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EPIL: S [D06|1142] An Open Ending

[ Lt. JG Izar Bila | Docking Bay Lounge of the USS Allegiant | USS Theurgy]
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@Fife  @Nolan @Stegro88 @lisavw


When the clamps held the Alligeant back into her docking bay, the starship shook violently. Bila staggered again, and fell backwards, saving himself from falling to the floor thanks to the impact against a console. The inertial dampers were as damaged as the rest of the ship and they did a little disservice to the crew. And an even smaller one to the battered scientist.

Bila regained his verticality and embraced his own chest. He was wounded, scratched and just wanted to drop into a bed and curl up on himself to whine until he fell asleep. But he couldn't do it. His eyes wandered to rest on the figure of shaking figure of Eboh, still tied to his chair. The man was sweating profusely. His dark skin was opaque and grayish. His lips trembled slightly. Assimilation was advancing rapidly and soon the chemist could do nothing to stop it. He had no time to lose. Well, in fact, it was the Chief who didn't have it.

"Izar to Hernandez" He called by pressing the combadge that hanged loosely from his uniform. "I need you ready for an emergency transport. Chief Okotie-Eboh won't last much longer."

[Acknoledge] answered the doctor from the little infirmary. There were something odd in his voice, apart from the static, and Bila felt how the knot in his stomach tightened again. [Crewman Rodriquez's condition has worsened rapidly, he should also be transported to begin a treatment as soon as possible.] That was it. Fear.  Rodriquez was scared. "Kuef" Bila grunted between tight lips. The chemist couldn't help but sympathize with the doctor, glazing the metalic star in Eboh's hand. "Bring him with us. We will do our best to save everyone.”

He turned to the nearby console, introduced his devices into the briefcase and closed it with a sharp blow, which sounded ominously on the bridge. Without saying anything else, he placed the container in Kythalie's hands. He looked at her for a moment, apologizing. He was still going to need her around. Just in case things gone south. There was too much chance that something would go wrong, and Bila trusted her.

"Izar to Liutenant Tovarek, report the ORE's position for transport." requested the half-Cardassian, stepping away from the betazoid PO. No one answered. Izar's browridges knitted over his eyes. "Computer, locate Liutenant Simon Tovarek " The voice of the AI didn't take long to respond. [Liutenant Tovarek is not on the ship.] Bila cursed between his teeth again. Why did the Prophets enjoy complicating his existence to this extremes? Things couldn't be simple for once? JUST ONCE.

Izar rubbed the low part of his orbital ridges, trying to control the frustration that threatened to seize him. "Computer, locate the ORE and transport Doctor Hernandez, Crewman Rodriquez, CPO Okotie-Eboh, PO2 Benmual and myself to that location," he sighed. [Processing] answered the AI. Curiously, the voice sounded full of sympathy in Bila's ears. [There are several crewmembers and passengers waiting for treatment with that device, should I transport them there too?]

The hybrid blinked several times, surprised by that demonstration of initiative by the ship's AI. She sounded... worried?. "Ah... yeah, sure, beam them there too... and notify Security of our position, we could have some fresh drones soon". The AI didn't respond this time, but Bila felt the well-known levity in the mouth of the stomach that indicated that he was being transported. To a laboratory or an operating room? Bila didn't know for sure. He just hoped that for both Eboh and Rodriguez (and whoever was waiting for them there) it wouldn't be too late.


OOC: Thread open for any character in assimilation process. If any Medical personal or Sec is interested in participate, don't hesitate on PM or DM me to join the party!


Kardasi:

Kuef -> Shit

Re: EPIL: S [D06|1142] An Open Ending

Reply #1 –
[ Dr T'Panu | Main Sickbay | USS Theurgy]

T'Panu was just finishing up her medical duties. She took it upon herself to begin to organize sickbay, searching for everything they had used, making sure it was in good, working order. A few beakers here, tricorders there. They were all still in the process of accounting for everyone on the crew, treating all the injured and the stragglers. The ones that let their pride take over and thought they didn't need any help.

But there was still crew left unaccounted for, and T'Panu realized they should be prepared for the worst. If I recall, we created that...what was it? Ahh yes, the ORE device! Now where has that gone off to? T'Panu ran off to the lab where they had been testing it. And to her knowledge, it had so far worked. It hadn't been tested on anyone as of yet, but in theory, it worked.

T'Panu heard the distinct sound of a transporter beam behind her. Shocked, she turned around to find none other than Lt JG Izar Bila with 3 others.

"But what are you doing her-?!" T'Panu began to ask, as she was cut off by the obvious wounds of the crew members. Cuts littered their bodies, blood dripping profusely onto the floor. They were helping to stabilize one another through the transport as their bodies were so heavily damaged. She looked down at the dark coloured half human. He was sweating profusely, his skin had obvious pallor, his lips trembled. He looked on the brink of death, but what was keeping him alive?
 
Then she saw it. And heard from the other crew. He had been struck by the Borg. He was tied up in his chair, obvious to try and keep him safe until they could stabilize him. They needed to act quickly. If anyone was going to make it, they needed to save him, and there was no time to lose.

She kept her eyes planted on him as she reached blindly behind herself to grab the ORE. She turned it on, as the device lit up brightly. Her eyes wide, and she knew this was going to work. Everything they had planned for came down to this moment. She lifted the device with both hands around the handle, pointed it at him, and pulled the trigger. The lights came on more brightly as the device made a low hum.

Then it stopped.

T'Panu took a look at it, wiped off some of the debris as it had been sitting, and tried it. Nothing. She banged it a few times against her hand, nothing.

[ Dr Hernandez | Lab | USS Theurgy]

Doctor Hernandez lunged forward, grabbed the ORE, and tried again. It lit up, hummed, and quit. He spun it around a few times in his hand, examining it.

"Why won't this bloody thing work??"

Both doctors stood there, trying to assess the ORE, scrambling to make something work. "If this thing doesn't boot up right away and reverse the effects of the nanoprobes, we're going to have one hell of a mess on our hands." Hernandez stated.

T'Panu looked at the crewmembers as they all realized the same thing. They were all screwed.

"If anyone has any better ideas, we'll take them. Bila? You helped work on the device. Do you have any ideas? If not, our next course of action will be to knock him out with some pretty heavy drugs to buy us some time."

Re: EPIL: S [D06|1142] An Open Ending

Reply #2 –
[ CPO Ekon Okotie-Eboh | USS Allegiant Lounge > Sickbay | USS Theurgy ] Attn: @Numen @Nolan @lisavw @Stegro88
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The Allegiant rocked as the docking clamps secured her into her moorings, the inertial dampeners damaged to the point of being unable to compensate for the impact. The motion would have sent Eboh tumbling out of his chair to the deck if not for the restraints holding him upright and in place. As it was they dug into his shoulders as they fought the motion that would have sent him sprawling, though Eboh failed to notice. He had managed to keep the towed Valravn fighter from contacting the sides of the aperture tunnel, though the great effort to concentrate on the task had been taxing. Since emerging from the tunnel, Eboh’s condition had certainly not improved, the pain creeping ever higher.

Now, as they docked with the Theurgy, Eboh could do little more than hold his arms against his stomach and grit his teeth, his body twitching periodically as he was racked by waves of agony. He felt weak. His skin felt cold even as his insides burned. He couldn’t take it much longer. Much more and he wouldn’t just be asking for a phaser, he would be begging for it.

He could hear voices around him as the other members of the bridge crew spoke, though his mind didn’t take in the words. He couldn’t concentrate, couldn’t think. He could feel the pain beneath his skin, and he knew it wouldn’t be long before the next implant erupted from his flesh.

He wanted to live. He wanted to survive and never hear the name Borg again. He wanted to forget all about this whole ordeal. He wanted to laugh as Kythalie called him Oldie once again, to give Izar a hard time and make the half-Cardie blush while he tried to flirt with Kythalie. He wanted to go for that drink with Zyrao, to learn more about her and his people.

All that would be lost if he asked for that phaser.

