Still Life

1. Sharp inhale

Smoke billowed from between his lips, stretched into thin wisps by the faint cool currents exhaled by the atmospheric controls. Billions of pinpricks of light in the void overhead are blurred into swirling nebulas by the moisture in his eyes. His hands shivered like on that cold day in Bothnia station, the last rehearsal of what to say before the door chimed the point of no return. He smirked dryly at the memory of how his stomach lurched at the look of surprise in her eyes when it opened. Ah, youth.

The smoke from his vaporizer was likely cleaner than the air around the station. Atmospheric controls desperately tried to scrub it of dust form eezo, particles of vaporized alloys and toxic gases of everything that still burned.

He rubbed at the tickling irritation in his reddened, sleep deprived eyes once again. The glitter of stars, ship wreckage and debris from the destroyed sections of the Citadel became a little less blurred. The strange new alignment of the wards felt uncomfortable: too open, the space outside too dark, the light of the sun coming to view on every rotation too harsh. Centripetal gravity felt off, localized efforts to compensate with mass effects fields too sporadic, costly and suffering from power outages. He flinched as a tiny blossom of erupting fire flickered in a pocket of contained atmosphere somewhere far away. The way the wards were now aligned and with large sections separated and floating in the void made it difficult to tell - it's probably Tayzeri. He blinked the wetness from his eyes and wiped the traces of tears from his cheeks.

A large transport glided by, blocking his view, part of a constant stream of evacuations, relief efforts and salvage operations. He ejected an empty vial from the vaporizer. For a certain type of patient, it's contents could mean a handful of extra hours. In some cases, that's the difference between life and death. For him, it meant focus for enough time to probably save at least a dozen others.

- "Okay, just this once, then it's up to you", he said to the galaxy above. He drew in air and held his breath. He thought it was the right choice, but still he felt like crap.

He exhaled and flicked the vial away. It spiraled down toward the tilted horizon, and just before becoming too tiny to see, it hit a curved protrusion that was part of a turian cruiser's engines just a few hours ago. He turned around and cursed, startled by the locking mechanism that spat a few sparks at his touch. He flared his nostrils at the putrid air that wafted from the doorway and headed for the familiar sounds of sobbing and yelling people.

A sharp inhale.

Lights and shadows flashing. Blurry shapes hurrying around. A stench of chlorine stinging. Something metallic, burning, rotting. A thin veil of numbness being intermittently pierced by jabbing and searing pain. Can't hear properly.

- "Cut here, we got to get that damn thing off first."

A pneumatic whine protesting. A loud pop, and a brief burst of small shards and crumbs rattling down. Something sputtering.

- "Pull there. Careful now…"

A slow tearing, crunching sound and feeling of pressure being eased.

- "Oh dear G-"

Fast shallow exhale-inhale, coughing. Spatter of blood - fresh and coagulated. Can't feel my... Reaching out, grasping for hold. A raspy voice, halting to gurgle, wheezing for breath. Retching a mouthful of dark red blood, which flows down and smears chin, cheeks and neck. Congealing into a sticky mess among the bruised skin, cinged hair and tatters of cloth.

Another gasp for air.

Teeth staining in dark red, eyes wide but not seeing, desperately seeking for something, anything. Swallowing, spitting, fine droplets spraying.

- "She's awake. Too soon, add ten more cc's. Watch the-"

Instruments clattering on floor. Tearing fabric. Spitting, hawking. Can't breathe. Panic. Arm starting to flail, pushing away.

- "Ten cc's. That was the last."

- "God damn it, hold her down!"

- "How is she still…"

- "Shut it! Inserting the endotracheal..."

Blunt and invasive, forced to gag. More arms grasping a hold, pushing down. Fingers slipping on something wet and sticky. Sputters clouding eyes, everything dyed in red.

- "Where's Rianus? What do we have left - diamorphine, fucking entonox - anything?"

Gagging reflex, air wheezing through nose. Managing only a hacking gurgle of red froth.

- "Can't wait, we'll lose her, I'm going ahead."

A bright all-searing light pulsing into view. Burning through every nerve, filling senses and remaining thread of conscious thought. Pure, bright and full of terror. Let me go. Remember her eyes. Sometimes we share memories. Focus on that. Try to remember. Blue eyes.
Sometimes we share- It's too much, I can't...
Sometimes we- Focus

- "Still can't believe they didn't bring her here sooner. A clamp."

- "With all due respect, sir, the situation was very chaotic. Lucky to be found at all."

- "But they did find her! What could've possibly taken so fucking long? If I lose her too, I'm walking there personally and fucking smiting those bastards. Forceps. Rotate one-twenty-seven. Switch off manual."

- "Sir, with the manpower and resource issues, everyone's minds were on saving those we could, prioritization, survivability. Still are. No-one's thinking about favoring rank."

- "It's her, for fuck's sake! Not some admiral's neighbor or a rich actress with a broken nail! Gods! Watch the levels, adjust thresholds here."

- "But sir, the shape she was in. Can't blame them for not noticing right away."

- "How about the big fucking 'N7' stamped right on the fucking dog tags!? Can't be that many of those around. They can read, can't they? The auto-retractor."

- "Sir, you saw what was left of the armor. What's left of her, poor thing. Without all this stuff inside her, I doubt we would be having this conversation."

- "Without all this stuff inside her burned out, we wouldn't need to. It's not like we have containers full of spare L5's and whatnot lying about all over. Adjusting magnicification. Probes A-three through A-twelve, B-one and C-nine through, um.. C-twentyone."

- "Still, you have to admit this is all quite fascinating. Have you ever seen anything like this, sir?"

- "A fucking mess, that's what this is. Everything woven through by this shit. Bones, muscles, skin. There's hardly a part that hasn't been augmented. Not many would feel comfortable doing this to themselves."

- "From what I heard, I don't think they asked her opinion on being brought back."

- "Ah, crap, retract A-seven and A-eight to five-twelve!" An exasperated exhale. "Just look at this! It's not possible to reconnect these conduits manually, you'd need to grow it in place or use nanites or something. … Yeah, she probably packed a wallop, but once these things get into too bad shape… I don't know. It'll takes ages to scoop this out, manufacture the replacement stuff and put it back in. It'd be easier to just clone every limb." A deep sigh. "Okay, that'll have to do. Everyone clear. Start the VI."

- "Do you think it will take long to replace everything, sir? Can we, ah… Are we really up to this?"

- "Damned if I know. This wasn't over the counter stuff even before the invasion started. Now we're down to rationing bloody CrunchyCritter™ bars. Maybe years, unless the relays are fixed soon. If there is anything left behind the relays anymore. Shit."

- "Hmm… Have you looked at this, sir? The seam layout and meshing on this right here… This is brilliant! We're lucky we could pull a nearly full medical from the Alliance databases. All that data from that Lawson character. Some of these augmentations, though... the salarian, Solus… This is mind blowing."

- "Okay, quit drooling, you can write your thesis later. Ahem, VI's done, she's prepped. Bring in doctor Veiss' team. Time for them to work their magic. Everyone else, out!"