In many parts of the world, burns as deep and extensive as Narvia’s would have been fatal. Even if you happened to be in the right place, your socioeconomic circumstances could easily decide whether you’d receive curative or palliative treatment, if any at all. Fortunately, she had been the only one to receive serious injuries — a mass casualty situation would have meant [i]triage[/i]. And [i]that[/i], in all likelihood, could have meant a liberal dose of painkillers and last rites for her. Not something Ariel would have liked to administer to another friend. 

After that would have come deciding the method of burial. Occasionally a ship might keep the intact corpse onboard, perhaps in some freezer, until they could land for a more traditional funeral. The more efficient method was to eject it out the airlock or perhaps ‘cremate’ it with the engine. The [i]most[/i] efficient method involved recycling.

Would have, could have. Such unpleasantness was all behind them now. Narvia was here, healthy, heartily acting as adorable as usual. That was all that mattered; at least until the next mission came. Until then, the Star Marines — and the adult crewmates, too — could enjoy the boring tedium of daily life. The cycle of numbing pain and peaceful normalcy would continue. Today the Xuanzang had arrived at the rebel world, Plenty. People would be dying in the hours to come. Ariel could only hope that her next séance would not be with any one she knew.

Tarak, as usual, had formulated and presented a plan of action. It sounded decent enough to Ariel; easy enough for her to say, seeing as she had been again assigned to a cushy support role away from all the gunfire and gore. Well, there’d be none of that if things worked out — but she doubted any one here sincerely believed that that would be the case.

Time for work!

Ariel plugged her omni-tool into one of the communications consoles, right beside where Seraphina had plopped down. She wasn’t too familiar with all the knobs and levers, so having it all on a touchscreen would make interfacing a bit easier. Nor was hacking her specialty, though she had engaged in electronic warfare more often than not during the war. It was a bit less stressful than medic work — the fact that your friends’ lives lie in your hands is slightly less of a Sword of Damocles when their blood and entrails aren’t spilling out in front of you — and had definitely been far safer than frontline duty. 

[color=e9e6e1]“We’re like the lookouts in a heist film.” [/color]Ariel could hardly complain. It was an essential role, yet isolated from most of the risk. She’d wanted to chat a bit more, but Seraphina bore the look of a cool all-business operator. No small talk, for now. 

A quick series of taps and gestures on her omni-tool booted up an array of programs, some less questionably legal than others. They would be coming in handy soon. [color=e9e6e1]“Three of us need to monitor both cams and comms, plus taking over the crashed ship down there. I’ve dabbled a bit in hacking and the like, so mind if I handle the latter, Phi? Then you can take communications.”[/color]

[color=e9e6e1]“Let’s aim to take control before they notice anything’s wrong. If they do manage to transmit some signal, we’ll have to resort to jamming. But if it’s too obvious, it’d blow our cover anyhow. So—“[/color] Ariel swiped at her screen, and soon a new file had been uploaded into the ship’s database. [color=e9e6e1]“I found some rebel propaganda we can use as interference as long as we blast it at full power. Hopefully it’s believable enough.”[/color]

[color=e9e6e1]“As for Amy — she hasn’t got any military background. But I think we can still leave her to monitor some of the cameras and simpler sensors. Keep an eye out for the Ascendancy forces planetside and in space. Actually… where is Amy?”[/color]

It wasn’t the first time Ariel had said this aloud. The last few days, Amy had been unusually absent from the corridors as well. Ever since their first combat with the defectors, in fact — no, cracks had begun showing even [i]during[/i] the boarding operation. The team mom and pseudo-counsellor was in dire need of some love and therapy.

[color=e9e6e1][i]Physician, heal thyself.[/i][/color]

Amy was an adult. Probably — it was quite taboo among some xeno-anthropologists to assign such labels to non-human developmental stages. But she seemed to fit the mould. That especially included her behaviour with regard to the child soldiers (or in her case, simply ‘children’) — affectionate and protective, even [i]maternal[/i] in some sense. She probably had difficulty reconciling her image of the Star Marines as ‘children’ with the reality of the ‘adult’ lifestyle they had taken on. One of dissonantly un-childlike fighting, killing, and dying. 

At least she wasn’t starting to sympathise with their opponents. That sort of emotion led to insubordination, and [i]that[/i] more often than not meant death.

[color=e9e6e1]“Sorry. Phi, give me a moment. I’ll go get Amy back.”[/color] Ariel pushed herself away from the consoles, and headed over to the far end of the bridge. 

Feelings of powerlessness, at being unable to protect these ‘children’. Ariel had seen similar things before in a few adults who had worked with them in wartime, even with how carefully restricted their rare interactions had been. Those who could not restrain themselves had been assigned elsewhere. And those were trained personnel. For a [i]civilian[/i] tossed into a complex modern battlefield without so much as a boot camp, like Amy — the already immense pressure would be amplified, compounded to an overwhelming degree. ‘Failure to adapt’ would be putting things lightly.

[color=e9e6e1]“Amy—! Um,”[/color] Ariel reached out, half-unsure, before going all in on a gentle, tender hug. [color=e9e6e1]“Like Avelyn said, you look super tired today. It’s been a tough week for everyone. And, this mission is about to be even tougher. It’s all really stressful, and all of us feel that too. So there’s no need to keep things pent up. Talk to us. We’ll listen.”[/color]

Ariel had buried herself in the taller woman’s bosom. But now she turned to look upwards, to look at Amy directly.[color=e9e6e1] “If… if you want, you can cry on my shoulder too. Let it out. And then — be the best Amy you’ve always been.”[/color]