Eboh’s eyes widened as the blue shimmer of a transporter beam surrounded him, the familiar feeling seeming a comfort as he was beamed off the Allegiant, the shoulder restraints that had dutifully held him in place throughout the ordeal finally falling limp against the seat as he disappeared.
[ CPO Ekon Okotie-Eboh | Sickbay | USS Theurgy ]

He felt himself rematerialize, and felt hand push him into another chair. He let out a groan as they guided him into the seat, each movement causing a lance of pain to shoot through him. He felt more restraints, once again holding him in place in the chair. Eboh forced his eyes open and glanced around the room, unsure of where they were. Then his eyes fell on the ORE, and he felt the faintest glimmer of hope. They had reached the ORE. He might actually have a chance.

Doors opened, someone else joined them. Eboh’s eyes drifted to the newcomer. A Vulcan woman. Teal uniform. A doctor? Were they in sickbay?

As he watched, the newcomer and Dr. Hernandez attempted to power up the ORE. The lights powered up, then… nothing. Eboh’s heart sank. What was wrong? He and Izar had worked tirelessly on the Emitter! It had been operational, if yet untested. Now it seemed as though something had gone wrong, that the machine may be dead.

And Eboh with it.

Eboh glanced over at several other crew members who were present, all showing the signs of various stages of assimilation. The vaccine had slowed their progression, just as it had his, but they were all in the same proverbial boat. Their time was short, their hopes dashed. Through the haze of pain and fear that clouded his mind and blurred his vision, Eboh saw another implant emerge from one man’s neck, the poor fellow screaming as it surfaced. Eboh’s head turned then to glance at Kythalie, still in her security exosuit, standing close by. She was armed, he saw. The hopelessness brought on by the failing ORE caused his eyes to drift, settling on the phaser she carried. Eboh opened his mouth, intending to say something, possibly to ask for the phaser. Instead, he let out a cry of pain as something happened with the implant in his left side. It felt as though the metallic abomination was expanding, forcing his ribs apart as it did so. His hand clutched at his uniform, beneath which the cybernetic thing was changing. Eboh’s eyes watered from the pain, the tears streaming down his cheeks and over lips that had peeled back in an almost feral snarls. He could taste the salt of those tears as they found their way past his clenched teeth. He wanted to ask Kythalie to end it, wanted to beg her to put him out of his misery, but the pain was so great, so intense, that he couldn’t’ speak.

He only hoped it would be over soon.

Re: EPIL: S [D06|1142] An Open Ending

Reply #3 –
[ Tesserarius Lorad |  Main Sickbay | Deck 11 | Vector 02 | USS Theurgy ] Attn: @Numen @Fife @lisavw 
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Lorad lent against the side of the passageway outside the entrance to the main sickbay as another wave of pain wracked his body. He remembered the other Remans telling him that it felt worse than 100 lashes from a Romulan overseer andat that moment, Lorad was not inclined to disagree. But thankfully, as it was in the past, the pain subsided, allowing Lorad to continue on his way; until it returned again.

“Are you alright?” the security officer asked. He had arrived moments after Kala had shot the drone that had once been Ryuan Sel. They had been informed of what had transpired and Lorad had passed into the ‘custody’ of the security officer who was to escort him to the main sickbay for treatment. He last saw Kala standing outside the turbolift looking down at the deceased drone’s corpse.

“I manage,” Lorad stated in Standard as he drew himself back up and began to move again. He may be hours away from becoming another Borg drone, but for the moment he was still a Reman Shocktrooper. He would pursist.

Entering the sickbay, they found it almost overrun with casualties and medical staff everywhere, the sounds of people in pain or needing one kind of help or another filling the air.

“Yes, how can I help you?” a nurse asked him in an abrupt manner

“I am infected,” Lorad replied calmly, pulling his collar down to show the hand sized area surrounding the injection site. It had slowly discoloured on his ascent through the ship; a visible indication of just how much time he had left.

“Ah, right,” the nurse stuttered, unconsciously taking a step back. “Come this way please,” the nurse directed, leading the two of them through the sickbay towards where a Bajoran-Cardassian Hybrid stood with two others. “Doctors, I have another infected here.”

Re: EPIL: S [D06|1142] An Open Ending

Reply #4 –
[ PO 2nd Class Kythalie Benmual | USS Allegiant Lounge > Sickbay | USS Theurgy ] Attn: @Numen @Fife  @lisavw  @Stegro88

As the ship docked to the Theurgy the lack of inertial dampers made Benmual lunge forward. She only remained on her feet by holding onto the back of the chair that was restraining Eboh. Kythalie looked over at Bila as the scientist had not been too steady during the entire mission. He seemed to be still standing thanks to a console. She smiled faintly at him before she looked back to the rest of the bridge crew.

As Izar made the preparations for a site to site transport to Sickbay, Kythalie looked down at Eboh before the blue shimmer enveloped him and the rest of those needed in Sickbay. She sighed and tapped her combadge "Benmual to Security center, permission to be beamed to Sickbay to oversee ORE treatment. Situation might be dangerous if treatment fails." She got a positive response back and soon enough she found herself at the door that was in the interior side of the room. She could see Eboh being strapped in once more and she simply remained silently as others were brought in.

A doctor she hadn't seen before was present as well and they were discussing methods of treatment. Keeping a neutral expression on her face she stood by the entrance with a certain readiness in case the situation would go south. The situation did remind her of when the ship had beamed in survivors during the last engagement. Bellerophon survivors mostly... The fear was palpable in the air around her and she made damn sure her mental barrier were up. 

Re: EPIL: S [D06|1142] An Open Ending

Reply #5 –
[ Lt. JG Izar Bila | Medical Lab 02 | Main Sickbay | Deck 11 | USS Theurgy]
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@Fife  @Nolan @Stegro88 @lisavw

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When his body regained substance, he found himself, along with the rest of the Alligeant crew, in a small lab. To make the space even more overwhelming, several more people were transported  in a close sequence to the the tiny room. There were injured to varying degrees, some standing, others sitting on the floor, the back leaning against the walls. There was a man lying on the floor in a corner, whimpering pitifully.


Bila ran his hand through his curly hair. It seemed like he had returned to the refugee camp after a raid. Or the Thunderchild after 001. The D'ja pagh in his ear tinkled stridently. He was shivering. Not again. For the love of the Prophets. Not again.


A voice brought him out of his terrified stupor. T'Panu. The former Cayuga's CMO seemed so overwhelmed as he was and knowing it was a kind of... little consolation for the hybrid.. It wasn't just him who feared that the situation was going to involute in a shitshow soon. It wasn't his cowardice that made him see how desperate the situation was. They really were with the water up to the neck.


Luckily, the woman seemed to take charge of the situation sooner than him, and grabbed the ramshackle ore's case and grabbed it to the nearest patient. Her sudden return to activity brought Izar out of his own frightened lethargy. With stiff movements, he opened the case he carried and squeezed his modified tricorder. Soon enough, he was using it to begin scanning the patients. "Came on Bila, you can do this. One thing after another, just one thing after another. You have a plan. It'll work. One step after another." he repeated iinnerly as a litany as he leaned toward the nearest crew member.


It was crewman Rodriguez. The device in his hands chirped a couple times and some red leds lit up in the top cover. The process of assimilation had advanced rapidly since the last time he saw the human, in the Alligeant warp core. The vaccines had done few for delay it. Several metal plates covered much of his face, framing his exorbitated eyes, all whites and reddened veins. "Rodriguez?" called the hybrid, trying to reach him. The human didn't answered, and when his diminute pupils focused on his gray face, he didn't seem to recognize him. "Rodriguez, I need you here, stay with us mate" begged Bila. The crewman seemed to come to senses, his eyes sparkled recognising at last the ridged face in front of him. "I'm... I'm fine Lieutenant... I'll be ok, will I? ... r-right?" stuttered the Latino, his skin so pale than that it had acquired a greenish hue. "I will do everything in my hands," replied Izar evasively, rubbing nerviously his orbital ridge. "You will be o-..." he began to lie.


A scream interrupted their conversation. The man lying on the floorplates howled like a wounded animal, both hands holding his neck, trying to stop the implant that made its way through his skin glistening with sweat.  At his side, Eboh wept like a toddler, thick tears running down his cheeks, leaving clean rivers in his dirty face.  Izar staggered towards both men, while the cacophony of wails and cries increased with the ORE's ominous buzz. Bila lifted the tricorder toward the prostrate man, trying to figure out at which point in the assimilation process he was when... the buzz ceased with a high-pitched whistle.


