I was never supposed to become a doctor. Growing up on Freeport 6, you either fixed ships, moved cargo, or found yourself in less... legitimate lines of work. My parents owned a small repair shop tucked away on Deck C. Grease under the nails, the smell of ozone in the air, and the constant hum of reactors – that was home. Life wasn’t bad. It was just... practical. Survival came first.
I wasn’t the kid who dreamed of space battles or luxury liners. I was the one patching up skinned knees, broken fingers, and split brows after deck fights. It started small – holding ice packs, fetching bandages for the only medic on the station, an old, chain-smoking man named Petrov. He wasn’t the gentle type, but he was honest. “People don’t come to me until it’s almost too late,” he used to say, puffing on those awful synthetic cigarettes. “That’s the job, kid. Be there when no one else is.”
Most of my childhood was a balancing act – mornings helping my parents with repairs, afternoons shadowing Petrov, and evenings listening to the station gossip in the mess hall. Life on Freeport 6 had a rhythm: transient traders, desperate miners, Zoner philosophers, mercenaries with more scars than stories – all passing through. And every one of them, sooner or later, needed a pair of steady hands when things went sideways.
When I turned seventeen, something shifted. A transport docked in emergency – decompression failure in mid-flight. Five crew members, barely clinging to life. Petrov worked for hours, hands shaking, cursing under his breath. I assisted – not officially, but there was no one else. Two survived. Three didn’t. That night stuck with me. Not because of the loss – though it hurt – but because I realized how thin the line was. A few more hands, a few more supplies, and maybe… just maybe.
That was the first time I seriously considered medicine. Not as an abstract idea, but as something real, tangible, and desperately needed.
Getting out of Freeport 6 wasn’t easy. Medical school isn’t cheap, and Zoners don’t exactly hand out scholarships. But desperation is a powerful motivator. I scraped together what I could: odd jobs, hauling cargo, repairing life support systems, even a few runs I don’t talk about too loudly. Every credit went toward a dream that felt impossibly far away.
Baffin became my destination. The Med Force Academy – one of the few places in Sirius where borders didn’t matter, where politics stayed outside the airlocks. Getting accepted wasn’t the hard part; staying was. Most of my classmates came from places like Cambridge, Manhattan, Stuttgart – worlds where education is a birthright, not a privilege. I was the kid from the Freeport. The outsider.
I wasn’t the smartest. I didn’t have the best grades. But when the simulations started – zero-G trauma, rapid decompression injuries, emergency surgery in hostile environments – that’s where I found my footing. When chaos broke out, when alarms screamed and others froze, I moved. Calm. Focused. Not because I was fearless – far from it – but because hesitation gets people killed.
The instructors noticed. They never said it outright, but I could see it in their eyes. “Renn’s not the top of the class,” one of them told me during an evaluation, “but if my ship’s bleeding air and someone’s broken in half, he’s who I want in that room.”
Graduation wasn’t a celebration. It was a relief. The ceremony was a blur – names called, certificates handed out, handshakes exchanged. I left before the afterparty, packed my few belongings, and booked passage back to the Edge Worlds.
But I didn’t go home.
Freeport 6 had become... different. The old faces were gone, the dock felt colder, the air heavier. People move on. Places change. So I drifted – from the Taus to the Sigmas, then deeper. Wherever people needed someone with a medscanner, a steady hand, and no questions asked.
My ship – a battered civilian freighter modified into a flying clinic – became home. Nothing fancy. Cramped quarters, a medbay cobbled together from second-hand parts, oxygen scrubbers that complained every time I powered up. But it worked. Mostly.
Out there, beyond the safety of the core systems, the problems are simple. Someone’s bleeding. Someone’s broken. Someone’s dying. And you either help, or you don’t. No bureaucracy. No insurance forms. Just the job.
I treated miners who collapsed from oxygen deprivation. Traders burned from reactor leaks. Smugglers – yeah, them too – with plasma wounds, half of them refusing to explain how it happened. Pirates. Mercs. Civilians. To me, they all looked the same when the suit came off – scared, hurting, and hoping someone knew what the hell to do.
It wasn’t always enough. Sometimes you show up too late. Sometimes you do everything right, and they still slip away. Those are the nights you stare at the ceiling, wondering why you bother. But then the call comes again – someone else, somewhere else – and you go. Because that’s the job.
I thought I’d be doing this forever – working alone, flying alone. Then I met them.
It was a flare-up near Freeport 11 – a station worker collapsed, then another, then three more. Something was in the air systems – maybe mold spores, maybe worse. I was already docked when the MFE crew arrived. Watching them work was... something else. Coordinated. Efficient. Not because they had better gear – though they did – but because they weren’t alone. They had each other’s backs. No egos. No arguments. Just care. Just help.
We worked side by side for hours. Stabilized twenty-two cases. Lost one. Could’ve been worse. Would’ve been worse, if neither of us had shown up.
After it was over, we shared coffee in the station’s mess. Talked shop. Swapped stories. I realized how tired I was. Not the kind of tired sleep fixes. The kind that comes from carrying too much, too long, alone.
I left Freeport 11 thinking about something one of their doctors said: *“It’s good work, but it’s better together.”*
And maybe... maybe it’s time.
I’m not looking to be a hero. I’m not special. I don’t have the cleanest ship or the fanciest equipment. But I know how to show up. I know how to keep someone breathing when everything else falls apart. And I know – without doubt – that medicine shouldn’t depend on credits, borders, or politics.
That’s why I’m reaching out to Med Force Enterprises. Not just because I believe in the work they do. But because, deep down, I know that sometimes, the best way to help is to stop flying solo.
Maybe together, we can hold the line a little longer.
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