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PREQUEL-DEATH

Lt. Olivia Grant - Afghanistan- July 2012

They were losing the valiant young Marine.

Olivia could see Captain Rune McCullough’s eyes narrow, a sure indicator that the fight wasn’t going the way he wanted it to. This had been a bad one, though. The poor kid had survived an IED blast to his vehicle, then rescued one of his fellow Marines, dragging him from the wreckage. But when he’d stumbled out of the debris, a sniper had taken him down. The bullet had cut through the muscles of his neck, slicing through the jugular vein. Thankfully, the bullet angled enough to miss the spine. It was a tough repair under ideal circumstances, let alone during an Rebellion that was shaking the world around them.

There was a percussive blast as another device hit the exterior wall of FOB Nightshade. Olivia had no idea what the Taliban were using, but it was big, and she knew the Marines were doing everything they could to repel the attack. Machine gun fire echoed around them, too close for comfort. The Hesco bastions, the giant wire and fabric containers filled with dirt, were stacked around the base two deep and two high, and they repelled or absorbed bullets well, but bigger ordinance could blow them up. And it seemed like that was what the Taliban was trying to do. The Centurion Automatic Defense system was doing its best to respond to the attack, but they only had two of the big, trailer-sized weapons, and they couldn’t catch everything coming in from above.

If the Taliban forced entry…

It was why this young man was on their table. The base had been under attack for the past twelve hours, a constant barrage of small arms fire, then larger ordinance. The base commander, Forrest Trent, was doing everything he could to repel the attack, but it seemed as if the Taliban had pulled together to coordinate a targeted attack on several FOBs at once, country wide. They had reinforcements and a seemingly unending supply of ammunition. Trent had tried to call in air support, but there was none to be had. The northern, more populated part of the country was under attack as well, and the air support was needed there more urgently. Two other FOBs were reporting similar, coordinated, focused attacks.

Olivia ducked her head as the building rattled around them. Dust filtered down onto the plastic sheet they’d suspended over the patient. Rune didn’t even glance above him as he continued to operate to save the young Marine.

They had one golden hour to try to reverse critical injuries. She could see by Rune’s face, though, that they were going to lose him. Maybe not at this moment in time. Rune would get him patched up to the best of his ability because he was a fantastic emergency surgeon, but they were a critical trauma team. Their job was to treat the immediate injuries and ready them for transport to longer term care, out of country. Their hallways were full of injured waiting to be transported, and the recovery bays were full as well. Until the Taliban let up on their attack, or the base got reinforcements, no one was moving.

Olivia glanced at the table a few feet away. Harcourt, one of the other surgeons, was shaking his head and backing away from the table. “This one’s too far gone. We need to preserve our blood supply.”

Olivia worried she was numb to death now. When she’d joined the Army directly after attaining her nursing diploma, she’d had inflated dreams of rescuing soldier after soldier, of making a difference. And if everything worked as it was supposed to, lives could be saved. Every wheel in the cog needed to work, though. Because they were cut off from air support and transport, men were dying needlessly. No trucks were arriving with fresh supplies. It had been a week now, and she was past the point of demoralization. It had been the better part of twenty-four hours since she’d slept, and she knew that was part of her issue, but even after sleeping, it was harder and harder to stay motivated.

They’d been on this base for three weeks, and it had been the longest three weeks of her life.

The ceiling shuddered overhead, and she closed her eyes and counted to five, holding her breath as she waited for more destruction to rain down. The modular held, though. It wasn’t the most sturdy of buildings, but it was a little better than a tent, which housed most of the rest of the base.

Rune began the arduous process of stitching the Marine up. She handed him instruments before he asked for them. He wasn’t happy with the job, but they had three more men out in triage waiting to be seen. Santana, one of the four surgeons on the team, was resting. Olivia doubted the woman was sleeping, but hopefully she was getting a little rest, and maybe some food. The entire surgical team tried to work together and watch out for each other, rotating off time.

Man, she would love a frosty diet-Pepsi right now… she didn’t even bother looking at the clock to see when her shift would end. There was no diet-Pepsi to be had, here, anyway, so she might as well not even think of it. She would be lucky to get a lukewarm bottle of water.

Myrna Lane, the admin for the surgical team, was rolling in the next gurney, mask tied haphazardly across her face. She also wore her helmet, though it kept slipping forward over her eyes. “We have a GSW to the upper chest, and another to the left calf. Bleeding was stopped in the field.”

Shit. Which meant there might be a tourniquet on his leg. How long had he been sitting in triage? This was a more emergent case. Then she thought over what had already come through. Okay, maybe he wasn’t as bad as what they’d dealt with today, but he definitely needed care quickly.

Stripping off her gloves, she cleaned up as much as she could before re-gloving. Rune stopped beside her and heaved a sigh. “Ready?” he asked.

She nodded and they motioned Myrna forward.

The young marine looked up at her in fear as she walked beside the gurney as the assistant positioned it and locked the wheels. “Am I going to be okay?” he asked her, eyes wide in his pale face.

Olivia forced a nod, her body aching with tiredness. “We’re going to do the very best we can for you, Vincent,” she said, glancing at his mangled uniform name tag.

The ground rumbled beneath them as something huge shook the camp. Glancing at Rune, she saw he was as startled as she was. “What the fuck was that?”

He frowned, brown eyes shadowed as he glanced toward where he thought the blast had originated. “Not sure. Suicide bomber in a vehicle, maybe?”

Rune turned back to the Marine, forcing a smile as an assistant helped him snap on fresh gloves. “No worries, my man. We’re going to get you patched up.”

The repair wasn’t as bad as she’d feared, and Olivia heaved a sigh of relief as the man was wheeled away. There had been no emergency tourniquet, just a good bandage job, which meant the man got to keep his leg. If he had been sitting in triage for hours with a tourniquet, they would have been doing an entirely different surgery.

Rune looked heartened by the victory, and Olivia forced herself to smile to reinforce what he was feeling. They’d had so many losses over the past couple of days that every win needed to be celebrated.

Harcourt cursed in the next bay and Rune stepped through the curtain to help.

Myrna was passing by, clipboard in hand. Her bright red curls were in disarray under her lopsided surgical cap. She wasn’t medical, but she did have to wear PPE to be in here.

“Do we have another?”

Myrna blinked and shook her head. “He coded while you were in surgery, and we lost him.”