Sera Mercy-Writ

Dr. Sera Mercy-Writ runs the Aelithstone clinic with two nurses, six beds, and no patience for the idea that logistics is somebody else's problem. She's Crodoc, tall and heavy through the shoulders, with amber eyes, deep mahogany-brown skin, and a white service coat cut to fit over an old Imperial field harness.

She checks medicine herself. Not every case — there aren't enough hours — but every lot headed for a patient already on the table. She smells thawed insulation, reads phase strips under three kinds of light, and asks loaders questions in a voice so calm they usually answer before remembering what they meant to hide. The station staff call her Mercy-Writ because she can turn a requisition denial into an approval without raising the volume.

A trauma patient is waiting when the crew arrives. The plasma case on their manifest carries the right seal and the wrong history. Sera sees the fresh adhesive under the phase strip and stops the line with one thick finger. She doesn't accuse the crew. She just asks whether they'd like to help her find out who nearly made them murder a stranger by paperwork.