[U]Joseph[/U]

[i]Who is in heaven is driving this fucking thing?!?[/i] 

Joseph mentally fumed when he shook away the sting of his landing, his feet had lost their footing when the ship suddenly shook. The abrupt movement and focus on readying himself had already knocked the air from his body and left him winded. His head lifted, unable to speak for several moments, as he spotted Niven braced in the doorway of the medical bay. When the anouncements were made, all doctors had scrambled to ready themselves, expecting a vast amount of wounded and injured to be pouring in at any moment. Widened eyed and motionless, Niven snapped out of his concern when he noticed Joseph had lost his footing. Both doctors gave each other a brief look. Wasting little time, Niven darted towards Joseph, his hand outreached to aid the man back to his feet. A small grateful smile flickered across Joseph’s creased face before he noted the first to arrive. 

Everything seemed to be utter chaos at first. Bodies, both officers and civilian scientists, rushed about with wounded in the medical bay’s direction. Some had electric burns, their clothing singed to their flesh, while others had mere gashes or bruise which could’ve been walked off. Joseph noted a young man, a fire extinguisher held in hands, putting out a sparking console some length down the hall. The wires had caught fire and the victim was already on route to the rooms.

By the time Joseph was helped up, the chaos had already tampered off. Already many of the medics had shepherded the injured and dropped them off, their figures vanished back into the hallways to search for any stray wounded. Meanwhile, officers hastily rushed back to their earlier stations to pick any slack left. It would take hours to sort this mess out while Joseph took up scissors to cut away the fabric off an electric burned victim, her eyes brimmed in fear and clearly shaken. A tug of pity jarred Joseph’s heart to see it. In a gruff manner, he spoke to distract her while he worked. 

“It’s just a mere burn, we’ll cut it free and bandage it then you need some rest.” 

She looked up from her cradled arm, eyes brown as a black hole, to examine Joseph for several seconds. “It sure feels worse than some lousy burn.” 

The woman seemed indignant at his tone but he merely shrugged it off, neither bothered to justify or excuse it. He could easily tell her nationality through her accent, Southern USA. Like him. He only continued, already her sleeve was completely off and ready to be bandaged. “It always seems that way when you’re injured.” 

Once done, he passed her over to a nurse who promptly sought to deliver her into a medical bed. Joseph then went to the next patient. It would be several hours before two of the personnel came in, a sleek, black body bag slung between the pair. In that moment, Joseph had just finished up with another patient and turned on heel to where the bag was hauled onto an open bed. He had barely registered Dr. Niven beside, his figure shortly joined when he spotted Joseph move. 

Joseph felt something twist within his middle like a creature, frightened and trapped inside. He knew the meaning of the body bag. A death and nothing good would come of it as his aged hand reached for the zipper, his forefinger and thumb grasped it firmly then pulled it back. His face, instinctively, paled when he saw her face. For the second time of that day, Ylva’s face hovered in his mind. Only this time, she was a deathly vision of her former self. Silence seemed to fall about those surrounding the corpse. It was broken by Joseph, who stepped away, reaching for a white cloth and placed upon Ylva’s face out of respect. Her eyes, wide open and possibly in pain, were shrouded from sight. 

 “First the living, then I’ll deal with the dead. Please put her in the morgue, namely in a cold unit, until I can do an autopsy.” Joseph said, his face turned to the two responsible for bring in the body. They nodded, wordless, and lifted the body toward the morgue while Joseph returned his focus on the living. Later, much later he would give Ylva the attention she rightly deserved.