Chapter 33 Infirmary
THIRTY-THREE
INFIRMARY
Julia
The robot-crafted wooden stool I’m seated on wobbles from the uneven, packed dirt ground.
Crossing my arms, I kick my foot out to stabilize it and lean my back against the wall of the old, cleaned-out but partially crumbling cement building.
Peering through the cracks of the drapes just beyond Olivia’s cot, I listen to the never-ending chorus of coughing and groans.
We’re dead-center of the cots in the encampment’s second makeshift infirmary, an additional one that’s been set up for refugees because of how many have arrived.
The first one, which is in a large tent beside the half-collapsed building Olivia and I occupy now, is to our right.
Looking up at the tarp ceiling clinging to the jagged wall above me, the sun shining through the material casts a bluish light on everything.
What would normally be white drapes appear cerulean.
Bored, I keep an ear out for any conversation that might be interesting while trying to be as quiet as possible next to Olivia’s slumbering form. Unfortunately, everyone is either too quiet or not talking amongst themselves. There’s been a lull in conversation since the midday heat hit.
Stuck in the tedium, my thoughts drift to the events of the last couple of days.
Ever since arriving, I’ve mostly been around the infirmary tents, free to roam as I please as long as I don’t leave the vicinity or cause trouble.
It took me all of two minutes upon entering to demand to see Olivia and get a cot next to hers.
It wasn't hard—the poor girl is mostly alone here and without visitors. The male nurse stationed in the infirmary was quick to lead me to where she was resting. I was told by the same nurse that her lung had partially collapsed and she had to undergo surgery to repair the damage. We’re lucky we got her here in time.
Since then, she’s been in a temporary induced coma to improve her lung’s healing, receiving boosters and stimulants to quicken her recovery.
So while my own minor wounds heal, I’ve mostly been here too, watching over her and fighting the boredom.
I’ve been desperate for any news happening around the rest of the camp, getting snippets here and there.
From what I’ve seen and heard, the encampment is not big enough to house the many refugees that have arrived and is running out of shelter and many basic supplies.
The soldiers have gone so far as to seize some of the ships that have landed outside and strip them clean.
The battalion is in chaos with the destruction of The Dreadnaut.
No one fully agrees on who to look to for orders.
With no direct chain of command established yet with The Sovereign, the main colony ship that The Dreadnaut and all lesser colony ships report to, no one is really sure what to do.
The Commander here is Lieutenant Colonial Graft, a man I have seen many times during training but have never worked directly under.
Supreme Commander Volp established three original base camps on Earth—and mine was obliterated by the nagas, so that leaves only two.
Which, I have heard from soldiers outside the tent, are both now overrun with refugees.
The remaining army is in a bad way…
With no more resource deliveries coming from the mother ship, and with no ability yet to reach another colony ship for backup, the morale is incredibly low. The goal has become only one thing: survive.
The reason I’m not allowed to leave the infirmary is the same reason no one’s allowed to leave their designated areas—Graft is afraid of an uprising. Not so much from the refugees, but from his overwhelmed soldiers.
I can feel the tension and despair in the air.
But who can blame Graft trying to segregate?
I’ve learned that everything Benjamin and Krellix told me was correct.
The dreg’s rebels shut down a reactor after Supreme Commander Volp closed the ports.
Anarchy ensued from every side, with ire and panic even amongst the highest caste citizens when their power shut off and…
remained shut off. Many soldiers died. Many more defected.
Like me. Kind of.
What a nightmare. I’m just happy I was here on Earth rather than stationed on The Dreadnaut during everything that went down. I had it good when so many others had it much worse… I frown down at Olivia and sigh.
Having traded my jacket for a basic button-up flannel from another survivor, I no longer wear any of my old fatigues.
It’s… odd. The military has been my identity for as long as I can recall.
I don’t even remember being given a choice before I started basic training when I was five.
It was what my parents did, my older brother did, and so it made sense for me to do it too.
Well, not anymore. I knew it six months ago, even if I hadn’t yet mustered the courage to change my fate: I no longer want to be a soldier. I never wanted to be a soldier.
My gaze drifts over Olivia's comatose form again. She’s all but been abandoned by the nurses.
Before I arrived, they were only changing out her IV’s once a day, and leaving her in her mess.
I had to give her a sponge-bath myself. Gently pushing a strand of hair out of her face, I take in her pale, young features and pray she doesn’t fall further ill.
I readjust the plastic blanket over her, tucking it around her slight body.
Tending to Olivia is the only thing I have to hold onto, and the only thing besides intermittent conversation to keep my thoughts distracted. Sitting back on my stool once more, I run my hands up my face and into my hair, threading my fingers through it and pushing it behind me.
It’s been two days since Krellix and I parted ways. Two days.
I try not to rise, try not to pace the small space around Olivia’s cot, but I wind up getting up to my feet anyway. The plastic drapes shift and flutter as I start walking back and forth.
My body, already heated, and clearly in withdrawal from Krellix’s pheromones, has betrayed me.
My thoughts aren’t any better, ignited with fantasies of him while I toss and turn on my own cot at night.
So stupid. I knew if I breathed enough of his pheromones in, I would become sick without them.
Now, having been parted from him for two days, and with nothing to distract me, all I can do is ruminate and ache.