"Why won't this bloody thing work??" Hernandez said, incredulously.


"Yumaý?!?!?!?!!!" exclaimed Bila, the hazel eyes wide open, his voice full of surprise and despair. The chemist turned to face the doctors again  and took a step towards them but, before he had advanced a mere metre, he turned to Eboh another time. He approached the chair that held him and began to struggle with its restraints frenetically. " I'm sorry Ekon, i'm sorry, but I...WE will need your help with that. Came on buddy" finally managed to release the straps and, before knowing if Eboh was able to help them, he walk away and to join the doctors.


They were running around the device like headless chickens. "I'm commin', i'm commin'!!" he croaked nervously moving to the other end of the little one comes out, ignoring whether the half El-Aurian followed in his footsteps or not. He hovered over de device, hearing the nervous chatter between the two doctors. The man on the floor kept screaming. There were cries everywhere. Someone called for her mother, inconsolably. Bila manipulated the device's control panel, but only managed to make it buzz briefly before it put off again. "Fuck...just...fuck." he muttered as he kept pushing buttons and turning regulators. None of the preset settings seemed to work. It was a delicate, a extremely delicate device. Maybe some one had uncalibrated it? What had Parnak and Tovarek done with the ORE in his absence? "Fuck, I need to think, came on Bila, just think, it's your thing” he mumbled. When T'Panu asked if he had any ideas about how make it work, Bila took a second to reply, his eyes still fixed on the device. "I-I-I I'm thinking, I'm thinking, IjustNeedAMinute, I'MTHINKING" he frantically answered. He could barely hear his own thoughts. How was he supposed to repair the device?


At that moment, the doors opened, giving way to a security officer followed by the biggest man that the chemist had ever seen in his life. Gorns aside. And with the most... exotic face he had ever seen. And Bila was an expert in exotic faces, given his own. Bila gawked, looking at him, his mind short-circuited for a second. Another patient. Another one, when they could barely move in the crowded laboratory.  He closed his mouth, agape for a moment and...


One hand rested on his shoulder.  When the hybrid turned, he came face to face with Rodriguez. His hand closed tightly over Bila's uniform. His eyes bored in the chemist, vacant. Bila hissed in pain as his collarbone crackled.


"Resistance is futile" said the new drone formerly known as crewman Rodriguez.



OOC

Next to post either @Nolan  or @Stegro88 let the combat people manage the struggle!


Kardasi
"yumaý?" → "really?" or "for real?"

Re: EPIL: S [D06|1142] An Open Ending

Reply #6 –
[ PO 2nd class Kythalie Benmual | Medical Lab 02 | Main Sickbay | Deck 11 | USS Theurgy]
  @Fife  @Numen  @Stegro88  @lisavw 

Keeping by the door, the agony in the room was horrific. The mental barriers holding for now, yet being besieged constantly. It made the security officer wonder if she'd need more help. This situation looking dire and hopefully the treatment would heal all of them. Kythalie knew war however, the unfairness of it and how the most utopican ideas that could never be achieved. She kept her hand on her phaser just in case. She could feel the grim vibe around her and she felt sorry for all those who were in the process of assimilation.

The doctors and Bila did their best to help the people, yet the man she had seen on the Allegiant seemed worse for wear. The treatment didn't seem to work. It seemed like nobody really knew what they were doing. Kythalie felt her mouth go dry as she glanced over to Ekon. Was there truly no more hope for him? The doors behind her slid open to reveal a Reman, Benmual didn't have to take longto see that he as well was in the process of being assimilated, thus she let him in before closing the door. She tapped her badge and said calmly yet hushed "Benmual to Security. I need additional help outside the lab in Sickbay. A fail safe so to speak."

She had to remain realistic while the situation seemed to turn into a cacaphony. She didn't hear the answer of the security center as the man known as Rodriguez let out an unwordly scream before she could hear Bila's collarbone crackle. The sound of the breaking bone  reverberating through the room as Kythalie unholstered her phaser. She shoved her way through the patients and came to a stop before the drone that had a vice grip on Bila. With no one liner on anything fancy, she simply discharged the weapon that had been set to kill. The head of the former crewman being disintegrated and leaving nothing more but a scorch mark on the deck plating below.

Kythalie looked at the two doctors and the scientist as she hissed "Get back to it and sav-!" The Betazoid words stopped dead in her tracks as she felt the injection of tubes in her unprotected neck. One of the patients behind her had turned without a sound. Possibly having passed out before the transformation took place. It was stupid from Kythalie to not have checked. The audible hiss made all of them aware of the injection with nanoprobes. The eyes of the security officer widening as she looked frozen for a second before her instincts kicked in. She shoved the drone, only attempting to push herself away from it as she brought her hand to her neck where the tubes had popped loose.

Behind the new formed drone another arose. Two Borg drones now standing right behind one another as they were all too eager to exploit the current situation. Kythalie looked at the two drones as she stood between them and the group of doctors and scientist that were meant to save them. The ORE device their hopeful salvation, although it wasn't really performing all too well right now it seemed.

Re: EPIL: S [D06|1142] An Open Ending

Reply #7 –
[ Tesserarius Lorad |  Main Sickbay | Deck 11 | Vector 02 | USS Theurgy ] Attn: @Nolan @Numen @lisavw @Fife
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Lorad was feeling the best. Which was itself a vast understatement of the situation he found himself in. Right now, innumerable Borg nanoprobes were coursing through his body attempting to assimilate him into another mindless drone for the collective and only whatever procedure his former Romulan masters had performed on him was keeping them at bay. But the big Reman knew that that was only a temporary measure. Just as in the past, their protection would fade and the assimilation continue unabated, transforming him. But that was hours away, for the moment anyway.

Entering the lab he was directed too, he saw multiple crewman in different stages of assimilation. A female security officer looked at him and he exposed his neck to show her the slowly growing patch of assimilated skin. She allowed him passage before closing the door and calling for more help outside the door. This Be-something, she was smart.

Lorad’s head snapped up though when he heard breaking bone but before he could locate the sound, a rush of pain flooded his body, stalling his movement. He felt the female officer brush past him and a phaser discharge before the pain began to subside. Finally ably to look up, he was just in time to see the female being injected from behind where another crewman had succumbed to the Borg. As the woman reacted, pushing herself away from the drone, Lorad saw a second drone rising behind the first.

Roaring in a mix of pain, anger and adrenaline, the Reman Shocktrooper ignored his first instinct to draw his father’s disruptor and open fire at the two drones. Despite being drones, they had yet to undergo that would alter them into the more typical drone appearance; they would die easily to his shots. But the room was crowded and Lorad couldn’t risk the shots. He had to separate them.

His roar echoing off the walls, Lorad charged forward, pitting his Reman strength against the to two drones. Thankfully both were human and couldn’t counter his inertia and were carried backwards where Lorad pinned them against the wall, his hands grasping their necks. As the two Borg struggled to free themselves, even injecting him a second time, Lorad looked back over his shoulder and yelled in Standard.

“SHOOT THEM!”

Re: EPIL: S [D06|1142] An Open Ending

Reply #8 –
[ Lt. JG Izar Bila | Medical Lab 02 | Main Sickbay | Deck 11 | USS Theurgy]
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@Fife  @Nolan @Stegro88 @lisavw

Everything seemed to happen in slow motion.

Rodriguez's ominous voice, distorted by the chords of a Borg drone.

The cracking of bones as they broke, a sound he sadly knew too well.

The sudden pang of pain on his shoulder, his left arm dropping loosely on his side.

Phaser bursts next to his face, which left him a burning sensation in the cheek.
Kythalie yelled to order them to return to their work, but her voice was interrupted when a new drone punctured her throat.

Bila's stomach fell at his feet.

Time, which had seemed slow and dense as honey up to that point, leapt forward, accelerating. The betazoid got between the drones and the blue-shirts. Bila grunted, giving voice to his pain and anguish. The Reman jumped forward, roaring as a savage beast, and held the newly turned drones against a wall.

