Chapter Text
Part Three
The ear-splitting cry of pain filled the room with a haunting sound that sent a shiver cascading down every spine in earshot.
The accompanying crack of bone was enough to make everyone present wince in unison. All except the one person responsible for causing the pain.
“I did advise you to try a sedative,” Natasha smiled apologetically at her latest patient.
The sandblasted nomad stared back at her with fearful wide eyes. But as the pain subsided and the unfamiliar-looking woman stepped back, he awkwardly lifted his left arm back up in astonishment and turned to his similarly dishevelled colleague that had brought him to the infirmary with delight.
Natasha nodded in satisfaction and looked over at Kitaxis, who still looked a little shaken from the noise of the man’s cry.
“There. One dislocated shoulder reset. Another successful treatment.”
Part of her was undeniably enjoying her work in Arcadia Falls’s infirmary. The back to basics approach she was having to take was rewarding experience and invention over simply triaging and treating ailments with a quick wave of a tricorder.
But as soon as she had started to enjoy herself, she was bitten by a pang of remorse. After all, this was real life for the residents of Nimbus III, and if she started seeing this as a chance to play at being an old school medic, then she was dealing with their plight no better than Jirel and his deluded cowboy fantasies.
So instead, she focused on the concerns of her patient, turning back to the silent nomad and his colleague with her best medical officer’s glare.
“Listen, be more careful operating that drilling rig of yours in future. And I’d strongly advise you to take an analgesic from the nurse before you leave.”
Her mute patient stood and accepted a small vial of pain killing medication from Kitaxis. He offered a simple nod of acknowledgement before the pair of nomads exited the main room of the infirmary.
“You’re welcome,” Natasha shrugged as they left.
“Done that myself a few times,” Kitaxis said as she began to clean down the treatment area, “Doesn’t always work.”
“The trick is to get the patient to relax their muscles before you try to seat the joint back in the socket,” she explained, worrying that she was maybe being a little patronising towards the woman that had apparently worked at the infirmary for some time now.
But Kitaxis didn’t appear patronised. Instead, she nodded in understanding, taking in the impromptu lesson she was getting.
“Course,” she added, “Nomads are lucky if it’s just a dislocation they get from drilling accidents. Had a lot of amputations as well.”
Now it was Natasha’s turn to wince as she pictured the somewhat mediaeval approach to that form of surgery that would be possible in this location.
“But,” Kitaxis continued, “It’s hard work that’s gotta be done. Takes a lot of time, and a lot of nomads to find water out in Prosperity County.”
Any satisfaction Natasha was feeling for the help she’d provided vanished in an instant, and the guilt returned in a flood. The idea that an inhabited planet in the 24th century would have such an issue with something as simple as their water supply seemed perverse.
When Nimbus III had first been set up, the absence of stable fresh water had always been dismissed as a ‘tomorrow problem’. With three galactic superpowers sending regular supply ships loaded with resources, external sources of food and water were plentiful.
Which meant that by the time everything collapsed, no permanent solution to Nimbus III’s most glaring problem had been established. And the small amount of work that had been done to construct a network of water treatment facilities connected to the few stagnant pools and saltwater lakes on the surface were cannibalised for parts by the marauding bandits that had been left behind.
Since then, every fresh attempt to domesticate the place had featured some proposal for dealing with the water situation on page one of their prospectus.
Some suggested terraforming projects, some wanted to put modern replicators in every home on the planet, with no clear plan for how to power them, one promised an audacious solution using a vast solar sail array to capture and insert a rogue ice moon into orbit which could then be mined for water.
One group had even posited a solution based on a long-forgotten experiment that took place in the Mutara sector a century ago, which they claimed could be modified to deliver a smaller scale habitat on a specific region of a planet’s surface. But the scientists involved in that project disappeared without a trace weeks after it was first announced, with rumours floating around that the Obsidian Order had been responsible.
But whatever solution was suggested, none came to fruition. And with supply runs to Nimbus III now almost non-existent, water remained the sparsest of commodities on a planet renowned for sparsity. And the thought that, in the modern age, people were still losing limbs, or even their lives over something as fundamental as fresh water, made Natasha’s sense of guilt more palpable than ever.
And she decided she had to do something.
“Kitaxis,” she said firmly, “What if I told you that—”
The door burst open suddenly, stopping Natasha in her tracks, and the man she had treated earlier staggered in wearing only his trousers, fully conscious, and even more fully confused about the neat stitching across his gaunt stomach where a stab wound had once been.
“Wh—What the hell happened?” he managed.
Natasha and Kitaxis quickly rushed over and supported the unsteady man over to a chair in the corner of the room.
“Hey, easy,” Natasha offered with concern, “You’ve had a lot of stitches in that wound.”
The man looked up at her, then down at his stomach. It was far from the only scar across his upper body, a patchwork of ugly blemishes dotted across his leathery skin, but it was the neatest.
“You did this?”
“The lady here’s a doctor, Gr’Ash,” Kitaxis nodded, “She’s fixed you up. Good as new.”