I’m angry at him. And if I ever see him again…
I don’t know if I’d slap him or fuck him. Perhaps both.
Either way, I don’t know how he’s doing, what he’s doing, or where he is.
All I know is that I have to get my mind to understand that I’m probably never going to know these things.
He ditched me. And it was all because we were both too stubborn to actually talk about it or even try.
Yeah, it’s not like Krellix will ever have a place like Zaku’s but I’m sure there are other bunkers like Vruksha’s around, buildings like Zhallaix’s, or caves like Vagan’s.
I’m sure I could build us a shelter, with enough supplies and time.
I don’t need a lot to make me happy. Why would I? I never had a lot to begin with.
“W-water,” Olivia groans.
“Olivia?” I stop at her side, lean over, and place my hand lightly on her shoulder. Her head lolls toward me. “You’re awake! Did you say water? You need water.” I flick my eyes to the opening in the drapes. I wasn’t expecting her to wake from the medically induced coma so soon…
“Yeah...” She slowly peels back her bruise-shadowed eyelids to look at me; I can only guess how exhausted she might be. “Julia? Is that you?” She tries to push her elbow under her and immediately gives up, sinking back into the hard cot.
I touch her shoulder gently. “Don’t move.
Not yet at least, I don’t think they were expecting you to wake up yet.
Maybe the drugs have worn off. Let me find you some water.
” I straighten and head for the opening in the drapes.
“I’ll be right back. Don’t… don’t go anywhere.
” I duck through the fabric and weave past the other tucked-away cots all shielded in drapes of their own.
The water is stored by the nurses station at the front. I grab an empty cup, but find both the nurse in charge and the large, public water container next to it gone. I frown and head for the open tent flaps, hearing shouting from outside.
A group of people, including the male nurse who’s supposed to be manning the station, have gathered outside the encampment’s large recyclable water containers across the wide dirt path and far to the left of me.
Slowly, I move towards them, keeping an eye out for anyone who might stop me.
But no one does, everyone around is too busy watching what seems to be a burgeoning fight.
“You can’t hoard it! Who says it’s within your authority to tell me when I’m done drinking or not?” A man spits at one of the four soldiers gathered in front of him. “I have a right to this water. I’m a 10th caste citizen. I pay your wages!” he shouts.
He tries to get to the water basin but one of the soldiers blocks his path to the faucet. “There’s no caste system here,” the soldier says firmly.
Having seen many others collect and refill their personal containers over the past two days, I figure it’s lucky there’s any clean water at all.
Though there’s a river nearby, it’s still a long trek without the right equipment and machinery to haul it back here.
I assume most of the water available has been collected and re-purified, with intermittent replacements, from The Dreadnaut. But now that The Dreadnaut is gone…
“Remember, this machine only purifies fifty gallons a day,” another soldier starts to add, “it must be rationed for all—”
“The container is half full!”
“And I’ve seen you back here half a dozen times today filling your bucket,” the first soldier admonishes. “Water wasting is punishable by imprisonment.”
The man rears back, shocked. “Are you threatening me? You? A lowly soldier—”
The soldier clocks him in the face, slamming the full force of his fist into the man’s nose. The man’s partially-full bucket tumbles from his hands as he crumbles to the ground, unconscious before he hits it. The soldier jumps on him and raises his fist to hit him again.
I dash forward but stop when the other soldiers reach their comrade first and yank him off. One of them, now with his gun out, glares at me and I raise my hands. “Just trying to help.”
“Get the fuck out of here,” he snaps.
I take a step back as the soldiers drag their angry comrade away, leaving the citizen passed out on the ground. The other bystanders nearby either skirt around him to use the faucet or wander away.
Sighing, I set my cup on the ground, cross to the passed-out citizen and hoist him by the armpits.
As I’m slowly dragging him to the infirmary, the male nurse from before—who fled when things were getting heated—ducks out to help me bring him the rest of the way in.
“Thanks,” he says after we both haul the guy onto a cot.
“No problem,” I huff. “I don’t think he’ll be too happy when he wakes.”
The nurse shrugs and heads back to his station, not checking on the man once. “At least he’s alive and not in shackles.”
Watching him take a seat behind his desk and ignore everyone, I shake my head and leave to fetch my cup, quickly filling it at the faucet before the soldiers come back and try to ration me as well. Dodging back inside the infirmary, I return to Olivia’s side.
Touching her shoulder, I nudge her. “Hey. Here you go.”
She mumbles and sighs, back in her slumber, eyes moving but not opening. Sitting back down next to her, I drop my arms into my lap and set the cup on the floor where it won’t get knocked over, letting my chin drop to my chest with a defeated breath.
“Julia?”
My head pops back up.
“Olivia?” I sit forward over her. “Are you okay? How are you feeling?”
She softly smiles at me and it reaches her eyes, making some of the stress in me melt. “I’m okay now. I’m glad you’re here.”
My own smile starts to fade before it fully forms. “Me too.”
Me too…
I reach out to take her hand, hoping my misgivings are just misgivings. Because if they’re already rationing water here… My stomach growls on cue.
Food will be next, and if that’s the case with morale already so low...
I squeeze Olivia’s hand. “Me too.”