Chapter 1 Nola #2
He walks fast. I walk faster. The corridors are narrow, clean enough but clearly maintained by people who prioritize function over aesthetics.
The walls are a uniform gray that might once have been white.
The lighting is that particular shade of yellow that says "the good bulbs are being saved for something important.
" We pass doors marked with numbers and symbols I don't recognize.
We pass two people in the corridor, a human man with a beard and tired eyes and a Keth woman with grey-green scales, who nod at Thresh and look at me like I'm a math problem they haven't solved yet.
I file the looks away. New faces on stations like this are either welcome or suspicious, and the balance depends on factors I don't have access to yet.
"Your quarters are on level three," Thresh says without looking back. "Medical bay is on level two. You'll spend most of your time there."
"How many patients am I looking at?"
"Currently, seventy-two residents. That number changes."
"Changes how?"
He pauses at a junction. Turns to look at me.
Those amber eyes are assessing, and I've been assessed before.
Every new posting, every rotation, someone looks at you and decides what you're worth.
But this feels different. This isn't a supervisor checking credentials.
This is someone checking for threats. The way his gaze tracks from my eyes to my hands to my bags and back is methodical, practiced. He's done this before. Many times.
"It changes," he says. "Some people arrive. Some people leave. The population fluctuates."
"That's not an answer."
"It's the answer you get today."
He starts walking again. I follow, because what else am I going to do? Somewhere in the walls, a pipe groans, and the sound reverberates through the corridor like the station is sighing.
The medical bay is larger than I expected.
Two treatment rooms, a small surgical suite with a door that sticks slightly when Thresh pushes it open, a recovery area with six beds.
The equipment is a mix of old and functional.
Nothing cutting-edge, but nothing broken either.
Someone has maintained this with care and limited resources, which tells me more about this station than Thresh's non-answers.
The examination light in the first treatment room still works.
The surgical table, though scarred, is level.
Small things, but they matter. Someone cared enough to keep this space usable.
"Supply closet is there." He points. "Inventory is on the terminal. Previous medic left three months ago."
"Three months? You've been without medical staff for three months?"
"We managed."
I look at the recovery beds. Two of the six have sheets that look recently changed, the folds still crisp. Someone has been here. Someone has been sleeping or recovering in these beds without a doctor to oversee them. "Who's been doing the medical work?"
"I have basic field training. Fen, our mechanic, has some knowledge. We made do."
I set my bags on the nearest counter and open the supply closet.
It's not empty. But it's close. Basic bandaging, antiseptic, a handful of generic painkillers that expired two months ago.
The surgical supplies are minimal, some suture material and a clamp set that's seen better decades.
The scanner on the shelf is a model I haven't seen since my second year of school, the kind museums display with the label "early diagnostic technology. "
"This is it?"
"We're not a funded operation, Reyes."
"No kidding." I turn back to him. "The contract said standard medical post."
"The contract said what it needed to say to get a medic here.
" He doesn't look apologetic. He doesn't look anything, really, except for that baseline exhaustion and the assessing stare that I'm starting to think is permanent.
He looks like he's waiting to see what I'll do with the truth.
"If you want to leave, the shuttle that brought you can take you back.
No penalty. The signing bonus stays in your account. "
That signing bonus is already allocated to a debt payment.
Walking away means returning it. Walking away means going back to station clinics and double shifts and another two years before I'm solvent.
Walking away means this was all for nothing: the seventeen hours on a bad shuttle, the three months of starter meds I bought out of pocket, the hope I let myself feel when I saw the pay rate.
I look at the medbay. Understaffed. Undersupplied. At the edge of space. Full of people who apparently haven't had a real doctor in three months.
I've been the person who doesn't have a doctor.
On the mining colony, the nearest clinic was a four-hour shuttle ride, and the shuttle only ran twice a week.
My mother once set her own broken finger with a splint made from a meal tray because waiting for medical transport meant missing three days of work.
"I'm not leaving," I say. "But I need supplies. Real supplies. Whatever channels you use to get things to this station, I need access."
Something shifts in his expression. Not a smile. Not warmth. Just the faintest recalibration, like he's moved me from one category to another in his head. Like a sensor reading that came back different from expected and required a reassessment.
"I'll have the supply request forms sent to your terminal," he says. "Morning briefing is at 0700 in the mess hall. Don't be late."
He leaves. No goodbye. No "welcome to Haven." Just the sound of boots on metal flooring, steady and efficient, fading down the corridor until the station's ambient hum swallows it.
I look around the medbay. My medbay, apparently. For the next six months, this is where I work. These supplies, such as they are, are what I have. Those seventy-two residents are my patients.
I start unpacking. The med bags go on the counter.
The surgical kit goes in the top drawer, sterilized and organized by frequency of use, the way I was taught.
Scalpels first, then hemostats, then retractors.
The scanner gets plugged in to charge. The pharmaceuticals get shelved alphabetically, then reorganized by urgency, because alphabetical is for pharmacies and urgency is for field medicine.
I learned that distinction during a mine collapse in my third year, when a man bled out because the nurse couldn't find the clotting agent under C instead of looking for it under E for "emergency. "
By the time I'm done, two hours have passed and the medbay looks like a medbay instead of a storage closet someone put beds in.
I wash my hands in the small sink, the water lukewarm and faintly metallic, and dry them on a towel that's been laundered so many times it's practically translucent.
The mirror above the sink shows me what seventeen hours on a budget shuttle looks like: dark circles, hair that escaped its tie somewhere around hour twelve, the particular expression of someone who is too tired to be disappointed and too stubborn to admit it.
I look away. Mirrors are not my friends after long transports.
I sit on one of the treatment tables and pull up the resident manifest on the terminal.
Seventy-two names. Species listed next to each one.
Human, Keth, Vorath, others I've only read about.
Medical histories range from "comprehensive" to "none.
" Vaccination records are incomplete. Allergy information is missing for a third of the list.