Q, Guv, Larry. Thanks for the replies and the reviews. Honest feedback is the best feedback. I have reasons for including what I have in the previous chapter which I will give once the story is ended -- but that isn't for a while yet.
I do have to cynically chuckle at the reactions a little though. I am reminded of Kyle's mum in
'South Park - Bigger, Longer, & Uncut' (and paraphrasing here):
"Deplorable violence is okay, as long as you don't have a potty mouth!"
I thought the Guv's
Endeavour story where Ben pulverises Commodore Shilloah was pretty horrible. Which he then topped with the
Endeavour story about the entity which makes the crew start mutilating themselves and killing each other. That's not a dig, Roge, just an observation.
Why is it is okay to show the most spectacularly gruesome and gory injuries and
deaths possible, yet get so shy around and scared of sexual assault? If onwe is okay, why not the other?
That's a massive can of worms for another time though.
That said, on with the show.
Chapter Nine
“Captain, the landing party is overdue for their last check-in,” Edmund Hawke announced to the man in the centre seat.
“One minute overdue, Ensign,” Sotok agreed in his inflectionless deep baritone. “Hail the second officer, Mr. Hawke.”
The young Englishman did as ordered, but the familiar chirp of an open comm channel was not forthcoming. Hawke tried again, but again the electronic ‘triple thud’ of a failed computer task resulted.
“Hail all landing party members, Ensign,” Sotok ordered next, no trace of worry or apprehension colouring his Vulcan calm.
Edmund programmed his board and sent out a priority hail to all comm units on the planet below, including his direct superior’s subspace booster relay at the base camp, but after thirty seconds of further silence he reported worriedly, “No response from any of the landing party, Captain. Diagnostics show my board is fully functional and my equipment shows all their communicators are still functional.
“My hails are getting through, Sir, but no one is answering them.”
“Understood, Ensign,” Sotok acknowledged the comm officer in that same emotionless tone, then turned to the science station. “Mr. de Vreij, close range scan for life-form readings, one kilometre radius around the base camp.”
“Aye, Sir,” the Dutch scientist responded, already operating his controls. “I still have all the surface members of the landing party on my scanners, Captain,” Joop responded with obvious relief. “One Ur’uth’uul, one Andorian, one Efrosian, one Vulcan, one Daenaii, one Caitian, and two Humans.”
“Topographical display with life-sign overlay on main viewer, Mr. de Vreij,” Sotak ordered. “Mr. Hawke, merge your communicator positions with it.”
The “Aye-ayes” echoed back and the main viewer showed that the communicator signals were located within a metre of the life-signs, except for Cha’Doth’s, which was almost four metres away.
“Mr. de Vreij, orbital telescopes. Display a visual scan of the location of Lieutenant Cha’Doth’s life-signs. Magnify to display a five-metre-square area,” Sotok instructed as if ordering a coffee.
His apparent lack of concern despite the possible danger his crew could be in was starting to get to the young Human officers manning the stations on the bridge. Despite “knowing” about Vulcan logic, suppression of emotions, and even their legendary stoicism, the young and inexperienced officers found it hard to reconcile this knowledge with their gut-level, instinctive resentment of someone who apparently didn’t care about their colleagues and friends.
Hawke spun around angrily to stare at the viewscreen to stop from boring holes in the back of his captain’s head.
De Vreijj hit the transfer button for the orbital telescopes to the main viewer with more force than was necessary, the toggle emitting an audible
snap that accurately reflected its operator’s fit of pique.
The image that appeared before them all on the main viewer took no time at all to be interpreted. Believed, processed, and accepted, however, was another story entirely. An Arkenite, a Tellarite, and two Humans looked on in shocked silence as they saw their third in command being horizontally restrained, spread-eagled, and being violated by a blue tubular reed-type plant, suspended above a rock pool. Her maroon uniform with its white highlights, jet black skin and long pink hair brought into sharp relief her situation against the soft blue of her assailant and the water it grew from, and the light grey rock containing the pool.
Captain Sotok responded immediately, pressing down on a direct com-link button on his command chair. “Captain to Security,” he stated quickly and clearly.
“Security, Strøm-Erichsen here, Sir,” the Norwegian security chief answered within two seconds.
“Emergency deployment, all available personnel. Arrive planetside in two minutes,” Sotok ordered quickly and concisely. “Details will be forwarded to your terminal immediately.”
“Understood, Captain. Strøm-Erichsen out,” the security chief signed off, wasting no time.