Bila regained the ability to move. He was not a fighter. By the Prophets, he wasn't even a brave man. But he had survived longer than most bajcardies. And if he had succeeded it was because he had a sharp mind and an even more pronounced survival instinct. And, at that moment, that instinct kicked hard and he moved. The hybrid staggered forward, teeth clenched, trying to ignore the ache that numbed his upper torso. "T'Panu" hissed, drawing the doctor's attention. "Listen, we don't have much time, I need you to take the ORE. Enter this data." Izar closed his eyes, trying to make the mental calculations he needed as quickly as possible. The margin of error they could afford was very slim, but he had no time to lose, so as soon as he had the first results he began to list them to the half-vulcan. "They should be the right values to reverse the assimilation of an adult human male, I will bring you the ones for the others as soon as posible. I don't care what the Chief does what he does to make it work but he must make it work NOW. Move! Move! Move!" he urged her on.

Turning to Dr. Rodriguez, he passed him the modified tricorder. "Doctor, I need you to perform an evaluation of the patients present and order them according to the stage of assimilation progress, if the value of the analysis approaches to 20.000μ/ml they will be at the point of no return. You know what to do then," he hissed. Desperate measures for desperate times.

When the human got moving at last, Bila allowed himself to bring his healthy hand to the wounded shoulder and his face twisted into a grimace of pain and anguish, his gray face so pale that it was almost white.

Re: EPIL: S [D06|1142] An Open Ending

Reply #9 –
[ PO 2nd class Kythalie Benmual | Medical Lab 02 | Main Sickbay | Deck 11 | USS Theurgy]
  @Fife  @Numen  @Stegro88  @lisavw  

How? How could she possibly have gotten herself into this mess? She had dispatched of the first drone yet now... Here she was, injected with nanoprobes that would bring her on the way to assimilation. How could she have been this stupid to turn her back to them? This was basic close quarter combat! She scolded herself internally as she looked at Izar. Poor Izar... The puncture wound at her neck stung and she looked at the drone responsible for it. Pure rage boiling up in her as her hand was shaking. How long would she be able to conduct her duty without the Borg taking over her reflexes. Times was of the essence... She'd never let her turn. Her eyes drifted to the phaser in hand. Never

The Reman acted suddenly, making her brace herself for whatever he was going to do. To her surprise he charged the two drones with full force. Luckily they weren't completely turned and their bodies seemed like they were just sacks of meat being hauled to the wall before their feet were lifted off the ground. The Reman getting punctured more as they tried to break free and as he shouted to open fire, Kythalie didn't hesitate. Her arm raised and she discharged two more shots. The first one hit the left drone perfectly dead center in the face. The one responsible for her assimilation dispatched. The second one however was shot lower, just under his chin. It wasn't clear if this was because of the early assimilation process or if the security officer was still shaken. The phaser fire did burn some of the Reman's hand before his second target was dispatched as well. Kythalie slumping back and coming to rest against one of the medical devices placed behind her "S-Sorry." she called out to Lorad.

Kyth looked back at Izar and felt sorry for the man who seemed to be made out of bad luck. Everytime she saw him, the man had been injured, maybe she was bad luck to him. To all of them? She shook her head, her hairfollowing with some delay as she grounded her breathing and looked at her phaser. Still in her hand as her knuckles had turned white at the force she used to hold on to it. A thought seeped into her mind, how long would she have... She wanted to ask Izar, yet she didn't. He was busy enough.

Her eyes went through the other occupants in the room. Checking for more drone as she didn't plan on getting stung again. Her eyes came to rest on Eboh "You alright in there Oldie?" she called out to him before she pushed herself off to check on the Reman's hand.

Re: EPIL: S [D06|1142] An Open Ending

Reply #10 –
[ Dr T'Panu | Medical Lab 02 | Main Sickbay | Deck 11 | USS Theurgy]

Everywhere T'Panu looked, there was another crew-mate injured. Another Borg. It seemed as though everything they had fought for, everything they had prepared for, all their attempts were futile. One by one, they were all slowly being assimilated, and what more could they do to prevent it? One Borg drone was bad enough, let alone more.

It seemed as though the cries were endless. They were getting louder and louder as the assimilation process took over, and then some ceased as they were assimilated.

That was when Lt Bila turned to T'Panu. She was instructed to take the ORE and enter in new values. T'Panu noticed in horror his shoulder and the lack of colour in his face. He was nearly as white as a sheet as she listened. She watched as he made mental calculations and waited. She quickly took the ORE back from Hernandez and began punching in his new calculations.

She typed in the new calculations, wishing they had time to spare. As she typed, she noticed the matter-antimatter reaction. It seemed as though the new calculations were beginning to work, and it looked as though it was firing up properly!

[ Dr Hernandez | Medical Lab 02 | Main Sickbay | Deck 11 | USS Theurgy]

"Doctor, I need you to perform an evaluation of the patients present and order them according to the stage of assimilation progress, if the value of the analysis approaches to 20.000μ/ml they will be at the point of no return. You know what to do then,"

Hernandez nodded. He turned to their patients; which seemed like a weird thought, given half of them were now officially Borg drones. He thought back to his training, when they were practicing triage. Stay unbiased. Find out if they'll live, then move on. If not-" He paused. What if they won't? What if no one does? He looked around at his colleagues in pain, then he looked at the ones who were assimilated who were no longer feeling anything. He brought his nervous, shaking hands up to his tricorder and prepared to begin.

He began scanning. The man in the chair, the one on the floor, the hole in the shoulder. He made a mental note as he scanned, thankful no one was too far gone to live yet. Although, that may be a blessing given the current situation.

[ Dr T'Panu | Medical Lab 02 | Main Sickbay | Deck 11 | USS Theurgy]

T'Panu took another look at the calculations she typed in as the device changed its frequency. The reaction appeared to be working, the lights on top of the device were flashing, the ORE was full of energy. She felt the power coursing through her hands, her fingertips feeling ready to pull the trigger at any moment.

She looked at Hernandez, who was giving his findings. "Ready?" T'Panu asked, lifting the ORE. She brought her right foot back, bringing her into a steady fighting stance. Her knees bent slightly and her elbows bent, as she pointed the ORE straight at the man in the chair, who had his shirt obviously ripped from the implant exploding out of his body.

That was when she felt the lump in her stomach and her full realization kick in. "Eboh??" She thought back to their days aboard the Cayuga. She never thought she would see him again, nor did she expect that to be him, strapped to a chair, the implant seeping out of his chest. His eyes glistened, the tears running down his cheeks, as the nanoprobes were taking over, forcing him to slowly, painfully, assimilate.

"Fuck! Unbiased? How in the bloody hell can I remain unbiased when these are my friends!?" Hernandez yelled at his most impossible task.

"Here goes nothing," T'Panu stated, to the crew but mostly to herself. She found the strength she needed, pulled the trigger, and fired. The lights lit up red hot as the reaction fired up, threatening to pour out any second like a volcano. The ORE began to shake under the power, as the unfamiliar high-pitched frequency blared through the room. The beam came out quickly, although everything was happening so fast in the room it felt as though it was in slow motion. She aimed it straight into Eboh's ribs, where the implant was spewing out of his body, ripping its way through his delicate skin.

The feeling in the room shifted, as fear turned to hope, helplessness turned into power, uncertainty turning to confidence. T'Panu felt power like she hadn't in many, many years. She felt, with the help of Hernandez, Bila, and everyone else fighting their nanoprobes, that they were about to win.

The beam struck Eboh in the side of his chest, as it was slowly eating away at the nanoprobes. Chunks of nanoprobes, ceasing to exist, leaving behind nothing but charred tissue, but tissue nonetheless! The blast had eaten straight through the entire implant, leaving glorious, glorious flesh.

Eboh cried out loudly in pain. Nothing but an 8" hole was left in the side of his chest. There was a hole bigger than her fist, while the ORE left charred, cauterized skin around the hole. And as they watched in surprise, they felt their agony return, as they slowly watched each of the tiny little nanoprobes, forming a colony, coming out of his skin.

One by one, the little drone bugs were forming like ants as they watched in horror the implant reintegrating itself back into his skin. The hole closed up, leaving the implant- the same implant they had just destroyed, staring them mockingly right back in the face. They were right back at square one, and all they had accomplished was torturing Eboh.

