Isaac woke from his reverie to the sounds of gunfire,
staring into the sky. A sudden jolt of adrenaline shot through his veins as he
saw the blood gush out of his side from a deep laser wound. The medic leaning
over him noticed and tried to calm him down. He noticed it was his old buddy
since basic training, Butch.

"Butcher," Isaac began to say. It came out as a
mumbled slur because of the pain in his head. Ever since they had gone through
basic together, Isaac's squad had always referred to Butch as Butcher, because,
as a medic, it was his grisly job to amputate and do battlefield surgery. God
help any man who had to go into Butch's surgical tent, or as the other marines
assigned it, "The Chop Shop".

"Stay still, Isaac," Butch said holding his hand
up to Isaac. He then turned toward the dripping wound on Isaac's side. He could
visually count the ribs showing through the blood. "Isaac, you were nailed
pretty bad by a Gauss rifle. The Battledress took the brunt of the force,
luckily, but you're still bleeding out like a fountain."

Butch withdrew from his large, brown medical bag a
pistol-like object with a long needle attached to a tank of bluish, clear
fluid. Isaac's eyes went wide and he cringed nervously. His whole life was one
big irony after another. He had been a battle-tested Marine medic and had done
countless gory amputations and surgeries in zero gravity on ships rocking from
constant attack, but he had a petrifying fear of needles.

Butch knelt down to Isaacs exposed ribs and began scrubbing
them down with antiseptic medical cloth. The feeling that followed was an
intense jarring sensation that felt more like an extreme numbness than actual
pain. "Is all this really necessary, Butcher?" Isaac asked the
question through clenched, grinding teeth. Truth be told, he would rather be facing
the business end of that gauss rifle now.

Butch sighed. "Sorry, but you know the procedure,
Headhunter." Headhunter was Isaac's nickname among his squad, because even
though he was a medic, he was a battlefield medic and most importantly a third
imperium marine. Isaac was a Ground Assault specialist, and how his job worked
was they would jettison his squad from orbit to a planet and it was their job
to take the planet. They were told an exact target to find, secure and, if
necessary, destroy, and if anyone in the task force was perfect at following
just those orders, it was Headhunter, the medic turned Marine Spec ops sniper.

That might have been part of the problem Isaac had with all
of this. He was supposed to be the fearless marine leader who could stare down
the barrel of a missile launcher and not flinch. Yet here he was, whimpering
about an oversized booster shot.

"Fine," Isaac capitulated, "Take the
shot." Butch nodded turned to the injection site and began to lower the
needle. "Now, it'll help if you take a nice, deep breath." Isaac
could only manage a ragged gasp because of the twinge that shot down his spine.
Butch had injected the needle at the start of the sentence. Lot of good that did, Butcher, Isaac
thought to himself through the gnashing grunt he had made.

Suddenly, Isaac's skin and muscle tissue was back where it
belonged, as though he had just switched into a different body. As soon as he
had revived, he rose to a crouching stance and punched Butch, who had been
grinning at his reaction, none too lightly on the arm. "That
tickled," Isaac said, a smirk replacing his scowl.

Butch smiled and began surveying the scene. Back to business, Isaac thought.
"You need a weapon," exclaimed Butch.

"Nah," Isaac said, drawing a machete from his right
side sheath. "I can manage."

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