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| - The knock on the door took Shepard-A294 by surprise. He looked up from his work, setting aside his knife and calipers and taking a moment to scrub his hands clean. The knock came again, a sharp, furtive rap that sounded as nervous as it was desperate. He frowned and crossed over from his cluttered worktable. Glancing through the door’s peep-hole, he saw a man and a woman standing on his apartment’s threshold. Both wore the ragged, grimy overalls that were unfortunately so common amongst the colonists here on Epsilon-31. The woman held a large bundle in her arms as the man raised a tentative hand to knock again. Shepard pulled open the door before he could. Both of the colonists shrank back, clearly surprised that he had even opened the door. In the dim evening light he could see that their faces and overalls were covered with black soot. Foundry workers, then. “Yes?” he asked, still wiping down his hands with a grimy rag. “How can I help you?” The colonists were always taken aback to discover that “Dr. Sears” was a well-groomed young man. Shepard could never quite understand why they were so intimidated by his degree—a falsified one, of course, but in his case sadly necessary. After all the nightmarish terrors he’d faced on the battlefield, a scrap of paper telling the world that he could conduct basic surgery was hardly worth the time he had taken to forge and print it. The man looked at Shepard’s face, then down at his unwashed surgical smock, and then over at the woman. She was immersed in the bundle she was carrying, and Shepard wondered if she was his co-worker. “Doctor,” the man began, fumbling over his sentences. “If it isn’t too much to ask… we just need someone to look…” Shepard leaned on the door frame. He’d learned patience at a very early age—the drill instructors assigned punishment runs to trainees who fidgeted during class—but these people had caught him in the middle of work. There were a dozen different plans and ideas running through his mind; if he didn’t get them worked out now, who knew when he’d get another chance to? The man still seemed to be trying to find the right words. Shepard gave him what he hoped was a polite smile and reached to close the door. “Sorry, I’m busy—“ Just then, the bundle in the woman’s arms shifted and cried out. Shepard froze, fixing the woman with a piercing stare. “What’s that?” he demanded. The woman shot the man a frightened look, then turned quickly back to Shepard. “Please, doctor,” she said in a low, raspy voice. “My daughter. She’s very sick. No one knows what to do. Please…” “Come in,” he said, waving them in. “Hurry up. Set her on the table in the corner.” He held the door open. Man and woman just stared at him, incredulous. “Well?” he demanded. “Get her on the table.” The woman moved first, clutching the bundle that was her daughter close to her chest. The man followed quickly behind, but both stopped when they got a look at Shepard’s main work bench and what was laid out on it. It was a strange feeling, being self-conscious about his work space. Most of Shepard’s patients arrange meetings ahead of time; more often, he just came straight to their homes, though as far as Shepard was concerned “home” was a severe overstatement when applied to the hovels most of these colonists lived in. But he hadn’t had time to clean up, and now his current labor was out in the open for the visitors to see. He could feel their strange, questioning stares piercing everywhere about the room and felt suddenly uncomfortable. “The table,” he said again, motioning at the smaller workspace. He grabbed a tarp and threw it over the workbench. “Don’t mind that, just tell me what the problem is.” The woman gingerly set the bundle down on the table, unfolding it to reveal a small girl. She couldn’t have been any older than four. Shepard walked up, peering down at the strange, pale little thing. He was a field medic, not a family clinician. Most of the cases he took were industrial accidents, wounds that needed stitching and bandaging. His patients were all grown men and women. Shepard had no experience dealing with children. “Alright,” he said, fighting to keep his voice level. “What’s the problem?” “It’s the fever,” the woman said. The man—Shepard was getting the feeling that they were married—stood by, hands clasped nervously in front of him. “We’ve been giving her medicine for days and it won’t go down. The foreman won’t let us take any more time off from the factory. Doctor, whatever you can do…” Shepard stared down at the feeble little girl, hands working at his sides. Fevers. That was basic enough, right? It had been a long time since he’d dealt with anything like this. What if he messed up? What if he did it all wrong? He had a sudden image of his fellow Spartans lying helpless around him, crying out for help that he couldn’t give. His hands clenched as the horror of PROMETHEUS flashed through his mind. No. He would never let another human die like that. “Stand back,” he ordered, bending over the girl. “One of you, grab my bag. It’s over there, in the corner.” It was a moment before he remembered what else was with the bag. He froze as the man let out a small yelp of surprise. “Doctor, is this armor?” He’d just worn it two nights ago. Stupid of him to leave it out, stupid, stupid… “Yes,” he said slowly. “Please don’t touch it.” He looked over at the man, who bent over the pieces of his SPI armor as if they were live bombs. The woman looked from her husband to Shepard and then back down again. “Doctor…” the man said, his fingers brushing against the visor of Shepard’s empty helmet. “It’s dangerous out here on the frontier,” Shepard said carefully. There were too many questions that went with the armor, questions he’d just as soon not think about. Not with the thoughts of dead friends still floating around in his head. “Don’t worry about it. Now bring me my bag.” After another moment’s hesitation, the man got to his feet and did as he was told.
*
* Nearly an hour later, Shepard was scribbling down the address the woman had just given him. “Give her that medicine twice a day,” he told her. “And don’t let it get in the way of your work. I’ll be coming down every day to check up on her, so if you could get me a spare key I’d appreciate it.” “Doctor,” the woman said, eyes shining. They had forgotten all about the armor and what they had seen on Shepard’s worktable. “We can’t thank you enough.” The gratitude felt strange, and Shepard looked away. “Just my job,” he muttered. At this, both colonists looked suddenly very nervous. “Doctor,” the man said quietly. “We didn’t want to trick you or nothing, but we don’t have much cash right now…” “Forget it,” Shepard told him. “Just do as I say and keep your daughter safe.” He closed the door before they could thank him again. No one had ever bothered to thank him before PROMETHEUS, and now that he was out on the fringes he didn’t see why he deserved it any more than he had then. He could only hope that he’d done right by Alpha Company’s memory. That was all the thanks he needed. One less colonist would die a miserable death on the frontier. One more human would go on living. Shepard had done his duty as a Spartan. Or at least, part of it. He straightened and headed back over to his main work bench. Hopefully he’d remember all the things he hadn’t been able to write down before the couple had come to his door. It wasn’t often he had an opportunity like this; it would be a shame to see it wasted. Pulling the tarp off of the bench, he looked down at its contents. “Still breathing,” he muttered to himself. “Good, good.” The Sangheili—a young female specimen—gaped up at him through splayed, trembling mandibles. Its small reptilian eyes glistened with pain, but apart from a few twitches from its arms and legs, it lay perfectly still. Shepard nodded, satisfied. The paralysis drug was working on this subject many times better than it had on the last one. He had taken this one two nights ago, the last time he had worn his armor. It had been a textbook operation, just a night of hiking ten kilometers across the river to the hinge-head settlement and tranquilizing this one when it had come out to check on its family’s crops. Getting it back and into the apartment without causing a fuss hadn’t been as easy, but Shepard had gotten it done and that was enough. He picked up his knife again, ignoring the faint whimpers that slipped from the subject’s throat. This one had lasted over twenty-four hours. He couldn’t count on it staying alive much longer than that. He would have to get as much live data from it as he could before all he had was another corpse to examine. He thought of Alpha Company as he began to make another cut down the female’s shivering chest, but those thoughts quickly turned back to the girl who's life he had just saved. It brought a smile to his face, to think that he had been able to help. His lips were still curled in a faint smile as he continued to cut.
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