[chapter two: telegrams]

Maia: 1300 hours, Saturn Base V medical deck 

The Saturn Home Base V or the Saturn V to its inhabitants and pretty much everyone else in the system was massive. I had been living on it for the better half of a year now and there were still huge portions of the ship I had never even stepped foot on. Although I suppose its size reflected the monumental nature of its task. Housing the majority of what was left of the human race was hardly a small project. I'd spent a great deal of time thinking about all this recently. If one didn't have a home planet was one a refugee? And, when the war was over would we go back home? Or would we continue outward to search for a new home planet? There was never much of a concrete plan displayed to the residents of the Saturn V, perhaps some of the other bases were better informed, perhaps I just thought about these things a lot more than anyone else. I flicked through a medical textbook on my desk and tried to concentrate. I had started my medical degree on Earth back at the university of Nottingham but I'd barely got through my first year before it had all kicked off. That had slightly derailed my second-year plans but I had been back on track now over the last year on the Saturn V. Does it technically count if you finish your degree in space? That was, if I even got to finish my degree. Since the war started, all of a sudden the demand for doctors had begun to outweigh the importance of fully qualified degrees. For all of us that had had a seriously disrupted degree path however this was a bonus, so complaint wasn't really my style. Back home I had spent hours poring over textbooks and theory trying to understand the purpose behind every little cut and stitch of any process. Now, the same books that would've entertained me for hours in my university dorm felt like wading through glue. 

I sighed, rubbing my temples as I forced myself to refocus on the page in front of me. It shouldn't be this difficult but it was difficult to care about theoretical knowledge when the reality was at any moment an actual medical emergency could be sprung upon us and by this point, I knew no amount of theory would help me when they did. Hands-on experience was abundant on the Saturn V as it housed the Saturn fleet's main medical deck and services. With so many people crammed into a station never meant to house so many, injuries and illnesses were a daily occurrence, and that wasn't even taking into account the war. 

As if it could read my mind the alarm on the medical deck started to blare; taking me by so much surprise that I almost knocked over my coffee sitting beside my text books. I jumped out of my chair and joined several other medics who had stuck their heads out of their doors running down the corridor towards the MedBay – we had been told not to run during an emergency a long time ago but that didn't ever stop anyone, it's human nature I think, you either run away from the problem or you run towards it. Without ever consciously making a decision before I realised that I had become the kind of person to run towards them, I wonder when that happened. As I ran every bit of training I had had on Earth began to meld together into a fine white haze, and that hands on experience that was becoming so familiar also in itself became a blur. 

The MedBay was a perfectly moving machine of medics and patients milling around each other like one of those country dances we'd been taught in school. I found my place in the oiled machine trying to keep rhythm like everyone else did with such practised ease, but I had never been good at dance in school. I tried to turn my brain off but I couldn't wrangle it into place. I had to scan every single bed, every person brought in, because what if one of them was someone I knew, someone I loved. I bumped into someone and could barely start apologising before they brushed past me and continued on their way. This machine, this living organism, didn't have time built into it to say sorry - it barely had time to breathe. I closed my eyes for a moment doing what I had practised, separating emotion from work, I was still no good at it. I picked up bandages and slid into my place in the machine like a cog that had one to many appendages. 

The main injuries were always worsened by infection and if those injuries are brought on by bites it's even more of a problem. I was scanning over the stretchers in front of me looking for the telltale marks, bites meant close combat, bites meant last resorts, bites smelled of desperation. My fingers closed for the briefest of moments too tightly around the roll of gauze I was holding before I forced my concentration elsewhere. 

The overhead lights buzzed loudly, the sound like a constant warning alarm in my head, the equipment we had was already beeping angrily under the demand. The lights cast a stark glow over the metallic walls and white sheets which were already subtly staining red. My body wanted to freeze up in the centre of this milling storm but my hands and feet wouldn't allow it. People needed me, and my brain wasn't going to be the weakness that stopped me from helping them. 

I stopped by one of the occupied beds, it supported a young woman who lay shivering beneath the buzzing lights, her arm wrapped hastily in bloodied fabric. A wound peaked through the gaps—an uneven mess of torn skin and crushed muscle, an unmistakable hack from a pair of jaws. The chance of infection was too high. I pressed my lips together and looked down at the patient's arm again, gently moving the gauze to get a better look at the tear in her flesh. The edges of the bite were swollen and dark, but not just from the bruising I was accustomed to seeing when the human body went through immense strain —there was something unnatural about the way red inky lines of tissue seemed to spread outward in faint, branching lines beneath the skin. My stomach twisted. I didn't know what to say to her but luckily, I didn't have to. 

"Take it off," said the woman quietly. 

I couldn't even respond, I just nodded silently and my whole brain seemed to freeze. I knew it was the best option, that infection would spread too quickly if I didn't, yet my brain could barely process my fingers tying the tourniquet or the seep of blood as I made the first incision. I witnessed the whole process; I physically made the actions but it was like watching someone else's hands. The overhead lights buzzed so loudly, I wished I could turn them off. From somewhere in the room that I couldn't pinpoint - sound carried oddly that moment – came a scream that cut through the relentless buzzing. It was the kind of sound that crawled into my bones and settled there, raw and unnatural, and yet terrifyingly human. I wanted to run away, but my feet kept me there, kept me in the fray. 

Several hours later I sat back in my office staring blankly at my textbooks once more. I sipped at my cold coffee, and studied the diagram of the human brain. The medical deck had returned to normal, the storm had passed, and now came the silence of the aftermath. 

That silence was broken by a tap on my door and I glanced up. 

"Mai?" one of my colleagues had stuck her head around the door and waved a yellow envelope at me. "Telegram for you," she said cheerfully sliding it onto my desk "I think we allllllll know who it's from." She said in a sing-song tone. I went a soft shade of cerise and swatted her away. 

"It's probably from one of my sisters," I mumbled, embarrassment spreading up to my ears. I knew for a fact that it was not from my sisters, Jude never wrote, Annika had just sent one a few days ago, and I saw Ruby enough that she didn't need to use telegrams to get hold of me. I waited until she had left me to the privacy of my room and then slid a letter opener under the seal and unfolded the letter. I was greeted by Odhran's slightly wonky printing and even after that morning's chaos it brought a smile to my face. 

[To: Miss Maia Warner, room 407, Saturn V, Saturn Home Fleet] 

[From: Corporal Odhran Venetti, 1st Battalion of the 5th Regiment, Pluto Outpost 1] 

[Morning my love, or evening, whatever time you read this I hope it's a good one-] 

She scanned down the letter with a small smile on her face as Odhran updated her on his exploits, reassuring her as always that he was quite safe and that there wasn't so much of a sniff of a swarm in the area. Her smile slipped off her face as quickly as it came however as she read the sign off of his letter. 

[It's a nice surprise to see Juno again, don't worry I'll keep an eye on her, promise I'll keep her out of mischief. All my love until I see you, Odhran x] 

She reread the line several times to make sure there was no way she could've misinterpreted it and her blood began to run hot, then cold, in quick succession. What the hell was her little sister, her eighteen-by-the-skin-of-her-teeth sister, doing out on the front lines?