I read a blurb in Scientific American about a new kind of medical foam that had been invented which contained micro particles of oxygen and could be delivered directly into bloodstream without fear of the damage that is usually caused by blood oxygen bubbles. I thought this would be a great example of something that could be used as part of a scene in a future book.

The ship shuttered once more in spite of the internal dampers. Doctor Martin looked up expecting a shower of dust and dirt to fall all over his patient as it did during some of the surgeries he had to perform early in the war while hidden in damp basements.

“Hurry,” he yelled to the nurse. “If we don’t get some oxygen into Martinez here we are going to lose her.”

“I’m trying,” the nurse yelled back. “We are just about out of OxyFoam.”

“Damn,” Doc Martin thought out loud, “without OxyFoam I’m going to lose half these kids.”

“Look in the emergency kits,” he ordered.

“Found some,” she yelled back over the breach sirens that were screaming throughout the ship.

“Thank God,” Doc said as he administered the foam to Martinez and saw the blood oxygen levels start to rise. “I hope we got this to her fast enough. I’d hate to think what would happen to her if her brain ends up damaged.”

The nurse just looked at him with understanding in her eyes. Today’s corporations didn’t care if you were injured while fighting for them or not, if you were unable to do your job you were given a small severance package and booted out the door. Bad enough when all you had was a missing limb or damaged organ that could be regrown somewhere else, but to be brain damaged because you were in a section of the ship breached and then cast aside. That was something else. Although it was still better than what the spiders would do to you if they managed to get you aboard their ship. Nurse Carter couldn’t imagine the horror that awaited those kept in a semi-living stasis by the spiders to be used for food. Even after the thousands of years that had passed since mankind had to worry about being hunted for food by extinct predators, the fear still lay deep inside of everyone and caused them to shudder at the thought of being eaten alive by another species.

“Okay, she’s good,” the doctor said as he turned around to work on his next patient. “We’ll have to see once she wakes up if any non-repairable damage was done. I’m not turning her over to HR until I’ve done everything within my powers to save her.” The doctor also had his suspicions that HR didn’t take care of the injured as guaranteed in everyone’s contract. He heard through the grapevine from some of his buddies that the badly injured were swept quietly away to a little planet owned by the Flexior Corporation and eventually were sold on the black market as house slaves or worse.

“OxyFoam,” he yelled again as he started trying to save the latest victim of the hull breach on deck three.