With These Words I Vow...
Posted on Tue Feb 14th, 2017 @ 8:57pm by
Mission:
Another Day in Paradise
Location: SB900 environs
Timeline: During Borg Attack
“He’s stable,” Zalidek said as he set down his end of the gravcot and tapped the PaDD to transfer the medical file for the patient to the computer to be uploaded to the biomonitors connected to the bed where they placed the patient. “Looks to be a compound fracture of the femur with-“ he stopped while the ship rocked from another attack on the station. “…resultant tissue damage. Missed the femoral artery, thankfully. Loaded with local for pain management.”
“Okay, got it,” the triage nurse said as she glanced at the monitor to ensure the file was there. “They’re calling for another medic on deck twelve, you good for that?”
Zalidek glanced over near the door where Tiffany stood. He knew the smudges and blood on her were not hers but the result of helping to get people from the station onto ships. He sighed as he turned back to the nurse. “Yeah, just give me the coordinates and I’ll beam over to give it a look.”
“No!” Tiffany said, “Sally, this ship is loading fast and you need to be on it!” she said, grabbing his arm and turning him toward her.
“I’ll be right back, you just wait here,” he said to her, bending down for a kiss before breaking away and smoothing a lock of hair away from her face. “I’m not letting you get away this soon. You promised to be mine forever and I’m holding you to it.” He sensed her fear – generalized over the situation at being attacked suddenly and localized for their safety. They were still newly married enough that she was conscious of the ring on her finger, an insistence on her own wedding custom, as well as the bracelet he’d given her as a vow exchange, part of his custom.
“I’d rather you just stayed and held me,” she said, staring into his dark eyes. As usual, she found the best of herself mirrored back at her. Her fingers found the same simple, wide band on his wrist and stroked it, the symbol from his family of their marriage. Like her, he wore a band around his finger as well. That both accepted these forms of marriage identification from their respective worlds just added to how well suited they were for each other.
“Back in two twists,” he said as he turned and grabbed his pack of supplies.
“Two shakes!” Tiffany said to him, wrapping her arms around herself to keep from grabbing him again. But then, impulsively, she tapped her commbadge and opened a channel between them. “It’s two shakes of a lamb’s tale!”
“Don’t like lamb,” he said, as he signaled he was ready for the beam out, “tastes like old socks. But, I love you enough to keep eating it!”
That brought a smile to Tiffany’s face, which Sally watched as the evacuation ship disappeared around him through the silver curtain, only to be replaced with a generic deck corridor back on the station. He shuddered as a beam weapon fired next to him. Moving to the side he immediately took in a scene – Starfleet officers on the deck and Borg advancing. A green energy beam fired past him again and he instinctively turned to move away from it, toward the bodies and the Starfleet forces firing at the Borg. Most of them were gold trimmed, security presumably, but there were blue and red uniform trims as well.
“This way, Doc, hurry!” one of the golds said as he waved for him to go past. He was almost there when the station rocked again and he was thrown across, into the bulkhead, the majority of his weight thrown onto his arm. The immediate snap of pain rushed through him and he rebounded, off balance as he tried to mentally shunt away the pain. From the feel of it, something broke but he couldn’t be sure what yet.
Hands grabbed him and he fought against them, sure it was a Borg drone about to try to inject him with assimilation nanomites. Instead he was shoved roughly, behind the firing line. Then he heard another round of the familiar phaser burts. As he landed, hard, and white hot pain flared from his arm one more time, he saw several Borg drones drop, the gaping holes in them surely a sign they were done and no longer a threat. But there were others.
“Ohmigawd,” he heard Tiffany saying over the open line, “what’s going on, Sally? Are you okay? I hear you screaming! Oh, God, tell me you’re okay?”
“I’m fine,” Sally grunted through his teeth as he moved himself into a sitting position and shrugged out of his pack, grunting the entire time. A quick scan revealed a fracture of the radius in his left arm. He could work with that, being right handed. “Situation’s fine here,” he said as he closed the commline and scrambled to the first prone person next to him. He didn’t need the tricorder to see any efforts on him would be wasted.