“Ensign Hawke, transfer coordinates of all our landing party personnel to Lieutenant Commander Strøm-Erichsen.”
Hawke was still enthralled by the image on the main viewer and was slow to respond to his captain.
“Ensign!” For all that Sotok’s voice was inflectionless, it still cracked like a whip and Hawke found himself locking gazes with the Vulcan’s black eyes. “Carry out your orders,” he continued in a flat tone that practically reached out and slapped the junior officer.
“Uh, aye Sir! Sorry Sir!” Hawke flung over his shoulder, already turning to work his board and feeling thoroughly chastised.
“Mr. de Vreij, locate all the landing party members on the surface and ascertain their status,” Sotok ordered next. “And take that image off the main viewer.”
“A-aye, Captain,” a shaken Joop answered as Sotok moved to join him at the science station. Several quick focus changes later and they had found too much forest canopy obscuring their crewmates but also seen Lieutenant K’Nomi in the literal clutches of a huge insect, Lieutenant Thia held down by a plant’s writhing tentacles, and Petty Officer Surek trapped inside a living cage.
“I am accompanying the Security teams,” Sotok announced to a shocked bridge crew. “Ensign Hawke, you will instantly relay
any new information developed by Petty Officer de Vreij to me. Acknowledge and comply.”
“Aye-aye, Captain,” they both responded with alacrity.
“Lieutenant tor-Barnaii, you have the conn.”
“Aye-aye, Sir,” the Arkenite Helm officer replied instantly and opened a channel to summon his relief to the bridge.
With that, the captain of the
Falklands left his bridge.
De Vreijj and Hawke shared a stunned look, each seeing the new awareness and the personal shame and embarrassment in the other’s eyes.
It was less than two minutes since the image of Cha’Doth had appeared on the screen. Anyone who had doubted their captain’s concern for his crew doubted him no longer. Those last two minutes had taught two Humans, young and inexperienced both, that “emotionless” did
not equal “uncaring”.
Sotok rematerialised on the planet’s surface in company with his security chief and ten of her remaining personnel. One “unlucky” soul remained behind to be beamed down in another thirty seconds when the
Falklands’ transporters had cycled. They’d beamed down into a clearing inside the base-camp’s perimeter, phaser pistols out and facing all points of the compass.
“There, Sir!” Crewman 1st-class Thoron called out, pointing. “It’s got Lieutenant K’Nomi!”
Even as Thoron said his second word Sotok had confirmed his sector was clear and was turning to view the security male’s assigned sector. The stout Andorian had already aimed his sleek new-model phaser pistol and unleashed a wide, flat bolt of brilliant scarlet energy at the monstrous flying insect. The beast seemed unfazed but turned to escape. Suddenly, twelve beams bathed it in energy and the thing dropped like a stone before getting more than a metre.
It crashed to the ground from the two metre height it had been hovering at, releasing K’Nomi who thudded limply to the ground herself after having been caught in the blast nimbus of twelve phasers set to heavy stun. Crewman 2nd-class Morales rushed up to check on her while the other security personnel covered him.
“She’s just unconscious, Captain!” he called out, and nine of his crewmates breathed easier. The two Vulcans gave no such emotional reaction.
“Have the lieutenant beamed up immediately with special emphasis paid to decontamination protocols,” Sotok ordered, speaking with quick but precise diction. “Stay with her until Medical claims her, then rejoin us with Petty Officer Morin. Inform the medical staff that a full internal scan of the lieutenant would be prudent.”
“Aye, Captain!” Evo acknowledged with alacrity, and flipped out his communicator even as the rest of the rescue party turned to the next nearest crewmember in distress.
“Lieutenant sh’Fatehrin’s communicator signal is thirty-two metres on a heading of one-three-two,” Sotok stated calmly, already jogging in that direction and flanked by his own security detail. “Be wary; our crewmates have been taken by local plants. Remain observant and keep your distance from plants that seem relatively isolated amongst this dense foliage.”
“Understood, Captain,” Strøm-Erichsen replied for all of them, and thus forewarned they plunged forward into the thickening forest.
*****
“Morales to
Falklands, two to beam up, these co-ordinates!” Evo barked into his communicator.
“Stand by, Morales; the units are still cycling,” came the unpleasant news from Transporter Chief Jelani Kayibanda.
“Just a few seconds more.”Evo called urgently, “Have a med team waiting for us! I’m bringing up Lieutenant K’Nomi!” He found he was surprised it was still less than thirty seconds since they’d beamed down to begin the rescue. So much had happened already...
