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EPI S [Day 03 | 2330hrs.] Lay Your Weary Head To Rest

[Lieutenant Alistair Leavitt Intensive Care Unit | Main Sickbay | Deck 11 | USS Theurgy ]  @Ellen Fitz @RyeTanker

[Show/Hide]

As Alistair moved around the ship, dealing with various tasks, he couldn't help but notice an malaise. Everything had changed, and processing the events of the past few days was proving difficult for many. Some of the more recent members of the crew were cheerful, all smiles, while the older crew were more cautious, uncertain, as if they were just waiting for everything to go crazy all over again. Alistair, meanwhile, was tired. Just tired. It was a bone deep level of exhaustion. The body was fine, but the spirit was flagging. He just wanted rest, for it all to be done. He'd done enough, right? Couldn't it be enough? Would it ever be enough?

Thus occupied. Alistair was a tad out of it as he entered Sickbay, needing a moment to remember why he was here.  A nurse looked at him in askance, but he held up a hand with a polite smile. Right. He remembered now. Alistair walked over to the recovery ward, with many of the beds occupied, most of the lights dimmed to help the patients sleep. Fortunately, the light above one particular bed was still on as the patient, a middle-aged woman with long blonde hair, typed lazily on an LCARS board that wrapped around her. Standing at the threshold of the ward, Alistair hesitated. There was something wrong with that image...something...

A bloodcurdling scream came through the comns, followed by shouting, disagreement, more shouting, more screaming.
"It's Conway! She's been...damn, cover me! Medic! She's lost her-"

Alistair hadn't been there, hadn't had the time to check on Conway. Now, he finally knew what she had lost: much of her right arm. His stomach squirmed. Nevertheless, with a deep breath, he walked up to her, and she clocked him immediately.

"Hi," she said brightly. Too brightly.

"Hi," Alistair said awkwardly, careful to keep his voice low.. "So...uh... "

"You look great?" Yvette said with a grin. "It's alright, boss. You don't need to do the whole rigamorole, you aren't my first boss to check on me. I lost a foot on Betazed, during the war. This is nothing."

Alistair exhaled, smiling despite himself. "You did a great job at Hobus. The star is stable. You'll probably get a medal after I file my report. The President might even do it herself. It's not every day that someone saves the Romulan Empire."

"She's really here?" Yvette asked. "I heard, but it didn't feel real, you know?""

"Real," Alistair said with a shrug, "I saw the president myself. I don't know much else, sorry."

Yvette shifted a little, pulling back up. "I guess a lot's been happening, huh? Hey, have you seen Lieutenant Zark yet?"

That threw Alistair off, swiping his hand over his bald scalp. "What? You mean she's here?" At Yvette's nod, Alistair's eyes widened in alarm. "That can't...I saw the casualty reports from Hobus, she wasn't-"

"She was hurt afterwards," Yvettle explained gently. "I don't know when or how bad, but she's in the ICU right now, if you want to check on her."

"Right. Yeah," Alistair said, clearly still processing. He hesitated, feeling a moment of real shock and guilt. Why hadn't he checked? Why hadn't he confirmed-

"Lieutenant Leavitt?" Yvette interrupted quietly with a small smile. "Please get to the ICU before I ask Security to carry you there."

Alistair smiled back, nodded in gratitude, then promptly strode over to the ICU, immediately identifying Zark. Unlike Yvette's biobed, Zark's space was packed with innumerable sensors and other medical equipment, all monitoring the patient. Lying on her back, unconscious or worse, Zark looked smaller, more vulnerable than her usual aggressive charm. Her white hair was a mess, a gown and blanket protecting Zark's (non-existent) modesty. Alistair looked up at the monitors, but struggled to parse them, save that Zark was in bad shape.

He sighed, hating seeing the normally vivacious Andorian like this. It just felt...wrong. Completely wrong. Alistair crossed his arms, bitter sorrow rising up from his gut. He  liked Zark, as did pretty much everyone, but Enyd loved her, in her own unique way.

Enyd...

