"Asthmatic or not, she needs to get out of here, Edward. If it's in the air here, it will do her no good to linger around." The doctor was undeterred and offered the mask to Esailia, now thinking that she'd might need a shot of epinephrine to loosen her airways up and help her breathe normally. The pain in his arm slowly changed its nature, hurting more and more like someone slammed a full-force blow with a heavy baseball bat and tore his muscles in the effort. Though the pain was excruciating, he could still dedicate part of his brain to his current task, albeit losing his patience. He did catch what the captain managed to mumble through her coughing, but, Aidan refused to listen; Edward only worsened the situation with his stressful demeanor, the doctor feeling his temper being pushed nearly over the edge. His last comment, together with gripping his shoulder, was the last drop. Aidan threw himself on his feet and shot the fox's arm away with his right palm and painted his finger at the tip of Edward's nose; his expression changed from a mildly-concerned frown to a full-blown, enraged snarl, baring his canine teeth baring from under his upper lip.
"Stand down, corporal! I may not be your captain, but I am a lieutenant of this unit and if I catch you yelling at me, or trying to prevent me from doing my job, I'll rip that fucking arm off, shove it up your tailhole and make you eat it!" He yelled at him, displaying quite a show for the captives. "I don't know what the shit is going through that dense skull of yours, but I'm here to help last time I checked and if I don't pull captain Sprinstream out she'll-"
Just then, the feline captain collapsed on the ground, her throat groaning, her diaphragm shuddering. Aidan turned around to see what the commotion was all about, only to identify the slightly convulsive body laying on the floor was Esailia's. He felt the same feeling all over again from roughly one hour ago, on Ken's chopper; doubt of success was a lingering thought, knowing that he may not be as efficient with the arm that has lost its functionality. In one second, he drew the steps of saving Es in his head: epineph shot, hyperextension of the head, check airways, use either OPA or ventilation balloon, extract patient; having a plan in his head helped him regain his wits and lose some of the panic trying to cut the rational component of his brain completely and started to move. The first thing he did, though, was to turn to Edward again and snap at him.
"Superb! Now look what you've done! Don't just stand there, get here and give me a hand." He started to rummage through the kit again, looking for everything that he needed; he threw a one-shot syringe with a transparent liquid in it in Edward's lap while he frantically searched for the OPAs stowed in a compartment somewhere. The syringe itself looked nothing like a classically-shaped syringe, instead, it was a cylinder with a red end and a grey cap on the other, which would arm the injecting mechanism within the contraption "Take off the grey cap and shoot her in the thigh with the red tip, right there, in that spot and hold it for ten seconds. Don't touch the needle!" The dog then pulled out three curbed tubes with a flared end, each colored in a different hue.
He rolled the female captain on her back and straightened her head with great effort, every time he would use his arm, or even at the smallest twitch, the tremendous pain would hit him again and freeze his brain and body in place. He took off his helmet and lowered his body down and concentrated on his right ear, trying to hear her breath, or at least, feel the air escaping her mouth brush up against the sensible fur around his pointy ear After he regained mobility, he took the longest of the tubes and compared its length to Esailia's distance from the mouth to the lower angle of her mandible, judging the oropharyngeal airway to be too long for her, so instead he picked the middle-sized one; with another considerable effort, he extended the cat's neck outwards by pushing down her forehead with the barely functional, hurting arm, while he guided the motion by holding two fingers under her chin. He used his left hand, which still had mobility in its fingers as none of the forearm muscle groups were affected by the wound, to pry open Esailia's mouth by pushing with his index and thumb against her upper and lower molar teeth to part them and open her mouth just enough to fit in the OPA; he pushed in the tube with the curvature facing her tongue, to make way for the canal to reach halfway down the throat, after which, he rotated the tube with a precise move of his good wrist and push it down again without forcing it in. He made sure the fox did his part correctly and leaned in once more to hear Esailia breathe some more, catching a small sign of improvement. Next, they had to get out the stretcher, but seeing the corporal's general reluctance, Aidan alone dragged the poor cat on it, using his boot to keep the stretcher from sliding along with her body.
Once she was secured, strapped in and on wheels, Aidan urged the corporal to push the stretcher. "I'm sure your sister, Nathaniel and Michael can handle the situation accordingly. If you don't want your superior dead, I suggest you push her out of the cave before she bleeds her lungs out. Get a move on, corporal!" He then turned his attention to the trio they were about to leave behind.
"I swear, if someone else gets hurt today, I will murder that one wiseguy. Stay sharp, I won't be available for a while." He told the remainder of the team.
He could push the stretcher earlier that day with only one hand, but really, he wanted Edward to do it for him, so he could repair the mistake of talking down to a superior. Aidan felt bad for using his rank as a mean to shut down an argument, but with Esailia's condition, time was a precious resource. Having a bit of time to recollect the events of that day, he could feel exhaustion soak through his muscles and wear down his bones, feel his left arm still hurting like an absolute bitch and realize that it had been a difficult day. Not the worst, but a really tiresome day. Two pilots, a captain and himself got him in the process, one from the group went straight for the morgue. There would be a lot of paperwork ahead and he dreaded working out captain Spinstream's case; by now it was quite obvious she was hiding something and taught everyone else in her team to keep their mouths shut for her and like the good soldiers they are, they all remained silent and try to divert from the problem. It would have been a matter of time before her symptoms would aggravate and draw someone's attention; lucky for her, she caught the right person's attention. Somewhere half the way down the shaft, Aidan grabbed the stretched and brought it to a halt; he didn't communicate to colonel Blade about Esailia's situation just yet and he knew Edward was waiting for the worst to happen. The dog had to chose whether he would tell his superior or become another liability. He pointed his finger at Esailia's chest.
