Just as she’d feared, the camp buckled under the strain.

The three Knights had done everything they could to prepare for the sudden addition of ten thousand new arrivals, and given the time they had to work with, their plan was solid. If the Alliance had given them a few weeks' warning or staggered the refugees’ arrival, it likely would have worked.

But with only a few hours' notice and being hit all at once, cold hard reality doomed the plan from the very start.

Perhaps the plan’s single worst component was the Knights' inability to be everywhere at once. They’d recognized this, of course, and tried to compensate, but the sheer enormity of the undertaking overwhelmed them. They’d tried to find volunteers among the refugees to act in their stead, but again, time was not on their side. While under direct supervision they were fine, but once Blye or the others were called away to deal with yet another crisis, inevitably those they’d enlisted to help slacked off, or simply disappeared. The discipline needed to stay on task simply wasn’t there.

Because of this, hundreds of new arrivals went undocumented. Hundreds more didn’t know where to go or what to do, adding to the landing site’s congestion. The Ixians couldn’t help since they were busy rushing from one crisis to the next, trying to keep the populace from descending into bloody anarchy. In fact, it was a minor miracle that their plan worked as well as it had.

Blye and Amar were in surgery, trying to stitch refugees back together who’d been wounded in a particularly ugly melee, while Prash was overseeing their efforts to provide safe drinking water. They’d fallen desperately behind on the latter, as more and more shuttles arrived. The number of patients awaiting care was rising rapidly as well, even with the help of the medical staff they’d drafted from the arriving shuttles.

But in the end, it was a combination of recklessness and fatigue that led to the disaster.

Above the planet, the various ships' captains were busy transporting their refugees and cargo to the surface, knowing full well the fleet of ships in orbit was a tempting target to any Yīqún that might lurk nearby. They desperately wanted to be somewhere else, anywhere else, so in their haste they increased the tempo of their shuttle flights, packing them to the gills before sending them right back down to Taing’zem.

The traffic control teams on the ground staggered under the onslaught, begging the ships to slow the pace, but the captains brushed aside their concerns. Protecting their ship and crew was all that mattered; anything else was a very distant second. The gap between shuttles dwindled, the sky above grew fuller, as panic cut their operational safety margins to the bone.

It was a perfect storm in the making, and in its eye stood a Bamidh crewman named Utsas Xukaa.

Captain Tujaqi had tasked Utsas to handle traffic on the surface. As Chief Mate, it was an exercise he was well familiar with, though never under these conditions. The field was little more than hard-packed dirt, their communications and tracking equipment rudimentary, and the frenetic pace they were operating under was rapidly taking its toll. He and the other controllers had urged their captains to use caution, only for their warnings to go unheeded. They’d been at this for hours, and fatigue was setting in. Wearily, he contacted the next shuttle, ready to guide them in.

“Shuttle 872, this is ground control. Prepare for final approach once the pad is clear,” he ordered the pilot, before switching channels. “Shuttle 119, you are cleared for takeoff, heading 273,” he informed the craft waiting for clearance.

The two ships acknowledged his commands, but as Shuttle 119 rose from the surface, it drifted from the flight path. Only a degree or two at first, but as it rose, the deviation grew. In their haste to return to their ship, the crew of Shuttle 119 had calculated a least-time route that would bring them directly aboard. It was a few degrees off from what they’d been told, but they were certain it was well within safety margins.

Already focused on the next new arrival, Utsas Xukaa missed it completely.

Meanwhile, Shuttle 872 was coming in on final, where a nasty crosswind was buffeting the controls. The pilot increased power to compensate, but as he did, he ran into an unexpected air pocket where the winds dropped to almost nothing. He too drifted off course but judged it within tolerances. Already juggling more than he was happy with, Utsas Xukaa missed that as well.

Neither pilot spotted the other prior to the collision.