“Over there, Doc,” the gold shirt that shoved him behind the line said, pointing to someone with glazed eyes leaning against the bulkhead. Blood poured from his side, bright and rapid.
“Don’t call me, ‘Doc’,” Sally said, “That’s the FMF guys.” He dropped his pack and brought out the scissors to cut away the tunic and undershirt. The wound wasn’t as large as the blood made it appear, but if it had hit the liver, it would explain the amount of blood lose. Sally ran the tricorder over him as he grabbed a bioplaster cap from the bag. “Any allergies?” he asked, the man while watching. The eyes turned to him but still appear glazed and unfocused. “Can you tell me who you are?”
The man’s eyebrows furrowed, but nothing more was forthcoming. Sally sighed, he wasn’t sure if it was just shock or there was some concurrent head injury. He continued scanning as his commbadge chirped.
“Sally?” Tiffany asked, real panic in her voice now. “You have to get back here, they say they’re launching.”
“Okay, give me just a minute,” Sally said as he shoved the lozenge shaped cap into the wound. Within moments the coating was eroded by blood enzymes and the plaster begin filling the unnatural caveity caused by the wound, the foam coming up and out of the wound to create a seal around it.
“Martahc to Neptune, I have another patient, disrupter blast to right abdomen, possibly organ affect. Beam immediately to your sickbay.”
“Negative,” the voice responded. “Sickbay reports overcapacity and not accepting new wounded. Captain orders a shove off. Recommend attempting the Rhine.”
“Thank you,” Sally said as he kept working to stabilize the man while trying not to think how close the fighting was to them, nor about the station still rocking from the attacks. “Tiffany, honey, I’ll catch up to you, okay? I’m going to find you as soon as we all land.”
“No! Sally, beam aboard now! Please, beam aboard-“
The station rocked again and Sally dropped from his knees as he felt the anguish of what seemed like hundreds of last thoughts. The lights flickered and dimmed to just emergency lighting in the section.
“Emergency beamout to any medical,” Sally said, looking over his shoulder as two Borg advanced, the defenders lying dead around them.
“Your biological distinctiveness will be added to-“ the Borg began before the silver curtain fell around them.
Sally rematerialized in a medical center, chaos ensuing around him. He was immediately confronted by several different teal trimmed uniforms. “Not me! I’m fine!” he said as he cradled his arm to his chest, breathing heavy and still incredulous that he wasn’t being assimilated at the moment.
“Where am I?” he asked as he moved away so the patient he was just working on could be moved.
“The Hopper,” the voice said, “And you’re lucky, we’d just started launch when we got your SOS.”
Sally forced himself to stand, gritting teeth against the pain in his arm. Tiffany he cried out in his mind. Silence answered him but he was also distracted by a lot of pain and she wasn’t a telepath. “Where’s the Neptune?” he demanded, grabbing the nearest person to him.
“Who the hell knows at this point?” the nurse said, starting to push him away before stopping. “You okay? You appear pale and guarding your arm.”
“Possibly broken?” Sally said, trying and failing to reach out to Tiffany again. He looked around him. The entire area was in chaos with people lying and appearing unattended.
“Alright, come over here to triage for assessment, but if it’s just broken we need-“
“I’m EFTS,” Sally said, harsher than he otherwise would intend. “Just get me a splint and sheets of bioplast to stabilize it. It’ll wait until we get through this mess.”
“EFTS?” the nurse asked.
Sally sighed, he didn’t have time for this at the moment. “Hospitalman,” he said, since, technically, it was still a valid title. “I lost my equipment on the station though.”
“No problem,” the nurse said, gently tugging on his arm to direct him toward the far wall. “We’ve got more supplies than competent users at the moment, and far too many patients for me to quibble.” She pointed to where he could restock and then broke off as more wounded poured through the doors.
Still trying, and failing, Sally worked to shut down his growing fear and concern for Tiffany while he began stuffing his pockets with the most likely needed hyposprays, meds and supplies. Only then did he work to creating a makeshift cast for the arm. He was tempted to give himself a dose of analgesics to dull the pain, but that could also dull his ability to function so he decided to forgo it until the mess in the area calmed down.
“Tiffany?” he muttered one last time before walking over to the lines of wounded.