Over the open comm channel, Jelani stated,
“Energising now.”The next thing Evo knew he and the supine form of the still unconscious communications officer were on the discs of Transporter Room One, and isolated from Chief Kayibanda by a force curtain bounding the open side of the circular transporter stage itself.
Before he could say anything, Evo demanded, “Is the Med team on their way?!”
Jelani nodded even as he hit the control to begin the decontamination sequence. “They’ll be here shortly, Evo. How is she?”
Morales closed his eyes and shielded them further with his hand as the sterilisation energy field cleansed his skin, hair, and uniform of alien microbes and foreign matter. “She was literally in the clutches of a giant flying insect!” he blurted, hands gesturing for emphasis. “We blasted it, twelve phasers on heavy stun,” he continued as the Med team barrelled in with an anti-grav gurney, “and it was holding her close to it. We think it’s just the blast nimbus, but it may be contact stun as well.”
“What else can you tell us, Crewman?” C.M.O. Louisa Garland-Els asked loudly, over the snap and buzz and hum of the sterilisation field, her distinctive South African accent clipping her words.
Evo hesitated, not sure how much he should divulge – and how graphically he could put it – in a public setting. Settling quickly for a middle ground until he could get into a more private setting, he answered over the noise of decon, “She was bitten by the huge bug which had her trapped! The captain recommends a full internal scan!”
The decontamination process ended abruptly and he was suddenly shouting into a quiet room. Lowering his voice, he urged, “We need to get her to Sickbay!”
“Turner, help Morales!” the doctor ordered.
The two men lifted the unconscious Caitian onto a gurney – Morales careful to keep her legs together to hide the tear in her trousers as Medical Technician David Turner lifted her by the shoulders – and then they jumped into the waiting turbolift car at the intersection of Turboshafts Two and Three, right outside the transporter rooms.
Safely within the car for a few seconds, Garland-Els ordered, “Spill it, Morales!” even as she ran her scanner over K’Nomi.
“Sir, she was being... raped... by that monster bug!” Evo blurted, knowing this was all the time he’d have and not wanting to waste it on dissembling.
Louisa’s eyes widened in shocked disbelief, but as the turbolift doors opened right beside Sickbay she did not question him further.
Running quickly in, she barked, “Prep the Isolation Room, full quarantine protocols! Kemal, activate the sterile field and prep the diagnostic scanner!”
“Doc, I gotta get back down there!” Evo told her urgently.
She nodded. “Go. And Morales? You did good. Thank you, from me, and her.”
Evo nodded seriously and was gone.
Louisa focused her full attention on her patient. “Kemal, Turner, transfer her to the scanner bed.”
The two men quickly and efficiently did so, this time with David taking K’Nomi’s ankles. As her head nurse activated it, Louisa turned back to the med tech. “David, take the stretcher back to the transporter rooms and await... developments.” Her bright blue eyes were deeply troubled. “I fear you’re going to be needed there.”
“Yes, Doctor,” the sturdy Englishman replied sombrely, then grabbed the stretcher and guided it quickly back to Turboshaft One.
“Kemal?”
“First pass almost complete, Doctor,” the pale Turkish man replied, his dark eyes locked onto the imaging scanner’s full-length display. The results were displayed seconds later, and he gasped, “What the hell—”
Louisa’s voice hardened. “Eggs, Kemal. Insect larvae that will no doubt hatch inside her and eat their way out, given enough time.
“Let’s not give them that time,” she stated, voice hard and flat.
“I’ll get another stretcher, Doctor!” he called out over his shoulder, already on his way back into the I.C.U.
“Hopefully the second pass will be done by the time you get back,” she muttered to herself, directing the sensor head to specific points of concern. “Bruised bones in left wrist. Surface bruising on her arms, ribs, front torso. Reproductive canal trauma. Alien insect eggs implanted in the womb. Foreign biomatter in both. No indications of any other physical trauma,” she muttered to her medical log, mentally adding,
as if this is not more than enough to begin with!Kemal returned moments later and they transferred K’Nomi, still unconscious from the heavy stuns, first to the gurney and then to the surgical table.
“Five cc’s of masiform-F,” Louisa instructed, holding out her hand.
Kemal slapped a hypospray with the requested dosage into it and asked, “Doctor, what about ten cc’s of corophizine?”
“There are no initial signs of infection to prevent, Kemal,” the C.M.O. responded while monitoring the effect of the medication now in her patient’s bloodstream on the table’s scanners. “I don’t treat what isn’t there. Medication without a symptom to treat usually causes more harm than good,” she lectured her less experienced colleague. “We
do need to prevent her system from absorbing these alien enzymes.”