Natasha offered the man a guarded smile, not entirely sure how the grizzled Nimbosian barfly was going to take her impromptu surgery. To her relief, his face creased into an appreciative smile. She was slowly starting to get used to the time delay involved in a resident of Nimbus III processing the concept of kindness.
“Well,” the man called Gr’Ash nodded, “Thank you, miss. When I saw the knife go in, I thought I was a goner there.”
“Just try to steer clear of any more…disagreements,” Natasha offered back.
Gr’Ash nodded, tentatively feeling along the ridge of stitches with his hand as he mulled over his lucky escape. “Say,” he added suddenly, “What brought a medic to Arcadia Falls anyway?”
Natasha paused before she answered, as she was forced to remember the reality of their mission to the town. Such that it was. With a heavy sigh, she realised that she should probably at least try to help Jirel and the others out on their search.
“Actually,” she admitted, “I came here with my friends. We were looking for a man called Toxis?”
As soon as she had said the name, something visibly changed in the faces of both Gr’Ash and Kitaxis. Something replaced their usual look of sad acceptance at their lot in life on this particular planet. Something that was clear in their eyes.
Fear.
And suddenly Natasha felt herself worrying all over again. Though not for the residents of Nimbus III. But for her friends.
* * * * *
The door to the storeroom of the Bar of Plenty burst open.
The room itself continued to make a mockery of the bar’s name. Aside from a couple of crates half-filled with dirty liquor bottles and a few pieces of broken furniture, it was entirely empty. There really wasn’t plenty of anything anywhere.
But such issues were not on Jirel or Klath’s mind as they were frogmarched inside by D’Ronn and Sa’Loq, both with their pistols pointed at their backs. Toxis followed behind, dragging Bri’tor along by his skinny arm.
Klath kept his left hand clamped over his right arm, as a trickle of dark pink blood ran down his tunic top. Proof that, when Toxis’s men had pulled their weapons, he had at least attempted to resist, just as he had promised.
Fortunately for the Klingon, his sudden leap at the nearest goon had surprised them enough to throw off their aim. Unfortunately for the Klingon, the pellet they had fired had still managed to graze his arm with enough force to render his resistance brief and ineffective.
“Honestly,” Jirel said, who had opted to raise his hands in defeat and remained unscathed, “I thought we were getting along back there.”
Jirel’s statement was answered by D’Ronn, or possibly Sa’Loq, digging their pistol a little deeper into his back.
“Come here, bartender,” Toxis drawled, shoving Bri’tor over to where the off-worlders stood, “Save my men the trouble and relieve our guests of their weapons.”
Bri’tor looked at the scowling Klingon and the unhappy Trill with an apologetic glance, as he took their pistols from their belts.
And then, for a moment, he was standing in the same room as Toxis, with a loaded weapon in both hands. It was a fact that didn’t escape either party.
“Huh. Bet you’re thinking about using those, eh, bartender?” Toxis grunted with a dark leer, “Get some revenge for that brother of yours?”
Toxis’s own men seemed uncertain about this situation, both of his goons switching their attention to Bri’tor momentarily. The bartender forced himself to look up at Toxis, who made absolutely no attempt to defend himself. Instead, he just stared back with the confidence of a man who knew that he was perfectly safe.
Moments later, Bri’tor’s shoulders sagged, confirming that supposition. Jirel looked at the defeated man with sympathy, while Klath was more disappointed. This man was no warrior, that much was clear.
“That’s what I thought,” Toxis scoffed, “Now get rid of those, and bring something to restrain these two gentlemen with.”
Bri’tor nodded and scurried off. As a final humiliation, Toxis didn’t even bother to watch him leave, knowing there was no risk of even being shot in the back.
“Hey,” Jirel tried again, “It doesn’t have to be like this.”
Toxis adjusted his wide-brimmed hat and looked back at the Trill. To Jirel’s surprise, he was sure he saw a slight tinge of regret in the outlaw’s eyes. “That’s where you’re wrong, stranger,” he replied, “This is the way it always has to be down here in Prosperity County.”
The man clad all in black took a step closer to Jirel, any hint of regret now having vanished.
“See, what you don’t understand is we were never going to be able to negotiate, you and I.”
“I’m sure we could have—”
“Because I’ve seen folks like you before. Off-worlders who come here, join us in the dirt, dress up like this is all a game. Except this ain’t no game for us, stranger. This is life for me and my boys. I know what you got on that little ranch of yours, in that outhouse. And we can’t have the likes of you stopping us from taking something like that.”
He punctuated his speech by sending a glob of tobacco arcing down onto Jirel’s boot and kicking his foot with enough force to make his replicated spurs jangle.
Jirel stifled a grimace. Not only for the reminder of some of the less tactful elements of his outfit, but also because it was now clear that Toxis knew about the water pump at Goodlife Ranch. And he found that he had exhausted his own reserves of bravado for the time being. He suppressed a gulp.
This never happened in the holosuite.