in the stories of monster from beyond... but. It seems like what you are doing his helping, and if you say that these injections will help, then perhaps we should trust you a bit.
I am sure you space-men do this all the time, but it is our first encounter with creatures not of this planet." She explained.
Meanwhile Ivory was considering jumping down, when she saw a rising brown cloud on the horizon,
"Um... Dr. Rip! I think a storm is coming!" She shouted from her spot up above on the loading ramp of the ship floating overhead, her guard desperate to keep her onboard the ship, holding tightly to her arm.
Serza didn't waste any time, she'd run towards the hospital wall and quickly climb up to the top, ".... SANDSTORM COMING! WE NEED TO GET EVERYONE INSIDE!" She shouted, causing the people in the streets to scatter as the remaining nurses quickly started to get the hospital ready for the storm... bringing those who were still alive inside, while others started placing special blankets over the walls to help blunt the impact of the storm itself.
Rip wasted no time, he began to move fast and quickly, picking up entire pallets with a care and precision that could only come from daily jazzercize routines (amongst other things) and bringing in a pallet in each arm before carefully putting them down. From there he starts taking what he can, using his cybernetic arm and a supply of various other field medic station supplies. From the thick tarps and pitons used for setting up tent materials, climbing up carefully onto the building walls itself, helping batton down windows and shutters against sandy intrusion from various angles.
The city around them also seemed far more active than it had before. There were certainly others padding the buildings with blankets, and covering what few holes or slits remained in the wood and stone. There also was suddenly a lot more wagons around the town, moving about, some heading towards the palace. The guard with Ivory also pulled her back inside and closed the door... no way he was going to let her out in that!
"I Uh... suppose this is going to be your first storm?" Serza asked.
"On this planet," He said, digging in his pocket and pulling a cigar out, glaring at it, then putting it back. "No place to be smoking, you don't have the air filters to make it unobtrusive to the patients yet," He said, gritting his teeth as he pulled out his pad. "Anyway, I've been in sand storms before. They can get pretty nasty. One planet I was on would strip the paint off of the armor we wear, and the biggest danger wasn't being caught out in the open without armor so much as being burred alive in your armor, a couple tons of sand will slow even the heaviest duty armor down... any munitions you'd use to break free would go off too close to the armor and kill ya, or glass the sand and keep you trapped like a fly in sap." He begins to move slowly, carefully about, "anyway, question for you. How do you deal with your dead? Burial? Cremation?" He asked, not really wanting to go down this line of inquiry, but knowing it would be necessary.
"We leave them on top of the hospital." She said, "Bodies don't stay burred to well here, and dumping them in the water makes us kinda iffy about eating the algaiea that comes from it... so we leave them on the roof right before a storm. Usually most of the flesh gets stripped off." She explained. "Liquids and such inside the body tend to get pulled away by the sand or it all kinda gets turned into mud. What is left over is a lot easier to bury."
"Would any of the dying or dead be adverse to giving up their bodies for medical science?" He asked, waiting for her inevitable horrified expression, no doubt worrying about the patchwork monsters thing she had mentioned before, "No, I don't want to use the bodies for arcane or alien experiments, I need teaching materials. I don't want to requisition any bodies, or force anyone's family to give them up, but if I'm going to be teaching you folks how to use advanced medical devices and techniques, then I need to have cadavers to practice on. The bodies will end up mutilated before it's all done, but they won't be treated with disrespect, or used for anything other than teaching purposes." he holds up his own mechanical arm. "I'm sure that everyone will be far happier if your people get practice grafting on cybernetics to cadavers rather than practicing on living patients." he maintains eye contact with the woman, moving to a full sitiing position so that his massive bulk is less intimidating as he holds eye contact. "I'm not here to set up an empire, or my own personal wants and desires. I'm here to set up a foundation for you folks to carry yourselves to the stars, and part of that means reducing your avoidable death rate by teaching you not only how to use the tools I use, but also the techniques your OWN medical base can maintain." He thinks for a moment, "Also jazzercize. But that'll mostly be for those folks who need to undergo a rehabilitation period following cybernetics grafts or prolonged bed rest."
"I mean... sure I guess... I don't think they are using them anymore." She laughed a bit at her own gallows humor. "..... but, does that mean we will have the same sort of abilities as you? I mean, if we choose to have these Cybernetics and Jazzercize grafted to our bodies?"
As the storm approached, most people were starting to get fully indoors, though there were a few covered wagons passing by in the street... Though once they passed Rip they would come to a stop and a small group of men would get out, dressed in heavy protective gear, "Ma'am... do you need any help getting ready for the storm?" One of them asked, as the other four went and stood by the doorway of the hospital to get some protection from the steadily increasing winds.
