Dutch had blinked, fully completing our turn as the dispatcher's voice echoed in my ears again.

  I couldn't tell if the dispatcher was a man or woman; their voice filtered through half a dozen layers of interference as it was. But they spoke with surety and a dead calm. My chest still ached with each beat of my heart.

  "CCT012, Code 3, ready to receive." Dutch shot back, the lights flaring to life, painting the streets around us in red and blues. Once the siren began to blare, cars ahead of us pulled to the sides of the street.

  My head swam as I plucked the unknown terms from the extensive list of shorthand codes that I had only just begun memorizing. Lights and sirens for a critical trauma patient, gunshot wound to the chest.

  Dutch punched it, the acceleration plastering me into the back of my chair. What air I had fought to take in was almost sucked out of me with every sharp turn he took and every time he punched the throttle. Cars, pedestrians, and the skyscrapers themselves whipped past in a blur. Within minutes, we screeched to a halt in Downtown Boise, a blocky police cruiser parked half on the curb just ahead of us. "I'll... go inside. Get the gurney ready." I said, slipping out of my seat, medical kit slung over my shoulder.

  Lights pulsed from the open doors of the club, its neon sign flickering with the beat of music. The moment I stepped inside the bass of the music hammered against my chest like a Ferryman's rotors. The moment my secondary tongue flicked up against the scent cavity at the top of my maw's palate, it twitched in revulsion. Stale cigarettes, musky sex, and blood pooled together with the sweat of a hundred different people. I bit down the shudder that threatened to run down my spine.

  An officer waved me over to the main dance floor, where a crowd stood in a loose circle around a man on the floor, camera flashes mingling with the throbbing spotlights. His partner was crouched over the body, fighting to stop the bleeding. When the crowd didn't part to allow me through, even with a shouted "EMS!" I growled. The words had almost died in my throat, still breathless from the cyberware reboot.

  I took a moment, eyes closing as I breathed in as deeply as I could. "CLEAR THE PATIENT!" I ordered, bodily shoving an elf and a human to the floor and out of my way, their cries of surprise lost in the laughter of the gawking onlookers. The officer backed away immediately. Unlike the man at the door, he looked young. Barely 21. He stared at me with wide eyes.

  I dropped down next to the man. "No wonder you couldn't tell his race," I grumbled, eyes scanning over the patient's body. Pale pink skin mixed with geometric strips of pearlescent and metallic syn-skin. His entire bald head was covered in the stuff, a dragonscale pattern etched into the surface.

  Distantly, I heard Dutch's voice on the radio.

  I unzipped the medical kit, grabbing a pair of blue gloves, already prepared with claw caps in their fingertips, and rolled them onto each hand with a snap. With a blink-click, the scanner in my cyberarm's palm came to life, tagging the patient in a flickering amber. A crisscross of veins and nerves wove through holographic bones as my hand passed over them. Finally, I found a dark red channel that pierced through his ribs. In through his back, out his front, carving a path directly through one of his lungs.

  Dutch skidded to a stop next to me, the gurney left at the stairs leading up to the dance floor for the moment. "Talk to me, Vidr." He rumbled.

  "Pneumothorax caused by a through-and-through with a 7.62x51mm bullet. Shot from behind." I mused. I drew my knife, setting its guthook in a gap between one of the hexagonal scales that made up the patient's flashy suit, tearing it open with a flick of my wrist. His chest was a whirling mix of syn-skin and regular. Just below his right pectoral was a blasted-out crater. The syn-skin that was affected was cracked like a meaty eggshell. The flesh had bloomed out slightly. Bright pink foam bubbled from the wound with every breath the patient took.

  His entire right side didn't move as he breathed, distended and bloated. The veins on his neck bulged out even through the syn-skin like coiled ropes. "Well fuck me sideways," the dwarf stated, digging through the trauma bag he had brought from the ambulance.

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  "Pseudo-skin applicator." I held my hand out, tail flicking against the bloodstained dance floor. What blood ran over the patient's syn-skin beaded like oil. A pistol grip was pressed into my hand. I swept the applicator over the wound three times. "Gotta get the back. Roll him on his side for a second. I'll get the shirt off." I mused. The dwarf complied immediately.

  With another flick of my knife, I tore away the last of the patient's top, sweeping the applicator over the small entrance wound. Once he was rolled back onto his chest, I began running a hand along his ribs. "14 gauge needle," I said, hand out again, the other pressed between two ribs. Once it was in hand, I lined it up to stab into the pleural space. With a swift jab... the needle caught and bent before it even finished breaching the skin.

