To Hell and Back (Hellworlder pirates)

Ch 67 Alice

Alice

The word that the ship was getting underway came out of nowhere, and the whirlwind of activity that followed left Alwen far too busy to even try and track Alice down once she was back on board. Hundreds of crewmen were returning from wherever they had spent their down time, and that meant she had a lot of work to catch up on. Some crewmen who had previously lost a limb or received extensive burns from the Aunviry ambush had sought professional treatment from advanced facilities on Mars. Which meant Alwen and Bachir needed to perform basic checkups on all of them to update their medical charts and assess what needed to be done going forward.

And since the Astaroth had been away from any Terran world for over a year that meant that everyone was coming down with the latest strain of the flu and common cold at once. Being on a sealed ship, only interacting with one another had allowed them to go a while without any major or minor disease from spreading. But that year spent away from common Terran illnesses had also weakened their immune response to such things. And of course there was always the new batch of STD's that entered the ship every time they made port, and Alwen was beginning to see a pattern of who did and didn't get them.

Adela, the ship's cook, always seemed to come back with a more obscure one each time, like she was going down a list of some sort. This time she had contracted something Balikstro in origin.

Alice had popped in to get some blood drawn, as was standard procedure when anyone visited Earth for an extended amount of time. But Alwen had been so busy with all her duties that she didn't really have the time to chat with Alice, she did however get a noncommittal grunt out of her when Alwen said they needed to talk.

Three days of nonstop tests, exams, and a short phone call with a Balikstro physician about possible symptoms for Adela's condition, and Alwen and Bachir had earned themselves a short reprieve.

"We can't keep doing this" she groaned as she leaned back in her favorite chair.

"Its our job Doctor Djani." Bachir grumbled, he had laid his large furry head on one of the counter tops, and seemed content to remain there.

"That's not what I meant, what I mean is that we can't keep doing this all alone. We're busy enough on a normal day, but when something big happens we get completely overwhelmed. There's only two of us, and whole ship of sailors who need our help." She explained.

"Can't be helped, it's hard to find qualified physicians willing to serve on a pirate ship. We hire on a few adventurous young doctors for a few months and then they leave to be the chief corpsmen on the newest Hellworlder ship. The fleet needs to keep expanding, and we can't hire fast enough to outpace that growth. We've had to change our standards, why else would we hire an alien doctor with no experience in treating Terrans?"

"I thought it was because my brother pulled strings"

He chuckled "No, Modius mentioned you to us and talked up your skills with passion. But if I hadn't seen you credentials myself and decided that you would be worth the hassle of training then you would have never been hired."

Alwen frowned "My credentials weren't that good" she muttered.

Bachir lifted his head off the counter and turned to look her in the eyes "Alwen, you graduated the head of your class from a highly prestigious and selective University, and at the same time you learned Galactic common. Not only that, but you graduated with both medical and surgical degrees, along with training in medical research. In Terran terms you'd be regarded as a medical prodigy, and among your own people you should have been regarded as a once in a lifetime genius."

Alwen laughed derisively "That's nothing, my older sisters have already done those things as well, I was just doing what was expected of me."

"Bah, quit comparing your self to those fools. Since joining this ship you've become a master in several different alien physiologies, Doctors on Earth often spend years specializing in just Felinoid physiology. And you not only mastered Felinoid biology, but also Lycanoid, Ursiloid, and Primate. None of that was expected of you." He said pointedly. "And lets not forget the research you and I have done up until this point. You need to stop putting yourself down and accept that you are a very talented doctor."