Blye carefully manipulated the soft tissue of the Usuu on her table. The patient had been involved in some physical altercation and badly beaten, leaving them with severe head trauma. Bad enough for a human, it was even worse for an Usuu, given their wide fleshy cranium and sensor spikes, much like a snail’s tentacles. Pressure was slowly building inside the patient’s skull, and if it wasn’t reduced soon, their life would be in jeopardy. Finding the right spot to drill was delicate work and, once started, she’d be committed. She had to get it right the first time. Lifting the drill, she placed it near the right temporal lobe and…

Reacting on instinct at the first sound of the explosion, Blye threw herself over the patient to protect them from harm. A rolling detonation roared in the sky, and as she looked up, she saw a massive fireball roil and burn, with falling debris leaving smoky trails behind as they tumbled to the surface. The all too familiar sound of screams and panic reached her ears as those on the ground raced to get clear. As the flaming wreckage impacted, far too many of those screams were being cut short.

“Holy Mother Terra,” she whispered as Amar joined her side, his eyes wide with shock.

The pair stared at the bloody tableau, fixated in horror until the Quatrième turned to face her. “What do we do?” he asked her.

Somehow, she shook off her reverie. “Get ready for incoming casualties,” she warned him, “especially burns and major trauma.” She reached for her communicator, only to have it buzz with an incoming message. Lifting it to her ear, she answered, “This is Tagata.”

“This is Prash,” her other Knight answered. “I’m heading back now. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

“Grab one of the Ixians on your way,” she told him, “and tell them they’re on recovery detail. Have them bring the casualties here.”

“Understood,” he agreed. “I’ll pass it on. Prash out.”

Jamming the device back in her pocket, she did a quick reassessment of her patient. Whatever time she’d thought she had was about to be drastically shortened, as the incoming wave of wounded started rolling in. Quick and dirty meatball surgery was now the official order of the day, and as she picked up the drill, Blye realized that her patient’s chances of recovery had just been cut in half. Prior to the explosion, she liked his odds, but now?

Now, it was anybody’s guess.

Working quickly, she drilled a burr hole near where the patient’s ear would have been, if they’d been human, before inserting a drain line. Some antibiotics and then it was time to move on, as the first victims began arriving from the crash site. Any hope of monitoring the patient was now gone, and with a head injury of that nature, it wouldn’t take much to send them into a spiral, one from which they might never recover.

She pushed that thought out of her mind as made her way to Triage. The first casualty being brought in was severely burned, so badly, in fact, that she was hard-pressed to even identify the species. Looking up at the Ixians who’d transported the victim, she asked, “How many?”

“Uncertain,” one of the blue-skinned aliens replied, “we are still searching the crash site. There may be dozens or more.”

Blye grimaced as the burn victim let out a soft gurgle, a sound she knew all too well. Other races had different names for it, those whose physiology was similar enough, but Terrans called it the Death Rattle. It was a sign the patient was weakening, so much so that their respiratory system was shutting down, and things only got worse from there.

I could spend all day working on them, Blye thought sadly, and in the end, they’d die anyway. Meanwhile, there’s half a dozen other lives I could save in the same timeframe.

One of their draftees came out to join her… a reptilian Ksot. “What’s your name?” Blye asked her. If someone had introduced them earlier, she’d already forgotten.

“... Velsa,” she answered nervously, “Velsa Sebu.”

“Are you familiar with triage standards, Velsa?” she inquired, reluctant to dump this burden on the frightened young refugee, but the patients needed her in surgery. She couldn’t be everywhere… and unfortunately, this was one job she could palm off. Guilt and all.

“Yes,” the medic swallowed, her eyes wide, and all too knowing.

Nodding, she slowly turned away. “... Code Black, for this patient,” she said softly, before moving on to the next victim being brought in.

And with those five words, I’ve just condemned them to death, her brain berated her, even though she knew it was the only viable choice. Time was too precious a commodity to waste on those they couldn’t save.

They brought more wounded in, as she and Velsa prioritized the ones who would receive care first. A keening Yait’xaik, one of their workforce volunteers, lay on the stretcher, his legs badly mangled. Grimly, Blye recognized what needed to be done. “I’ll take him next,” she informed the meager staff, as a pair of orderlies carried him over to her makeshift operating theater. The patient moaned, looking up at her in desperation. “Please, help me,” he begged her.

