Discovery
Posted on Wed Oct 14th, 2009 @ 7:18pm by Commander Curtiss Drake
1,349 words; about a 7 minute read
Mission:
Shoreleave - Welcoming Old Friends and New
Location: Corridors/Sick Bay
Timeline: Current
It was late, by the ship's time, but Doctor Amy Harding crouched by the open corridor panel, quietly inspecting the bio-neural gelpack in her hand while beside her Ensign Wellby watched her carefully. They'd been getting sporadic power fluctuations through the gelpacks and being the resident expert on the devices, Doctor Harding was giving a few of the troubled packs a personal inspection.
"See anything odd?" Wellby asked, watching Harding carefully as he surreptitiously scratched the side of his head. His dark hair was getting a bit long and he absently remembered that he needed to get a trim.
"Nothing grabs my attention." she replied distractedly, again running her tricorder the length of the tiny device before shaking her head and handing it back to Wellby. "You're sure this one's one of the ones with a consistent problem?" she asked, adjusting her crouching stance a little bit to curb the burn that was beginning to settle in on her thighs.
"Absolutely." he replied, ducking into the bulkhead a bit to re-install the pack. "Three of the four distribution errors passed through this pack before picking up the error." he continued, his voice strangely muffled from within the wall.
"I'd like to have a look before you reinitialize the power." Amy interjected.
"Yah." Wellby grunted, pulling himself out. "Go for it." he smiled, his face a bit red from the exertion.
Amy smiled back and ducked into the wall. She unfolded her tricorder again and meticulously scanned the device, looking for any fluctuations or other oddities that she hadn't noticed before. With nothing new showing up, she turned over he shoulder to see the bottom half of Ensign Wellby.
"All right, go ahead and reinitialize this section." she ordered, turning back to the pack and to her tricorder.
"Standby." Wellby replied. "Ok... power up." he said.
Amy watched the tricorder pick up the change in activity and monitored the pack for anything out of the ordinary; it appeared almost immediately. A spike in the containment of several of the central cell nuclei. It was a subtle shift, one that biologists wouldn't have seen, let alone an Engineer. This time though, the error was growing.
"David... David, I think you need to shut it down." she called back, suddenly nervous as she watched the tricorder activity spike. "David!!"
"The boards fused!" David replied finally. Amy could see his feet disappear down the hall to the next conduit station, no doubt to try and override the feed from there.
Amy dropped her tricorder where she was and ducked back through the opening in the bulkhead as the feedback hits its fever pitch, exploding with a thunderous report and sending Amy skittering across the deck into the opposite bulkhead with a shower of sparks and debris. She watched for a moment as David ran towards her, tapping his combadge. She saw his mouth moving, but no words came out as her vision faded to black.
[Sick Bay]
Four Engineering Officer's rushed through the Sick Bay door's, holding Doctor Hargrove between them and making for the nearest bio-bed. Doctor th'Zahn shot up from his chair at the opposite end of the Sick Bay and bounded through the CMO's vacant office into the main bay.
"What happened?!" he asked, grabbing a tricorder and shuffling around one of the nurses.
"Conduit overloaded." Ensign Wellby replied, wiping his brow and looking down at Doctor Harding nervously. "She was right in front of the explosion." he added.
th'Zahn ran a quick scan with his tricorder and then tapped his combadge.
"Sharat to Doctor Fox." he said quickly.
=^='Fox here.'=^= came a gruff reply.
"Sir, we have a Medical Emergency!" he replied, "We need you in Sick bay."
=^='On my way.'=^= he replied.
th'Zahn quickly set about stabilizing his patient before Doctor Fox swept through the doors into the Sick Bay.
"Out of here, all of you." he said, pointing to the Engineer's milling about. "Move, Move." he added, accepting the tricorder from one of his nurses and taking a scan himself. He was so engrossed in the information in his hands, he didn't bother to look at his patient's face, even though it was covered in blood and burns.
"We need to get prepped for surgery, she has several internal ruptures, and is hemorrhaging internally as well." he said, turning to the Nurse next to him. "Doctor th'Zahn and I will complete the surgery, get me her medical records and the cortical stimulator." he ordered.
The Nurse nodded as both he and th'Zahn stepped away from the table and got prepared for the surgery. Once they were set-up, they both turned back to the table and Fox paused alongside it, taking a deep and steadying breath.
"Allright... let's begin." he said.
[Four Hours Later]
A swirl of colors and sound met her conscious mind as a ripple of tightness echoed through her muscles from her head to her toes. With a groan, she opened her eyes to the see a bare ceiling before a strange apparatus hanging from it. Confused, she tried to remember the last thing that had happened. An image of Ensign Wellby popped into her head and she shot up, ignoring the protests of her muscles.
"Easy." said a voice to her right. She turned quickly to see a blue-skinned Andorian pressing her gently back onto the bed, his antennae spread wide in surprise at seeing their patient so upright so quickly.
"Where am I?" she asked, only slightly processing that she was in the Sick Bay.
"Sick Bay on the Archimedes." th'Zahn replied patiently, slowly scanning her now with his tricorder.
"Am... am I ok?" she asked, looking to him directly. "Are you the Chief?" she asked.
"No." th'Zahn replied, smiling as he stowed his tricorder. "I'm his Resident Doctor." he said, "You're just about done here, we had put you under to give your body the chance to heal on its own." he said, gesturing to a table her clothes on it. "If you'd like to change, I'll have the Doctor come and give you his final approval to leave."
Amy nodded and watched as th'Zahn stepped out of the small alcove and pulled a curtain closed behind him. Rubbing both sides of her face experimentally, in case this all might be a dream, she stood up and grabbed her things, slipping out of the medical frock and into her uniform.
A rustle behind her announced the arrival of someone new and Amy quickly pulled her uniform shirt closed. "Not quite dressed." she scolded over her shoulder.
"Nothing I haven't seen before." replied a gruff voice, with a strong southern draw.
Amy spun on her heel quickly, shirt still unbuttoned and blanched. "Cailean?!" she exclaimed quietly, taking a step forward before again realizing she was unbuttoned. She quickly sealed her top and ran over to him, wrapping him in a large hug.
"They called you when I was injured?" she asked incredulously, stepping back to look at him.
Fox laughed and shook his head. "Technically yes, but not for the reason you're thinking." he replied. "I'm the Chief here." he said.
Amy's jaw fell open a bit before a smile began to pass over her lips. "You... we're... we're on the same ship?" she asked, a mixture of excitement and incredulity.
Fox nodded, "Bit of a surprise for me too." he replied, "I got halfway through the surgery before they cleaned you up and I saw who you were." he said, shaking his head. "Little boy blue had to all but smack me back to reality so I could finish the surgery." he smiled. "You were not expected to be here." he added with a caring smile.
Amy hugged him again and sighed, "I got transfer orders no sooner than you'd left. I thought it'd take months to track you down, or me down, through the system." she said from his chest.
"Well. You're here now." Fox replied. "And that's all that matters."
RSS Feed