“You, uh, called me earlier than expected.”
Most Rethan doctors were either really young or really old. Or, rather, they just looked like it. Doctor Fetiir, a somewhat tall but skinny pale blue-plated Rethan, had been Kuta’s main doctor for pretty much all of Kuta’s adult life, for nearly seventy years, but they had treated Kuta well and seemed to enjoy having oddball patients. Fetiir though was also nearing 150 years old, and was planning to retire in a couple of years, which did make Kuta a little sad, but they were mostly just thankful Fetiir was willing to deal with them.
“I did, yes. Because if I tell you to come to my office urgently, you do. If I tell you to make an appointment to see me, you forget. Admittedly, you have always been a busy fellow, hard-working and all that, it worked, and, well, this IS something we both want to get over with.”
Kuta blinked. “You want to do the removal surgery now?”
“Yes… Well, in about two hours. All the tests show that while yes, it is large, the lump is a benign tumour and is also non-life-threatening. But there is potential that it could grow, and it is near some awkwardly placed blood vessels. There is also a chance that it could affect your fertility if we leave it. You do still have twenty years of potential fertility, but a lump on an ovary will definitely affect things.”
Kuta blinked some more. “I feel like there is more to this than you are telling me.”
Fetiir grunted. “A little. We brought in a specialist oncological surgeon by the name of Inis for an unrelated procedure on another patient, and they requested to have a look at some other patients while they were here.”
“I… I do not like you sharing my medical information.”
“It was all done anonymously. Since we do not know what sort of tumour you have, Inis was curious, and as they are here, wanted to do a swift removal and a biopsy, in case this is a new type of tumour we are currently unaware of.”
Kuta didn’t like that. “I have not… really prepared for this. Plus, I was drinking last night.”
Fetiir was unconcerned. “We would not put you under anyway, since full anaesthetic does not affect you. And it does not matter if you were drinking. This is the future after all, we better understand how to kill pain receptors during surgery. It will take two hours, we will stick you in recovery, give you a quick course of medication and you will be back on your feet in two days.”
“Still… feels like a rush…”
“Admittedly, yes, it is a bit of a rush. But we have a specialist right here, and you do have a habit of leaving medical problems to the last minute. At the very least we can fix this right here and right now and you can go back to your normal duties sooner rather than later.”
Kuta sighed. “Alright… Fine… What do I need to do?”
Fetiir checked their computer quickly. “If I inform them now, surgeons and nurses need two hours to prepare, twenty minutes to get you under local anaesthetic, surgery should take two hours. Can you wait around?”
“Do I have a choice?”
“You do, yes, but I would recommend doing this while Inis is here, as they are a very good medic. Best I have seen in a long time.”
Kuta frowned, then relented. After all, their doctor was right, it would be better to get an expert to do the surgery while they were available. “Alright, alright… I do not like this at all, but the sooner I am tumour-free, the better. May I message my captains and let them know?”
Fetiir nodded as they tapped away on their keyboard. “Yes, yes, go ahead. Doctor Lalkar and Doctor Inis are in the oncology department, Lalkar will meet you there and get you prepared. You know where that is, yes?”
“I do, yes. I guess… I guess I will send these messages and get going…”
Fetiir smiled at Kuta. “Do not fret. A few hours and it will all be over.”
“Well, thank you, doctor…”
Kuta frowned some more, then got up and made their way to the correct department. It wasn’t too far, a couple of floors up. As they walked, they fired off three messages. Two to their current on-duty captains, Talmin and Tessar, telling them that Kuta would not be returning to the office, and one to Retvik, letting him know what was going on. Kuta didn’t expect an immediate response, it was early in Palaestra, but to Kuta’s surprise, Retvik replied with a message of good luck and some heart emoticons. That did make Kuta feel a little better.
The oncology department was oddly quiet, but it was within early working hours, so Kuta wasn’t sure what to expect. A secretary pointed Kuta to a large office, and Doctor Lalkar was already waiting for them.
