"Yes, Sir," Sarah said to Warren in acknowledgement before he made his call. She had known things were bad on C-deck by the number of casualties and the terrified stories of her patients. But judging by the lieutenant’s call to the bridge and his response to her requests things were even worse than she had thought—they might very well lose the ship. If it came to that, she had to make sure she was not taken alive. The things those orcs might do to her...<br/><br/>The young doctor put that thought out of her mind, it was obviously counterproductive. The one bit of good news was that Sarah could ignore her PES limitations and operate on Smith—clearly no one in this room held loyalty to the state above loyalty to their fellow soldiers, or they would have objected to the lieutenant’s remark. Conducting surgery in these conditions, her patient’s odds of survival were 50/50 at best... but that was a lot better than her patient slipping away while she waited for the ship to be cleared. And, at least for now, none of her other patients were in immediate danger of dying so she had some time.<br/><br/>“Fuck it, time to get 19th century on this shit,” Sarah muttered to herself. And the truth was, the methods she would have to use did mostly date back to the late 19th and early 20th century.<br/><br/>The doctor drafted two of her mobile patients to clean her makeshift operating space. Thankfully there were sterile prepackaged tools in various drawers around the room. She had a sufficient blood supply on hand, it was synthetic stuff so universal donor... what she did not have was an anesthesiologist. Sarah had at least read a lot on the subject and talked with her nurses—if she did not fuck up, she could put Smith under without killing her. The soldier was very surprised when she found out what she had to work with. “Diethyl ether?” What schizophrenic fucks had stocked this place with modern synthetic blood and a 19th century anesthetic? It must have been a budget thing—synthetic blood kept practically forever, so it was cheaper in the long run despite production costs.<br/><br/>As Sarah cleaned up and then set up for the surgery, she explained the names of various operating tools and equipment to her ad hoc assistants, so that they could at least hand things to her as she needed them. Despite her apprehension for her patient’s safety and the situation in general, the young soldier was also very excited—she had never believed she would have the chance to be a surgeon again!<em>And if we can manage not to get overrun by those fucking monsters, all this won’t be for nothing...</em>From what little she knew of him, Sarah at least had confidence in her lieutenant—that was something to hold on to, to help keep her fears at bay and do her job.