OOC: Thank you to @trevorvw for reading through my post to make sure it was good! Thank you to @Fife for the approval to torture Eboh!!

Re: EPIL: S [D06|1142] An Open Ending

Reply #11 –
[ Tesserarius Lorad | Main Sickbay | Deck 11 | Vector 02 | USS Theurgy ] Attn: @Nolan @Numen @lisavw @Fife
[Show/Hide]

Lorad was struggling. The two drones didn’t tire. They didn’t pause. And as their assimilation continued to progress, their bodies became slowly stronger. Nothing like a full drone’s, but still enough for the shocktrooper to struggle with restraining them. His call to shoot them though, was answered soon enough.

First the one on his left received a phaser beam to it’s face, ending the drone’s life in a heartbeat. As it went limp in his hand, Lorad felt pain in his right hand as a second phaser shot impacted the other drone; the beam passing close enough to his hand to scald it badly. Hissing from the pain, Lorad reactively released both, now lifeless, drones and turned to face the security officer that had reacted to his call.

“Thank you,” Lorad managed to stammer before a wave of pain overtook him once again, sending him to his knees. If this is what some of his brothers and sisters experienced all those years ago, then Lorad had a new appreciation for their steadfastness. None of them had complained. As the pain subsided, Lorad grabbed the nearest doctor, not even really looking at who it was and turned them to face the woman who had just been injected.

“Heal first,” he demanded. Being so soon after her initial injection, any process they had to reverse it would be best used on her now.

Re: EPIL: S [D06|1142] An Open Ending

Reply #12 –
[ Lt. JG Izar Bila | Medical Lab 02 | Main Sickbay | Deck 11 | USS Theurgy]
[Show/Hide]

@Fife  @Nolan @Stegro88 @lisavw

The phaser shots resonated in the small room like cannon shots. Even Bila, with his Cardassian ears, noticed the violence of the nearby impacts, as his nose suddenly was flooded with the stench of burnt flesh. The chemist grasped his shoulder with his left hand. It hurt. From the Prophets, he knew it wasn't broken by previous experiences but it still hurt. But no matter how much he wanted to lie on the floorplates and cry like a baby, he could not do it. He could not. He needed to keep working.

He drew strength from where there was none, from beneath his scales. From each haggard fiber of his thin body. From... he didn't know where from. But as he could, the hybrid staggered to where Kyth was, with the gun still pointed at the figures held by the reman grunt. He swallowed saliva loudly and, with all the composure he was able to muster, he placed his less bruised hand on the security officer shoulder. "Are... are you ok?" He ask her.

No. She wasn't ok. Of course don't. How she could? In the name of every one of the Pah-Wraiths burning till the end of the days in the fire caves WHAT WAS WRONG WITH HIM?!?!?!?!!!!!

Izar looked into the dark eyes of the betazoid, not knowing how to fix his new faux pas, with his hand still resting on her shoulder. Her body heat permeated through the uniform, warming his cold fingers. "I......" he began to say, looking away and searching for something, anything, that could give him an excuse for not to prolong that embarrassing situation. "Let me scan you, I need to check the initial vector to determine the speed of your process would reach." It was the perfect phrase. Perfect. Internally Bila just wanted to scream. "It's perfect Bila, by the Prophets, you're charming, a worthy pupil of the birdbrain man. What better way to dazzle a woman than to tell her that you are going to study her like a laboratory rat? You're landing yourself in it, aren't you?. You're giving everybody some good reasons to be compared again with Crell Mosset. At least he wasn't an EXPERT in put his own foot in his mouth as you are " he chastized himself internally.  In spite of this he moved again, hobbling, until he got hold of one of the tricorders and began to scan the woman with his nose buried in the device, so he didn't need to look at her face.

As soon as he finished, he spent a few seconds making the necessary calculations, immobilized in front of the woman. That maybe gave him a little more time to stay around. But not enough. Finally, he raised her hazel eyes to look at her dark ones. "You... you'll be all right. I'll take care of you too. Yeah. I'm-i'm-'m  working on it" he babbled in his better display of a lobotomized man.  Fearing that if he spoke another time, he only would make things worse, he stepped away. He moved away as fast as he could, with his torso and legs moving at two different speeds, so he ended up moving in a strange way, as a snake or a boneless creature . But at least he managed to stumble enough to get away from Kyth and get close to the reman.

He hesitated a second looking at the huge back of the pointed-eared man. It was... almost twice as wide as him. His biceps were almost the size of his torso. The hybrid gulped again, for a different reason, his apple moving up and down in his slender neck. "Well, sir, let me check how the vaccine is working on you." he cheeped, before rushing to center his eyes on the tricorder's small screen. It soon began to display some data that didn't correspond to what he was supposed he must find. They didn't make sense. His browridges knitted tightly over his eyes. "How do you....?"

He couldn't finish the sentence. The small lab was suddenly filled with screams. Izar turned quickly and his pupils contracted from the horror of what he was contemplating. "Nononononono!" he said as he rushed forward and tripped to where T'Panu was pointing at one of the patients with the ORE. His eyes passed from the doctor to the patient in a quick move that made his neck ache. When he saw at whom she was pointing the Emiter, the blood disappeared from his face.  "Da iŧekt faz'tumla, WHAT ARE YOU DOING!!" he shouted as he tore the device out of the doctor's hands and turned it off. "I told you" Bila hissed, looking to T'Panu straigh in the eyes. He didn't even try to stay calm. That, what she has done, was a mistake. A serious mistake. "I'd given you the parameters for a particular type of patient. Male. HUMAN.” His voice sounded offended. And pained. He had promised him. He had promised him in the Alligeant. But now... Emotions ran high in his voice and his body. "He is NOT human, he's a El-Aurian hybrid. That amount of radiation you've used.... For the Prophets, it wasn't enough... it wasn't enough to cure him, but he can't get a second dose anymore. Not with his genomes blend...." his voice gradually extinguished. She had killed him. THEY had killed him. He had promised him. He have promised her that he would cure him.

But he couldn't. It was late. Too late.

Without knowing how, he found himself kneeling in front of Eboh. The half-cardassian held the Ore in his hands, holding it in front of the Chief as if he was offering an oblation at the temple. "I could try....one last time. The suffering will be unbearable. The radiation will kill your bone marrow. Or what is left of it. You will feel dizziness, fatigue and you'll vomit your stomach walls. Massive hemorrhages will occur throughout all your system.  In the final phase, the radiation will destroy your distal nerve cells, and if you are lucky you will lose consciousness..." his words were lower and lower uuntil, at the end, they were barely a whisper. Bila closed his eyes, unable to keep looking at the dark skinned man. "But it can still save you I can still save you. It will be horrific. But there are still a chance.” He open his eyes again at looked at him, his hazel ones full of despair. “Let me try again Ekon. I will succeed. I will. Let me try. I won't fail...” he pleaded.


OOC:

da iŧekt faz'tumla → piss in a corner! (common swearing)

Re: EPIL: S [D06|1142] An Open Ending

Reply #13 –
[ CPO Ekon Okotie-Eboh | Sickbay | USS Theurgy ] Attn: @Numen @lisavw @Stegro88 @Nolan
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Eboh had only been vaguely aware of one of the doctors aiming the ORE at him, preparing to test the device. His mind had just barely registered the fact when the pain came.

And oh, but the pain was excruciating.

Eboh felt as though his body was being torn apart. He was vaguely aware of screams filling that room, though in his pain-induced delirium, he had no idea that they were his own. He lost track of all the goings on outside his own body, which felt ass though it were being burned and frozen, ripped and torn into pieces and then melted back together. It was more than he could take…

Then the pain stopped. He slumped forward, his head sagging to his chest as he gasped for breath. He felt as though part of his torso was sagging, as though the bones themselves had been replaced by nanoprobes. Even this seemed to be resolving itself, though in his pain-induced daze Eboh didn’t clue in that this was because the nanoprobes were reasserting themselves into his body structures. At that point, Eboh didn’t much care, either. His body shuddered, the shock it had suffered from the ORE’s use still not having fully registered. His legs twitched, then an arm as his muscles spasmed from pain and radiation exposure. His eyes bulged as he fought to regain his thoughts after the torturous onslaught to his senses. At last he was able to focus his vision, and he saw Izar kneeling in front of him.