Satisfied that there was no unexpected rejection of or allergic reaction to the masiform-F, Garland-Els ordered, “Help me take her uniform off.” She knew it was quicker to take the individual items off rather than cutting off the tough adaptive fabric. Kemal nodded and worked on her maroon top then rolled up her grey sciences under-jumper, while Louisa quickly tugged her boots off then slid her punctured trousers completely off her legs.
“Activate the surgical sterile field,” she ordered next. As she used the surgical table’s scanner to bring up an image of the eggs implanted in K’Nomi’s womb. “Number Five laser scalpel,” she stated next. As Kemal handed it to her, she thought,
Let’s get these things out of you, Rozen!*****
They’d covered barely ten metres before the massive flower they’d seen from base-camp exploded into motion. A very long, flexible green limb reached out, quick as lightning, and wrapped around the security chief herself to start dragging her back by the waist towards the plant’s main body. A spilt second of stunned inaction passed before half-a-dozen phaser beams intersected on the plant.
The heavy stun beams made no impression on the two-metre high flower. Sotok instructed loudly, “Cease fire! First and Third Sections, set phasers to level three and resume firing!”
Half the landing party hurriedly reset their phasers to kinetic impact/heat and fired again, taking careful aim past the struggling, upside-down form of their security chief as more limbs separated from the huge flower’s central stalk and attempted to hold her more securely in preparation for whatever its instincts demanded it do next. Huge sections of delicate-looking petals and thick stalk quickly crisped, blackened, and dropped off, bursting into flame. A particularly well-aimed shot from Petty Officer 2nd-class Mark DeYoung severed the limb holding Strøm-Erichsen and she dropped onto her neck in front of the plant. She flattened herself quickly to the ground and the landing party let rip, burning the entire flower to ashes.
“Chief, are you okay?!” DeYoung called out after he raced to her side under the phasers of the rest of the security detail.
“I’m fine, DeYoung,” she replied, rubbing her neck, though was obviously shaken. She allowed the beefy Ohio man to plant a shoulder in her armpit and all but haul her back to their comrades.
“Lieutenant Commander, are you functional?” Sotok asked quickly as two musical columns of sparkling blue energy resolved themselves into the returning Crewman Morales and newly arriving Petty Officer Hervé Morin.
“Aye Captain, just a bit winded,” she replied gaspingly. “That thing squeezed the air out my lungs, is all...”
“Crewmen DeYoung and Bouteflika, help the Commander. We must press on with all due speed.”
Anne-Grete’s protest died in her throat. Sotok was right; stupid pride should not be allowed to slow their progress to their other still-trapped shipmates. With a wry grimace, she accepted Mark and Abdelaziz’ strong shoulders as they propelled her faster through the forest.
The broad arrow of their formation reached Thia quickly, finding her curled up in a ball beside an egg-shaped plant which did not respond to their approach. Worryingly, neither did she. C.P.O. Susan Kiehl and Crewman 1st-Class Maria Ramirez rushed forward to help Thia up to her feet. DeYoung retrieved the young Andorian
shen’s phaser and communicator and returned them to her. She stared at them numbly for a couple of seconds before reaching out to take them. Her hands mechanically accepted them, slowly attaching the communicator to her belt first while staring at the sleek phaser pistol resting on her open palm.
“Lieutenant sh’Fatehrin, you are safe now,” Sotok stated in his reassuring baritone, looking closely at her, “but we need to return you to the ship and continue rescuing our crew on the surface.”
Thia’s eyes snapped up from her phaser to meet his gaze, then around at her colleagues, then down again to the plant she had been found beside. With a sudden, startling shriek of incoherent rage, she slapped the phaser’s power setting up a notch and unleashed its dazzling ruby beam at the seemingly inoffensive egg-shaped plant.
No one made a move towards her; it would have been far too dangerous to try and make her stop firing. They all watched as the plant crisped and blackened, the extreme heat carbon-scoring its sealed shell until the beam blasted through, revealing the mass of tentacles it contained. They too crisped, blackened, and were set ablaze under her assault.
For six shocking seconds they watched and listened as she and her phaser screamed, until the entire egg-shaped plant was no more than ash.
Breathing like she had run the Academy marathon in record time, Thia slowly lowered her phaser.
“Lieutenant,” Sotok stated, his voice actually gentle.
She turned to face him, her phaser now held loosely in her left hand. Trying to regain control of her breathing, she replied shakily, “...aye, Sir.”
