MITCHELL
I stood in the corridor,fidgeting with the hem of the white smock that indicated my medic in training status. A few short feet away was the door that would lead me to the rest of my future. Well, my professional future anyway. So why was I hesitating?
Get a grip,I mentally told myself.This is everything you’ve worked towards. It’s why you worked your butt off in high school despite all the struggles. It’s what kept you going when Granny would tear you down - the knowledge that someday you’d get out from underneath her and realize your dream of becoming a nurse. Or the Mylos equivalent, anyway. That’s why you went and applied for the scholarship, remember?
“Oh! Hi, Mitchell!”
I jumped, not having noticed Amy approaching from the other end of the corridor.
She peered at me, looking concerned. “Everything alright?”
I swiped my sweaty palms on my pale blue uniform pants. “Yeah. Just nerves, I guess.”
She smiled, looking sympathetic. “I feel ya. My first day, I was absolutely terrified.”
“You were?” I blurted out.
“Mmhmm. I’d started nursing school already and dropped out to help look after my mom. She’d gone on a trip with her best friend, Mavis, one of those where you pay for a bus ticket and a hotel room at a casino and get free chips to start you off and there’s a buffet. Sorry, I’m rambling. Um, anyway, on the highway to the reservation where the casino hotel is, a tire blew out on the bus and the driver lost control and it went into the ravine.”
I gasped. “That’s terrible!”
She grimaced. “Yeah. Well, thankfully nobody died. In fact only a few people actually got hurt aside from some cuts and bruises. Unfortunately my mom was one of the unlucky ones. She was standing up, about to go use the little bathroom in the back of the bus when it happened, and she got thrown around. Broke her pelvis and the bone in her right thigh, sprained both wrists, and tore her shoulder. Plus she got a small concussion from bumping her head.”
“But she’s alright now, right?”
Amy waved a hand as if to brush my question away. “She’s right as rain. The hospital she was taken to just so happened to have this handsome doctor whose older, retired surgeon dad popped in to see him. They went on rounds together and wouldn’t you know it, the senior Dr. Mack was smitten at first sight of my mom. He kept dropping by to share hospital dinners and lunches with her and later, to come along on her walks. Then once she was back home, he began dropping by with flowers, books, and began staying for dinner.” She waggled her eyebrows and I laughed.
“I take it your mom was just as smitten.”
“Oh my goodness, is she ever! She said meeting him was almost worth all the broken bones.” We both laughed at that. “Anyway, I had moved to Boston with my best friend from high school as we both got into the same college there. I dropped out and went back home to Tucson to look after her during her long recovery. Then of course she met Dr. Mack, and they got married a year later and decided to spend the rest of their retirement living in Costa Rica after going there for a honeymoon. Both Dr. Mack Junior and Senior and my mom, as well as my bestie, encouraged me to go back to school, so I applied for the scholarship. Unlike you, I wasn’t a match, but I did get offered the opportunity to train here instead of on Earth so I took it. I mean come on, outer space? Far out, am I right?”
I giggled. “Very far out actually. How many million miles away are we?”
Feeling better now, I straightened my shirt and cracked my neck to one side. Taking a deep breath, I said, “Okay. I’m ready. I’ve got this.”
“Yep, you sure do. And we’ve got your back.” She linked her arm through mine. “If you need a study partner, just gimme a call. Xero knows how to find me. I’ve been here three years now so I’m just about to complete my course and know everything you’ve got to learn to pass.” She winked at me as the door slid open. “And I’m staying on as they’ve offered me a job, so I’ll be here through your entire course.”
I grinned at her. “That means we’ll also work together after!” I said, excitedly.
“Yep. A match might yet come into the system for me, or I might end up marrying a handsome veteran here on the work program. You never know!”
She released my arm as Chief Medic Prosolo came over to greet us. “Good morning, Amy, Mitchell. Amy, your tasks for this morning are on your tablet. Mitchell, if you’ll follow me, we’ll take a look at the equipment we’ll be using today and review your reading material. It’s a pretty slow morning here today, thankfully.”
I grinned at him. “Thank you, sir.”
“Just call me Doc like the rest of the human staff do. It feels less stuffy. I’m a medic, not a warrior who needs to follow all that formal protocol crap with my staff.”
I bobbed my head, liking the kindly chief medic even more. “I’d like to thank you for what you’ve done for Jolar. I know it’s your job, but it was, um, a delicate situation and… and…” My cheeks burned as I found myself unable to come right out and say it.
“Yes, well,” he said, eyes twinkling with amusement. “You’ll see we encounter all sorts of situations around here dealing with mating. Jolar’s situation was unusual only when seen through the normal scope of things, but not all that unusual here among the rest of the Fleet, especially given his high stress position.”
I bobbed my head, relieved to know that what had happened wasn’t weird enough to get Jolar gossiped about by the other warriors. Not that he wasn’t a big boy and couldn’t take care of himself. And now I was blushing, remembering just what a big boy he was indeed. I mentally fanned myself.
Not an appropriate thing to think about while at work!I chided myself. Thank goodness the small chubb I was now sporting was hidden under my smock. I willed myself to pay attention to what Doc was telling me as we moved around the examination center.
“Okay, so I manually verify their vitals and do a basic triage relying on my senses, and then verify what the scanner is telling us,” I repeated.
“Unless it is absolutely critical to not wait to begin treatment, yes. Our equipment rarely suffers from failures, but things do happen, and it is also necessary to have practice without the reliance on the scanners in case you find yourself without one.”
