Before and After

I always forget how new these ships smell. Not the sterile bite of disinfectant, but that subtle, electric-clean scent of untouched circuitry and freshly fabricated alloys. Every corridor gleams like it is still waiting for its first scratch. Walking down Deck 4 feels almost like trespassing on a showroom floor, rather than reporting for duty.

My boots click a little too loudly as I follow the nurse toward Medical. Their name tag reads Sarkisian, and I am doing my best not to be obvious about watching the way they move, calm and confident, dark hair tied back just loosely enough to soften the edges of the uniform. Even from behind, they radiate that quiet competence medical staff always seem to have, along with an attractiveness I probably should not be noticing on my way to a routine – if state of the art, and otherwise entirely above an Ensign’s pay grade – diagnostic procedure.

“Just through here,” Sarkisian says, offering a polite half-smile as the doors to the medbay hiss open.

The room is colder than the hallway, all white and chrome and softly humming equipment. The Biobed sits in its designated space, waiting. I straighten my uniform jacket out of habit, then glance around for somewhere to put my jewelry. There is a shallow indentation on the nearest counter, a built-in tray for personal effects. Close enough. I unclasp the thin chain from under my collar and slip off a couple of rings, letting them settle into the tray with a muted metallic tick. There is no official rule about removing them. It is just something everyone in my department does during scans, a quiet superstition about not confusing sensitive equipment with sentimental alloys. No one ever explained it. We all just do it.

Behind us, the Biobed powers up with a soft rising sweep of sound. A soft glow backlights the frosted-on-white TraumaTek logo on its side; freshly minted tech, the stuff only accessible to billionaires and the government. Government means military, and today… military means me.

“Whenever you are ready,” Sarkisian says.

Standing there in that bright, immaculate space, I get the strange feeling that even the air itself is new.

Sarkisian waits beside the Biobed with calm, practiced ease. I take a steadying breath and lie back. The bed is cool, firm, uncomplicated, nothing to draw focus, nothing to react to. Just a place to be still.

The medbay settles around me, quiet enough that I can hear my own breathing more clearly than the machinery. Sarkisian moves to the console, fingers tapping through the prep sequence.

“First-time scans can feel a little unfamiliar,” they say, glancing over with a reassuring half-smile. “If you fixate on it, you might start imagining things that are not there.”

Great. Exactly what my nerves needed.

They continue, “A trick that helps some people is to count backwards from one hundred. Nice and steady. If you lose your place, that is fine.”

Counting. Orderly. Manageable. I nod.

“Good,” Sarkisian says softly. “Whenever you are ready.”

The room seems to hold its breath. I stare up at the diffused lights overhead and begin.

“One hundred… ninety-nine… ninety-eight…”

With each number, the medbay grows a little quieter, as if the world is stepping back to give the scan its space.

“…ninety-seven…”

The stillness deepens.

It is not until I am somewhere in the low twenties that something shifts. I smell it before I fully register it, a sharp undertone in the air that does not belong. Spent reactor mass. Burned insulation. Sweat edged with adrenaline. 

My eyes snap open and I shout for Nurse Sarkisian, thinking the Biobed malfunctioned. Instead the lid is thrown open from the outside.

Shouting. Movement. A different face leaning over me, the chaotic backdrop of a medbay that is very much not in first-scan mode. Their nametag reads Clément, and the state of their uniform tells me everything I need to know about the smell.

“Welcome back,” they say gruffly, offering me a hand with little ceremony. When their fingers close around my forearm, I realize my sleeve has been torn to hell.

My stomach flips, thoughts racing to catch up. “Shit, my uniform is a disaster… is that blood… mine?!?”

“Some of it is yours,” Clément replies, already reaching for the next chart. “Some of it is not. You were in the coolant junction when the line blew. Be grateful you were near a relay station. We are running a queue today.”

Only then do I notice the line of stretchers along the wall. Crew I recognize. Crew I do not. Faces pale, some still streaked with whatever ended them. A resurrection line.

Clément presses a datapad into my hand. “Briefing is attached. Read it while you walk. They need you back as soon as you can have your feet.”

I nod automatically, rising a bit too quickly, legs unsteady but serviceable. That is when I feel it, cold against my collarbone. My necklace. Back where it always sits.

No one ever puts jewelry on for a scan.

But everyone knows the first sign you have been brought back is waking up wearing something you definitely remember taking off.

“Oh… hell,” I whisper, touching it. It cements that what must have happened is real.  

I died.

There is no time to dwell. The corridor is already calling, alarms faint in the distance. I jog out of the medbay, half-dressed, half-ready, fully alive and datapad in hand, scrambling to return to whatever disaster killed me in the first place.