Empyrean Iris Story Collection

Humans Are Space Orcs: Traumatic Brain Injury

Hey everyone, sort of wanted to hop on the "Humans are Space Orcs" Bandwagon and give it a shot. Was thinking about all the crazy things that happen to humans that they shouldn't survive.

Krill had never actually met a human. Of course he had heard about them. As a trauma doctor at the second largest medical facility in the quadrant, they received many visitors, and their stories, from far across the galaxy.

. The humans weren't a new topic of discussion, they had been around for a while, and were slowly beginning to spread outward from their homeworld.

Every day more and more species were bringing stories of the strange predators. It used to be the stories were told second hand, a friend of a friend sort of thing, but more and more were coming in with supposed stories of personal encounters.

While the humans weren't a new topic of discussion, they were certainly a popular one. Every week it seemed another visitor was bringing them another thrilling story of the crazy deathworlders.

Krill doubted many of the stories. As s medical professional he relied on hard science fast and was not prone to flights of fancy.

But one faithful solar cycle he witness something that would change his opinion forever.

It was a slow day, most transports and stock ships had transferred out the day before taking crews and accidents along with them.

Krill floated aimlessly through the halls checking on patients and occasionally sending a memo to a colleague. All this was easily done with four independent limbs and four separated cortical hemispheres.

The lights in the building flashed suddenly red. Radio signals pulled against his lateral receptors as he turned to race down the hallway. The radio signals morphed into a voice, "Doctor, we have an emergency SOS from the USS Stabby requesting immediate medical assistance."

The words used were unfamiliar to Krill as he took the next hallway at speed.

"Species?"

"Scans indicate it is a human freelance ship."

If it weren't for his medical training, he might have stopped in shock, "Repeat?"

"Humans. I'm sending a biological map now."

The radio signals morphed, and the lateral cortical zone of his right posterior unit decoded the image. The human was an odd creature. Ten unit tall bipedal endoskeleton with two attached cortical hemispheres heavily carbon based running by a circulatory pump and a complex set of smooth muscle tubes. With advanced medical training and four cortical hemispheres, he knew enough at that moment to preform most any emergency medical operation necessary.

Upon seeing the biomap, he was almost 100% sure those stories had been false.

Floating to a stop in the main medical unit he waited with two supporting staff as they listened to the roar of the ships engines approach from the sky.

Sanctum's rings! Their engines were loud.

The doors ahead burst open, and three of the creatures rushed in pushing a fourth in a wheeled chair. Long waves of electromagnetic radiation indicated a burning red color painting the front of the fourth creature.

As a second thought he quickly flipped on his universal translator.

"It's gonna be alright captain, you're going to be fine, just don't move your head."

Krill quickly noted the universal medical patch on the human's right upper limb. It must be an emergency if they were forced to bring him planeside, but blocked as he was, he could hardly see the fourth figure painted in slow wave's neck immobilized by a stiff foam collar. A figure beside was helping to hold the creature in an upright sitting position.

Stopping in the center of the room, the two men moved to make way.

He had never seen a sight so gruesome..... or if he had it had only been during postmortem examinations. He hoped the humans were not capable of picking up the high amplitude shrill he let off upon sight.

The human male sat very still on the chair head tilted slightly back. Blood had dripped from his right ocular socket around the edges of a sharp metal rod protruding from its center.

Around him the other humans were frantic letting out terrified little wales as they looked on.

A couple quick calculations.

The rod would have pierced cortical tissue

The human should be dead.

He had to be. If medical school had taught him anything, it was that brain injury was impossible to survive

Quickly Krill threw off his horror and moved forward expecting to find the human's circulatory pump nonfunctional, but a quick scan showed the organ to still be pumping and doing so at a slow rather of 66 beats.

How could this be?

"Hey doc?"

Krill nearly leaped from his skin as the human spoke tight lipped and very still other eye opening to roll towards him blurry and out of focus.

Another squeak of horror

"Could you help me out here, I think I got something stuck in my frontal lobe."

He suddenly didn't know what to do with his hands. What madness was this! Not only was the human NOT dead, but he was SPEAKING!

Impossible!

"Captain, please, don't talk." The other human begged

"Just listen to me for a sec..... and stop freaking out, I'm the one with this damn thing sticking out of my brain...."

The group around him grew quiet.

Krill moved forward. Doing a slow examination.

"Do you feel pain?" He asked in shocked curiosity.

The human's one good eye squinted thoughtfully, "Um....no."

"How can...."

The other doctor looked at him, "The human brain can shut off pain when needed. He will feel it more when the shock wears off."

"You can shut off pain?"

"Thank the Lord." The eyeless human muttered quietly.

"How did...."

"How did I get an accidental lobotomy?"

"What is a lobotomy?"

"Um we will talk about it later."

***

Turns out Krill would rather not have known what a lobotomy was.... Barbaric humans.

But still he was fascinated. Never had he met a species that was capable of surviving a brain injury, and surely not one to this magnitude. Any species other than a human would have perished on the instant. The shock of such a trauma alone would have been enough to kill, but instead the human's brain had shut down the pain and calmed the human even despite the damage.

After treating the wound, Krill had performed a complex surgery to remove the object. The amount of brain damage would have been extensive in any other species, but their ship's medic seemed relieved upon seeing the images.

The eye socket had been broken, the eye had been mutilated, and the optic nerve had been severed. The human would lose use of that eye, but that didn't seem to bother the human, it was already functioning with a robotic leg.

Who would have thought the stories were true, who would have thought he would be shipping off with a group of humans in the next week.

Who would have thought the ability of a human to survive traumatic brain injury?