Re: EPI S [Day 03 | 2330hrs.] Lay Your Weary Head To Rest

Reply #1 –
[ Lt. Enyd Isolde Madsen | Intensive Care Unit | Sickbay | Deck 11 | USS Theurgy ] @RyeTanker @Griff

The corridor outside Sickbay had that particular quiet that meant the worst of it was over, and nobody had decided yet what came next. Enyd stood at the entrance a moment longer than she needed to. Her PADD was still in her hand — she'd been reading orders off it in the turbolift and hadn't put it away, which meant she'd been holding it for twenty minutes. She tucked it under her arm.

The nurse at the front station looked up. Enyd held up a hand. The nurse settled back. She moved into the ward slowly. Most of the lights were dimmed for the patients sleeping, which meant she had to read the name tags at the foot of each bed by the low glow of the biobed monitors. She'd already pulled the casualty reports. She knew most of what she'd find here. Knowing and seeing were different operations and she was doing both now, one bed at a time.

Callax. She stopped. Asleep, or close enough. Biobed steady. She stood there for a beat, filed him under alive and in the right place, and made her feet move. She did that four more times. Four more names she knew. By the time she reached the ICU threshold, her jaw ached, which meant she'd been holding it tight.

She saw Alistair before he heard her. The set of his shoulders told her enough. She crossed to him and put her arms around him from behind, pressed her face between his shoulder blades, pressing her face between his shoulder blades and held on. Then she looked up and saw Zark. Her arms tightened.

"She pushed me." Her voice came out wrong — too thin, too careful, the voice she used when she was managing something her face hadn't caught up to yet. "On Donatra's ship. There was a blast and she—" She stopped. The monitors cycled. Something beeped once and went quiet. "I didn't see it coming."

Zark lay on her back, smaller than she had any right to look, the white hair spread wrong against the pillow. Enyd had watched Zark laugh that morning. She was almost certain it had been that morning.

"The infiltration team got to the weapon. Just before Donatra triggered it." Her thumb moved against Alistair's arm without her deciding it would. "Which she did. Trigger it. And then when it didn't fire she—" A short exhale. "Ritual suicide. Rather than deal with losing." She thought about Donatra's face in those last seconds. She thought about the underground leader who had gone the same way. "Both of them. Their own hands." She wasn't sure if she was talking to Alistair or working it out. "I keep thinking about whether there was a version where I—"

She let it go. There wasn't, or if there was, she hadn't found it in time. She pressed her mouth to the base of his neck and stayed there for a moment, breathing. Then she moved to stand beside him, her shoulder against his arm, and looked at Zark's still face.

"How are you holding up?" The question was directed to Alistair, but she had an inner hope that Zark would miraculously wake up in that moment to answer her.

Re: EPI S [Day 03 | 2330hrs.] Lay Your Weary Head To Rest

Reply #2 –
[Lt (JG) XamotZark zh’Ptrell (Lt. Zark) | Kalandra? | Delta 5-2?] @Ellen Fitz @Griff @Dumedion

Her eyes tried to open, but it was hard.  The incident flashed thorugh the mind's eye.  The jungle passing beneath them at high speed.  A sensor readout on the screen.  The stink of fear and sweat despite the best efforts of the shuttle's high efficiency air recyclers.  Lieutenant Eris saying they were almost at the pickup zone.   The shuttle bucked as a hail of purple energy slammed into the small craft.  A beam lanced against the shuttle's shield's.  Eris screaming they were going down, his call to brace cut off in a loud sickening crunch of alloy, shattering glass, bodies being crushed, and a scream that sounded very much like her own.

She awoke and immediately groaned in pain that caused her to collapse back on the upended wreckage of the shuttle floor. The blue eye lids closed and squeezed for a moment as the body dealt with the pain.  Painkiller! Her mind yelled, and the eyes opened once more as she breathed hard and looked around.  There!  A medical bag.  The Andorian groaned as she leaned over and reached for the bag.  She fell back once more with a groan as she took in a steadying breath.  Her eyes opened again as she focused on the medical bag.  She'd have to bite the proverbial bullet, and she yelped as she lunged for the bag and her hand managed to get a hold of it.  It was a small measure of triumph as she dragged the bag towards her while suppressing a groan of protest.

