Drowning
Posted on Tue Mar 13th, 2012 @ 4:31pm by Lieutenant Jimmy Cooper & Captain Elsie Halliwell & Commander Cailean Fox, M.D. & Lieutenant JG Lucy Carter
2,246 words; about a 11 minute read
Mission:
Fishing
Location: USS Ranger
Timeline: Current
Jimmy found himself at one of the airlocks. How he got there, Jimmy never knew. All Jimmy could think about was his father, and how his captain flatly refused to allow him to find him. "I'll just swim to him myself." He told himself, as he donned one of the spacesuits meant for repairs on the outside of the USS Ranger.
"Life Support?" he asked the suit.
"All systems nominal," it answered.
"What kind of pressure can this suit handle?"
"This suit is designed for use in space, and in atmospheres up to 10G. It's designed for a maximum of 10.000 PSI."
With that information he reached for the handle, and turned it. The red warning-light flashed as the external door opened, and immediately water started rushing in.
“Sir?†Ensign Edsell queried as he read the information now streaming on his control display. Elsie turned around from the Science station where she was still sat to Ops and shot him a look as the audible alarm now filled the space of the bridge with a piercing strike.
“What is it?†she questioned, her brow locking firmly in a slight annoyance.
“I’m not quite sure.†His eyes widened as the information continued to flow down his screen. “I think someone is trying to gain access to an external hatch on deck five.â€
Elsie looked into the middle distance and shook her head in a shocked expression as the unbelievable truth dawned on her. “Ensign!†she bellowed, now rising from her chair. “Seal that section with forcefields now!â€
As the door crept fully open, and the water filled the small room entirely, Jimmy looked out to the endless blue hue in front of him. Fearless, he thrust himself out of the ship and started paddling. Space suits, however, weren't designed for swimming, and immediately the weight tugged him downwards. "That's fine," Jimmy thought out loud, "I'll just drop myself to the sea floor and go from there." As he looked up, he saw the Ranger become smaller and smaller. "I'll be right back, everyone!" He said, cheerfully.
Edsell’s hands worked furiously as the dancing lights beneath his finger tips illuminated his quickly working fingers. “We have a hull breach!†he shouted, still working the system, “but the section is contained. Flooded, but contained.â€
Elsie had now abandoned the Science station completely and had moved up beside Edsell to gain further purchase on the situation. “Who was it?†she asked as he continued to work the tools at his control. She had already guessed.
“I’m unsure,†he replied as Elsie bent down and looked at his terminal.
“Switch to biometric parameters and make sure all crew are accounted for. Whoever it was must still be near that section.â€
Edsell did as he was commanded and switched from combadge to biometric sensors. “The last person near to that section was Lieutenant Cooper but his combadge is still present in that section.†As the new information refreshed and the data began to stream again he shook his head. “It was Lieutenant Cooper. He’s no longer on the ship!â€
Jimmy had forgotten that there was a communications device in the suit, and the call of his captain startled him. "I'm sorry, Captain," he answered, "I'll just be right back, okay?"
“It most certainly is not all right!†she seethed through gritted, angered teeth, as she instructed the Flight Conn. to all stop with a curt nod. “Get back to the Ranger immediately!â€
"That won't be possible, I'm afraid, This suit doesn't have an 'up' button." Jimmy said cheerfully. "But I swear, my dad will find a way to get me back, you'll see."
Elsie’s eyes said it all as she turned to Edsell and narrowed them with venom. “Drag him back!†she spat, now rounding the station and heading for the turbolift. “Beam him straight to sickbay and inform Doctor Fox that he’s on the way there.â€
Jimmy found himself paddling a backstroke on one of the biobeds, which was rudely interrupted by the fact that one of his arms crashed into one of the Sickbay's walls. Confused, he looked around. He was still in the space suit, but the blue endlessness had been switched for Sickbay. He also saw that his suit was dripping water.
"Tie him down Prewitt, before he tries to swim through the bulkhead!" Doctor Fox called out loudly, crossing the space of Sick Bay in quick strides as he pulled his lab coat about himself. Several nurses rushed to help the orderly as Fox made his way, all of them determined to keep the Lieutenant from flailing away.
Fox let them take charge of the bio-bed while he paused at the nurses station to grab a trio of hyposprays, and a microsurgery kit. The odds of Jimmy cooperating with them enough to get the EVA suit off of him were slim, so he rightly figured he was going to have to cut the suit off of him. The loud clatter of the secondary station being knocked down beside the Lieutenant's bio bed confirmed that suspicion as Fox turned quickly away from where he was and rushed to help his staff wrangling the man.
"Stop... Lieutenant! We're trying to help you!" Prewitt, the orderly, called out only to be caught in the jaw by the back of a flailing, gloved hand.
"Commander? What are you doing here?" Still doing the backstroke, the surroundings only half made sense to Jimmy. "I'm sorry, Commander, but I need to swim to my father!" Which commander he was referring to, no-one really knew.
"Clear... Move!" Fox barked out, pushing Nurses aside as he tried to get past them and get to the bed.
"Ah, doctor. I didn't know this suit came with a medical hologram. The new technology really is remarkable, don't you think? Now, could you please move aside so I can keep swimming?" jimmy's eyes were half-shut with extacy, and he was now trying to roll to his back, only to find the side of the bio-bed.
Ignoring the man's protests, as he was clearly hallucinating, Fox pressed a hypo to the man's neck and heaved a long sigh of relief as the man twitched slightly and then fell silent. Slamming the hypo on the table, he looked up at Prewitt sporting a quickly swelling and bleeding lip and offered a slight smirk. "Have Jessica take a look at that." he said, thumbing back towards the middle of the bay, "The rest of us can get this suit off." he added, looking to the nurse to his left as he set his microsurgery kit on top of the man's chest.
