Trouble

Posted on Tue Jul 14th, 2020 @ 7:00pm by Sublieutenant Seira t'Reiza & Centurion Nancy Gable & Lieutenant Kaol Ralaa & Plot-Related NPC

2,577 words; about a 13 minute read

Mission: Chapter I: Resurgam
Location: The Colonial Flotilla
Timeline: 238612.21

The Vulture. That is what they called her. Preying on vulnerable, seemingly helpless victims - and getting rich in the process. Those Romulans deserved it, she mused. After what that Senator had done to her, she had spent the last two and a half decades hunting down every single one of those ridge-faced, pointy-eared pigs she could find - and sold them into slavery. From her command chair, the Vulture reviewed the reports she had received. A small fleet of Romulan refugees, apparently completely undefended. She chuckled to herself. Nobody would expect a squadron of Birds-of-Prey, led by a D7 battlecruiser, commanded by a half-human, half-orion privateer.

"All ships in position, my lady," reported the tactical officer. She smiled. "Time for the harvest. Attack."

Chaos broke out on the flotilla the moment the ships decloaked and began their attack. Centurion Hovum, the officer in charge of the flotilla's small medical ship, tried to remain calm. "Shields up! Get us out of here!"

"Sir, we have reports of boarders!", came the response from one of his bridge officers. Hovum shook his head and drew his pistols. "All hands, to arms!"

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Kaol Ralaa was sitting in his quarters reviewing the last case he worked on when he heard the all hands call. He put the PADD down and rushed to Sickbay as the ship rocked from weapons fire. He stopped to grab his disruptor when he glanced out of the window and saw a squadron of ships attacking. "This is not what I signed up for...." he muttered to himself.

He sprinted down the corridors, intent on being the first to get there before the onslaught of injured came in. But a panel exploded a few feet in front of him, knocking down a crewman, whose face bore the brunt of the debris. "DAMMIT!" Kaol threw the man over his shoulder and continued to Sickbay.

When he got there, he laid the crewman down on a biobed and looked around for assistance, "DOES ANYONE ELSE WORK HERE?!?"

"Keep your pants on!" A human-looking woman in Centurion uniform with disruptor at her hip and a bat'leth slung over her shoulder, advanced on him with a scowl. She glanced at the patient. "He'll live. Yellow." Nancy tagged him with the second level of triage designation and motioned a nurse to see to the injury. "If you have any first aid training get to work," she snapped at Kaol. "The rest of you, stabilize and move on! There will more coming, and we may have boarders to fight as well."

"Excuse me?!?" Kaol turned to face the woman that dared to address him like he was merely a good samaritan. "I am Doctor Kaol Ralaa, one of the best damn surgeons in this quadrant. Who the hell are you?!?"

Nancy rounded on him, eyes narrowed, but lips fighting a smirk. "Doctor Nancy Gable, CMO. Get to work and prove it, doctor."

Kaol set his jaw and exhaled frustratedly at the woman in front of him, in disbelief that he will have to answer to this disrespectful bat'leth wielding CMO, "Yes, ma'am.... and I hope you treat your patients with a better bedside manner!"

Before he can continue, more injured came through the door, in varying states of criticality. He mentally triaged those that could be treated by less skilled medical personnel and made a beeline to the more seriously wounded ones. He's never felt the need to prove himself to anyone, but this Nancy Gable has definitely rubbed him the wrong way. He barks orders to nearby nurses as he looked his patient in the eyes, "You're in good hands, my friend."

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Meanwhile, on the bridge, Hovum was watching the mayhem unfold outside. With an increasing number of flotilla ships disabled, their attackers had brought in a massive transport ship, and appeared to be transporting people off their vessels, before destroying them.

"Boarders on three decks, sir!", reported his tactical officer. "Engineering is holding them back, but they are closing in on sickbay and the br-" The report was cut short as the bridge door exploded open, and five men of various species entered, brandishing an equally diverse set of weaponry. Their leader, a Klingon, grinned at Hovum. "You the guy in charge here? Surrender your vessel, and survive. Or don't, and make this fun."

By way of response, Hovum drew his disruptor pistol and shot the Klingon square in the chest, killing him instantly. His success, however, was short-lived, when his head exploded in a cloud of blood - one of the other attackers had hit him with a mass accelerator rifle. The fight for the bridge lasted mere moments, and Hovum remained the crew's only casualty. With a sigh, the tactical officer, one Lieutenant Borex, took the command chair. "Helm, get us out of here. Immediately."