  "Stupid ass gangster wannabes." I snarled.

  "What?" Dutch asked, face serious.

  "Fucker has that Kevlar weave implant. The one that gives you cancer." I rolled my eyes. The dwarf cursed in his people's tongue.

  "I don't have anything that can get through that." He admitted.

  "I came prepared." I shot back, digging in my own bag. I pulled out a disc with a tube through it. I removed the caps on either end of the tube, one revealing a needle, which I pressed between the patient’s ribs. With a wet it punched a hole straight through, the hissing of air leaving the patient's chest cavity inaudible with the hammering synth music. "Get him ready for transport. I'll get the gurney." I sighed.

  The young officer stood and followed me, ready to help lift the gurney up the stairs. His more experienced partner had spent the last two minutes arguing with civilians to clear the scene. We hefted the aluminum frame up the steps. Then there was a deafening . The young officer pushing the gurney up the stairs fell with a shriek, the gurney itself clattering onto its side. Civilians screamed. In the doorway, silhouetted in flashing red and blue, was an elven man with feline styled slit eyes, a rifle shouldered. I dove backwards as the radio came to life.

  "Shots fired at Karma Klub, Shots fired! Step it up!" The other officer shouted into his radio, ducking behind a pillar for cover. Dutch was dragging the patient away.

  the dispatcher said. I ignored the rest of the noise, drawing my pistol. Its reticle flared to life as I rolled behind a bar.

  "One times booster. Likely initial perpetrator. Sending spikes." Years of training flooded my mind as I stood, speaking into the radio. The shooter had taken cover behind a pillar of his own, firing two shots at the officer who had called on the radio. The rounds slammed against the pillar, knocking chunks of plaster and concrete from its surface.

  I pulled the trigger slowly and smoothly. Two shots of my own thundered. The first pulled just slightly right, striking the elf's cover, blowing a large chunk free. The second punched empty air as they dove away, the glitter of their cybernetic legs in the strobing lights glinting. The blur of motion ended behind another pillar. The officer joined me in firing as we both fired at the shooter's new cover. Each shot hammered either side of the pillar.

  "Vidr! Patient needs fluids, now!" the dwarf shouted from where he had taken cover, still working to tend their patient.

  "Working on it!" I shouted. Vaulting over the bar, I circled to the left of the elf's position. The ammo readout blinked yellow in the corner of my view. Five rounds left. I dove forward behind the first pillar the elf had taken cover behind as a fat rifle round skimmed past me.

  Landing on my side, I pushed my pistol out in both hands, firing twice. The elf's eyes widened as they met mine. Then one eye sparked as the rest of his head caved in, a round punching into his forehead. The second landed in his throat. He collapsed in a heap. "Booster is Sundown."I chirped into the radio. Silence reigned.

  Finally, someone with a gruff voice spoke up on the radio.

  The dispatcher scolded dryly. I sighed, one hand landing on my side, the pressure easing the dull ache that had begun clawing at the healing wound. Shoving my pistol into its holster, I stood and moved to the gurney. I righted it back onto its wheels, pushing it to Dutch. The young officer was whimpering, but alive.

  "It just hit you in the plate, Nathan." The other officer sighed. "I know it hurts like a sonovabitch, but we need to re-secure the scene." I glanced over, kneeling to help Dutch haul the patient onto the gurney. The sirens of another ambulance and two more police cruisers echoed as they rolled up onto the sidewalk to park, clearing the area while I pushed the gurney.

  "Nice shooting, scaly. Guess you aren't just a flunky after all." Dutch said, taking deep breaths.

  "No time for jokes. Get behind the wheel," I hissed, locking the gurney into place in the ambulance. I ran my hands over the shelves, following the labels to find the tools I needed. The vehicle rocked under me as we raced to the hospital.

  None of it bothered me as I worked. If anything, the close-in walls brought me back to the thrumming interior of a Ferryman, surrounded by every piece of equipment I could need to save a life. Enough that even the aching in my chest had dulled.

  As I worked, my eyes flitted across forms that imposed themselves in the peripheries of my vision, blinking to fill them in. With a final blink-click, the reports shot away to be received by the hospital staff. All I could do was sit in the jump seat and watch the patient's vitals.

  The Longwatcher, if you need more to read.

  The Galactic Endeavor!