The nurses spent the next few minutes removing the man's EVA-suit while Doctor Fox began the long task of scanning, cataloging and ultimately diagnosing whatever the hell had just gone wrong with Lieutenant Cooper.
Suddenly, Jimmy was back in the castle of his father. Something was wrong, though, the castle seemed to be shaking. "Father, what's going on?" He asked, confused. "It seems, my son, we won't be meeting here after all." his deep voice said. And all of a sudden, his father was gone, and the whole watery world started spinning...
"The sam hill..." Fox trailed off as the man started thrashing on the table, "Get the cardiac regulators before his damn heart explodes! Now!!" he barked, pushing a Nurse aside as he practically climbed the table to help hold the man down with his weight. Using his free hand, he grabbed the hypo and injected the counteractant to the sedative he'd just given him. If the man's body was turning the sedative away and accelerating his heart, the odds of it causing permanent damage were high. He had to counter it, and fast. So with a force not too kind, he stabbed the hypo against his neck and pressed, holding the man down on the chest with his own weight.
Med school, eat your heart out.
With a start, Jimmy woke up, tried to get up only to thump his head on Fox's elbow. "OW! Where am I?" He had expected to wake up in his bed, the long dream of his father and the silly urge to go and look for him, swimming.
Fox looked seriously down at the man, trying to meet his quivering gaze. Pointing to his own eyes, Fox got his attention. "Son. What's your name?" he asked.
"Jimmy..." Jimmy's gaze lingered as he tried to remember where he was.
"And my name?" he pressed, shifting his weight no his chest, "Don't look at them, son, look at me." Fox chided quickly. "What's my name." he asked. He was concerned beyond measure for the man's well being and just need to know that his brain had recovered - at least partially from whatever shock had just had it's way with him.
Eyes snapping back, he looked at the man in blue uniform, who was a bit close for comfort. Jimmy's head, however, did start to clear. "Doctor Fox, Commander, who, what am I doing here?"
He now also noticed he was in his shorts, and the EVA suit had been tossed to a side. "Oooohhhh." A fit of scared and tired feelings overwhelmed Jimmy, and he faced the doctor with tired eyes.
"Perhaps you can tell me where you've been?" Fox asked, pushing himself off of the bio bed and off of Jimmy onto the deck. "You said a few things..." he added.
"I..." Things started rushing in Jimmy's head, and it took a while for him to settle his thoughts. "I thought.. I could find my father on this planet." The more Jimmy thought about it, the more rediculous the whole thing sounded. "I've seen him, in a big.. castle in the sea." Jimmy faced the doctor "I thought I had dreamt it all, but I wouldn't be here otherwise, would I? How much of it was.. real?"
"Honestly, son. Probably none of it." Fox replied matter-of-factly. The Counseling nutters would have dressed him up and down for sharing the truth with someone that had just had a mental episode, but he wasn't of that mindset. He believed that people needed to know the truth of the matter, not some drummed up horse crap that they thought would spare their 'feelings'. He was here to practice actual Medicine, not wishy-washy, touchy-feely pseudo-science they called 'Counseling'. Which was another reason why one never saw a Counselor in Fox's Sick Bay.
"So what did happen?" Jimmy's mind was too much fog to discern reality from hallucination, and he was wondering how deep he had to grovel with his captain. "I did take a... swim, didn't I?"
"We'll call it an unauthorised leave of absence without the captain's consent," Halliwell stated matter-of-factly, suddenly appearing in the opened doorway out into the corridor beyond with her arms loosely folded over her chest and gently leaned on her left shoulder.
"Captain, I.." Jimmy suddenly felt like sticking his head through a hole in the sand, pretending he wasn't there. "I'm sorry, I didn't know what I was doing." Desperately, he was looking at the medical personell, hoping any one of them could offer a plausible explanation.
"Wish I could tell you what he was doing, skip." Fox replied, shaking his head. "I'll need to run several more tests and do some bloodwork. The way his body reacted to the sedative is cause enough to have him confined to Sick Bay until I can get a read on exactly what is going on." he said, looking over to the Captain, "I'd confine him to quarters or less specific parts of the ship, but there's no telling what or where he'll go. Better be here where the Nurses and I can keep him under watch."
Fox was basically dancing around the point that he didn't have a single idea what the hell had just happened to the young man, but he wound be doggoned if he didn't figure it out; figuring that would be done without the help of any namby-pamby 'Counselor's' setting foot in his Sick Bay. This was a biological and physiological issue that needed to be resolved with actual medicine; not with 'feelings'.
"Done," Elsie replied, now conversing solely with the doctor and almost ignoring Lieutenant Cooper completely. "Keep him in here until you're sure he won't pose a risk to the ship, my crew or to this mission. We can't afford any unstable elements to factor into how we play this from now on." She smiled at Cooper; a loose, disconcerting smile that hung uncomfortably on her features. Nodding, she then turned back to Fox and added, "Keep me apprised, Doctor," before turning on her heel and returning back to the action of the cargo bay.
"Thank you cap.." Jimmy's voice trailed off as he realized his captain more-or-less ignored him completely; as if he was mad entirely. "I'm not actually mad, am I?" He asked, but then he realized even the doctor had moved on. "Oh, wonderful." He mocked as he turned to face the ceiling.
I'm not mad! I'm a submarine! post by:
Lieutenant Jimmy Cooper
Assistant Science Officer,
USS Ranger
Commander Cailean Fox,
Chief Medical Officer,
USS Ranger
Captain Elsie Halliwell
Commanding Officer
USS Ranger
and
Lieutenant JG Lucy Carter,
Nurse,
USS Ranger
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