She lay back once more and closed her eyes once more as a reward for not passing out from the pain.  The pain wasn't blinding, but it still somewhat debilitating and her body throbbed.  She had to wait for what seemed like far longer than what she wanted.  The throbbing finally reached a manageable level and she set about opening the medical bag.  It didn't take long to find the right vials and a hypospray.  The familiar suction noise followed by a soft click confirmed a good seal.  Her fingers moved to the head of the hypospray, but they seemed a little syrupy.  Zark shook her head to clear it, or at least get the blood flowing properly before focusing again.  Maybe the fingers were still slow, but they seemed to move with the right amount of accuracy as she adjusted the dosage.  The cold alloy touch against her skin was welcome as she pressed the hypospray to her neck and depressed the trigger.   A familiar hiss flooded her blood stream with the necessary chemical mixture and she sighed in relief as the pain lessened.

The medic took a brief second to revel in the distinct lack of pain before she began checking her own body.  Ah! Fractured ribs at the least!  She thought to herself as she winced and felt, more than heard the click inside her body. I can still move though. and she did as she gingerly lifted herself up and moved towards the first body she saw.  Lieutenant Eris was definitely dead.  Having a chunk of circuitry shoved through one's forehead would do that.  Zark turned away from body in disgust.  Zark went around checking the rest and it was grim findings, most of the medical team was dead, except for one, but he was unconscious.  It didn't matter, there was a chance at life and she began unpacking the bag, starting with the medical tricorder.  The lights of the device obediently came on, but before the medic had a chance to read the information, she snapped the tricorder shut and looked behind her.  Her antennae quickly pointed in the same direction as her head, then began to wave back and forth as if a search radar had been activated and her eyes narrowed.  Then she heard it, footfalls.  Heavy ones and many of them.  It was hard to say. 

The Andorian looked around for a weapons, but they were getting to close, and soft sound of metal being pulled from a scabbard felt almost deafening as she padded to the breach in the shuttle's hull.  At least they were on an angle, so the searchers would have to come in to see anything.  Zark pressed her body against the hull and brought the standard issue combat knife up.  She'd go for the jugular right away.  The boot steps were getting louder, closer!  Her heart began to race and she forced herself to breathe more quietly.  Closer.  Closer....Closer!  They were almost on top of her.

[In the real world]

Ensign Jurek Xevin was helping to make the rounds in the ICU.  She was tired, and so was everyone else.  At least they'd been able to send a half dozen more patients back to standard recovery.  The Cardassian sighed though at the Andorian in the bed with the human male and female standing next to her bed.  She could hear them speaking, but didn't really bother to register any of what they were saying.  It wasn't her business after all.  The nurse looked at her PADD and compared the current medical monitors against the previous data, then sighed.  She really hoped Zark would be fine and from a purely selfish standpoint, able to get up and help again soon.

There was some discussion on how Zark had ended up in the bed and how everyone was holding up which was very healthy when dealing with such a chaotic situation.  The nurse frowned as she checked the monitor.  Her brain and respiratory activity were showing odd readings.  Not really strange, but definitely not normal for someone in Zark's state.  She pressed her combadge "Doctor Leux to the ICU, Lieutenant zh’Ptrell is showing hyper activity in her frontal lobe and her cardiac...Urghhkk!!" the nurse finished as a blue banshee exploded on the bed in a wild war cry and the sickening crunching thump of fist smashing flesh and bone as the strike battered into her chest just below a fatal point, but high enough to disable just about anyone.  The nurse had no time to register this as a knee appeared out of nowhere and crashed into her head and sent her careening onto the floor, just missing the bulkhead.

Medical alarms blared and several people cried out in fear as the blue woman moved with speed that shouldn't have been possible as she swung over and sent a kick flying at the male voice she heard nearby no idea whether she scored any hit and didn't care.  There long stringy things attached to her. Perfect!  With a feral yell, she clocked the other woman across the head, then proceeded to wrap the chords around her neck as she brutally pulled the brunette in closer and tighter while grunting like cornered wild animal.

