Chương 17: Chapter Sixteen - Preventative

Curing people was good. It provided Vena with a steady stream of points. It was also, unfortunately, not good enough. She was working through the mental math as she helped set a man's bones, ignoring the way he squirmed and screamed as she used a tool to pull his bones into position with a series of cruel snaps. About half of her patients gave her one point. She could treat, on average, nine an hour. That was an easy four and a half points per hour. It wasn't enough.

"Done," she said, her voice even and clinical. Some people in her position might have tried to be kind, but she found that a heady level of dispassion was best. It kept things neat and tidy and professional. Points Gained: 1 New Point Total: 131 That was... an acceptable number of points. Still, she picked up a few tools and stuffed them away. Some of her gains had been consumed when she bought basic healing supplies. So far, she had never spent more than it took to heal, but it was still eating into her 'profits.'

First, avoid harm. How did that apply when she had this many people to heal? The man she'd just saved was moved off of her table. She had relocated again. A bit deeper into the ship, to what was likely some sort of bazaar. Walls had gone up around her workspace, placed there by surprisingly friendly locals who, despite their rather uncouth nature, didn't like the sight of crooked limbs and broken bones and blood.

The corpses, those she couldn't save, were disposed of with a callousness that didn't truly surprise her. These lower deckers were... practical. She could appreciate that.

"Miss healer?" someone asked, and she looked up. Somehow, she had gained three assistants. She could barely remember their names, but that was fine. She... didn't know what people thought of her, but for everyone she couldn't save, she was able to save three others. Sure, there was some lingering suspicion, but after treating some ailments, sometimes with the very advanced medicae technology that voice in her head provided her, she was growing in popularity.

She suspected that a few of the more clever local gangs had decided that she was worth protecting. She was equally sure that leaving was going to be a chore. She had rendered them a service that was exceptionally valuable, and they had little reason to simply let her depart. That was a problem for later.

"What is it?" she asked.

"We've got 'nother. Got shot by the enforcers a couple decks upwards. Bad bad," he said.

"Uh, they're a mute." A mutant?

"And that would bother me?" she asked with a gesture to herself. She had seen several mutants already. Actually, nearly one in three of the people she had assisted were mutants of some sort. Most were very much benign, and she hadn't noticed anything that stood out too much. Her books had an entire section on common mutagens and mutations. She suspected she now had more experience with those than any of her current cohorts on the medicae deck. Then again.

Those same cohorts--and herself--wished to rise to prominence, and that rarely meant working with the more exotic mutants.

"No, Miss Healer," he said before pausing. He looked her up and down.

"Yeah, figured it wouldn't." Ah, yes. Her own... genetic predisposition didn't help. She wasn't a mutant, exactly. She was voidborn. The difference would be lost to the uneducated, however. They merely saw her height and assumed that anyone nearing seven feet in height was abhuman.

"Well, bring them here," she said.

"And ask to see if you can't get more boiling water. I need to disinfect a few more tools."

"Yes Miss Healer!" The tent-like wall was opened and another person was placed on her operating table. They were groaning, arms twisted around their middle. She frowned as she looked a little closer. Two things immediately stood out. First, the man's condition. Several burns across his torso, all on one side, each one leaving a circular burn pattern on his worker's overalls. Some material was melted into his skin. Low penetration on the edges, but deeper in the middle.

She had rarely seen las-fire wounds, but this was very obviously exactly that. Second, the mutations this man had were interesting. Some sort of protrusions on his forehead, several of them, in mounting ridges. His skin was pale and a little grey, with touches of purple around the eyes. He opened one eye and looked around. It was yellow. She pulled his lips open with a gloved hand and noted that his teeth were sharp.

"Strange," she murmured.

"Vena. I should warn you that this person is only partially human."

"Explain," she muttered in High Gothic, a tongue that none of the locals spoke. They had heard her mutter in it before, and didn't comment.

"That is a first-generation genestealer. Or a human infected by a genestealer." She felt a cold shiver run down her spine.

"Ah," she said. Then she looked him over. Patting his pockets didn't find much. An injured person was the perfect target for a bit of theft down here. She did find something in the folds of his outfit. A curved symbol, some sort of creature with a spiked back. It was stamped out of some cheap metal and set on a chain. Her texts also warned her of genestealers.

"Is this curable?"

"Yes. But not cheaply. A second generation wouldn't be. This one seems to be a practicing member as well. Note the tattoos." She opened his shirt and winced. There were several markings on his flesh. More heretical symbols. Reaching to the side, she grabbed a scalpel, then a metal bowl and opened his jugular with a deft flick of her knife so that it wouldn't splash. The man died slowly, but relatively painlessly.

