"You're okay. Just hold still, Cap."
Meerian, a medic from her company, continued to clean up the face wounds Fareeha sustained from the sneak. Alawa had taken over command temporarily; she was in no condition to jump again. From the very brief report from Meerian, the face wounds were superficial. Light scarring perhaps. What concerned the medic more so was the impact from the sneak. A rib may have broke. She prayed that wasn't the case.
"I need you to fix me up." She resisted the urge to grunt in pain. She'd been through worse than mere shrapnel. It could've been worse as well.
"What I'm doing, Cap. We need to move you back," Meerian said. A round slammed into the wall they were behind, Meerian ducked while Fareeha sat there. There was nothing she could do.
"I will not leave," she said. Trying to get to her feet, she hissed as fire hot pain snaked within her chest. "Holy hell that burns..."
"That's why I said not to move!" Meerian scolded. Cleaning up the last shrapnel wound opening, she threw the contaminated supplies on the ground. "Begging your pardon, but you'll be dead weight. You can't jump - let alone stand." Meerian waved over a jumper. She began to deploy a stretcher. "We're getting you out of here, Cap. We've established a perimeter near our insertion point. You'll still be close. Don't worry."
Unable to argue due to the pain she felt from moving, Fareeha allowed herself to be placed on the stretcher as she moved away from the fighting.
It wasn't fair. It wasn't fair for her to not fight with her soldiers. She'd seen enough jumpers to plummet to their deaths that she felt like not fighting dishonored them. Her condition hardly made her useful though. Meerian was right. There was no way she could jump or handle the recoil from her rockets. If she really humped it out, she could stay ground side and orchestrate the attack. She could do it from behind as well, but there wasn't something significantly different from commanding in the rear to commanding in the front. Commanders lost perspective when they didn't experience what they're men did.
Reaching the secure zone just outside the radius of the front, Meerian and the jumper brought Fareeha to the hospital tent. Reinforcements were already starting to move in from the ESF to relieve her vanguard unit. Even if the battle had just started, her people were tired. Jumping took a lot out of you. Something that the medical branch in the ESF weren't afraid of sharing with jumpers and the brass.
Moved to a table, Meerian took a deep breath. "I'm heading back out, Cap. Get better. We need you."
Before Fareeha could say a word, the medic and the jumper quickly exited while the medical professionals in the field hospital began to strip off her armor. She swore as they prodded her chest. "So?"
The doctor looked at her. "We'll start treating the broken bone immediately."
"How long?"
"A few days. Depends on how well the muscle accelerant takes."
Fareeha shook her head. "One day."
The doctor rose an eyebrow. "With all due respect, you're not medically trained, yes?"
Fareeha didn't answer.
"That's what I thought." The doctor said something to a nurse before the nurse left. "We'll get it ready. You'll leave once you can, and I clear you. Conversation over."
The doctor left just as quickly leaving Fareeha by herself. She swore again and laid back. She listened to the explosions and gun fire in the distance. How many of her people had died already? The Swiss? She closed her eyes.
Too many.
