Snow fell from the night sky over St. Ekaterina, dancing in the bone-chilling wind that discouraged the human and animal population from venturing outside into the night.

In the city of Bryansk, the lights from the buildings offered the only sign of life in the storm. On rare occasions the beams of a ground vehicle’s headlights scuttled along the snow-covered streets between the buildings. Pedestrians were nowhere to be seen.

The roar of a ship’s engines grew above the howl of the wind. A large, roughly triangular silhouette with navigational running lights descended rapidly through the falling snow toward the auxiliary landing pad at the station on the edge of town. The silhouette touched down on the pad with an unusually heavy thump, the high-pitched roar of the engines fading to nothing within seconds.

From a guard shack at the edge of the landing pad, two guards watched as the cargo hatch of the newly-landed ship, which bore the name Nordic Troll, opened slowly into the darkness of the snowstorm, flooding the landing pad with light from the ship’s cargo bay lights.

The growl of an internal combustion engine erupted from inside the open cargo bay, barely audible over the loud hiss of the swirling wind. Twin tail and backup light beams leapt forward into the night as a small wide truck slowly backed down the ramp leading from the ship’s cargo bay. The driver of the truck was not visible, but two people could be seen sitting in the truck’s bed, each holding on to something straddling the bed. The truck reached the bottom of the ramp, turned and moved forward toward the closed gate beside the security shack.

The two guards in the shack looked at each other. “Who gets to go out there?” the one closest to the door asked.

“Your turn, I did it last time”, his partner answered.

“Yeah, figures”, the first man hissed as he pulled his hat tighter over his head and buttoned the top button of his coat. Opening the door into the cold, he stepped from the shack, clearly irritated at having to leave the shelter of his watch post. The guard stepped into the headlight beams and held out his hand, signaling for the approaching truck to stop. As the truck came to a stop, the driver’s side door opened and the driver climbed out. “I have a wounded crewmember here who needs immediate medical attention”, he announced.

The guard produced a flashlight which he aimed at the driver. “You the captain of this ship?”

The driver nodded “That’s right”.

The guard waved the flashlight toward the ship. “You have to move that thing. You need clearance to land on this pad and I have no one scheduled to be here until tomorrow morning”.

“Did you hear what I said?” the driver demanded. “I have a wounded crewmember who needs a hospital NOW. Not in the morning, NOW”.

The guard looked at him for a second, then turned toward the truck, moving cautiously. As he came alongside the cargo bed he shined the light in the bed and looked. Straddling the bed was a makeshift stretcher, bearing a young dark-skinned woman wrapped in a blanket. As the guard watched suspiciously, the short-haired woman riding alongside the stretcher reached down and pulled back the blanket to reveal a blood-stained bandage taped roughly over the wounded woman’s abdomen. Looking at the guard, the woman holding the blanket said “Abdominal intrusion. Shot in the belly. Do you know what that means?”

The guard shook his head. “That means she only has a few minutes”. The woman responded harshly. “So you get back in that gorram shack and call the hospital and tell them we’re coming!” She waved him off.

The guard stood there for a moment, not knowing what to do. The frustrated woman barked “You! Shack! Hospital! CALL!!”

Finally the guard turned and stepped toward the guard shack, waving the truck and its passengers toward the gate as he turned the handle to the door. Seconds after he closed the door behind him the gate slowly rolled open as the driver climbed back into the truck and started the engine. When the gate was open the truck whisked through the gate, turned to the right and roared down the street.

From the bed of the truck the short-haired woman called through the open window “Captain, do you know where you’re going?”

“We’re five minutes from the hospital, Doc”, Nick Gerrin called back. “I grew up here, remember?”

“Right”, Doc commented. Looking down at the wounded woman on the stretcher she urged “Hang on, Loomie”.

............To Be Continued.