The human was not the ship's human. They were a passenger. They were also paralyzed from the waist down. When she ship crashed, when the human's movement assistive device was rendered inoperable, when the human found themself trapped in the wreckage with half a dozen fellow passengers, all either injured or too distressed to move...
Well. A sufficiently determined human with two working limbs, several cases of dental floss, a non-operative movement assistive device, and six people to rescue...is still going to need medical assistance after dragging everyone else to safety with a makeshift sledge and harness. -- Anon Guest
"The world is made for legs, so I have a neuro-linked exo to make my legs work until I get a nerve patch. They're still trying to find a compatible syntho suite for me, since I was born like this. Fun times." If there was a further part of the conversation, Lil didn't remember it. Trauma interrupts the process of making permanent memories. Lil couldn't remember if ze had said the part about thanking the Powers that multi-species spaces were easier to navigate than the ones made for Just Humans.
Ze probably had. It was hir favourite bitch session. This world, surrounded in patches of fire and smelling of ozone, was not made for legs. It was not made for any mobility. It was an accident site. Worse, hir exo pants had suffered a fatal error and shut down. Lil disconnected and dragged hirself out of them.
Pros and Cons. Pro: The exo bracers spared me from broken legs. Con: My legs were non-functional anyway. Pro: There is no problem so big it can't at least be helped by a little ductape and a lot of ingenuity. Con: I have dental floss. Lil took a deep breath, coughing at the smoke. "Okay," ze told hirself. "Let's get to it. Resident Deathworlder saves the day, blah blah blah."
One. Smoke filter. A close survival pack had an osmosis mask[1], which could pull breathable air out of the bottom of a peat bog if it had to. First, be sure that one could be useful to others. Nobody became a hero by dying before they could help anyone.
Two. Maximise mobility. This meant using a warped plate that Lil had wriggled free as a sled and a succession of improvised tools. A long stick had a multitude of uses, especially when it had a hook on one end. Enough understanding of basic mechanical principles and enough dental floss, and interesting things could happen.
Three. Locate and triage. "Those alive sound off," Lil yelled. The ones in big trouble were the ones that couldn't speak. "Make a noise!" The hard part, of course, was recognising those who were doomed regardless of what ze did and leaving them to their inevitability whilst ze helped those who still had a hope.
Sometimes, you can't save everyone. Humans had spent their hearts, souls, and lives on learning that, and still mourned when they couldn't. Lil was already weeping for the uncounted dead and already dying.
Four. Focus. Save those ze could and cry about everyone else later. Ze was the closest available Deathworlder. Automatically the toughest flakker on site. Ze had to try. Caught between duty and expectation, and the only decent thing to do, Lil did what Humanity did best. Ze persisted.
Archimedes once said, Give me a lever and a place to stand, and I can move the Earth. Lil could certainly do good with hir long stick and a lifetime of honing hir upper body strength. Some of hir efforts included literally climbing up the higher end and using hir own body weight -plus the weight of the sled, strapped to hir folded up legs- to move debris pinning other survivors.
With each freed individual, there were more who could help the others. More walking wounded to make certain that there was more help for other survivors. Even those who never had a hope to begin with.
The rescue came as they were dragging the bodies out. Thank the Powers. Pulling dead bodies out of wreckage was something Lil had never prepared for and wasn't ready to do. Ze was only too happy to finally lie back and let the trained professionals take over.
What was surprising was how much they were fussing over hir. "I'm okay," Lil protested. "Deathworlder. I can survive loads."
That was when ze found out the dental floss ze had used to strap hirself into the improvised sled had been sawing through the flesh of hir legs. They had to be very careful extracting hir from it as a result. Currently, the only thing that saved Lil from passing out due to blood loss was the scabs that had formed over the thin thread.
"I dunno who packed that life pod," Lil said before they sedated hir, "but I wouldn't have had this trouble if they'd packed ductape."
[1] Another Human Misnomer: The mask actually extracts all possible molecular compounds to create a breathable atmosphere for the user, this includes rearranging the user's own breath if outside sources are not particularly abundant.
[Image (c) Can Stock Photo / iofoto]
If you like my stories, please Check out my blog and Follow me. Or share them with your friends!
Send me a prompt [95 remaining prompts!]