The Cardassian hybrid wore a grim expression.

As the half-Cardie spoke, explaining the situation and that they could try one last time, Eboh barely heard the man. He fought to understand each syllable, each sound that the scientist uttered. Finally, having been staring at Izar several moments after the hybrid had stopped talking, Eboh nodded. He finally understood. Izar wanted to save him, hoped he could. The Cardie didn’t sound convinced of the truth of his own words, however, and that knowledge was hardly a comfort to the assimilated El-Aurian. Izar was trying, though, and Eboh couldn’t fault him for how the situation had turned out. Izar had done everything he could.

Eboh stared into Izar’s eyes, the El-Aurian’s brimming with tears that had resulted from the painful barrage of the ORE. Eboh’s mouth opened, and he choked as he tried to make a sound. Finally, he was able to force the words out.

”Do it.”
OOC: I’m so sorry for the delay in posting!!

Re: EPIL: S [D06|1142] An Open Ending

Reply #14 –
[ Lt. JG Izar Bila | Medical Lab 02 | Main Sickbay | Deck 11 | USS Theurgy]
[Show/Hide]

@Fife  @Nolan @Stegro88 @lisavw


Izar stared at Eboh as time thickened between the two men, unsure if the dark-skinned man would understand him or not. Not sure whether he would get an answer and, if so, it would be coherent. Possibly at that point, the other hybrid was delusional. If the nanoprobes hadn't hijacked his neural pathways, overexposure to omicron radiation might have fried his brain.

When the half-Cardassian was about to put himself back on his feet and make the himself the choice, the Chief's pupils seemed to finally focus on him. There were tears in the corners of those dark eyes. And Bila had to make a real effort to repress those who threatened to flood his. Out of sheer frustration. Out of empathy for one of his Cayuga comrades.

Eboh's voice took a long time to leave his dry throat, his mistreated body. But the message was unequivocal. Bila swallowed and put his hand to his ear, making the jewel that adorned it tinkle. He entrusted himself to the Prophets, for it was in their hands to decide whether this last attempt would save or kill Ekon.

When he completed his pleading, the hybrid rose to its feet again. He grasped with both hands the device that Ekon had helped him to create, and he activated it. The ORE buzzed like a swarm of raving bees. Bila inputted the final settings. Eboh's last chance.

He closed his eyes.

And he hit the switch.

Re: EPIL: S [D06|1142] An Open Ending

Reply #15 –
[ Dr's T'Panu & Hernandez | Medical Lab 02 | Main Sickbay | Deck 11 | USS Theurgy]
@Fife  @Numen  @Stegro88  @Nolan

T'Panu stared, wide-eyed, unblinking, straight at Eboh. What had she done?? Her mind was swarming with thoughts. Too many thoughts to keep up with. Everything was flashing before her eyes. It felt as if she was on a roller coaster ride, being tugged along in the cart, unable to stop. Unable to get off of this frightening ride. And oh, how she would love to hop off and have everyone out of this mess.

But she had no choice. She had to continue fighting, just as everyone else had to.

Hernandez felt himself being turned towards a newly injected female patient. Lorad made sure he was aware of the patient before tending to his own injuries. Hernandez gave him a worried look, to which Lorad stated to heal her first. Nodding, Hernandez turned to her, and turned to her injection site. He asked her to hold still, as he grabbed his Medical Tricorder and scanned her. The nano technology hadn't progressed very far through her body as of yet, but that wasn't saying it couldn't at any moment.

He began by examining the spot where the Borg's assimilation tubules punctured her skin and stopped the little bit of bleeding that had occurred. He ran as fast as he could to the med storage, grabbed a sedative and loaded it into the vial and prepared to administer the hypospray. He ran back over to the female patient and explained what he was about to do.

"I will be administering a strong dose of sedative. If you agree, I believe I will be able to slow the assimilation process tenfold. We will work as quickly as we can to help you." The patient nodded, and Hernandez administered 5cc's of the sedative. Enough that it would make any large sized person pass out.

Eboh's legs were still twitching, as Bila was yelling to T'Panu that she had used the incorrect parameters. And rightfully so, as she had severely injured Eboh. She thought back to the days setting up the ORE, drawing out Artificial Neural Networks, testing out their technology against the Borg's in their lab.

This should have worked, T'Panu speculated, perplexed. She turned to Lorad, who was in obvious pain. T'Panu took his condition as informed consent. She grabbed the Hydrocortilene hypospray from her belt, loaded 4cc's for the pain, and administered. She opened her med bag and pulled out Dermaline gel to help the second degree burns to his hand to heal. As she applied it, she noticed a bit of instant relief from the pain. Lorad was sitting a little more easy, but still in obvious pain. Wishing she could tell him to take it easy, she realized she couldn't and instead gave him a look of concern, to which he understood.

With the ever increasing Borg drones, she just hoped they had what it took to finish them once and for all and end this. She looked over as she saw Bila, holding the ORE with both hands, pointing at Eboh.

Please work, please save Eboh. She couldn't lose another person. She couldn't lose another friend. It had to work.

Re: EPIL: S [D06|1142] An Open Ending

Reply #16 –
[ CPO Ekon Okotie-Eboh | Medical Lab 02 | Sickbay | USS Theurgy ] Attn: @Numen @lisavw @Stegro88 @Nolan
[Show/Hide]
Though vision blurred by sheer agony, Eboh watched as Izar adjusted the settings of the ORE, then aimed it at him once again. He watched as Izar closed his eyes, as though afraid to watch what came next. Then Izar activated the ORE, and Eboh was ablaze with a new wave of suffering.

Eboh grit his teeth, trying to fight back the scream that wanted to escape him, but managed to last only a few seconds before the sensation as too much. At first, the sound seeped out between his teeth, a low guttural sound, though it slowly grew in volume. At some point, Eboh mouth opened, and the scream took full form as the waves of torment washed over him like the tide batters a rocky coastline, unrelenting. Eboh couldn’t move, his body paralyzed by the onslaught to his senses. The El-Aurian continued to roar, his eyes clenched shut as though to try and shut out some of the sensation.

A few moments later blacked out, his screams falling silent as his body went still.

[ Doctor Hernandez | Medical Lab 02 | Sickbay | USS Theurgy ]

Hernandez watched as Izar continued the treatment, the ORE doing it’s work to kill off the Borg nanoprobes that coursed through the Chief’s system. At first, it seemed to be working, the visible implants being eaten away by the ORE’s beam. The receding implants were not immediately replaced by nanoprobes, and as they melted away they revealed raw, living flesh in their wake.

It seemed to be working. For a moment, Hernandez felt a glimmer of hope shine through the nightmare of assimilation that had befallen the medical lab…

Then he saw it.

The visible implants were receding, and the ORE was continuing it’s work, destroying the Borg technology that riddled the Chief’s body. But Eboh’s assimilation had been progressing for some time, and the spread must have been more extensive than they had feared. As Hernandez looked on, the left side of the Chief’s chest sagged, the bone structure of the torso having been replaced by implants. The Doctor’s eyes widened in horror as the gruesome scene continued. Eboh’s body shuddered, then began to seize as the shock and trauma to his system continued. A moment later the top of Eboh’s skull began to sag as the implants within were destroyed. The Chief’s eyes flew opened as his seizure continued, every muscle that hadn’t been destroyed by the invading Borg technology spasming.

It was only once the Chief’s form fell still, Eboh’s eyes wide and staring blankly at the ceiling of the medical bay, that Hernandez finally exhaled.

”My God…”

Hernandez continued to stare for a moment before his training once again kicked in, and he moved forward. He crouched next to the still form of the El-Aurian and began running his tricorder of the man’s body, it’s readings confirming what he had suspected.

”The spread of the Borg technology was too extensive. The trauma of the treatment was too much for his body to take.” Hernandez glanced up, alternating his gaze between Izar and T’Panu as he spoke. ”He’s gone.”