Resting her hand gently on his shoulder, Blye smiled. “I’m going to give you something for the pain,” she told him, before pressing hypo against his neck. Moments later, the amphibian relaxed, his eyelids drooping as he drifted off to unconsciousness.

Blye masked up and disinfected her hands, inwardly dreading what circumstances were forcing her to do. Yes, she could save his limbs… if she had Prash and Amar at her side, and no other patients to worry about. He’d likely have a slight limp once he healed, but at least he’d still walk.

In a perfect world.

In this one, however, she reached for the bone saw. I’m sorry, her mind whispered, as she began amputating both his legs.

Prash’s return to the field hospital ran into a snag as he arrived at the crash site.

One shuttle had come down more or less intact, while the other had scattered debris for hundreds of meters. One look at the crushed fuselage and he knew no one was getting out alive, so instead he focused his attention on those injured by the fallen wreckage. The security team was gathering wounded nearby for transport, so instead, he made his way over to lend assistance. An Ixian looked up as he arrived on the scene, scowling as he looked around.

“Damned bloody business, this,” he growled.

“It’s fubar, all right,” Prash agreed, not bothering to translate, as he slid his medical bag off his shoulder. After being stranded on a desert planet without supplies while simultaneously nursing a broken arm, he’d long since learned to keep his medkit handy. Kneeling beside one of the victims, he did a quick evaluation. The patient was a middle-aged female Glevack, suffering burns and crush damage across her upper torso. She was struggling to breathe, gasping for air, but something about her trauma had him worried. Pulling out his stethoscope, he placed it against her chest, listening to her lungs, his expression hardening as his worst fears were confirmed.

“She’s got a pneumothorax,” he swore, digging into his kit. “I need your help.”

The Ixian nodded. “What must I do?” he asked.

Pulling out a chest tube and scalpel, he explained. “She’s punctured a lung, and there’s air building up inside her chest. I have to put in a tube so she can breathe.” Turning his attention to the patient herself, he flashed her a brief smile. “I’m going to give you something, and then I’m going to help you breathe easier,” he promised her, before pulling out a hypo and pressing it against her throat. That done, he looked back up at the Ixian. “I need you to hold her steady,” he explained. “She can’t move while I’m doing this, or…” He froze, realizing she was still conscious and very much aware of her surroundings. “It would be bad if she moved,” he finished lamely.

“I understand,” the Ixian replied, as something seemed to shift behind his eyes. He gently wrapped his arms around her, carefully avoiding where’d been injured, as he braced himself against a handy chunk of metal. “I am ready,” he affirmed.

Prash took a quick moment to sterilize the incision site before lifting her arm. “Keep this raised,” he told the Ixian, who immediately shifted position to comply. There was no time to waste, so taking up the scalpel, he made his incision, cutting between the ribs and spreading the parted flesh with his fingers before probing the exposed tissue. The female alien struggled in the Ixian’s grip, but he held her fast, as he cut deeper into the chest wall, before finally breaching the intercostal space. Dark blood bubbled at the incision site, a good sign, as he readied the chest tube and started threading it through her ribcage.

Sitting back on his haunches, he breathed a small sigh of relief as air and fluids began emanating from the open tube. It took only a minute to pack the incision site and tape it off, the patient’s head lolling as her breathing grew deeper and more measured. “That’ll hold her for now,” he told the blue-skinned alien, “but she needs to go to the field hospital as quickly as possible.”

“As should you,” the Ixian replied, waving over a group of nearby civilians to help. “We will need your skills where they may do the most good.”

“Yeah,” he nodded, rising to his feet and wiping off his hands, “I’m on my…”

“... Someone help us!” a nearby voice screamed. Their heads snapped around to see a Durzix insectoid waving all four of its arms frantically. “My mate needs help!”

Grabbing up his bag, Prash started jogging. “Tell them I’ll be there soon as I can!” he yelled over his shoulder, as he ran to aid the next patient.