Re: EPI S [Day 03 | 2330hrs.] Lay Your Weary Head To Rest

Reply #3 –
[Lieutenant Alistair Leavitt | Intensive Care Unit | Main Sickbay | Deck 11 | USS Theurgy ]  @Griff  @RyeTanker @Dumedion

One instant Zark lay motionless beneath a web of monitors. The next she was moving. Far too fast. The crack of her fist into the Cardassian nurse's sternum echoed through the ICU, followed almost immediately by the shriek of medical alarms.

"No—!"

Alistair stepped toward the nurse before his brain had finished the thought. Too late. A blur of blue came at him.

Six weeks of Zark needling him about his footwork on the observation deck at Qo'nos was the only reason he moved at all. He twisted aside. Not far enough.
The heel of her kick skimmed his jaw instead of caving it in. Fire lanced through his chin; he tasted copper before he'd finished stumbling. His teeth clacked together hard enough to ring his skull.

Alice Leroux. The Eclipse's bridge, torn open, that smell. For one impossible heartbeat the ICU dissolved into another sickbay, half a decade and a dead timeline away. A monster wearing a friend's face. Him standing there with a phaser he didn't know how to hold.

"Oh God—"

Then he saw her hands close around Enyd's throat.

"Security! Medical emergency!" His voice cracked on the second word. "Lieutenant zh'Ptrell is exhibiting Infested behavior!" He crawled forward. "Sedatives! Heavy sedatives, restraints, now!" — to the staff still frozen mid-flinch.

He pulled himself up and lunged. He had no illusions about winning a fight against Zark. Healthy, she could put him on the deck in four seconds and had, repeatedly, to make a point. He got both hands around her forearms where they strained against Enyd's throat, planted his feet, and hauled backward with everything training had built into him.

"Zark! Let her go!" He strained to peel even one finger loose without snapping Enyd's neck. "Enyd — don't fight her."

He looked at the medical staff still rooted in place.

"What are you waiting for?!"

[ Lt. Enyd Isolde Madsen | ICU | Sickbay | Deck 11 | USS Theurgy ]

One second she was standing at Alistair's shoulder, watching Zark's monitors cycle through numbers that meant nothing to her. The next, hands were on her throat.

Closing, not gripping. Her body understood it half a beat before her mind did — some old animal circuitry firing off wrong, wrong, wrong while the rest of her was still cataloging the absurdity of it. Zark. Zark's hands.

She got one syllable out. Not even a word. Just air trying to leave through a passage that had stopped being a passage.

Her fingers found Zark's wrists on reflex, Academy self-defense drills useless. Andorian grip strength was not something a refresher course prepared a person for. Alistair's voice, shouting something about sedatives, restraints, reaching her from very far away, which didn't make sense — he was right there.

The edges came in first. Sound went underwater, then color, the overhead lights smearing into a long white bleed. Her lungs burned.

Oh, she thought, with the calm of someone noticing rain through a window. This might actually be it.

Victor. Ten years of letters compressed into that one image, waiting by the dock on Vulcan, the way he always seemed to be waiting for her to catch up to something he already knew.

Javec. His hand, the last time, closing around hers with far less strength than this, and somehow it had felt like more. She had held on then, too. She'd been so sure holding on would be enough.

Grandmother Ida. Cold Montana air, mineral-bitten, a morning before the sun cleared the ridge. Hay dust. Her grandmother's hands, cracked at the knuckles, wrapped around a coffee mug on the porch rail, not saying anything, because she hated talking before coffee. The dogs. The sound the screen door made.

Home, she thought. Some fist in her chest, closed since she was twelve years old and learned that people who left didn't always come back, finally let go.

Victor. Javec. Ida. The screen door.

Okay, she thought, from somewhere already halfway gone. Okay. I can—

She didn't finish it, even in her own head.

Author's note: Griff gave me permission to write for Alistair.

Re: EPI S [Day 03 | 2330hrs.] Lay Your Weary Head To Rest

Reply #4 –
[LT Arven Leux | CMO Office | Main Sickbay | Deck 11 | USS Theurgy] Attn: @RyeTanker @Ellen Fitz @Griff

He'd just sat down, collapsing into the seat at the workstation to palm tired eyes, trying to prep himself to tackle the mountain's worth of administrative tasks ahead. The chair felt wrong; the office even more so, due to the heavy scent of another person’s hygiene products, attire, personal belongings – none of which Arven had taken the time to catalog and box up – mostly because he simply hadn't had the energy to do so. Several medical files lay open upon the screen before him, tab upon tab of personnel dossiers in need of updates.

