Medbay #10-33 Warfare Unit

[Victor Von Villain]

    The yellowing florescent lights were flickering overhead, the little alcove was barely large enough to park the vehicle Victor arrived on. The flash of a servo-skull's pict-graph briefly illuminated the area, throwing stark contrast on the isect laden area he was supposed to work out of. Victor turned around to see his work partner Getty sitting inside the grav-truck. She was on a communication device double checking that this was indeed the correct location.

    "Yup, this is the place!" Getty confirmed, her low gothic carrying a trace of the same confusion as was plastered over Victor's face. "Says right here, disused storage area 10-33. Supposedly this was used to house rotten rations before use. I wouldn't want to be the poor soul who got those."

    "Well. . .We've got a right job ahead of us to make this area fit for our medical practice. You have the borrowed flamer?"

    "Yes," she hands over a small handheld flame-throwing device," So, I've been thinking, the curtains you brought. . ."

    "What about them?" Victor says as he starts to go after some of the cockroaches and spiders with gouts of flame.

    "Do you want the red curtains or the blue ones near the entrance?"

    "Red, that way if they get blood on them, no one can tell. Plus, blue is a bit more calming, so that should probably be the one we use for the operation area." Victor loads a fresh cannister of promethium as he tries to get the entire room sanitized.

    "I'll leave the Red ones outside then." Getty sets the folded cloth near the entrance, careful to not get it too oily by the bare metal flooring. "So what's your plan with the rest of the things in the truck? We've got operating tools, flood lights, little glass bottles with weeds growing inside them. . "

    "Those weeds make a powerful numbing agent when combined with alcohol. It's very useful for operations where you need the patient awake."

    "Be that as it may, it still takes up space. So where are you planning to place these plants?"

    "You see that little hook at the top of the enclosure? I'll hang it from the ceiling. That way we can make more out of the space by storing the samples in the area above where a normal human would stand. If we place them at that height, only a spacemarine would have to worry about bonking their head!" Victor chuckles to himself, "But seriously, if one of those show up, we're screwed. That means there's a lot going on, and if that were the case I don't think this small space could keep up with that."

    "Gotcha, so you're afraid of spacemarines now." Getty says with a slight smile. "But there's only one hook on the ceiling, and you've got what, 50 of these things in the truck."

    "72, and that's where the cabling comes into play. You see the ventilation shafts entering here? If we make a bit of a web on the ceiling we can essentially turn that single hook into about a hundred hanging spots." Victor looks proud of himself for this crazy scheme. Getty just rolls her eyes.

    By the end of the day, Victor and Getty stand before a ramshackle mess. Scorch marks cover nearly every spot on the walls. Floodlights illuminate 2 hospital style beds within the cramped space, one behind an open divider of blue curtain. There are a couple of chairs and a small desk with a sign on it. It's not the best, but it will suffice for now. At least everything inside has been sanitized and lit. Painting the area white can wait for tomorrow -- or whenever Victor got the luxury of white paint.

[Victor Von Villain]

    It was a long couple of weeks, but Victor was proud of the progress he had made so far. He had rooted out the majority of insects and other pests from the area, and he had finally found a way to paint the walls a color other than grey metal. It was blue, not his first choice, but would have to do while he could salvage. Ultramarine wasn't too bad a color was it? It seemed to have a calming effect on some of the more out of touch patients. Nurse Getty had made herself at home behind a small folding table to greet people coming in. Victor knew that the table wasn't very professional looking, but couldn't argue the fact that it folded up quite nicely whenever space was needed. Getty didn't seem to mind, as long as she could still work from it. Victor even suspected that she might actually like the less professional look of things, if the collage of sticky art all over the table was anything to show for it. She had started to draw caricatures of those who stopped by repeatedly or for extended times. She then cut them out and glued them onto the table in a rather haphazard way. Victor didn't like the mess, but if it gave Getty something to enjoy, it was worth it's weight in gold. Victor knew he had his own oddities he enjoyed from time to time.

    As Getty was working on yet another of her sketches (Victor thought it looked a bit like Saint Celestine, but if she were dressed more casually), Victor spotted a group of people rushing towards the little med bay. They seemed in quite the hurry, maybe he'd get some juicy gossip later at the ration dispensary. As they grew closer, Victor could see that they were carrying a person on a stretcher. Business at last! This time it didn't seem to just be a menial worker. "Getty, send them in!, I'll get the operating table ready." As Victor rushed to the back to get everything ready, He could hear the murmurs of Getty telling the folks to come into the back. As the curtain slid open, Victor saw a grievously wounded male. Judging from the attire, they seemed to be either rogue traders or otherwise unaffiliated with any other factions around these parts. "QUIKLY, tell me what happened!"

