# Eyes part 1. chapter 18

Аноним Magistrall49

Chakwas operates on Benezia and Saren and thinks about John.

Chapter 18 Benezia and Saren. Awakening and the beginning of recovery

Why she decided that Spectrum Saren Arterius, the Turian who had become a legend of the Corps, should be her first surgical patient, Karin herself would not be able to explain clearly even to herself right now. It was unlikely because, as a man, the Turian was physically more primitive, and therefore the traumatologist and surgeon was confident that she would perform the necessary surgical intervention for this patient faster and, perhaps, less traumatic.

While working with a scalpel, Chakwas did not think about it. She was just acting. Now, during the operation, she was not interested in this, although some part of her mind was still working on such a question, using all the information available to the doctor at that point in time.

Saren, according to the logic of the situation known to Karin, was the first to fall under the influence of the Reaper Observer. And he stayed under his influence much longer than Benezia.

That's probably why Chakwas decided to operate on the Turian first, and the Asari second. And Shepard, as Karin remembered, repeatedly noted, albeit not always explicitly and verbally, that the Turian got more and his position was ... harder, or something. However, as the medic remembered, the XO did not insist that his point of view was the most correct one. However, as the medic remembered, the XO did not insist that his point of view was the most correct one.

For Chakwas, as a military medic, it was easier and even more familiar to cut out implants from the body of an intelligent organic than to engage in routine fusion of fractures, removal of sprains and other bodily troubles. On the screens mounted on brackets above the operating field, the data from small automatic and semi-automatic medical scanners glowed, combined into large-scale graphic maps, which helped the doctor navigate the jumble of microcircuits dotted with the bones of the Turian skeleton. Routine movements, a proven technique. The main thing is not to miss an unnecessary or harmful implant, not to leave it in the patient's body.

Karin worked, occasionally glancing at the Spectr status indicators. She knew that Shepard had already flown to the site of new excavations, the result of which was still unknown.

The arrival of the frigate on Eden Prime this time was extremely unusual: no one, as Chakwas now understood, from the inhabitants of the Normandy, not even the Spectr of the Citadel Council Nilus Kraik, did not assume that the earthlings would have to shoot at a real Reaper. Karin was well aware that the frigate's crew members were still actively discussing the collision. Needless to say, the event was exactly what people usually call "out of the ordinary."

These huge ships were actually considered legends, in which, as usual, few modern intelligent organics believed seriously and deeply enough. The legend, meanwhile, turned out to be... more than material.

If it hadn't been for the quick response of the frigate's crew, if it hadn't been for the well- and fully implemented relay instrument and hardware reconnaissance of the situation on Eden Prime.... Chakwas would not vouch for the fact that so many Normandians survived right now. The Reaper would have been able to respond to the frigate's attack with its main caliber, and according to objective hardware monitoring, including video recordings, it was such that it was better for the reconnaissance frigate not to get under it in any conceivable situation.

The Reaper turned out to be a great expert at bending intelligent organics to his will. Yes, Chakwas remembered that the Batarians, for example, almost massively used the chipping of intelligent organics who were captured by them and who most often became slaves of the four-eyed. And the Reaper... As it turned out, he applied more than chipping to Saren, putting so many implants into the Turian's body that, after reviewing the medical scanner data, Chakwas was forced to believe: and in the worst case scenario, Saren Arterius, as the humble servant of the shrimp, was practically invulnerable to most types of weapons possessed by intelligent organics today. Unless a large-caliber artillery piece could stop it with its charge. It looks like the same frigate "Tanix". Anything smaller was unlikely to have the desired effect: the Turian's backbone was completely covered with these implants, which together dramatically increased Saren's ability to survive under the most terrible bombardment.

The Turian Spectre is enslaved by the Reaper Watcher. Chakwas couldn't even think of such a variant of the real situation before. And now she had to not only see this Turian, but also operate on him. The Reaper, by the way, has not gone anywhere either - here it is, quietly and, so far, calmly lying on the surface of Eden Prime.