Kill Confirmed: 1x Genestealer New Point Total: 141 This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it. She paused, taking in the message. Ten points. She needed to think about that. But first.

"Contamination risk?"

"Minimal. You'd need to go out of your way to be contaminated at this point." She nodded, then wrapped a piece of red cloth around the man's... the genestealer's arm.

"Body," she called out.

"This one will need incineration." Her helpers carried it out. They were used to the process by now. Glancing up, she took in the multi-tiered room. There were dozens of people above, most of them moving about in something of a hurry. She wondered if this was close to business as usual down here. What was a disaster above was... just another disaster here, perhaps? No, she doubted it was that simple. There was a tension in the air that felt foreign. Surprisingly, people were helping each other.

Communities and clans extending a hand. Ten points. Vena sighed. As many points for one swipe of the scalpel as she would have gained from a couple of hours of tirelessly saving lives.

"How long do Vanguard live for?" she asked.

"As a median or as an average range?"

"A range would do," she muttered, still in High Gothic.

"The shortest lifespan in my records is point zero zero six seconds. The longest is seventy-six thousand years. The latter still being alive when I last had a communications and status update." She had not been expecting that. Well, the first, maybe.

"What do they do?" she asked.

"The latter? They retired to farm." She... supposed that was plausible enough. The number was so big that it was simply meaningless. She refocused on the present.

"Genestealers. On The Broken Scale."

"There have been reports and fights with them elsewhere. Do you want to know more?"

"Maybe later. They're an enemy to you?"

"To civilization."

"I see." Vena fell back onto her heels, then looked up as another patient came in. A child. They were set down, and she began to operate. Broken ribs and a punctured lung. Non-fatal. The puncture was nasty, but it was on the edge of the lung and the short rib had sealed the wound. She had the materials to repair this on hand. For the child's sake, she dipped into her small supply of pain-suppressants. While she worked, she thought, and when the patient left, she told her assistants...

her guards, that she needed a few minutes to settle. They nodded, and seemed happy to leave her alone for some time.

"I want a medical catalogue. A powerful one," she said.

"Second. I need access to a weapon that can target the genestealers alone. Are there any biological weapons in your catalogues?"

"Several million of them, yes. What flavour are you looking for?" She hesitated for a moment. Were there truly so many? And could she really buy them so simply? Would anyone else, given that level of power, understand the implications?

"Virus bombs?"

"Tailoured or not?" Vena licked her lips.

"Limited use? Specifically targeting the genestealers."

"Certainly. But for the points you have, your targeting range will be limited to your ability to disperse a non-self-reproducing aerosolized virus."

"I'm sure I can manage that," she said. What came next was a discussion on what kind of catalogue, exactly, she wanted. There were xeno catalogues. Not that Vyper called them such, but it was what they were. Catalogues of xeno technologies. Everything a non-human race had made distilled into a catalogue, then cut and parceled by broad or narrow subject matter. She erred away from those. Instead she settled on something a little more generalized that promised to give her access to plenty of tools and weapons.

More importantly, it was a catalogue with many biological improvements. Vena was never fond of biotic augmentations. The flesh might be weak, according to the Adeptus Mechanicus, but she was a medicae. She knew that the weakness of the flesh was the fault of the flesh and its user. There were ways to make that better, to heal and improve and rejuvenate. The not-so-humble Astartes (which she had never had the honour of being anywhere near during any sort of medical intervention) was far from just human.

She wanted the same for herself, and this seemed like a path in that direction. New Purchase: Biohacker Minoris New Point Total: 41 She nodded. Expensive, but fine. In the worst-case, she would merely have to endure for ten days to regain the lost points.

"Very well. I need an aerosolized virus of some sort, one that can propagate a little, and which will specifically target people with genestealer genes."

"Even those freshly turned?"

"Yes. According to all doctrines, once that sort of infection has occurred, there is no removing it. An early death, before the host's mind is lost, is a mercy."

"Very well. Keep in mind that this agent will have a limited lifespan in the air, and will lose effectiveness after six to twelve hours."

"LD50?" she asked.

"0. 001 ppm."

"Good enough," she said. They discussed price, and she ended up irate, but made the purchase anyway, even if it sank her points to nearly nothing. New Purchase: Targeted Aerosolized Kill Agent x2 New Point Total: 1 She jumped when a beautiful box appeared on the operating table. White, with twin snakes wrapped around a pole. Opening it, she discovered two canisters, unmarked, with pull tabs at the top. She put all but one canister away, then cleared her throat.

"Assistant? Yes, can you come here for a moment? I have something I'd like for you to do. It's a decontamination spray. Just... move around the area while holding this above your head, please." That would clear the vicinity. If it didn't earn her many points, then she'd simply have to be more creative.