"Take it off. The vest, I mean. Now. Under double." He kept uttering, urging the fox to do as he says. "Put the vest down, right over there." Once it was laying on the ground, with no warning, Aidan pulled out his standard issue handgun from its holster tied to his right thigh, flicked the safety switch on the grip and aimed the pistol loosely with a single hand, only to discharge a single bullet at it. Aidan's ears rang as the walls reverberated the sound with like a heavy punch straight into his eardrums and watched the empty shell rattle and roll on the floor; he picked up the evidence and stowed it in his pocket, then asked Edward to pick the vest up and hold it out for him to eyeball where the bullet would have hit if it were on her. He refused to shoot at the woman, as it would have been way too risky, but he still had to leave a nasty bruise, thus, he used the barrel of his PDW to slam it square into the woman's unprotected chest and as if he didn't abuse the poor woman's body, he promptly pulled the OPA out for enough time to force her jaw shut and bite her own tongue, drawing a bit more blood; he wiped some of it with his sleeve and slid the tube down her throat again.
"You wouldn't believe me if I told you that this was for her good. You stick close to me and let no one check her, you understand? Keep your mouth shut and let me do the talking, you guard me and help me with my hand, but don't dare to wag your chin. Put her vest back on now, but don't strap it back together, leave it hanging." He then opened his commlink and addressed to his superior and then, the landcruiser.
"Blade, I need to pull captain Spinstream out, she's been hit and knocked unconscious. I can't imagine how the situation's on your end, but don't shoot towards the entrance. Me and Ed are pulling her out now, over. Ken, do you read me? Watch for the mine entrance, friendlies coming out!" Aidan then switched channels. "Parvan's Claw, this is First Lieutenant Sykes, I'm pulling out a patient hit with a small caliber firearm; the bullet didn't go through, but she had her wind kicked out and lost consciousness, minor bleeding from a tongue bite and a gunshot bruise on her chest. Requesting transport to sick bay. Ove- no, wait, base, base! About the patient, uh, she-"
Back at the sick bay, one of the technicians was pulling the tray out of the CT scanner and helped the patient up, lending a hand for him to get on his own feet. The ferret checked him up and down and used his body as best as he could to provide a fulcrum for the still-dizzy wolf and guided him outside; just after the door, a badger and with his nurse, a female gazelle, were receiving fresh news from the battlefield just outside the cruiser's walls.
"-so, it would seem the female patient wishes to be seen only by the corpsman."
"He is a doctor, sir."
"With an EMT license; so, if he isn't a field medic, he is a field doctor, if that makes you happier. Ah, Aihara, here you are, already walking; I am honestly surprised by your swift evolution towards recovery, even if there were no life-threatening wounds. Still, I need to be sure if you didn't hit your head hard enough to rupture any important blood vessel in-"
"CT and MRI scans are clean, sir." Interrupted the ferret, a feint smirk sketched at the corner of his lips.
"Good." The badger replied, thinning his own lips while he frowned at the misbehaving runt. "Blood tests were very good too, actually. It would seem that you are quite alright, mister Aihara; now, if it weren't for my utmost respect towards colonel Blade, I'd keep you at least twenty-four hours on a bed here at the bay, but..." he then sighed and frowned, rubbing his eyelids "... given the tragic situation of today's operation, I am more than sure that you'd like to partake with the debrief. Thus, I will give you the green to go and do so, but, I'd much like you to move as little as possible and keep your head level, rest as much as you can and drink a lot of fluids, fluids that preferably do not contain any traces of alcohol. We'd like to check your head tomorrow too, so you're not done with us. As for the dizziness, well, I am sure some meclizine HCL would do the trick. I'm sure Maria here can take care of you. Now, off you go, we've all got work to do, there's more wounded to come."
Said and done, the gazelle lead her patient to the examination room and had him sit on the bed while she searched for the box of the needed antihistamines, managing to find it using her intuition and knowledge of Major Reid's habits, the doctor badger. She prepared the tablet, calculating the dosage with Kuraiko's current state of vertigo, poured some cold water in a standard, white cup and popped the tablet into another one, then, offered them to the wolf.
"That's it. In about ten minutes, you should feel like yourself again, but like the doctor said, try to not to move too much. Beer won't drown the pain and neither hitting the gym, so stay put. If you feel like it's coming back, come right back, okay?" She smiled to him, making sure she was a good nurse as she had always been. She had a rather comely visage, but most of her beauty was worn out by the horrors of death and mutilation, a dizzy man was quite a relief for her too. She had her hair tucked in a bun, her thorns neatly trimmed not to be too long and made sure her clinic clothing was tidy; she hated them as they would ruin her aesthetic body shape, but she respected her job too much not to sacrifice her looks for it. If she really wanted to look pretty, she would do it far away from a small, enclosed space that had too many hormonal and aggressive men on the hunt for a delicious catch.