Kuta had met Lalkar before, they had taken over after the gameology department had discovered the tumour. Lalkar was overly relaxed and friendly, but Kuta noticed that, like most 500th Legion Rethans, their true emotions were heavily shielded, and Kuta needed actual effort to read their thoughts. That was fine. Kuta didn’t need to know what they were thinking.
“General Kuta! Good day!” Lalkar grinned. “I assume Fetiir explained the basics?”
“Somewhat.”
“Well, well, well!” Lalkar got up and put an arm around Kuta, leading them out of the office and into another, whiter and more sterile room. This room had a single. movable bed in it, with various monitoring equipment nearby. Lalkar hinted that Kuta lie down on the bed. “The process is very, very simple. We will apply a local anaesthetic, which will completely numb you from the stomach down, then apply some special jelly across your stomach, so we can use an ultrasound device to resurvey the area. We will then make a small incision along your stomach and use a camera to locate the exact location of the tumour. After that, we will widen the incision enough to insert a special scalpel designed to cut along the edge of organ tissue, remove the tumour and stitch everything back up.”
“Oh.”
“Is there a problem?”
Kuta shook their head. “I thought there would be more to it than that. I assume you will incinerate the tumour afterwards?”
“We will do a brief biopsy to make sure it is not malignant and to see what type of tumour it is, but yes, afterwards we will destroy the sample.”
“Ah. Good. So… what do I need to do?”
“Well, you do need to strip first. Please doff your chest, shoulder and stomach armour. You can keep your arm and leg armour on, but we need as much access as possible, just for the rare chance of complications.”
Kuta grunted, then reluctantly did as they were asked. Once they were done, Lalkar nudged Kuta back so they were lying down. They then called in two 501st Legion nurses, their colours barely visible underneath their pale blue medical gear, elbow-long gloves and face masks. The nurses strapped Kuta to the bed, then hooked them up to a drip and attached a LOT of sticky sensors on them, across their chest, neck and stomach.
“I, uh, take it you have done this a lot?” Kuta asked.
Lalkar smiled some more. “Indeed. This whole procedure is routine for us. Rethans are somewhat resistant to many types of cancer, but for reasons we are not entirely sure of yet, tumours in the stomach cavity are oddly more common. Your case is somewhat unusual, but the treatment remains the same.”
One of the nurses brought over another drip, but instead of inserting the tube into Kuta’s arm, they jabbed it into Kuta’s stomach. They then placed a strange, cardboard sheet across Kuta’s chest, so they could no longer see their stomach.
“Um…”
“Most folks, we use full anaesthetic. You are immune to it. But at the same time, we do not want to stress you out, and you do not want to watch what we are doing!” Lalkar explained further. “Anyway…” Lalkar trailed off briefly, then left the room. However, they quickly came back with a medley of syringes. “Let us get started. I will give you a sedative, to make you sleepy but not actually put you to sleep, before giving you the other drugs.”
“Alright…” Kuta was nervous, but they tried to remain strong. However, as the sedative started to kick in, Kuta didn’t feel too bad. Actually, things started to get rather blurry.
Things just somewhat happened around Kuta. Feeling tired, Kuta closed their eyes, only really opening them as they were wheeled into a small operating theatre. There was no one watching in though, just the two nurses, Lalkar, two surgeons and…
Kuta blinked. They tried to focus on the medic that they assumed was Doctor Inis. They seemed normal, but, like Kuta, they had oddly coloured eyes. Purple eyes. But Kuta found they couldn’t concentrate, and it was difficult to even talk.
“Do not worry, Kyr Kuta!” Inis smiled as they patted Kuta on the shoulder, then loomed out of view. “Just close your pretty blue eyes, and things will be over before you know it!”
Kuta did as they were told. Just like Inis blatantly stated, it was all over very quickly.
Insanely quickly.
Impossibly quickly.
Something felt wrong, but Kuta didn’t know what. And, thanks to all the drugs, Kuta didn’t really care.