Several of them hadn’t survived the battle. Some had been wounded unto death, only to be interred in stasis. Most suffered through triage and surgeries to live another day. All of it required documentation; accurate records saved time – time saved lives – so the old saying went.

To think I used to enjoy paperwork, Luex knuckled his eyes with a groan, then sighed as he stretched the muscles of his neck and shoulders. Coffee first, he decided, otherwise I wont make it past the first handful. He needed to make a dent, while time allowed; buried somewhere in the queue was Ehfva’s file – the Vulpinian he’d just left with the Romulan, Hirek, only a moment ago. Arven’s clinical memory bordered on eidetic, but he was also self-aware of his own limitations; Cardassians had taught him that.

Unfortunately, the Doctor lost all train of thought as soon as he left the relative serenity of his inherited office. He was three steps into the sprint towards the ICU before his mind caught up to the onslaught of noise: screams and shouted words pitched in equal parts fear and panic – nothing normal, or especially pleasant to hear, coming from such a place.

By the time he skidded around the corner, the scene seemed eerily familiar: one patient trying to throttle another, while still another tried to intervene. Arven had seen it before, in another place under different circumstances; a time of failures and hard lessons learned.

This time, there was no hesitation – he never broke stride – while his mind raced for possible causalities and solutions. Zark could be Infested, sure; but she was certainly fresh from a chemically induced coma – which was never an easy or clean experience. Altered mental state, memory lapse, even full blown temporary psychosis were all documented side-effects.

Still – the Doctor valued thoroughness.

A hand snapped out to a control interface, triggering the anyonic light screening that the engineering crews had literally just installed; the omni-directional emitter hissed free from the ceiling and pulsed instantly, flooding the ICU with a flash of blinding light, (save for Arven, of course, whose wits remained well enough to squeeze his eyes closed). In the dazed confusion that followed, the Doctor managed three more steps to the side of Zark’s biobed to secure a hypospray – which he spent precious seconds programming with a potent antihistamine compound, tailored to Andorian physiology – from memory.

Of course, Arven realized he’d never reach Zark in the very next second; while the anyonic pulse had effectively blinded her visually – the Andorian possessed another sensory apparatus just as equally sensitive and far more acute: her antennae. Both of which swiveled towards Arven, quivering like the rattler's of a loathsome Terran serpent.

This is going to hurt, the Doctor’s mind drawled as a blur of blue and white-medical-gown flung itself directly at him.

Arven managed to raise his arms up in a half-assed attempt to defend himself just before the pain flared, too fast for his nervous system to truly process: pressure and heat bloomed in his sinuses, flooded his mouth. The world tumbled. His arm was wrenched back and up – too fast – the pressure unimaginably abrupt. Someone screamed, as multiple pops and wet cracks filled the air; the world tumbled again, and then the Doctor realized he had somehow ended up pinned to the deck, unable to breathe.

His arm, twisted into a mockery of wrong angles, was being used as a living lever gripped in blue talons, while the knee on his windpipe pressed in; of all the ways to die – the Doctor never imagined this one. Through vision that swam in equal parts red and grey, Arven searched Zark’s face for any sign of mercy or recognition.

He saw neither. He couldn’t speak. Couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think...but somehow, he’d held onto the hypo through the assault. He felt it, in his hand…or at least his dying, oxygen starved brain believed it did. Everything was turning black though – he couldn’t control his own body accurately anymore.

That didn’t stop him from trying, though.

Re: EPI S [Day 03 | 2330hrs.] Lay Your Weary Head To Rest

Reply #5 –
[Lieutenant Alistair Leavitt | Intensive Care Unit | Main Sickbay | Deck 11 | USS Theurgy ]  @Ellen Fitz @RyeTanker @Dumedion

[Show/Hide]

Alistair, while still distinctly woozy, surged to his feet after Arven's arm was broken like a twig, the horrific snap freezing him in horror. He had heard that snap before, many times, in memories long since muted to protect his fragile psyche. He glanced at Enyd...

