What Light.... part 2

Posted on Fri Mar 17th, 2023 @ 4:23am by Lieutenant JG S'Lace & Lieutenant Commander Klarth

2,061 words; about a 10 minute read

Mission: Into The Void
Location: Sickbay
Timeline: Immediately following Shorn's attack

SICKBAY

Surely the danger of the assassin was far from over. There was a lull in sickbay and Klarth made the rounds checking on some patients. There was nothing but minor injuries and mild illnesses. But Klarth was sure it was the calm before the storm.

CAPTAIN'S QUARTERS

Shorn stood silently and watched as Captain Hadenbeer came into her quarters and went to the bathroom and put the water on for a bath. She was not surprised that a Captain would have a bathtub while her crew all probably had sonic showers. As Hadenbeer was starting to disrobing Shorn went to strike. Despite the cloak, the Captain must have somehow heard or sensed her because she went into a defensive stance and said "Security..." but before she could finish the sentence Shorn punched her in the gut knocking the wind out of her and bringing her to her knees.

Shorn made herself visible and as she stood over her with a knife drawn and said "Sorry Captain this is nothing personal but we just can't risk you invading our dimension."

The Captain moved quicker than Shorn anticipated she kicked her foot out as she stood up rapidly to try to trip Shorn, but the move only half worked. Shorn recovered her feet and punched Hadenbeer in the nose. "I said I didn't want to make this personal!" she raged. Shorn stabbed at the Captain, but the captain pivoted and so the blade entered into her shoulder rather then any vital organs.

By this time security was entering the quarters with phasers drawn. Shorn said "damn it" as she went invisible again. And she quickly used her site to site transporter to get out of there.

Crewman Tchulka saw the Captain was injured and said "Emergency transport. The Captain has been stabbed she needs to be beamed to sickbay immediately." Tchulka tapped his combadge again and said. "Tchulka to sickbay the Captain is transporting to you immediately, she's been stabbed."


SICKBAY

S'Lace had just filed Dr. Klarth's medical report regarding the Security crewman who was injured during Shorn's initial attack in the Briefing Room. She was looking forward to a moment of peace and quiet in which to meditate and center herself, but a call came in from Crewman Tchulka regarding another stabbing.

"Acknowledged, Crewman." S'Lace answered as the chiming of the transporter effect sounded. A second later, an unconscious Captain was laying on the surgical table. The stab wound bled profusely. Grabbing up a wad of gauze, S'Lace immediately applied direct pressure to the wound until the doctor was prepared to take over treatment. She called on the computer for information that did not readily come to mind. "Computer, what is Captain Hadenbeer's blood type?" The nurse knew that with this amount of blood loss that a transfusion would be necessary.

Elle herself appeared before them "Her blood type is B positive, isn't that ironic with her surly personality. Why did you need to know?" Then Elle sees what is happening. "Oh my God! What happened? Is she going to be alright?! You have to help her!"

Klarth was momentary taken aback. This wasn't just anyone bleeding on his table it was a dear friend. But he quickly recovered. "Someone get her out of here!" he said to a nurse who started to lead Elle away. Of course she was the ship and could pop right back in but he hoped she would get the hint and leave them to work.

Klarth looked into the wound to see if the assassin had used that Orion needle again, but this time it appeared to have been a more traditional knife used.

With the doctor needing to look at the wound unimpeded, S'Lace took the opportunity to pass care of the Captain fully to Klarth and the other two nurses who arrived to assist while she prepared the medical equipment he would likely need. She loaded a hypospray dispenser with three separate medications that might be called upon. First, a sedative - to keep the Captain out for the duration of the any necessary surgery. Second, an analgesic - to dull the pain. And third dose of tri-ox - with the Captain's blood loss, having more oxygen in the blood that remained would be beneficial.

S'Lace set the hypospray on the tray table beside the Doctor, listing off the medications it contained, as she then went to retrieve the dermal regenerator. "5 cc's diphenylmethane. 10 cc's Hydrocortilene and 10 cc's tri-ox compound."

Klarth saw S'Lace running about clearly not effected in the least that this patient was the Captain. Sometimes he was jealous of Vulcan's ability to carry on unburden by emotions. Klarth picked up the Hypospray and delivered it to the Captain. A nurse was cutting the captain's clothes near the wound and S'Lace handed him the dermal regenerator. Another nurse was setting up the blood transfusion. "I just had a look and it doesn't seem like the knife hit any vital organs," said Klarth so he started regenerating the muscles and veins that had been pierced.

S'Lace acknowledged that bit of information with a nod as she efficiently began preparing the suction machine to suction pooling blood from the treatment site. "That increases her odds greatly." She didn't offer up the exact percentage by which it improved as the Vulcan nurse was well aware that most others didn't want, or need, exact numbers. This was pointed out to her during her time at the Academy.

Klarth continued to work on regenerating the Captain's tissue. He worked slowly as he didn't want to make any mistakes. And just as he was thinking to himself that maybe this wasn't as bad as he thought he heard Security com sickbay.

The security crewman sounded frantic. "Sick bay! Emergency! Two down in engineering. Transport them there now! It's Lt H'orri and the assassin!"

