“Aye, Sir,” Sarah replied hurriedly when Warren ordered her to an escape pod—no one had to tell her twice. Even as she moved away with her fellow soldiers and patients, she heard the two shots from the direction of the infirmary. The lieutenant had lingered behind, and it was obvious what he had done. The medic was furious at him for doing it and at herself for not having done it. She had told herself that there was only fifteen minutes left, that the door would be locked, and that there would be almost no chance of the orcs finding the two left behind. And all that might be true, but it would have been better to be sure. And yet Sarah had not even seriously considered the idea—leaving the pair behind to die was bad enough, but to actually kill them herself...<br/><br/>Her anger quickly dissipated—the lieutenant had corrected her error, and the orcs had given him no real choice in the matter. Sarah desperately held on to her detachment, suppressing all her emotions. She just wanted this to be over, before either rage or panic got the better of her.<br/><br/>The group was half way to the nearest escape pod cluster when the soldiers at the front signaled for everyone to stop and get down. They must have heard something. Sarah crouched and readied her rifle. The quiet tension was unbearable, and her stomach felt like it was twisting itself into a knot.<br/><br/>The young doctor did not know if the half dozen orcs were just overconfident in their control of the deck or in some kind of hurry, but they blundered flat-footed right into an ambush. She did not know if the weapons fire or the orcs’ shrieks made for the worse noise, but it was over with quickly. Everyone moved past the bulky, bullet-ridden alien corpses and continued carefully onward. There were no new human casualties, and Sarah could only hope this would be her last contact with the enemy for this battle.<em>Stupid to even hope for a break after a day like this.</em>One of her walking wounded stumbled slightly, but Sarah caught him by the arm and kept him moving along.