She looks...

Blind terror and desperation drove Alistair to stagger towards Zark from behind, and without thinking, he grabbed her antennae, squeezed as hard as he could, then twisted and wrenched them in opposite directions with as much strength as he could muster, as if trying to physically yank them off her skull.

Whatever had happened to Zark, even she could not ignore such agony, and she screamed, though Alistair, blind terror surging through him, didn't dare let up. His eyes drifted down, however, to Arven, and without stopping to think, he let Zark go, grabbed the hypo from Arven's hand, and injected it right into the side of her neck. At that, he hurriedly stepped back, hands raised, but open.

"Zark, come on, we need you!" he pleaded desperately.

Re: EPI S [Day 03 | 2330hrs.] Lay Your Weary Head To Rest

Reply #6 –
[Lt (JG) XamotZark zh’Ptrell (Lt. Zark) | Kalandra? | Delta 5-2?] @Ellen Fitz @Griff @Dumedion

The blue hand flashed out and grabbed the jem'hadar rifle that peaked around the corner.  She ignored the slight increase in heat of the alloy that had been used to double-tap the unconscious and dead crew of the shuttle.  If there had been a chance of saving any of the medical flight it was now gone, and a haze of white rage flooded the Andorian's system.  The Jem'Hadar soldier stumbled inward, not expecting actual resistance, and he paid for it dearly as the alloy blade flashed forward with incredible speed.  Zark felt the vibrations of the blade separating muscle, tissue, and grating against bone as it plunged into soft neck.  Her stronger Andorian muscles yanked hard on the blade and the gurgling sound followed as a trail of black blood arced with the knife.  There was only shock in the Jem'hadar's face when he briefly caught a glimpse of the lithe blue blur that had ended his life. 

The next soldier pointed his rifle into the gap and tried get a shot off at the fast moving Andorian, and Zark gritted her teeth as the barrel of the rifle grated against her torso.  White hot pain flared in Zark's eyes as yanked the rifle past her body and winced as the rifle discharged with a screech mere centimetres away from her body.  Adrenaline and endorphins flooded her system as threw her elbow into the soldier's face and his head snapped back with a sickening crunch.  The furious Andorian gave a berserker's yell as she plunged her knife into the soldier's chest then pulled him in to the shuttle.  The blade came out and plunged into the jem'hadar's body again, and again, grunts of shocked pain echoing in her ear every time she plunged the blade in again.

This was becoming too much and for the Jem'hadar, Victory was life so the next soldier that followed his dead comrade in simply aimed and shot Zark's meat shield in the back several times.  The Andorian yelped first in surprise at the sudden change in momentum, then in pain as the dead body landed on top of her abused one and agony flared through her vision.   It seemed to take everything she had to pull the blade out and time seemed to move with syrupy slowness as she desperately threw it at the third soldier.  And her eyes widened as the soldier's face and body changed.  She could see brown locks, the familiar red lipstick, that elegant human neckline, those bright green eyes, and it was too late as the blade flew true.  The Jem'Hadar soldier gurgled as the blade sank into his throat and he went back with a loud gurgle and spray of black blood.

Zark shook off the hallucination and she could feel exoskeleton clicking against each other as she pushed the body off her and scrambled to her feet and charged the gap in the shuttle's hull.  Another body appeared in the gap and her body went on autopilot as she threw her body around the larger soldier with every intention of getting her thighs around his head.  And her mind screamed in denial when she saw the short black hair, violet eyes, and body spots of every Trill she'd ever encountered.  She felt like she was about to break when she got above the black hair and her body heaved using every bit of weight she had to toss him to the ground.  There was a stomach turning crunch as the head smashed into the shuttle's deck and she stopped, no longer sure if her mind was playing tricks on her.

