Airlocks

Nobody can hear you scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say. I couldn’t tell you who they are. Honestly I don’t know how the proverbial they would know. If what we’ve heard about the Itrosians and the airlocks are true, I may be finding out very soon. Too bad I won’t be able to let them know for sure. I try to shake that thought from my mind and turn back to my work.

It had happened faster than I would have thought possible. Ours was a small ship, very minimally armed, only capable of short interplanetary flights within the same system. We’re not supposed to fight, we’re a med transport. All sides had signed an agreement when the war broke out that medical transports and personnel were exempt, protected, effectively neutral. We were supposed to be off limits. Apparently the Itrosians had had their fingers crossed when they signed that. It had only taken a few minutes for the Itrosians to gain control of our ship. As I was marched down into the hold with my fellow nurses and medics the only thing I could think of was that they would kill our soldiers, my patients, while they lay wounded in their beds. But they hadn’t. All our soldiers were thrown down here with us. Then we’d all been left here in the dark to wait.

I can’t tell how long it’s been. It feels like hours, but it’s hard to say. We’ve been busy setting up our make shift ward in the hold, a primitive version of the one above us. Whatever else happens we still have patients that need us to take care of them. I’ve made sorry excuses for bandages out of shirts and pants legs, doing my best to bind up wounds, bleeding again from the rough handling our soldiers had received from the Itrosians. We're doing our best, but we don't have supplies, and there's a lot more to medicine than bandages.

“Don’t worry, we’ll get them,” one of the men whispers to me as I check the dressing on his abdominal wound. I smile at him and nod, muttering some form of agreement. The fire in his eyes almost makes me believe him, but I know they won’t. All the soldiers on our transport were being shipped off with us because they were too badly hurt to be treated on planet and needed to be taken to a hospital behind the lines.

I carefully make my way through the wounded laid across the floor to sit with a group of my friends and coworkers crowded in a corner, talking in hushed tones. I sit down, letting my head fall back against the cold metal wall. I sigh and rub my hands over my face. I’m covered in blood and other body fluids, and the whole room reeks of the same combination. The room echoes with the moans and haggard breathing of the injured and dying. I’m exhausted knowing that no matter what I do, in these conditions, I can’t save any of them.

“Private Harker isn’t going to make it down here,” Sam says softly, so only our little group can hear.

“I’m surprised he made it this long, being off the drips.”

“He’ll be lucky. That’s better than what the Itrosians are going to do to us.”

“Do you think they really execute people by shoving them out the airlock?”

“We're med corpse. We can’t be executed.”

“We can’t be boarded either but that didn’t stop them,” I say.

There’s no way they wouldn’t have known what we are. Med transports are always clearly delineated, and it’s flagged on our radar signal. They just didn’t care. They knew we were vulnerable and an easy target. A ship full of medical personnel and soldiers too badly hurt to put up a fight, and they’d attacked us anyway. If they can do that, I don’t doubt the rumors that have been circulating about the air locks.

We huddle closer together in spite of the heat, the conversation falling quiet. After a few minutes I stand, and most of the others with me, and we go back to tending our wounded, which at this point is mostly sitting with the dying.

Private Harker is the first to go. I’ve barely had time to close his eyes when the door grates open. A dozen large, fully armored Itrosians stomp into the room, herding us into a group, hauling up the wounded who can still stand. They march us off toward the main deck. Gun shots fire behind us, back in the hold, finishing off whoever couldn't walk out. I shut my eyes as if that would block out the sound, trying not to picture the helpless men and women I'd been tending. We reach the main deck and our captors start lining us up. A line that ends in front of the air lock.

My heart slams inside my chest, thundering in my ears. We’d known about this, heard whispers about it for months, but now, staring down that double door, it’s suddenly very real. There’s nowhere to run. No way to fight these monsters that are about to throw all of us out into the vacuum of space.

I want to run, to shout, to fall onto my knees, but even through my mounting panic I know it won't make a difference. There are too many and they are too heavily armed. I take a breath, and then another, steeling myself. If I can’t run, and I can’t fight, at least I’m not going to give them the satisfaction of my fear. The proverbial they will have to get their answer another day. There will be no scream from me.