    As victor started to assess the damage done, the men who dragged the near corpse into the operating room started to tell a tale about a dangerous incursion. They were fighting something called 'Greenskins' on a chunk of broken spaceship and rock called a Spacehulk. They had bunkered down into a fortified position while they secured what salvage they could before the hulk would vanish from the world again. They were just about to return to their docking vessel when a creature dragged the poor soul lying on the table into the ventilation system of the hulk. After heavy gunfire, the creature retreated back into the maze of tunnels, leaving the guy barely breathing and losing blood fast. Something about the description of the creature they encountered gave Victor a type of foreboding deja-vu, as it was not to dissimilar to the one he had encountered himself years ago. Remembering his own encounter, Victor quickly checked the mouth area, but failed to find anything there. The majority of damage seemed to be done to the man's legs and lower abdomen. As Victor sent the men to wait in the front of the med bay, he began his work in earnest.

   

SPOILER: Click to show

    The wounds were indeed serious, but what was worse was that something seemed to still. . .be squirming inside the man. Something not human. Victor readied his hand flamer from the wall just in case, and yelled for Getty to seal the blast doors. As Victor watched the writhing corpse, He could hear the others leave and the blast doors sealing. Victor was torn between curiosity and a fear of what was making the corpse still breathe. In the end, curiosity won out. He approached the corpse and readied a knife, but before he got there, a small worm-like creature burst out of the deceased's leg and flung itself towards Victor. <Glass dome to the right> Quicker than Victor could process, he had grabbed one of his precious samples of priceless plants and had broken it to capture the parasite under. Adrenaline was pumping through his veins as the small eel-like thing under the glass writhed and spat corrosive green spittle at the container. "Time of death: unknown, but probably before they arrived at the station" Victor tried to keep his head on straight by working through the facts before him. "Cause of death: infected by a. . .monster. A Xenos." Victor knew he should probably report this, but at the same time. . .it was trapped for now. It wouldn't stay trapped for long unless he made a decision, as victor looked around his eyes landed on an old metal ammunition crate. This should hold it nicely for a week, after which Victor decide he would know enough to stop the thing from killing again.

    Victor aimed the small flamer at the bottom of the metal table the parasite was on and after about a minute of slow roasting the thing, was satisfied that it was dead enough that he could remove the partially melted glass vial, once it cooled. Victor carefully put the flamer back in the designated spot on the wall, and carefully put the still steaming parasite in the metal box. He planned to examine it later. For now he returned to the seal and gave Getty the signal to reopen the door. After giving the sad news to the junk scrappers, they went on their way, disappointed that nothing could have been done, but understanding all the same.

[Victor Von Villain]

     Victor cautiously approached the box. The creature from yesterday that he had burned alive was put into there. Victor was taking no chances, so with knife bared, he poked the box with a stick. A dull thump could be heard from inside as the box jumped. Calm The intrusive emotion was unwarranted. He should be very cautious, this thing was still alive. "Emperor's chair," Victor swore under his breath, this was going to be dangerous. He should probably close down the clinic for the rest of the day, just in case.

     As Victor set Getty to work making sure to fill out all the necessary paperwork to make such a thing happen, he set about initiating an impromptu isolation chamber. He made it as secure as he could without breaking anything. By the time he eventually felt prepared, it was already noon. Victor approached the box cautiously and weilding a big stick smashed it open from a distance.

     Or that was his plan, what happened instead was when the metal stick of his injector goad met the metal box it sent a shockwave up his arms instead of breaking the box. The swing ricocheted through Victor in such a way as to rattle his bones. It took a minute to recover and try another, less destructive, method of opening the box containing the creature.

     Victor managed to get a contraption out of string to be able to open the box's latch from a distance. As the latch flew open, Victor reacted quickly and brought his knife up to defend against. . . .nothing. He ended up waving his knife in the air wildly for about 15 seconds before realizing nothing was coming. Reaching his injector goad out from cover, he poked at the box: nothing. He used the hook of the goad to tip open the top of the box, and still nothing. Victor approached cautiously, but still nothing. By the the time he could see inside the container, he could see why there was no reaction: the creature had exploded into green slime.

     All that was left of the thing were pieces of shrapnel chitin, a jaw bone set the size of his hands, and a strange corded string of brain matter. As Victor started to relax, another thought hit him: paperwork. How would he explain this? Why had he kept it hidden for a day? As he examined a shard of burnt chitin, a thought came to him. The creature had, due to extreme heat, become a pressure bomb, that was probably the movement this morning. Victor also knew that most imperial officials also frowned upon recieving live bombs on their desks. Putting two and two together, Victor decided that his excuse was that he was defusing the creature before bringing it to the station management.

     That excuse did not go well. As Victor was leaving the management office after taking a serious verbal beat down, he was met with Getty waiting for him.

     "So. . .we closed the clinic for the day." Getty stated.

     "Yes, you can go home."

     "Eh, what if I want to do something else? Are you hungry? We missed lunch after all. I know this place down on stern that has hslf decent grub."

(To be continued)