Hernandez looked down at the Chief’s corpse again for a moment before looking back to Izar. ”He had been assimilated long before the others, had he not? The treatment may still be effective for the more recently assimilated. Can you scan the Chief to see if there are adjustments to be made to the ORE? Something to make it safer for the others?” He words were cold, clinical. The Chief was gone, but they had others that they could still save.

He only hoped the others wouldn’t share a similar fate…
OOC: RIP CPO Ekon Okotie-Eboh!

Re: EPIL: S [D06|1142] An Open Ending

Reply #17 –
[ Lt. JG Izar Bila | Medical Lab 02 | Main Sickbay | Deck 11 | USS Theurgy]
[Show/Hide]

@Fife  @Nolan @Stegro88 @lisavw


The screams.

The cries pierced his brain. They drilled his skull like an tool of torture.

But he couldn't turn off the device.

Not now, or everything would be pointless. All the suffering, meaningless. All the pain in vain.

The ORE kept aiming at Eboh. The radiation heat warmed his hands. The machine's vibration meant that he had to holdt it so firmly, that his knuckles turned white.

But the cries. Those screams.

They stabbed him in the chest like knives.

Was he really doing the right thing? Was he helping him, or was he simply making him suffering to prove he could succeed? That he could overcome the Borg? That he could defeat his worst nightmare?

When the screaming intensified, Bila swallowed and lifted the device even harder. For now he couldn't afford to have any hesitations.  He couldn't feel guilty. He had to finish the treatment, no matter what it took. The alternative was much worse.

Then the yelps ceased. Izar couldn't help but sigh with relief. Not because Eboh's agony was over. But because the Prophets had heard his pleas and had silenced that terrible sound. The chemist finally opened his eyes. But what he saw only made him feel guilt-ridden.



"That The Prophets...." he started muttering. But he didn't even know what he wanted from his deities. To be forgiven? That they would give him strength? Give it to Eboh? To stop with... All of these? He wasn't sure. Not at all.

Yet he made an effort to observe the process.

It worked.

The implants were collapsing, the nanoprobes were receding.

Eboh was recovering. He was being healed by turning his whole body into an open, bleeding wound. But it worked. It was a victory. A Pyrrhic one.

Was it one?

It had to be.

The time remaining of exposure stretched what seemed like hours to the half-Cardassian. He simply grasped the device, which like an atrocious weapon was reducing Eboh to a patch of aching flesh. But free from Borg infection. Eboh's body was shaken under the radiation' effects, nerves, and muscles unable to withstand the ill treatment.

Finally, Bila shut down the device.



The dreadful hum was cut down to a mere murmur. The purring of a satisfied predator after the hunt.

"Ekon?" asked Bila with a reedy voice.  The Chief did not answer. His empty eyes blurred out of focus. Blood dripping from.... everywhere. A shudder ran through Bila from head to feet, as he lowered the machine he had pointed at his Cayuga fellow.

Bila froze in place as Hernandez moved. Doing his job. Searching. Checking.

Until he finally uttered the words that Bila feared the most.

"He's gone," he said, staring him in the eye. 

"No..." No. Impossible. He had always had a lucky pagh. If he had failed to his captain, if he was there, at that moment, at that time, it was for a reason, there was motive. He cannot have failed. He could not. Bila bit the inner part of his cheeks until he noticed the taste of blood in his mouth.

She couldn't have killed Eboh with his incompetence.

No.

That was impossible.

Him? No. No. Nono. nononononono.....

Only the doctor's voice managed to get him out of the spiral of panic in which he was plunging, with his clinical approach to what had happened. Facts. To help other patients.  Izar raised his eyes and looked around. There were so few left. Only a handful. Two petty officers. The reman. Benmual. Kyth.

Kyth.



The hazel eyes clung to the black ones for a moment. He could... say a lot of things. But it wasn't the time to do it. Not now.

His browridges furrowed with determination.

He would save them. All of them. No one else would die. No. He would not allow it.

"T'Panu, collect as much data as you can from Ekon, and send it to my Padd." he said looking at the other hybrid. His voice shook a bit, but it gradually gained some strength. "Hernandez, do a patient triage, I want you to determine in whom the assimilation is spreading most quickly and place them in order for the treatment." He turned to the reman and to Benmual. When he did so, the jaw under his sparse beard was firm, his back straight and his eyes sparkled with determination.  "You, Kyth. Please help me to retrieve the body so the doctor can examine him. I want the chair ready for the next patient as soon as possible." It wasn't a pleasant task, but she wouldn't do it alone. Bila would help her. After all, they were all Cayuga's colleagues. No one better than them both could show the respect that Eboh deserved.

At last, he turned to the humanoid in civilian clothes. "And you" he admonished as he approached the corpse. "Tell me meanwhile how the hell the assimilation progresses so slowly in your body if you haven't received one of my vaccines..."

Re: EPIL: S [D06|1142] An Open Ending

Reply #18 –
[ Tesserarius Lorad | Main Sickbay | Deck 11 | Vector 02 | USS Theurgy ] Attn: @Numen @Nolan @lisavw
[Show/Hide]

Lorad’s request for the doctors to treat the security officer that had executed the drones had either been ignored or unheard in the commotion from across the room. A tall, well-built man with dark skin was laying on a table as the Theurgy’s medical staff tried to treat him. But from where Lorad was standing, judging by the development of Borg implants and their spread, the man did not have long.

He watched as they brought out some sort of device that, when activated, seemed to cause the man a great dal of pain but what amazed Lorad the most was that it was destroying the Borg implants. It was destroying them. But he also realised, at much the same as everyone else that was watching, that it was too late for the man. The removal of the implants was extensive, and soon, the man’s body began to sag in places that it never should as the areas of now empty space collapsed.

To the shock trooper, a veteran of dozens of battles and skirmishes, it was one of the most gruesome deaths that he had witnessed. And it was then that he reaffirmed his resolution that he would not become a threat to this ship and it’s crew. But most importantly, h would not become a threat to his sister.

“And you!” The words broke his thoughts and Lorad refocused on the room to see one of the doctor’s looking, and speaking, to him. "Tell me meanwhile how the hell the assimilation progresses so slowly in your body if you haven't received one of my vaccines..."

“I don’t know the how,” Lorad began to explain in Reman, reaching into his memory to dredge up experiences he had long tried to forget. “During the last year of the Dominion War, the Romulans detected a damaged Borg Cube within their space. It appeared to be completely lifeless. The Romulans, wanting to exploit the technology that the Cube possessed so they injected 2000 Reman shock troopers with something and sent them to the cube to search it. But the Cube was note lifeless. It was under repairs,” Lorad explained as he experienced a memory flash. Shaking his head to clear it, Lorad continued. “Whatever was injected, it didn’t stop the Borg assimilating the Remans. But it did slow it down. Instead of the minutes, the Remans had between 10 and 12 hours before becoming a drone. Again, I do not know how.”

"Of the 2000 Remans sent aboard the Cube, I am one of the 117 that escaped.”

Re: EPIL: S [D06|1142] An Open Ending

Reply #19 –
[ PO 2nd class Kythalie Benmual | Medical Lab 02 | Main Sickbay | Deck 11 | USS Theurgy]
  @Fife   @Numen   @Stegro88   @lisavw   

Hernandez wanted to sedate the Betazoid officer and Kythalie swapped his hand away with a shake of her head "No, I can't be sedated just yet. Not until security reinforcements are confirmed by this door on the outside." she snapped at him. She knew he was just doing his job, but she and the Reman were possible the only two viable people in this room to prevent a full on outbreak from Borg drones should it come to that.

With a dread look on her face she looked as the medical crew and Izar did all they could to save Oldie. Time seemed to take forever as the treatment was started and Kyth stayed close to both Izar and Eboh as the dose was administered. Kythalie could feel the injection site sting and burn and she placed one hand against it as she couldn't tear her eyes away from one of her best buddies. For a second, her whole world stood still when the assimilation progress seemed to stop, yet along with it were the screams of pain and agony brought out by Ekon. A glimmer of hope was quickly crushed as Izar could only verify along with the rest of them that the CPO had not survived the treatment. Kyth bit on her tongue as she tried to keep her composure.