The Vulcan nurse immediately responded calmly "Computer, initiate 'site to site' medical transport protocol." If the ship had working sensors in the vicinity of the incoming call, it would scan for lifesigns in distress and auto-transport those to Sickbay rematerializing them on vacant bio-beds if prone. Or beside a biobed if standing.

In this instance both patients appeared on the biobeds. One was Lieutenant H'orri and the other the individual known as Crewman Shelly Shorn. S'Lace, unaware of the security situation happening on the ship, approached Lieutenant H'orri while motioning another nurse to triage the Crewman.

Klarth saw the patients and put together in his head what had happened. "Well, that's one way to stop an assassin, let them stab you first because then they will be disarmed." he said. He wanted to help evaluate the new arrivals, but he did not want to stop working on the Captain until he was finished. "Elle initiate the EMH."

The EMH Leonard appeared. "Please state the nature of the, oh hell, I can already see what the problem is. Three patients and only one doctor." Leonard went over to the new arrivals and said to S'Lace "Now what do we have here?"

S'Lace having determined that H'orri's injuries were the more critical of the two patients, motioned the doctor over. "Lieutenant H'orri has a deep laceration to the abdomen, puncturing the kidney while Crewman Shorn has several minor claw lacerations, but appears to be mostly stunned from multiple phaser hits and appears to have dropped into a coma." That is what happens when security overdoes it with phaser shots.

Leonard looked at H'orri and said "Well now, isn't it just like a cat to take on more than they can chew?" Then he looked over at the injury and said "Can you please hand me a dermal regenerator. And get her an IV line she's losing blood fast. Then as he got to work on the patient he mumbled something about "pointy eared nurses. "

Meanwhile Klarth was finished regenerating the Captain's tissue internally, her reading were stable and Klarth began to close up the wound with the regenerator.

S'Lace nodded at the EMH's request and hurried off to retrieve a second dermal regenerator from the storage cabinet and handed it to the doctor so that he could begin work, while she set up an IV line on the Caitian. The mumbled comment earned a slender eyebrow raise apparent surprise but the nurse didn't respond.

As they worked, a security arrived and at seeing Shorn unconscious on the biobed they took up watch from a short distance away while another nurse noted her vitals.

The EMH was continuing to regenerate H'orri's kidney.

When Klarth was satisfied with the Captain he asked a nurse to look after her.

Then he tried to go over to Shorn but there was a security officer in his way. "Can you guys back off a little bit. She isn't much of a threat while she's unconscious." When he got over to her he began to exam her. She had taken multiple phaser hits. "S'Lace, can you help me get her into the full body scanner? I have a theory that she isn't from around here."

The Security personnel moved away to the entrance but watched closely.

S'Lace nodded and moved to the crewman's other side and then in sync with Dr. Klarth sat the woman up. The Vulcan then wrapped an arm behind the patient's back, gripping onto Klarth uniform for stability, while grabbing onto the patient's pant leg tightly at her thigh level. Once both she and the Doctor were ready they lifted the crewman off the biobed and carried her 10 steps to the full body scanner where they laid her down. S'Lace prepped the unit and when ready gave a nod to the doctor. "The scanner is ready."

"Commence scanning," said Klarth. "If my hypothesis is correct we will see that this woman, like Rayek, is from another dimension."

The Doctor's prediction was accurate. Not only did the scanner confirm the assassin's hybrid heritage - half Orion and half Human - it displayed a distinct quantum variance indicative of a whole other dimension. The variance differed from that seen in Lieutenant Commander tr'Lhoell, so it was likely they were not from the same dimension either. "It would appear you are correct, Doctor." S'Lace observed.

"Okay" said Klarth. "All we have to do now is figure out how to use a person's quantum variance to tell us which dimension they come from and figure out how to travel to that dimension."

"That statement would seem to be also correct, Doctor. I would recommend sending these quantum variance results to Engineering."

Klarth sent the results to Vallick who while looking at the data on a terminal in Engineering said, "A second dimension hopper huh? This place is getting to be a regular Four Seasons. Thank you for the data Doctor. It isn't much help now, but as we learn more about these variances maybe we'll start to understand them."

The EMH was starting to close up H'orri by regenerating her skin. He shouted at Klarth and S'Lace, "Well, while you two were playing junior scientist I finished with the doctoring. Do you need me for anything else? Or should I go back to having my atoms scattered into nothing but bytes and bits in a damn computer."

S'Lace looked over to the Emergency Medical Hologram at his sarcastic comment and question. In her head, she did a quick review of tasks still to be done in regards to the three patients but none were serious enough to warrant requiring the EMH. She turned to Klarth. "The other nurses and I will deal with moving the patients to the recovery ward, if you wish to finish up with Lieutenant H'orri. The emergency is over."

"That works for me," said Klarth as he walked over to the EMH standing over H'orri. The EMH gave him the regenerator and said "Klarth, I still can't get used to a Klingon doctor, what's next a Tellarite counselor?" Klarth frowned at him and said "Elle, turn off the EMH, please." And the EMH disappeared.

Klarth began to exam H'orri and her chart before wheeling her over to the Ward.

The Vulcan then called on the other nurses to transfer Crewman Shorn from the scanner to the Ward - under guard of course. She, in the meanwhile, oversaw the clean up of the Sickbay.


OFF: Klarth
OFF: Lieutenant JG S'Lace

 

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