The pile of implants removed from Saren's body, placed on a gleaming white enamel medical tray next to the operating room, grew, and Karin tried to limit her field of vision only to the limits of the "operating area", although she occasionally returned to the realization that a huge number of implants did not benefit the patient, who, as it turned out, had been there before ultimate submission to the Reaper in many serious skirmishes.

Saren's skull was repeatedly roughly operated on, the jaw was held on pins and plates and gave the Spectrum a frightening appearance. It is quite possible that Saren did not like to take off the helmet of his spacesuit because of this, and if he did, it was only when there was a special need.

While removing unnecessary implants, the doctor looked at the patient's face, wondering whether it was worth doing maxillofacial surgery as well, to bring, in other words, the appearance of the patient's head to a more or less normal state. So far, Chakwas has decided to focus on leaving a minimum of absolutely necessary and quite common implants in the body of a Turian, and only then - to solve problems with the face and head of Arterius.

After removing the implants, Karin performed the usual set of necessary procedures to ensure rapid wound healing and plunged the Turian into a deep, drug-induced sleep so that the patient could not wake up earlier than a few hours later. If necessary, it was now possible to increase the duration of sleep within any reasonable limits, which meant that enough time was freed up to work with Asari.

Covering the completely naked body of the Turian with a canopy fixed on a light wire frame, Chakwas moved away from the cot on which the Spectr was lying and slowly approached the cot on which the matriarch Benezia was lying.

Looking at the monitors above her bed, the doctor confirmed that the Asari had indeed suffered multiple injuries when the Reaper had fallen to the ground of Eden Prime. In their report, the members of the landing team indicated that Benezia T'Soni, in all likelihood, did not have time to sit in the chair and, moreover, her dress did not form a sufficiently rigid frame, unlike the spacesuit. So the Asari had plenty of problems with bodily integrity. Besides, Benezia's age was far from young, and healing, as Chakvas assumed, after examining the patient's body, would be long and difficult. Benezia Shepard's left forearm and right shin had already been fitted with a set of tires on the Reaper, and he had lubricated the wounds in several places with a thick layer of panacelin and medigel. He performed the necessary primary medical procedures, which, of course, greatly facilitated the professional doctor's subsequent work with the injured Azari.

After completing the inspection, Chakwas carefully cut open the black and white dress and took it off, trying to preserve its integrity as much as possible. Of course, these cuts will have to be stitched later, but for now... the Asari may well use female human dresses. Technicians, engineers of the ship - women and girls - will help. The frigate's doctor was convinced of this. Underwear was also affected, but to a lesser extent. After removing it, Chakwas freed Asari's head from the ritual and ceremonial cap and began performing the usual preoperative manipulations.

Shepard stated in the report that she was lying like a "broken mannequin." After scanning the matriarch's body with small scanners, Karin was convinced of the correctness of the conclusion made by the paratrooper: Benezia, in addition to fractures and sprains with bruises, had other bodily problems that appeared in connection with the fall, albeit from a small, but still from a height.

It's also good that Shepard independently worked on the psychosphere of the former prisoners of the Reaper. Or maybe slaves, after all? Right now, Karin didn't want to answer that question, even to herself. It was necessary to start dealing with the injuries as soon as possible, of which the Asari matriarch had a lot.

Never before would Karin have thought that a special forces soldier, officer, or Army soldier would be able to so professionally, safely, and most importantly, efficiently reanimate not the body of an intelligent organic, but its essence, its soul. While doing the usual manipulations, Karin recalled how she worked with the Asari and the Turian XO, once again convinced that if it hadn't been for his help, it was unlikely that she would now be calmly and freely doing her part, putting the bodies of both injured sentients in order. Of course, as is often the case, experts and simple, non-settled commentators did not agree on what exactly should be understood by husk's. Neither historical digressions nor logical calculations using arguments and proofs that were often far-fetched helped.