Izar gave her an order and Kyth was still shocked in the first second to comply before she looked at Izar. Was he responsible for killing her friend? She couldn't think of that now, not in this crisis. She gave Izar a short nod as she walked over to Ekon's corpse and hoisted it out of the chair. The dark skinned man weighed more than she reckoned and she carried him over to one of the tables in the back of the room. She was panting as she completed her task and felt the voices of the collective starting to rise in her head. She tried to shake it out and looked around as she rested against the table.

"Security to Benmual, four officers have been stationed outside the door."

Kythalie could just nod as she felt the energy leave her body, she looked at the turmoil in the room and for some reason she couldn't focus on anything in particular just yet. Her vision became blurred and the next thing she knew, her eyes rolled to the back of her skull as she collapsed by the table. Hernandez was quick enough to get to her, scanning her and administering the sedative he wanted to give her in the first place.


OOC: Last post from Kyth here on my end!

Re: EPIL: S [D06|1142] An Open Ending

Reply #20 –
[ Dr's T'Panu & Hernandez | Medical Lab 02 | Main Sickbay | Deck 11 | USS Theurgy]
@Fife @Nolan @Stegro88 @Numen

"T'Panu, collect as much data as you can from Ekon, and send it to my Padd." T'Panu was still in shock. Everyone seemed to be dropping like flies, while the rest of them seemed to just stand around and watch. There wasn't much anyone could do. They prepared as best as they could with the innoculation and the ORE, but the Borg just seemed to bolster their defences and slice right through their preparations.

T'Panu set to work scanning and collecting data from Ekon, trying to pull anything she could from his body. He had been through so much. Pieces of Borg technology melted away; but his melted, charred skin remained. He still looked like the Eboh that everyone knew so well. She had to stifle back her tears, his death hit everyone so hard. He deserved so much more, he deserved to be saved, to live.

She held the hand of her friend one last time, squeezing it. She said her final goodbye's, as one single tear ran out of her right eye. "I'll miss you, my dear friend."

T'Panu took a breath, recollecting herself. She grabbed her Tricorder and began scanning. Interesting, T'Panu thought. She looked at her readings. She noticed how the nanoprobes were working at a very low pace, with some kind of...suppressant? She was unsure. She thought about the nanoprobes having their own frequency, just like the hive mind. But these were only guesses.

T'Panu sent her readings back to Bila's PADD. She noted her findings and stated that these were only her initial readings. There was still much work to be done, but it was a start.

While all this was going on, Hernandez was working on triaging the rest of their patients. He skipped over the obvious dead, which had been set aside, giving them all room to work. He marked a few green: one with burns, one with some scrapes and cuts. So far, so good, Hernandez thought. The next few were a bit trickier. Were they green? Yellow? Both?? He made sure he was completely devoid of emotional attachment, marking the ones that would live, and the ones that wouldn't. He marked one yellow, finding plasma burns to both arms. Their right arm was completely burnt from the tip of their fingers, to their humeral head. Their left arm was half burnt, totaling 13.5% burns to their body. The next had burns to their entire chest, a 9" laceration across their fifth intercostal space on the left side, and a sucking chest wound. "I have a red! I need a team over here to take over care of this patient! Bring your medical kit, this patient needs their airway fixed or they'll surely die!"

Hernandez finished his work, finding 2 greens, a yellow and a red. The rest of the crew had minor issues, but nothing that needed immediate medical attention. Some of them swore off medical attention, stating others needed it far more than they did. He was then in charge of incident command, making sure all their patients were getting the appropriate level of medical attention they required. He stepped in where he could, when he could while still assuming command.

Re: EPIL: S [D06|1142] An Open Ending

Reply #21 –
[ Lt. JG Izar Bila | Medical Lab 02 | Main Sickbay | Deck 11 | USS Theurgy]
[Show/Hide]

@Fife  @Nolan @Stegro88 @lisavw

The Lab, which seemed to have been immobilized after Ekon's gruesome death, suddenly began to move again. It became a hive of activity but, unlike what had happened before, there was a relative silence, a frightened calm. The few surviving patients were pale, despair and hope mixed in their features. Bila didn't envy their situation or the mental space they must be immersed in at the time. For his part, he decided to keep working. One step after the other, following point by point the action plan he had drawn up when he designed the ORE together with Ekon. He couldn't afford to give in to despair. He couldn't allow himself to be swept away by grief, when there were more lives in his hands. More lives that relied on him being able to remain calm and act in the best possible way. Even so, the chemist felt his eyes burn and tears accumulate in the corners of his eyelids. With a sudden movement, Bila wiped that wet weakness with the sleeve of his uniform. He couldn't openly demonstrate how the failure had made him feel. Not when others depended on him. Hope was a potent strength, often the one that tipped the balance between life and death. And he couldn't take that away from them.

Doctors started the triage. T'Panu began to analyze the corpse once Benmual transported it to one of the tables in the room. She leaned on the surface next to the body and Izar couldn't help but look at her, worried. She was pale, almost as gray as he was. And he had noticed the look she had given him just before fulfilling his order. Guilt and remorse began to knot in the pit of his stomach. Luckily, his padd prevented him from thinking about it further by drawing his attention with a beep. As his eyes skimmed through the data on the screen, his ears waited for the Reman's explanation. The UT took a few seconds to translate the guttural language, so there was a sort of lag, a few seconds before the meaning of the sullen words became intelligible. That little delay only made his narration sound even more ominous. It was a heartbreaking story, and it added variables that he hadn't previously estimated. This could be either positive or negative, he was not certain. To decide about it, he approached the large man and started scanning him again with his modified tricorder. He required more data.

When he got them, they provided more questions than answers. The only thing that was clear was that, he didn't know very well how, the civilian had more time on his hands than any of the other patients.   "I can't determine what they inoculated you, buddy," the hybrid apologized. "And I don't know if I can do anything for you here... but whatever the Romulans did to you gave you more resistance to the nanoprobes. Even more than with my vaccine." he confessed, without hiding his admiration for whoever had created such a vaccination. Perhaps the Romulan methods were questionable, but Bila could not deny the genius of what they had achieved. Whatever it was.  "In any case, I must give priority to the rest of the patients, because the time they have is scarcer." It wasn't a easy statement to be said.  Although the Reman seemed to have a wider margin, this waiting could mean his death. "Once I've treated the other patients, I'll devote all my attention to you... eh..."

"Lorad"

"Lorad. I'll save you. I will save you all." The chemist said. He must. He owed it to Ekon. Then the sound of a collapsing body made Bila avert his gaze.


Kyth.


No, not her.


"Put her in the seat!" he ordered. There were other patients who needed treatment as much or even more than the betazoid. But Bila couldn't watch her die. Not her. Not when she had saved his own life. While Hernandez, assisted by one of the new security reinforcements, placed her in the chair, Bila began to introduce the new parameters in the ORE, using the woman's scan and the variations based on T'Panu's data. He was being selfish. He knew it. His feelings were interfering with his performance. But he didn't care. He could not allow her to die.

With his guts turned into a painful knot, he looked up and glanced at the betazoid's unconscious form. Maybe it was the last time he saw her alive.  Bila swallowed loudly.

And he pressed the switch.


For a few seconds Kyth's body shook violently. The woman's lips let out a painful gasp, but she did not recover her consciousness. Whatever was injected into her had totally knocked her out. When the first burns began to appear on her skin, Izar thanked that she was not aware of what was happening.  Benmual's breathing began to shake, and when there were only a few seconds left to finish the dose of radiation she needed, it stopped. Bila stiffened. But he kept aiming at her with the ORE. Those last seconds seemed to last forever. Cold sweat beaded in his forehead.

The half-cardassian's fingers moved over to the switch.

And they turned the ORE off.

Benmual was rigid. Her chest was flat. The skin was ashen.

And then.....






She breathed again.

A deep and agonizing inspiration.

But she was alive.

The doctors rushed forward checking her constants and soon T'Panu left the tiny laboratory with her, to take her to the sickbay's main area. As little as Bila could hear before the door closed behind them, the betazoid was alive. Her condition was critical at the time, but with proper care she would recover soon.

Bila let out the air he had been holding in his lungs and, for a second, he smiled. Yet it was barely a moment, barely a second to rejoice in the newly recovered hope.



"Hernandez, next one!" There was a lot of work to be done.

Many lives to save.



FIN
 
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