“How did this happen, Mr. Killian?”

The infirmary was slow today. Only one overnight patient needed tending thanks to dehydration—an ailment we saw quite commonly, as people tended to push themselves too hard in the relentless desert heat of Dhal’at—and a single other had come in complaining of mysterious allergies. Most of the other nurses were gathered around a host of empty beds, chattering about nothing of substance and counting down the minutes until they were free to leave for the day and ogle the hundreds of soldiers who populated our colony. I wasn’t so lucky. On my exam table sat a well-tanned man, and in my lap rested his upturned hand with a nail straight through his palm.

“Nail gun,” he said a little sheepishly. “And call me Josh. It makes me nervous when people call me Mr. Killian.”

I lifted his hand for closer examination. “I’m no surgeon, but I’d say you’re very lucky. It seems to have missed every bone. I expect you’ll suffer some nerve damage, though.”

“Will it affect my job?” he worried. I didn’t blame him for his concern. Josh Killian was one of the few carpenters who resided in the colony. If he was unable to practice his trade, he would likely be put on grunt duty: delivering goods to the dormitories and homes, performing janitorial work around the common areas, and assisting the colony leads with menial administrative tasks. Everyone who left Earth to take their place in human settlements on Albaterra had done so with a skill or occupation of value. If any of us were rendered incapable of performing said skill or occupation, we did not have the luxury of collecting disability benefits and living out our lives. We were expected to work, to pull our weight and help the colony flourish in all but life-threatening circumstances. Perhaps the demands on us were unfair or militant, but we’d known what we were signing up for when we’d entered our applications for selection.

Sympathetically, I shrugged and replied, “Like I said, Josh, I’m not a surgeon. I don’t know.”

He cursed and glared at his hand as if it was horribly offensive, and I spun on my wheeled stool to jot some notes down on my clipboard. In many ways, being a nurse on Albaterra was no different than being a nurse on Earth, but I definitely found myself wishing more times than not that I had my laptop to work on rather than handwriting patient details. Unfortunately, until human electricity was figured out on this alien planet (if it ever was), we were stuck doing many of our duties the old-fashioned way.

“I’m going to have you wait here,” I told him absently, finishing my scribblings, “and Dr. Griep will be with you shortly.”

“Thanks, ma’am,” Josh desponded.

I smiled kindly at the carpenter and stood, leaving him to his woes. It felt good to walk around. The heat of the day had risen to its peak, and sitting for extended periods meant sweat gathering in uncomfortable places, especially for a full-figured woman like myself. Some of the other nurses were never bothered by the arid desert swelter or even found it pleasant, but they tended to be of the twiggy nymph-like breeds who sweat dewdrops rather than bullets. I’d never regretted my decision to become an Albaterran colonist, but I’d be lying if I claimed I never wondered why fate took my mild climate-born butt from Ohio and plunked me down in the middle of the alien Sahara Desert.

“Dr. Griep,” I called, crossing the vast room to the middle-aged man in the white coat. He turned, and I held out the clipboard to him. “Josh Killian took a nail through the hand. I think he missed bone, but it’s still pretty severe.”

The doctor took the clipboard from me and skimmed my notes with knitted eyebrows. “Pain level?”

“Minimal. His primary complaint is tingling.”

“There’s probably nerve damage,” Dr. Griep mused, frowning. “I hope, for his sake, it’s not permanent.”

A sudden bang detonated through the air, and I looked up in alarm to see the door to the infirmary entrance flung wide open. Crossing the threshold was a tall, blue-skinned A’li-uud with a waist-length curtain of alabaster hair flowing out behind him like a cape. His sculpted mouth was set in a thin line and his pointed jaw was firmly clenched, but even from a distance I could see the facetious devilry lurking behind the seriousness in his ghostly white eyes.

I knew this A’li-uud, by sight at least. He was the Interplanetary Affairs Officer for the colony, responsible for the well-being and goings-on of the human settlers in Dhal’at. We had never spoken, but I’d seen him around the colony every single day since my arrival nearly a year ago. Truth be told, while my female co-workers exchanged raunchy comments about the human soldiers, I had instead harbored lustful thoughts more than once toward the limber, sinewy alien. His muscles were carved out of stone, his sharp and mischievous face a work of the gods, and he reeked of the kind of confidence I wished I had.

In short, he was not an unwelcome sight.

“I need all healers to report to me,” he announced. His coarse voice and clipped words carried through the room in layered echoes. The infirmary was not like a modern American hospital, with many floors and private rooms and hallways upon hallways to roam. It was more akin to the hospitals of the 1940s, just a large open space with rows of beds lined up against the walls and only a few separate rooms branching from the sides. Any conversations had could be heard at least in tone, and the resounding command from the A’li-uud was easily understood. “Now.”

“Nurses too?” asked Edie, the most diminutive of all the attendants.

“Yes.”

“We have patients,” Dr. Griep pointed out. He glanced toward Josh Killian out of the corner of his eye, who was now cradling his hand with sallow cheeks.

The IAO followed Dr. Griep’s glimpse, and the shadow of a smirk crossed his slim lips. “I am quite certain he will be here when you return,” he said with tactless amusement. The doctor bristled, and the A’li-uud made an impatient noise in his throat. “Treat him if you must, but Elder Kharid has requested your presence at the palace and attendance is mandatory. I will send a warrior to escort you shortly.”

I hesitated, uncertain if I should remain behind to assist Dr. Griep, but the doctor offered me a nod of reassurance and walked away to handle Josh. The other nurses were gathering around the IAO, and I crossed the room to join them. When I was near enough, I asked him anxiously, “What’s going on?”

For the first time, his eyes turned directly to me. My breath caught in my throat as they pierced through my skin, drilling into my soul. The smirk was still lingering on his lips as he said, “You are going to save the world.”