“Ramirez, stay with the Lieutenant and beam up with her,” Sotok instructed, still gazing reassuringly at the young officer.
“Aye-aye, Skipper!” the stout Mexican woman acknowledged anxiously.
“P-permission to join the r-rescue detail, Captain,” Thia requested, her voice and body shaky.
“Denied, Lieutenant. You need medical attention immediately,” Sotok told her in a tone that was shading from completely inflectionless to gentle again. “Now go.”
“Aye, Captain,” she sighed.
“Security Detail, form up!” he ordered next. “Ensigns MacAllen and Okeild’s communicators are along this line of advance. Continue in Alpha Six and move out, heading zero eight seven, two hundred metres.”
One less in number but one more in crew, the landing party double-timed it towards another trapped shipmate.
*****
Kayibanda slid the transporter’s three matter stream controllers all the way home and, through the blue-white glare of the forcefield emitters ringing the open side of the transporter stage, saw the delectable Maria Ramirez materialise, supporting Lieutenant Thia.
“Thirty seconds for decontamination,” he called, more for something he could say than to tell them something they both already knew.
Maria nodded, not saying anything back, but looked to Thia and murmured something he could not hear. The Rwandan shot another look at the grim-faced, tight-lipped David Turner on his left, standing silently but with smouldering eyes, gripping the stretcher with hands that clenched and unclenched subconsciously.
What in God’s Name is going on here? No one is speaking but they’re all enraged in a way I’ve not seen since... since the Organian Conflict!The decontamination cycle completed and, after a final, thorough scan of the air and people on the transporter stage gave no warning flags, he deactivated the isolation forcefield. David was there in a flash to offer his shoulder but Maria waved him off. Thia made it to the anti-grav herself but gratefully lay down on it.
Then the small party all but ran the few steps it took to get to the turbolift station right outside the transporter rooms, leaving a tense and very puzzled Kayibanda in their wake.
Once in the privacy of the turbolift car, Turner – his voice carefully neutral – asked, “Lieutenant, what can you tell me about what happened to you?”
Maria’s eyes flicked up and locked with his, but even as it formed, her resentful, protective expression faded completely at the sight of the hot coals his black eyes so closely resembled.
In a wavering, quiet voice, Thia replied, “...plant captured me... held me in its tentacles... wouldn’t let me go...”
“Did it... bite or wound you?” David asked delicately. “Did any alien fluids or enzymes get into your system?”
Maria admired the medical technician’s tact, and realised he must have known what really happened to Lieutenant K’Nomi.
Thia managed a soft “...yes...” before the doors opened right outside Sickbay. Turner took them inside, straight to the diagnostic scanner room without pause, and instructed, “Ramirez, help me get her onto the table.”
She realised that lifting Thia across was going to be quicker than waiting for the still out-of-it Andorian to make the trip under her own power, and helped the medic do just that. She was pleased to see her injured superior being so expertly and compassionately cared for that she hadn’t had the opportunity to relay the captain’s order before it was already being carried out.
“Turner... thanks,” she told him, and meant it for Thia too. The Englishman gave her a look that could have been a wintry smile. “I’ve got to get back down there. Will she be okay?”
“She will, now,” he replied shortly. “Go, and bring the others back...”
He faltered, clearly wanting to say more but just as clearly not wanting to give voice to his fears. He shook it off. “Just... bring them all back.”
Maria nodded, touched despite herself at the depth of his feelings, and bolted back into the turbolift.
David was about to call for Doctor Garland-Els when she walked into the diagnostic scanner room and immediately asked, “What’s the situation, Turner?”
“Scanner’s making its first sweep now, Doctor, but Thia told me she’d been captured by a plant, held in its tentacles, and its fluids or enzymes got into her system. You can see the stuff on her face too.”
“She went through decontamination procedures?” Garland-Els asked sharply.
“Yes, Doctor. I watched the whole process myself,” he replied. “Whatever this stuff is, it’s been sterilised.”
“Good, and bad; if some of it has got into her system it’ll be harder to isolate it. Take a sample for analysis.”
Turner grabbed a specimen sample lifter and secured a fair-sized segment by basically peeling it off the Andorian
shen’s face; it came off in a big slab which cracked at her ear.
The still-dazed Thia flinched at the sound and weakly raised a hand to fend off the med tech.
“Don’t worry Lieutenant, we’ll clean all this off of you shortly,” Louisa soothed, then asked, “Can you tell us what happened?”
