The shells of armies trying to blast each other to oblivion scream overhead. The mixed smell of cordite, blood, and ozone fills everyone’s breathing orifices as energy particles scream at significant portions of the speed of light and supersonic bullets both hit or narrowly miss the soldiers of both sides, and sitting in a foxhole are two soldiers of Armedia. They are all that remain of their battalion. They have been together since their first day in primary school, then conscripted together with the rest of their University, thrown through basic training, and now four years later they are all that remain of that conscription. Neither have the family or connections to have a significant rank, they are both just drones doing the tasks assigned, and neither can leave before the war is over except by death and for one of them death is walking toward them ready to relieve them of their breath.
Bleeb looks at the fallen form of his friend, the thin blue blood gushing from the wounds in his chest, the nearly shredded arm muscles where he caught machinegun fire, he sees the life leaving his eyes, then looks across the no man’s land between himself and the other army–an army for whom he has no name beyond knowing they are the enemy of his people because that is what his leaders tell his people. He realizes there is no one coming to save them, that Flip will die soon and he will then be alone without his friend. Then he remembers basic order number seven “when left with an injured compatriate it is essential to remove them if possible from the battlefield to the closest aid station.” Bleeb again looks across no man’s land and sees the enemy soldiers with the white arm bands and red crosses, the ones that no one is allowed to shoot at as they are enemy healers and his army knew that to shoot at them brought the entirety of the enemies Hellfire down upon you, one shot at them and an entire division would die in a flash of fire the enemy called “Fireball.”
Bleeb in that instant rolled Flip onto his shoulders causing Flip to scream.
“Hang in there Flip, you don’t have permission to die and I don’t want to go there yet.”
Bleeb stands with a test of will as Flip is a lot bigger, easily weighing a quarter more than himself. He wraps his arms around his friend to hold him there and stomps his way up and out of the foxhole across the ground of no man’s land made muddy from the red and blue blood of both sides. He is trying to both run and hold Flip steady and failing at both but he is staying on his feet and that is what matters to him. Bullets whiz past him as his own armies energy particles pass him leaving their distinct smell of ozone in their wake as they burn through his uniform and he realizes that both sides are now trying to kill him as he tries to save his friend’s life the only way he sees possible. Most of the way across he begins shouting the words he has heard the enemy soldiers cry out to bring the healers to them even though he does not understand what they mean only that they summon the ones that heal.
“MOMMY! GOD DAMN IT, MEDIC, I NEED A MEDIC, MAN DOWN! OH DEAR GOD I NEED MY MOMMY!”
The enemy healers turn and begin running toward him. Two of them run out carrying the healer’s bed and two more are taking Flip off of Bleeb’s shoulders as they put him on the healer’s bed then Bleeb grabs the handles at Flip’s head and walks back helping the healers carry Flip to safety. He stays with them, two healers at Flip’s feet, the other two removing Flip’s shirt and examining his wounds as Bleeb continues to tell his friend to stay with him in words the healers only know some of. They carry Flip to a large lorry with other injured soldiers and Bleeb follows the healer's lead and sets the healer’s bed in the rack in the lorry. An enemy soldier comes up to Bleeb and begins talking to him in Bleeb’s own language.
“So you speak our language?”
“No, I copied the words I have heard your soldiers use to call the healers.”
“In that case you did good. Are you surrendering?”
“Yes.”
“Is this your mate?”
Bleeb does not realize the soldier means husband, but thinks he means friend as the soldier used the wrong word.
“Yes.”
“Okay, I need all of your weapons and for now I am going to let you stay with them. You may be separated at the hospital though so the doctors can fix them if they can.”
Bleeb takes off every weapon he has on him and begins handing them all to the soldier talking to him.
“I will travel naked if I must, we just have to fix him, he is now all I have left.”
“No, you can keep your clothes on for now, we can pat you down for anything else. I really doubt if you had intended to harm us that your own army would have been shooting at your head like they were, it's a good thing you have your helmet on though or you’d have never made the crossing.”
A couple of soldiers pat Bleeb down then usher him back into the lorry with the medics. Bleeb stays besides Flip the entire ride holding his hand and urging him to stay alive as they bounce along the uneven roads. As the healers move between patients they check on Flip almost constantly, then speak to Bleeb again.
“We need to test your blood to see if it matches your mate’s because our blood does not match yours and they need blood.”
“Do what you must, I will help however I can.”
The medics clean Bleeb’s arm and draw a drop of his blood then put it in a tablet, it comes back as a match and they begin collecting blood from Bleeb to be given to Flip once they reach the hospital. For now they give Flip plasma as that is compatible between the races.