Karin recalled and noted with some amazement that she had unexpectedly managed to see real husk's. It was the Husk's who were Saren Arterius and Benezia T'Soni. Husk's, obedient to the will and desires of the pilot of this gigantic (by the standards of most races of the modern Galaxy) ship.

Husk's. If it hadn't been for Shepard, who risked himself, then both the Asari and the Turian would have remained in this state for a very long time, if not forever. It is unlikely that there would be specialists in the Galaxy now who would be able to return Arterius and Benezia to a normal state. Karin was inclined to evaluate what Shepard had done as nothing more than an embodied miracle, which she witnessed directly.

In the few days since the new XO appeared on board the prototype frigate, so many important events have happened that Karin Chakvas could not remember in all her rich and diverse - not only medical - practice. Shepard, as the doctor understood, was focused primarily on continuous work, and high-quality and effective work. He quite possibly did not know how to rest, did not know how to relax. To some extent, this attitude was due to his specialty - a paratrooper and a special forces soldier. It could also be that Shepard was an orphan. As the head of the frigate's medical service, Karin, of course, looked through the personal file of the XO, rummaged through the special bases of the Alliance Air Force, but unfortunately there was little relevant information there that could shed light on many circumstances of the initial period of John Shepard's life.

Chakwas knew about Akusa, she knew that Shepard still had a girlfriend on Earth. Her name was Dana, and she was a pretty famous professional athlete. So, on a personal level, John, quite possibly, as Chakwas believed, was not alone, but ... even now, approaching the middle of the list of necessary manipulations according to protocol, Chakwas remembered how Shepard warmly treated her, almost the only female senior officer on the ship.

It was as if he had inherited his current commander, David Anderson, while he did not mechanically copy the attitude of the "first after god on board" towards her, the ship's chief medical officer, he treated her in his own way, so that Karin could not find a shadow of a given or "double bottom".

It's possible that John Shepard fell in love with her a little. How David fell in love with her. Shepard, of course, as Chakwas was sure, drew attention to the fact that Anderson was the only one who almost always called her by her first name, and not by her last name or rank. And not only because she is a major, but the commander of the ship is a captain. Not only. But also because David loves her, Karin Chakwas. He loves, of course, with an adult, even and deep love. Mature love.

Shepard, of course, loved Karin in his own way. He treated her like a mother he'd never really been able to get to know-the captain's file clearly stated that he'd become an orphan in infancy. Either his mother had abandoned him, or the situation had somehow developed that John was left alone, but now one thing was clear: John knew how to love. He knew how to love, he knew how to give love, he knew how not to demand anything for his love, for his wonderful attitude towards other reasonable people - and not only to people, nothing for himself.

And Karin also noted that John does not impose his love on anyone reasonable. To nobody. It does not divide, it does not separate humans and aliens, the very xenos that humanity first imagined in a variety of shapes and colors, but when faced with almost a dozen alien races, it must be said bluntly - it was scared to a slight stutter.

John is equally ready to help a human, an Asari, and a Turian. And, without a doubt, intelligent organics of any other race. He just loves intelligent organics, among other things, because he understands, knows that their life is not easy and it's not difficult to give them a little love, participation, and a good attitude.

Probably, guided by the right of love, the right to give his love and knowing how not to demand anything in return for his love, John was able to help both Benezia and Saren in a way that professional doctors and professional scientists would not have helped them. The same Salarians, for example.

John does not make his love a duty, he just gives his love, helps intelligent organics to live. Not only by action, but by your very presence. He devoted as much time to both the Asari and the Turian as it took to preserve them not as biological objects, as bodies, but as individuals, as essences, as souls.

This, what John Shepard was able to do in her presence, Karin Chakwas... could hardly have been done by the best doctors of Earth or the Citadel. And he did it and flew away. He flew away, barely recovering after such a costly procedure for his soul and body. It was no wonder that she, the ship's doctor, considered it necessary for him to appear and stay in the medical bay after finishing work on these strange excavations.