Thia’s mouth moved but no sound came out. She looked up at them helplessly.
“It’s okay, don’t speak. You rest and we’ll take care of you, okay?” Louisa told her in her best bedside manner.
The young security officer nodded and relaxed against the scanner bed, closing her eyes to the outside world.
Garland-Els and Turner exchanged a glance before assessing the diagnostic readout. It showed a horror story of its own with foreign enzymes in her mouth and reproductive canal, foreign living biomatter in her womb and inert biomatter on her face and between her legs. The heavy bruising around her wrists, upper arms, thighs, and neck all indicated being held under heavy restraint, her almost-strangulation further attested to by trauma to the dermal neck tissue, and forced intercourse – a given – from trauma to her reproductive canal.
Louisa felt herself growing enraged.
What the hell kind of place is this planet? At least two wildly disparate species reproduce by rape! she thought in disbelief and outrage.
Davis was having similar thoughts.
How does a plant even reproduce like this? It’s insane!Louisa hit her wrist-comm. “Kemal! How is K’Nomi’s system responding to the hydroxaline?
“No adverse or allergic reactions observed as yet, Doctor,” the head nurse replied over the intercom.
“It’s breaking down the foreign enzymes slowly but steadily. They’ll be completely inert inside another fifteen minutes at this rate.” “Good. Any negative reactions to the surgery?”
“None,” was his brief, succinct reply.
As expected. It was a very simple procedure. Cut her open, remove the eggs, seal her back up again, save the eggs for later study, she recapped. “Thank you, Kemal. Now please prep a large batch of hydroxaline; make it five litres. I think we’re going to need a lot more of it. Also, start another batch of masiform-F, and I think half a litre should suffice here. Before you do though, bring in forty cc’s of hydroxaline and ten of masiform-F.”
“Yes, Doctor. I’ll be right there.”She turned to face David. “You’d better get back to the transporter rooms. I think we’ll be seeing a lot more of these cases today.”
Turner’s face and tone mirrored her own. “Yes Doctor. I just hope this is as bad as it’ll get, because this is more than bad enough.”
Louisa nodded. “Agreed, and you and me both, David. Now go.”
He nodded and, grabbing the anti-grav stretcher, was gone.
Kemal came in seconds later with two hyposprays and a large container. “You did say
forty cc’s of hydroxaline, didn’t you, Doctor?” the Turkish man asked by way of greeting.
“I did indeed. I think we may need that much to break down and flush out that much foreign matter,” she replied, gesturing to the composite diagnostic scanner image as she administered the first shot.
“My God...!” Kemal exclaimed in shock. “There’s got to be at least a litre in there!”
“Easily,” she agreed, noting no reaction from their technically conscious patient to their discussion or the medication administered. “The enzymes Thia has been exposed to are completely different from those K’Nomi has in her system. These are plant-based, not insectoid. I want to see if the hydroxaline will do as well here.”
“That’s why you went for the lesser-affected area first?” Kemal queried.
Louisa nodded. “Pumping her full of meds is a risk all on its own...” She trailed off, reconsidering. “Scratch that. There is so much biomatter in there that it now seems to me the best way to deal with it is direct removal. Transfer her to the O.R. and prep her for surgery.”
“Yes, Doctor.”
Louisa tapped her wrist-comm. as Kemal went for another anti-grav gurney. “C.M.O. Garland-Els to all medical staff: I am declaring a Medical Alert. All medical staff report to Sickbay immediately. I say again: Medical Alert, all medical staff report to Sickbay immediately for active duty. Garland-Els, out.”
Kemal returned and they both lifted the unresponsive Andorian
shen onto the gurney and transferred her through to the surgery unit. There, they transferred the still recovering K’Nomi onto their third and final gurney and Thia onto the surgical bed. Louisa occupied herself with setting up the surgical bridge while Kemal took the Caitian comms officer through to I.C.U.
Her mind and hands automatically activated the sterile field, made the small incision through Thia’s skin, parted the delicate internal flesh and moved aside organs, and finally breached her uterus. Feeding in a sterilised tube, guided by the scanner’s real-time imagery, she gently slid it into the liquid mass of alien biomatter and applied suction.
Doctor th’Merrin, Nurse Farber and Medical Technician Baweja entered Sickbay at that point and she could hear Kemal brief them in.
Thank God for Mr. Yaviz, she blessed her capable and dependable head nurse.
Now that we know what’s coming, we’ll be prepared.
Topic: Falklands: Episode One - Quarantine (Read 26076 times)