How I Got Here: "Rescue"
29 Jul 2022Columbuss
Commander Justin Estok. Stardate 28-JUL-3308."There is no place worse..."
Some things just don't wash out. No matter how many times you scrub or wash a particular stain, sometimes, they just stay. Even when you do manage to get it out, the spot where it was... it's never the same. There's either a faint mark that the stain was once there or the fabric has those permanent scrub marks. Like plaster over a hole someone punched in some drywall. Sure, it looks fixed, but everyone who looks at it knows you have an anger problem.
Blood is one of those things that just doesn't come out. Once its in your clothes that's it. People say it'll wash out if you rinse it fast enough but no one considers the fact that if you end up with copious amounts of blood on your clothes, you're probably not in a position to stop what you're doing to blot it with a stain pen.
Most of the time you can get away with just keeping the shirt. A blood stain tells a story. But when you're covered from head to toe in blood and sweat after hauling bodies out of a blazing inferno that used to be a space station, you end up just throwing the shirt away.
"We don't have time for a speech," Officer Fulmer said. "So if you're looking for some final words of encouragement, or to muster up the bravery to do what you're about to do, I can't help you." This is me and John standing on the flight deck of the Federation Medical Frigate Ishimaru in a mirrored rotation with Ito Orbital over Rhea. When I saw the report that nine stations in The Bubble were bombed, there was only one I could think about. And John refused to let me go alone.
"Right now," Officer Fulmer continued, "there is no place worse in the galaxy than what's through that mail slot." Dozens of faces looked on while the exhausted rescue officer gave his briefing.
"Ito is rotating so we still have gravity and the stations power plant is still operational but the blast destroyed all of the stations heat regulators. The inside of that station is like a furnace. The station has begun emergency venting, which is enough to keep it from exploding, but the people inside are being boiled to death. Pilots, you have six minutes... SIX... MINUTES... once inside to load up as many of the wounded as you can and dust off. The heat is so intense that, any longer, and you wont be able to leave. Mount up and follow me through. Find a landing pad. If there aren't any available, vacate and try again. Good luck."
With each flight we pulled more people out of that station but with each trip back there were less people to bring out. Between return trips we dumped buckets of water on the ships bulkhead to wash the blood away. After awhile, there just wasn't enough water available. After a while, the culmination of hundreds of lives and how they ended was written into the bulkhead of this ship forever.
After ten hours, the waiting room on the flight deck inside Ito Orbital was empty. Not because we rescued everyone and certainly not because people didn't want to be rescued. This is the part where you start thinking about how the transport lines are powered down. This is where you realize the habitation ring is completely cut off from the main structure and the glass enclosure is shattered. This is the moment, when you're staring down an empty flame lit hallway attached to a blood soaked room, that you realize... no one else is coming...