The Andorian yelled in agony as she felt a searing pain plunge into her back as metal sank into her body.  There'd been on more jem'hadar outside and her distracted mind had fatally missed him.  Her body hacked and painfully heaved a coughing up a slick splash of blue onto the body below her.    "Zark, come on, we need you!" came a familiar voice.  What? her mind thought as everything seemed to beg her to give up.

[Intensive Care Unit | Main Sickbay | Deck 11 | USS Theurgy ]

The dishevelled Andorian looked up into desperately concerned blue eyes and nearly bald head and her body became rubbery as it began to waver.  She looked down once more at the battered Trill under her, a slick blue splat on the back of his head. "Doc......Leux?  What haaaapeneee....."  Zark trailed off as she coughed out a bit more blue blood on the Trill doctor once more then collapsed on him as she fainted.  The door's opened moments later as a quartet of security exosuits armed for bear came charging into the ICU with rifles pointed at the combat medic's limp body.

Re: EPI S [Day 03 | 2330hrs.] Lay Your Weary Head To Rest

Reply #7 –
[LT Arven Leux | ICU | Main Sickbay | Deck 11 | Vector 02 | USS Theurgy] Attn: @Ellen Fitz @Griff @RyeTanker

His brain recognized the change in pressure somehow; the hind-brain survival engine that drove it at least. When it suddenly ceased compressing the architecture and support structures of his neck with life-ending inevitability, Arven’s body rolled, as much as it could with the damage sustained, to gasp for air: the result was a gurgle, as the effort forced blood into burning lungs, followed by a spray of arterial viscera from nose and mouth — into the air, across one shoulder, into the carpet — each hacking cough broken by heaved gulps.

The engine of life almost always struggled after a hard restart.

The additional dead weight of Zark’s unconscious body wasn’t helping. Through the struggle, his vision cleared enough to note several armed security officers had finally arrived on scene; more bodies pressed through the armored figures — blurs of motion, unrecognizable. A hand waved the rifles away, weakly, barely more than a limp gesture from where it lay on the deck; his other arm was a useless, pounding source of pain and little else — nerveless in the sense that it refused any and all commands, yet riddled with agony that beat in rhythm with his pulse.

He couldn’t muster words yet; the pressure in his abused sinuses from the blunt force trauma delivered was near complete: nose broken, bloody, already inflamed to the point of total congestion. Through watering eyes, he blinked at Enyd: pale, expressionless, head cushioned in a pool of tangled hair. Voices registered in a gaggle of noise; too many, reduced to gibberish.

Get up — help.

The hand that worked found Zark’s throat and held, found a slow pulse, but strong. He rolled her off as gently as possible, then wiped the worst of his own blood away from the wreckage of his face with a grimace; moving hurt — thinking hurt.
Leux tried his best to ignore it.

“Biobed,” he half-slurred, half-mumbled, with a weak gesture to the Andorian; her body would metabolize the hyper-dose of antihistamine naturally, but not quickly enough without help. Hardly life-threatening, but Zark was still recovering.

While other hands dealt with the Andorian, Arven grunted himself to within arms reach of Madsen; Lt Leavitt, he noted, had already knelt on her opposite side — while another took up position near her head — his mind unable to comprehend why the shape, color, and fabric of clothing looked...wrong. The Doctor checked her pulse by touch, careful of the rope of already bruising and raw flesh around her throat. Her eyelids flickered at the touch.

Her pulse was weak, but steady; he knew the steps required to continue, but his body had decided not to obey him any longer.

All of this seemed to occur in slow motion — time displaced in confusion, even as he tried to perform the most basic of functions duty demanded. A hand settled on his shoulder. He didn’t look to see who it belonged to; but the shape and warmth felt off. He slurred incoherent orders, even as he felt himself lifted away; the world tilted as a wave of pain-induced nausea washed over him.

Something pressed to the skin of his neck, under one ear — and everything slowly began to fade away — his vision dimmed, focused on a pair of clawed, furred feet.

Forgot about my coffee, he thought drunkenly, then surrendered to oblivion.
 

Re: EPI S [Day 03 | 2330hrs.] Lay Your Weary Head To Rest

Reply #8 –
[ Hirek | Ehfva | Intensive Care Unit | Main Sickbay | Deck 11 | USS Theurgy ] Attn: @Griff  @RyeTanker  @Dumedion

Hirek had gone perhaps twenty paces from the ICU when the screaming started behind him.