The lorry pulled to a stop, the doors opened, and the medics began issuing orders to the new people coming on board the lorry. The first healing bed grabbed was Flip. A new person tried to push Bleeb out of the way, but the lorry medics stopped them, said something to them and they waved at Bleeb to follow them.
Bleeb stepped out of the lorry, and got his first sight of the hospital and it looked nothing like the healing palaces of his home. It was short, and made of fabric in a dark green color, but Bleeb could smell alcohol and disinfectant in the air as they walked through the canvas door. An obviously more advanced healer approached them, her status noted by her white robe. She spoke to Bleeb in a kind voice that was a little hushed and to Bleeb very high pitched but she spoke clearly in his own language.
“This is your husband?”
“No, not my husband, my oldest and dearest friend. We have known each other since we first started school twenty years ago. We have always been together and I don’t want to live without my friend.”
“What is his name?”
“Flip.”
“What is your name?”
“Bleeb.”
“Can you be away from him? I don’t know how his surgery will go so I don’t know how long it will take.”
“I don’t want to be away from him, but if I must then I will.”
“How much do you know of your own anatomy? Do you know where your organs are, how you are put together?”
“Some, what we are taught in health and hygiene classes. I have a basic idea of how we function.”
“Good, then you will have to be my guide as you probably know as much about your body as I do. I’ll have the head nurse help you scrub up and get you ready to help me not do anything that makes things worse for Flip.”
She turns and says words in her own language to another woman healer who comes over and grabs Bleeb’s hand as she guides him to another room. In the next room she begins explaining to him that he will need to shower with a special soap to get all of the mud and battle dirt off of him. While he showers she will be getting him clean clothes to wear so he can be in the operating room. Bleeb showers in the surprisingly warm water and does exactly as the nurse had told him to do and as he finishes she is coming back with a set of blue scrubs, a surgical cap, and covers for his feet, for him to wear. He gets dressed, then they go to a sink and he mimics her scrubbing her hands, under her finger nails, and up her arms, then how she carefully grabbed a clean towel and dried. Somehow he knows inside his friend’s life depends on him doing things exactly right. He puts on the same type of mask as the nurse, then the same type of gloves, and apron, then follows her into the operating room backing through the door while holding his hands up while not touching anything just like she does.
Flip in already on the healer’s table when Bleeb walks in. Flip is now completely naked, he has been cleaned, he sees the bag of his blood now attached to his friend as it slowly trickles in through his arm and a man beside Flip’s head watching screens with lines going up and down in some places and numbers that seem to constantly change. The doctor walks in just as Bleeb and the nurse had and she looks at Bleeb.
“How are you doing? You able to handle this?”
“Flip looks better already, maybe he isn’t as bad as I thought?”
“He’s pretty bad off, but we’ve fixed humans who were way worse than this.”
“Molly, you’ve been with Mr. Bleeb the longest now. How is he holding up?”
“He is a fast learner and I think he is going to be just fine.”
“Good. Everyone, pay attention, I need to be able to communicate with Mr. Bleeb here as he probably knows more about Aldarian anatomy than I do and I’d like to get his buddy here back together correctly. I’m afraid there may be some missing pieces so let’s keep the chit chat down and keep to speaking Aldarian through this so Mr. Bleeb can feel as comfortable as he can while we reassemble his buddy that for the record he fireman carried across no man’s land to get help from us.
Okay Mr. Bleeb now we put Flip back together again.
Fourteen hours later Flip is laying in a bed in the intensive care unit, reassembled, no longer bleeding, though he is very pale. Bleeb is sitting in a chair beside him watching his monitors when Flip’s eyes open up and he tries to speak. Bleeb hits the button to summon the doctor as he had been told to do and soon she is in the room too.
“Well Mr. Flip, you took quite a beating, you’re lucky to have such a good friend that he risked his life to save you. Then he was my assistant to putting you back together again.”
“Really Bleeb? The last thing I remember was you yelling at me that I didn’t have permission to die as you lifted me onto your shoulders.”
“Because you didn’t.”
“Why are we in a human healer’s place?”
“Basic order seven, they were the closest so that is who I took you to.”
“You are alive because your buddy carried you to the closest healer he could find and if I have anything to do with it he too will be a healer as you say it.”
“I am no one, I have no lineage to the healers.”
“Maybe to the Aldarians, but among humans the right qualities matter more than what family you are from. In the human world you can be a doctor if you want to be, and I think you will make a fine one too. For now I am having your prisoner status set to stay with us, we see Aldarian prisoners here more often than most would expect and it would put them more at ease to see other Aldarians helping freely.”
Ten years later Bleeb graduated from Medical school on Earth. Flip had chosen nursing and had graduated several years earlier. Bleeb was handed his diploma and the lead healer of his own world was there to help him into his traditional Aldarian healer’s robes acknowledging him as one of their own even on his own home world.