Tian confirmed the mission at the Mission Hall. Combat Patrol, with an expected duration of two days. Everyone going would be in the outer court, but it would be a double-strength squad, led by a senior brother. As usual, most of the people on the squad would be level nine, and, Tian suspected, well over a hundred years old. The pay was a very decent eight merit points. Apparently, he was now a combat medic.

  They had issued him the supplies… he checked with the mission department. Apparently, he was designated a combat medic two weeks ago.

  It had only been two weeks.

  “I was sure a month had passed. I would have believed you if you said two months.” Tian’s voice was soft, small.

  The Senior Brother manning the desk at the Mission Hall was Zhang Jun again. There were supposed to be four people on staff, working in rotations. It was now down to two, working alternating twelve hour shifts. Tian had heard the doctors talking about a push from above to make some jobs in the base available for the recovering wounded. The doctors were broadly in favor of it. He wondered if the Mission Hall would be one of those jobs.

  “It’s like that out here. It’s like that in the mountains too. In Purple Bamboo Town we have a saying- seven days in the mountains, seven centuries in the mortal world. It’s easy to lose yourself.” He shook his head, looking older than his face would suggest. Tian didn’t think he was at the peak of Level Nine, though. He didn’t have the edge to him that the Level Ten brothers got as they journeyed through the rivers and lakes.

  “Any advice, Brother Zhang? You always seem to know what’s going on.” Flattery was another art his brothers insisted he study. Tian was really not good at it, but his seniors had been right a lot more than they had been wrong.

  “Haaaah. Nobody knows what’s going on. Don’t you know that by now? You are headed south-southeast. Expect a higher than usual number of heretics, and a lower than usual number of animals… Junior Brother Tian, are you alright? You are swaying.”

  “Eh? Sorry. I hadn’t realized, Senior Brother.”

  Brother Zhang casually hopped over the desk and crouched down in front of Tian. “Pardon me.” He reached out and spread the eyelids of Tian’s right eye wide open. “Junior Brother, when did you last sleep?”

  “Oh... Not too long ago.”

  “How many meals ago?”

  “Martial Aunt Zhu gave me some fasting pills, so… I don’t know.”

  “How many shifts ago?”

  “Shifts?”

  “You work shifts at the hospital. Two merit points per eight hour shift. How many shifts have you worked?”

  “I don’t know. I just keep working, and if someone needs help, I go help them. Sometimes the doctors will give me a pat on the back and I can feel their trust.” Tian nodded seriously. “My vital energy jumps up, and I can keep right on working.”

  “I see. Let me see your storage ring a moment.” He pulled out an amulet and tapped it against Tian’s storage ring. “Good news, Junior. It seems you have accumulated a nice little savings of Military Merits.”

  “Oh. Thank you, Brother Zhang.”

  “Mmm. Junior Brother Tian?”

  “Yes, Brother Zhang?”

  “Go to bed. You have sixteen hours until you have to go on that mission. Use them to sleep.”

  “But I’m needed-”

  “Take it as a mission from me. I’ll do the paperwork on my end. You just execute your orders. I have a… memorial… to write.”

  “Yes, Senior Brother. Thank you.”

  Tian left the Mission Hall. He was staggering a little bit, now that he noticed it.

  I’ve been telling you.

  Tian couldn’t really remember what Grandpa had told him. There had been so many urgent things that needed him. Now his bed urgently needed him. He made it back to the barracks, fell into his bunk, and passed out with his shoes on.

  Consciousness broke over Tian like a spring dawn. The cool earth gratefully accepting the warming rays of the sun, the fresh dew sinking into the refreshed earth and nourishing the roots of all living things. The soft breeze blowing, tousling the buds on the tree branches.

  “See, he’s fine.”

  “Of course, Martial Uncle. You are a doctor. You would never let a thirteen year old boy come to harm.”

  “You understand that I’m waking him up to go on a combat patrol, right? He will most definitely be fighting for his life in a couple of hours.”

  This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  “Against the enemy, yes, Martial Uncle. Thank you for your diligent care.”

  “Oh for heaven’s sake! I’m not even his supervisor, why are you all glaring at me?!”

  “You know, it’s a funny thing. He was assigned to the hospital, Hospital Director Chen signed off on his orders, and then he just vanished from the paperwork. No supervisor listed. I know we are all very busy, but I think that’s fascinating. What do you think, Martial Uncle?”

  “Yes, fine, we will keep a better eye on him. Now will you kindly tell Quartermaster Wu and the Mission Hall to calm the hell down? Because, and I know you know this, there are people with fatal injuries that I should be treating right now. Clear?”

  “Crystal clear, Martial Uncle.”

  Tian recognized Brother Su’s impeccably polite voice. He could hear Brother Su’s omnipresent smile. The doctor’s voice sounded familiar, but the doctors generally didn’t introduce themselves, and Tian never found a reason to ask for names.

  Brother Su nudged his bed. “Up and at ‘em. Your mission is leaving in thirty minutes. Just enough time to put on a fresh robe and grab some food.”

  “Yes, Senior Brother. Um. What… was all that about?”

  “I overcorrected.”