He turned back into it and reached the doorway in time to catch the end. The Andorian was upright over the Trill doctor, swaying, blue on her mouth and more of it slicked across the back of Leux's skull. The bald human stood a pace off with both hands open and empty, saying something. Then the Andorian folded and did not get up again.

Four security officers came through the far hatch in exosuits, rifles already shouldered. Hirek registered them the way he registered most armed men: they had arrived after the danger and would now need something to point at.

He went to Leux first. Not out of an emotional desire to ingratiate himself to the doctor but more out of a sense of "I have nothing better to do at this exact moment so why not." The doctor was pinned under her, breathing in wet, tearing gulps, nose ruined, one arm bent where no joint sat. Hirek got a hand under the good shoulder and one under the knees and took the weight, and Leux made noise the entire time. Syllables that started as orders and came apart before they finished. Maybe something about a drink. Hirek did not ask him to repeat any of it, and did not tell him to be quiet either.

The smell reached Ehfva before the doors did. Blood, three kinds of it, and the burnt-copper stink of an anyonic emitter that had discharged at full power in a closed room.

She had picked up a hypo at the supply station without knowing yet what she would need it for, which meant she came through the ICU doors already thumbing the dosage. Leux was in Hirek's arms with his head back and his eyes going. She got two fingers on the doctor's jaw, turned it, and put the dexalyn against the skin under his ear. The hiss. His eyes stopped tracking.

"Bed four." Nurse Kitty came past her at speed, one hand already reaching for the biobed controls. "On his back. Leave the arm exactly how it is, don't you dare straighten it. Get his head higher than his chest, he's aspirating."

Hirek moved. He put Leux down the way she wanted him and stepped clear the moment her hands replaced his, because the woman had not stopped talking since she entered and none of it was directed at anyone who was not useful.

Ehfva had already gone to the floor. Madsen lay where she had come down, hair spread out under her head, and Leavitt knelt over her with his hands open above her collarbones as though he had not decided what to do with them. The marks on her throat were coming up dark. Her chest rose. The sound it made coming back out was wrong, a thin dragging whistle, and it got thinner while Ehfva listened to it.

"Lieutenant." Ehfva put one furred hand flat on the deck beside his knee. "Let me have her."

He didn't move. She hadn't expected him to on the first ask.

"You're bleeding down your neck and I can carry her." She waited for the length of one of Madsen's breaths, which was not long. "Now, please."

Ehfva slid her arms under Madsen and lifted, and the woman weighed less than Ehfva had expected, head tipping into the crook of Ehfva's elbow with no resistance in the neck at all. She did not stir. Not at the movement, not at the light, not when Ehfva laid her on the biobed and the sensor arch swung down over her chest.

Behind them, the exosuits had reached Zark. One of them had a grip on the Andorian's ankle and was preparing to drag her off the deck by it. Hirek stepped into the space between and stood there.

"She is unconscious." Hirek looked at the rifle, then at the man behind it, and let the silence do the rest of the arguing. "You may certainly shoot her. But I would first ask your medical officer whether she wants the paperwork."

Kitty answered from bed four without looking up. "Get her on six. All four points and the cranial strap, and do it now, while she's still under." She let out a heavy sigh. "She's going to wake up and know what she's done. I'm not letting her get violent again over it."

Hirek moved aside for them. He did not go far. When they had Zark down and the restraints closed, he stayed where he was, within reach, and turned only enough to find Leavitt blood at his jaw.

"Lieutenant. You are also injured." Hirek offered a hand down. "Bed, or the floor. I typically have no preference."

Kitty's voice cut across the ward. "Leux is going up to surgery, prep two, he needs that arm opened in the next ten minutes." Then, over Madsen, quieter and faster: "Her airway's swelling shut. I'm not waiting for the doctor. Somnetrine and neurylaxin, rapid sequence, I want a tube in her before that gap closes." The monitor above the bed chimed once and dropped the respiratory line another increment. "Somebody hold her head," Kitty said. Ehfva's hands were already there.
 
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