Shepard loves his Dana. Loves - Karin doesn't just see it, she feels it. And for John, there is no problem that Dana is actually his first love, and according to an unwritten rule that is well known to many earthlings, such love rarely develops into something big. For how many days Chakwas has known and watched John, what is there to hide, for so much time she understands: Shepard does not bind Dana to himself, he gives her every opportunity to live her own life, to have her own circle of acquaintances, friends, including very close friends who are quite capable of becoming main friends one day for this girl. What's the difference - polygamy or polyandry? Humanity is wise enough to understand that what doesn't kill the soul makes a person stronger. Both physically and spiritually.

John loves Dana, it is clearly seen and clearly felt, but he does not bind her to himself - she is free in her life and in her destiny. If she likes being with John, then she stays with him of her own free will, and not because she owes anything to John or he, John Shepard somehow tied her to himself. He did not force Dana, as far as Karin understood now, to think about marriage, pregnancy, and finally. He was giving Dana himself, helping her, and, as Chakwas was now convinced, he wasn't demanding or asking for anything in return.

Dana believes John, she knows him too well - after all, they grew up together in the same orphanage. She believes him, but she also surprisingly does not bind him to her, he is free.

Of course, it is quite possible that here, in the reasons for giving Dana such freedom to John, one can count the fact that both Shepard and his companion are orphans. One can also consider the reason that from an early age both defined their life paths and chose professions. John is a soldier, Dana is a professional athlete. Discipline, regime, strict schedule. The framework of life, where can you go without it? Perhaps these circumstances also played a binding and perhaps cementing role in the relationship between Shepard and Dana. Right now, it didn't make much difference to Karin what Dana's last name was. For John, she was always-and. Chakwas is convinced that there will always be only Dayna. It's enough for him to know her name. To know, not with words, but with his soul.

Dana understands that John is dating a lot of people and probably at least assumes that one day John will meet his true, complete, and only love. Maybe she's ready for it. She is ready because she knows that John will be able to make sure that she, his very close friend, will not suffer, will not feel abandoned.

Chakwas saw John writing a letter to Dana relatively recently, perched in a corner of one of the frigate's compartments on a folding seat. He wrote thoughtfully, slowly, plunging into memories. And I saw him reading the letters in response from Dana. He was so happy with every letter, even a short note with just a few lines.

Until the frigate stopped at the repeater at the entrance to the system where Eden Prime was located, John managed to receive too few letters from Dana. Too little, as Chakwas now acutely realized. Too little.

Shepard loved Dana, and, as Karin was now convinced, he was capable of loving so many reasonable people. Not only humans, but also aliens. If he hadn't been so capable of loving the same aliens, he probably wouldn't have been able to help the Asari and the Turian so effectively and completely, who were going through difficult times due to the situation and circumstances. To those who survived and returned, thanks to Shepard's dedication and heroism, yes, yes, to his completely unprovoked, even somewhat everyday heroism, to ordinary life.

Karin paused for a moment, glancing at the monitors hanging over the hospital bed, and felt with particular force that Shepard loved all Normans. They became his own for him. Yes, it was quite possible that he had paid special attention to her, the chief medical officer of the frigate, a major in the Chakvas Air Force medical Service. But he also paid attention to David - Karin noticed this automatically, maybe subconsciously.

Shepard not only commanded and led, as befits the senior assistant to the commander of the ship and the commander of the amphibious crew of the prototype reconnaissance frigate. He was studying. Karin was convinced, and this conviction had just received additional-and more than one-proof that Shepard had decided to learn a lot from both her and David. To study imperceptibly, without focusing the attention of teachers and mentors on it, but to really, fully learn.

Several days of Shepard's stay on the frigate had shaken up the crew. Yes, the new XO is tough, strict, insistent, even merciless - where would Jenkins or Alenko or Moro fall under his hand or gaze again and again. But the new XO is careful, attentive, silent, modest, and knows how to see and understand many of the good things that exist not only in every human being, but also in every alien. If he had been even a little more callous, he would hardly have been able to cope so well with the restoration of the Asari and Turian psychosphere. Many human psychotherapists and psychiatrists would not have been able, as Karin was now convinced, to do a hundredth of the useful and absolutely necessary things that Shepard had managed to do during those minutes spent on the bodies and souls of these two former huskies.

