Chương 42: Chapter Thirty-Eight - Preventative

Vena took a few minutes to grab some essentials before leaving the medicae deck. Mostly that meant grabbing one of the emergency go-bags stuffed into a locker. They were satchels, with a set of common tools and things like bandages and antiseptics and gloves. She noted that the bag she grabbed was one of the last remaining in the lockers which had--the last time she looked--been filled to the brim. It was normal, she supposed. The situation called for emergency supplies to be pulled.

Even now, what had to be a full fourteen hours since The Broken Scale had its incident, the medicae deck was still bustling with activity. She did note that an above-average number of Voidsmen were being tended to, and their injuries matched up pretty well with the kinds of things she'd expect to see in a combat theatre. So, the fighting was ongoing. Or at least, the consequences of it?

"Vyper," she muttered as she started to make her way out.

"How am I looking on points?"

"Very well, all things considered." Kills Confirmed: 55x Genestealer New Point Total: 606 Vena did some quick mental math as she walked with long strides towards the exit.

"That's not adding up," she muttered. She was 305 points ahead of where she had been last she checked.

"Unless... some of those kills were assisted by the other Vanguard, as you mentioned?"

"Indeed!" She nodded. In that case, it did add up. It was a good sign, as well.

"How are they doing? Can I ask that much?"

"You may. I suspect that, based on their psychological profiles, neither of the other Vanguard on The Broken Scale would mind terribly if I divulged some information about them. Though I will keep to the letter of the law, as it were." She noted that Vyper was 'keeping' to the letter of the law. Which meant that she didn't have to. It was... a factor to take note of; that her mysterious otherworldly patron had free will of a sort.

"One of them was severely injured. Her lower half was lost." Vena almost stumbled, but managed to keep her stride going.

"Is she well?" she noted the gendered pronoun. One of them was a female, then?

"Her new legs are much improved."

"Good, good. And the other?"

"Currently well." She decided not to poke too hard into things, especially as she was on the edge of the medicae deck, and had to pay attention to the usual leave-protocols. She signed out the materials she had taken with her, then slipped out and into one of the ship's major thoroughfares. She... had ideas about what to do with the other Vanguard. How to use them. But without a good read on their personalities and dispositions, they were rather nebulous. That was well and good, for the moment.

Vena rode an elevator upwards, then looked over the information she had been given by that sleazy Chief Cardiologist, Shammer. Her point of contact was several decks up, near the very rear of the ship. They resided at the base of one of the ship's towers, specifically the Navigator's tower. It was a prestigious, if somewhat dangerous, place to reside. She didn't know what that told her about her potential new boss. She decided to reserve judgement for when she arrived. The elevator only went so far up.

She had to exit and grab a tram towards the rear of the ship. Unlike the one she'd been on just an hour or so ago, this one's carriage was clean, with some extra gilding on the goods and the servo skull overlooking the inside of the car wasn't covered in graffiti. A sure sign of some amount of wealth. Which reminded her... She stopped a bit before making it to the back of the vessel and scouted around for a public restroom. What she found was a little cramped, but that was fine.

There was a working sink and a lock on the door, which was all she wanted. Vena undressed. Her Junior medicae scrubs were covered in the blood splatter of at least three dozen others. There were also unsightly sweat stains, but that was mostly because she had few changes of clothes. She tried to stay clean, as that was becoming of a medicae, but all of her clothes had to be adjusted for her height, and that meant fewer changes than was normal for a woman in her position.

Tossing the old garments in the trash, she stared at herself in the washroom's tiny mirror, then she started to clean herself off. A wad of paper towels, some handsoap, and lots of lukewarm water were all she had, but it was good enough. If she was going to meet with a member of the nobility, of any rank, then she wanted to be presentable, and that meant minimizing the amount of blood on her face.

She looked up at herself again after splashing water across her face, then she frowned and turned her face slightly from left to right. Her blemishes were nearly gone. There had been several unsightly scars on her cheeks and forehead and across the bridge of her nose. Not scars from injuries, but from the side-effects of long-term stress, eczema, and some light chemical burns from the antiseptic they frequently used.

The healing wasn't perfect, but her skin was a little smoother, the smaller blemishes fading already. She rubbed at her face hard, and wrinkled her nose at the amount of flaking skin that came away. A noted side-effect, but still unpleasant.

"Vyper," she said.

"Yes, Vena?"

