Empyrean Iris Story Collection

Operation Steel Eye

They had gone through another attack. The rundi chairwoman had not been expecting it, but all of a sudden there were voices, and shouts, and people running this way and that, she had been hurriedly bundled into a truck and driven for over an hour in the opposite direction with no idea what was happening, and no one that seemed to want to tell her what was going on. When they finally stopped she was told there had been another attack, and they were trying to get her as far away from the fighting as possible.

They waited there for over half a day, and only began their return journey when a spotty call came in over their radio to drive them back. When they reached camp, a good portion of it had been damaged, especially alone the suwards side, though, as she got out of the truck, she was told they were lucky, and the ashfall cleared enough that their long range weapons became more effective, driving the Drev off for a time.

"However, I don't think I need to tell you how imperative it is that we get operation steel-eye up and running." The admiral was saying leading her through the camp, as the soldiers scrambled to repair and re-supply themselves for an attack that could happen at any moment. Ever since the supply ships had been able to get through the atmosphere, thing in camp were looking a little less bleak.

The wounded were better cared for, and the soldiers were receiving more rations.

Though the ash was still a heavy nuisance, and kept the days mostly dark, they did have occasional times of clearance that allowed them to see the sun.

She moved into place behind the admiral, who had led them to the new medical tent, less of a tent now and more of a pop-up shelter, with reinforced siding, and an actual door. Stepping inside, she couldn't help but gawk at the difference just a few days of supplies had made. The floors and walls were a uniform steel grey, and proper decontamination equipment was brought in to rinse ash from their bodies. Instead of suits to put over themselves they were washed off and given entirely new sets of clothes.

Stepping onto the ward was a much greater relief. The place was spotless clean, bright white lights shone in from above, and instead of rolled mats on the floor, there were cots, clean bandages, and monitoring machines hooked up to each of the wounded soldiers beeping away with their vital signs. Instead of moaning and pitiful whimpering from earlier, they were silent most of them asleep, all of them heavily drugged under vast swaths of pain killing medication. The first half of the room housed newly injured soldiers lying on cots their missing limbs bandaged and properly cleaned.

But the back of the room, well the back of the room was where things changed.

The fruits of operation steel- eye. At least twenty soldiers, this being the first medical tent, she was told there were twenty more soldiers in the second. They did not lay on open beds, but instead hung from the walls in various states of unconsciousness, pinned there by the thick metal contraptions welded to their bodies. A main rod of the metal was riveted down their backs curving around onto their hips and then locking at the knees, similarly with the arms.

Metal protrusions connected to the underarms and over the back of the hands.

It was a strange sight, and made her rather nervous as she somehow felt the wrongness of the steel next to delicate skin and bone.

Theadmiral stepped forward to examine the sleeping soldiers, "We lost 20% of these brave men and women after the first few hours out from the operation. Bacterial meningitis, and the occasional paralysis. A few of them just stopped breathing, but that could have been a reaction to the medication. This is all we have left.

The rundi chair woman stepped forward looking up at the sleeping humans their eyes close, their faces so much more peaceful now. As per usual she was drawn to one human in particular, the only human that she actually knew on sight based on their history together, or their acquaintance.