Former ones. It is unlikely that now the Asari and the Turian will often recall these months of their powerlessness and impotence. They will remember them, these months. And they will remember that it was the earthman, the human John Shepard, who interrupted these times.

While performing the final part of the surgical intervention protocol, carrying out the necessary manipulations, Chakwas thought that the Spectrum Turian was the reason for the success of the capture of the elderly Asari by the Scout Reaper and the reason for Benezia's transition to the category of captive and submissive slave of this Reaper. The standard chain was being built: Reaper - Saren-Benezia.

Yes, later, after Benezia's meeting with Saren... I would also like to know exactly how this meeting took place... Benezia fell under the increasing psychic influence of the Reaper, which is still commonly referred to by a few narrow specialists as indoctrination.

A few dozen minutes later, Chakwas covers Asari's naked body with a light canopy supported by a wire frame. Basically everything necessary has been done. Now it was important to understand how the healing would go. Moving away from the patients, Chakwas went to her desk, sat down in an armchair and called up the full monitoring data on the wall screens, which took into account both recent manipulations and their results in static and dynamic terms. The diagnostic complex performed a repeat check, the Medical Center processed the information received and displayed comparative tables and graphs.

Reading the indicators, thinking about the revealed interdependencies, predicting the development of the situation, Chakwas waited. With Shepard's help, she hoped that in less than a few hours, first one and then the other patients in the Infirmary would come to their senses. Both literally and figuratively, they will return to this world. No longer huskies, but ordinary representatives of their races. Free from any outside influence and interference. If Nazara did not protest or oppose Shepard or her, Chakvas did not somehow try to block the desire of the ship's XO and doctor to return the Asari and the Turian to a normal life - and the Reaper certainly had such capabilities and abilities, then ... the interventions made allowed him to cautiously hope that very soon The patients will come back to life.

Yes, the breathing of the Turian and the Asari is leveled, the pulse is no longer racing, there is no excess tension in the muscles, there is no tightness in the bones. Yes, both patients will have to spend several more hours on full bed rest without the right to move freely - and Karin is already convinced that both Saren and Benezia will be pretty excited about the fact and content of their release from the husky state in the full sense of the word.

The design of the hospital beds in the frigate's Medical Bay took into account that they would be used to accommodate not only humans, but also representatives of many races now known to earthlings. Therefore, both the Turian's crest and the Asari's appendages were now sunk into special recesses at the head of the beds, which allowed patients to keep their heads straight and not strain the muscles and ligaments of their necks. Yes, Chakwas well remembered that the Turians' neck was a very vulnerable part of the body, but now, here in the medical bay, she could be sure that Saren had nothing to worry about.

Nihlus, of course, will not slow down to appear, but it depends on her, the doctor of the frigate, what schedule of visits to patients - and, by the way, quite serious patients - should be established to ensure their speedy and complete recovery. Visits are important and necessary, but this is not even a matter of the near future. At least not for a few hours.

Did she, the frigate's doctor, think that she would have to operate on real, serious patients a few days after the frigate left the "manning field"? No, I probably didn't. After all, for too long the galaxy has lived without tension, maybe even, as the Imperials like to say, "going with the flow." And now the breath of a galactic war, not a local one, is becoming more and more acutely felt. Many apocalyptic predictions are beginning to come true once again.

Time passed unnoticed. Chakwas was fully aware of herself as a recluse of the Medical Bay, she liked being its sole owner and, if possible, the only inhabitant. She didn't need anyone's company, she was calm about the fact that until something extraordinary happened, none of the Normans would look at her.

After all, a medic exists in order to be always ready to help a non-medic. Always be ready. So Chakwas was ready. And this willingness paid off. She had her first real, special, serious patients in a very long time. Who now, after the surgical interventions, have begun to approach the moment of their hopefully full recovery.