"I need a new wardrobe. I'm going to be presenting myself to a noble who will likely be aware that I'm a mere junior. They'll have a preconceived notion about my position. I need to break that. Can you assist with clothing?" If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

"Certainly. I have your measurements." Vena considered that for a moment, but then, it only made sense. If Vyper could produce tailored genetic modifications, then she'd need far more than just Vena's height and weight.

"Very well. Will this require a catalogue of some sort?"

"Not necessarily. Biohacker Minoris does have access to some clothing, though only items you'd expect a person specializing in that specific medical field to have. In this case, I believe that... sprucing the items up a little is well within normal bounds. The normal Tier Zero catalogue also has allowances for very basic clothing." Vena nodded, then tossed aside the last of her underthings.

"Might as well," she said. It was a few minutes' discussion, but eventually they settled on some quick purchases. New Purchase: Undergarments New Point Total: 601 New Purchase: Biohacker Outfit New Point Total: 571 The clothes were... fantastic. The undergarments were luxurious, and supportive, and she had to wonder if this was the kind of thing that nobleladies wore. The biohacker outfit was its own thing.

The dress was long, with a sharp cut that ended around mid-thigh on one side, and with armoured pauldrons that made her reflection in the mirror look far more... robust. The outfit lacked the ostentatious gilding that she was used to seeing in the gear of the department chiefs. Those tended to favour items with silver or golden thread and large, complex designs woven into them. It made some sense.

Being part of a noble's retinue was just about the highest position that a medicae could reach, depending on the noble, and the nobility had methods of judging each other based on convoluted little factors that were beyond the common man or woman. As she wasn't versed in those, she chose brute neutrality. Her clothes looked like they were quality. She had always needed tailored clothes, but this wasn't just cut to fit her rather lanky frame, but to complement it.

"This looks good," she admitted.

"Why, thank you." She sniffed. Running a hand down the front of her perfectly-pressed new uniform, she decided that this was enough preening for one day and slipped out of the washroom while tying her hair into a neat bun. Not the most fashionable of choices, but it was a go-to amongst the medicae. Walking with long strides, she made an effort to straighten whatever slouch she had. For a long time she had tried to make herself small.

Something that was always futile when she had a head's worth of extra height over the average man. Now she was leaning the other way, making herself a little taller. The new uniform had come with boots. They had a bit of a heel. Not enough to unbalance her, but enough to give her an extra inch of height. She made it to the entrance concourse of the Navigator's tower in short order. It was a wide, tall-ceilinged room, with a fountain in its centre and several gun emplacements in the walls.

The local enforcers weren't Voidsmen. Or at least, they weren't Voidsmen tied to the ship itself. Instead, the men and women standing around wore a pale reddish outfit with an eye-like logo on the breast. The personal guard of the Navigators. She moved up to a man that seemed to be in charge and presented her credentials. It wasn't long that she was being escorted deeper in, then up a flight of stairs.

At the next landing, a pair of guards took her bags and emptied them on a table, then she was scanned up and down with a hand-held auspex.

"You can take the scalpels if you want," she said drolly.

"But if I need to exercise an involuntary tracheotomy without my tools I'll be placing the blame squarely on you." The guard sorting through her things paused, then finished scanning through them and replacing them in her bag. She was even allowed to keep her bone-saw. Finally, after submitting to a rather intense pat-down, she was allowed into the next room over. It was a hall, of sorts.

A grand, long room, with a crystalline chandelier above and a table made from a single slab of hardwood that had more square footage than the entire bunkroom she slept in. That table was currently covered in paper maps, several dataslates, and a few half-empty bottles of amasec.

"Oh? And you must be the junior they sent," a woman said. She was tall, though not abnormally so, with a pinched face and startlingly blue eyes. Her nose was hawkish, and turned up slightly as the woman made a point of tilting her head back slightly to look over at Vena. Vena knew the normal protocols. Those included much bowing and scraping. Instead, she nodded once, stiffly.

"I am. You must be the desperate noble. I heard that you were in dire need of assistance. As it happens, I could use you as well." The woman blinked slowly, then scanned Vena up and down.

"Well, well, and here I thought that the old frogs in the medicae deck had no respect for the likes of me."

"They don't," Vena confirmed.

"But in their haste, they made a critical mistake, and now I'm here. My name is Vena Venin, Junior Medicae. By the month's end I want to be The Broken Scale's Head of Medicae. If you would allow it, I want to use you to achieve that goal." The woman stared, then tilted her head even further back to laugh.

"Oh, this may well be good, Miss Junior Medicae Venin. Alright, I've wallowed for long enough, I suppose. So, tell me, what's this wild plan of yours?"