  “Pardon?” Tian was bewildered. He had never felt more rested and alert, but somehow, he couldn’t understand what was being said.

  “I overcorrected, Junior. Remember the whole empty grave and lecture about the importance of the law?”

  “Very clearly, Brother Su.”

  “Well. It is also worth remembering that just because a senior tells you to do something, even if it’s your boss, sometimes, you have to tell them ‘No.’ Carefully. Politely. Understanding their circumstances and your own. It is risky, but it is still vitally necessary.”

  “I thought that would get me killed, Senior Brother.”

  “It might, yeah. Just… do your best, okay?”

  Tian promised, and found himself dressed, fed and alert by the Depot gate exactly twenty five minutes later.

  The wasteland around here was more red sand than black. Tian was intimately familiar with the local wildlife, having traveled between the depot and old Forward Base Redknife repeatedly. It was, in his inexpert opinion, a lousy place and he would rather be almost anywhere else. The junkyard definitely included.

  “Alright everyone, I’m Lu Kong, from Greenwater Town Outer Court. You can call me Brother Lu. We are headed Southeast. But not that far, so don’t get your hopes up. Today we will have a medic with us, as well as a bobber from the Disciplinary Squad. So behave accordingly. You two- Medic keep yourself alive, then keep other people alive. Your job is not to kill people. If you see something, say something. Otherwise, focus on treating others. Got it?

  “I understand, Senior Brother Lu.”

  “And you, Young Lady Hong. You can fight if you wish, but like the medic, your job is to keep yourself safe and return safely to make your report.”

  “I know my duty, Senior.”

  “Good. Everyone ready? Let’s head out.”

  The twenty person squad marched out into the desert. Tian fell in next to Hong, and whispered- “Bobber?”

  “If I disappear, the Disciplinary Squad caught something.”

  ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

  It was harder than it ought to have been not to fight. His instinct was to immediately jump into combat, rope dart whirling overhead. What he actually did was activate Counter-Jumper and focus on what was going on around him. Since they were outnumbered and ambushed thirty to twenty, there was a whole lot to keep track of.

  There were also people happy to pick off the weaklings standing in the middle of the group. Tian and Hong found themselves fighting for their lives quickly, even as Tian tried to keep an eye on the rest of the battlefield. It didn’t last long. Fighting a seven foot tall woman with a scorpion tail jutting from the back of her survival suit took his full concentration.

  He couldn’t figure out her level. She didn’t move with the fluid authority of a Level Nine, but she was faster, and after one exchange he knew much stronger than he was. The fact that she could launch an extra attack over her shoulder was less of a factor than he feared. The tail wasn’t very flexible, and Tian was still short for his age.

  In other circumstances, it would have been funny seeing the stinger stabbing down at the top of his head, and missing by a full foot. Since he hadn’t seen the stinger move, he didn’t fight it very funny.

  “MEDIC!” Someone screamed. Tian swore internally. He whipped his rope dart up, the tip just missing the scorpion woman’s face. She dodged back, swinging her hatchet at his head. Tian hopped back, using his whole body weight to pull on the rope. It ripped a scream out of the scorpion lady, along with her foot. The tip of the rope dart had gone up. The other end had wrapped around her ankle.

  Tian didn’t bother staying to finish her. Not his job. He turned and ran towards where the scream came from. Hong darted past him, spear lowered, going the other way. She was quite happy to finish the job for him.

  The wounded sister wasn’t dead yet, but she was well on her way. Tian spotted where it was bleeding and ripped the suit open. No through and through, that was good. Fishy smell- poison. He poured a small splash of a topical neutralizing potion over the wound, then blood clotting powder, then a talisman. He shoved an antidote in her mouth, then looked around to see if there was anyone who needed help but couldn’t scream. There was. Three more brothers and sisters were down.

  He switched to Light Body, Heavy Hands and raced over to the closest one. He really couldn’t tell who needed the most help. The man had been stabbed, and it looked like an acid burn on his gut. That… wouldn’t be easy to fix, even at the hospital. But he knew what to do. He called the necessary potions and powders into his hands and got to work.

  Once the man was stable-ish, it was on to the next one. Stabilize and move, stabilize and move, over and over, stopping only occasionally to whip his rope dart at passing heretics. Just to make them back off. He didn’t even try to kill them. He kept Counter-Jumper up and running the whole time. He had to. It was the only way to do both parts of his job.

  By the end of the battle, of the twenty who left the depot, fifteen were still alive, eleven were still mobile, and zero were uninjured. The ambushers were a highly mixed bag, and once the shock of the initial ambush wore off, the heretics couldn’t keep up the fight. So they didn’t. Tian only counted the bodies of four heretics left on the sands. The cultivators from Ancient Crane Mountain must have wounded far more, but it was cold comfort.

  Senior Brother Lu looked over at Tian. “Can you get them mobile again?”

  “Some, with time, Senior Brother Lu. But as you can see-”

  “Yeah, yeah. Stretchers?”

  “That would be best, Senior Brother.”

  “Get it organized.”

  Tian bowed. Choosing, for the moment, not to mention the brother who had stepped aside at the last moment and let a heretic stab Tian in the back.