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The newest additions to sickbay stumbled through the doors just ahead of the boarding party that had been heading for it, now trapped on the ship as it withdrew. The three survivors of what had once been a five-man damage control team, in the wrong place at the wrong time as a lucky shot had collapsed a nearby area, killing one of them and injuring two more, before the firefight with the boarding party that found them killed another, and only added to the injuries of the surviving trio.

The crewman in the best shape of the team had a wound from a glancing disruptor shot across his side at the back. His companion had a badly broken leg and burns likely acquired in the damage to the ship, and an arm slung over the first man's shoulder, angling himself as best he could to fire back at the boarding party pursuing them. The third survivor was an officer, probably the team's commander; sporting a set of sublieutenant's pins and looking barely old enough to wear them. Held in the arms of the crewman with the disruptor wound, she seemed only partially or perhaps intermittently conscious, with severe damage to her right arm, hip, and abdomen, as if she had been crushed beneath the burning debris they had fled, but somehow had been freed from them.

A stray disruptor shot from the boarding party hit the bulkhead in sickbay, showering down sparks, as the newcomers were barely a few steps ahead of their pursuers. The crewman with the broken leg awkwardly tried to fire back, but the angle was wrong to aim well, and all he did now was add to the sparks and smoke of misplaced shots, as he frantically tried to twist to the right position.

Kaol watched at the chaos unfolded in front of him, his first concern the injured crewman with the broken leg. He drew his disruptor and aimed it at the intruders into Sickbay. "THIS IS A PLACE OF HEALING!" he fired, striking one of them in the chest. He made he way to the crewman with the most severe injuries. It was bad. He could help her if only these bastards would stop attacking them. He drags her behind some cover, not ideal, but it was better than having her get shot again. "What the hell happened to you..." He ran scans on her injuries and most people would likely give up on her in a situation like this. But he wasn't most people.

More attackers force their way into Sickbay. Kaol continues to return fire, more and more aggravated that time is being wasted on this nonsense rather than treating critical injuries of his patient. Where was that damned CMO with her bat'leth?

Nancy had been wrist deep in a Errein's gut when the trouble hit, but it was clear Mr. Best-Damn-Surgeon-in-the Quadrant was going to get himself shot, so she quickly excised the shattered spleen. "Patch it and close," she ordered the assisting nurse, and stepped away. "We've got trouble."

Barely pausing to wipe the blood form her hands, she drew a vial from a pocket. "Get back!" The medics who knew her grabbed any patients and pulled them away. If that allowed a few more boarders into the door, their advantage was brief. Barely pausing, Nancy threw the vial at the door and fired. At the touch of the disruptor beam, the vial exploded in a ball of fire, head-level to the boarders, who screamed and clawed at oily strands of fire lashing their faces and eyes. ~Thank you, Burnie~ She thought as she began putting them out of their misery with her disruptor and switching to bat'leth as the less damaged survivors rushed her.

"Seal the door," Gable snapped, spinning to slice the weapon hand from a boarder and then cutting upward to remove his head.

Kaol looked at Gable in wide eyed shock. "Well, now I suppose we don't need to triage the bad guys... thank you, Doctor. Now I can focus my attention on trying to save this woman's arm. Keep that bat'leth away from her."

"You're welcome," Nancy replied tersely. She bent to look at the arm, and shook her head. "My bat'leth might be the best solution there. It would let you treat the abdominal and hip injuries, not to mention treat other critical patients," she gestured to the triage line. "Doctor."

Kaol shook his head, "This is a young woman with her entire life ahead of her. Yes, we have good prosthetics but I would be remiss if I didn't try to save her arm. She deserves quality treatment. Let me at least try to stablize her wound. If you were on the table, I know you'd want your doctor to do the same."

Seira stirred at discussion taking place over her; her half-open eyes unfocused and flicking back between Kaol and Gable. Exactly how much if any of what was being said she truly heard or understood was uncertain; her mouth moved as if to say something, but didn't manage to actually do so; settling back into the expression of shock, pain, and fear she had worn in all her somewhat conscious moments since her arrival.

Gable sighed inwardly. She really wished they had the luxury of trying to save that arm, but the equation was one arm vs several lives. How did this doctor not know that? Had he never seen a mass casualty incident? "Everyone deserves quality treatment - including the patients waiting. We're not at the Imperial Medical Center, we're on a ship under attack. Stabilize the arm wound, but then treat her other wounds and move on."

Following her own orders, Gable proceeded to do just that, heading for the most critical triage group - what would have been called 'red' on earth, but among green-blooded Romulans was typically termed 'green' - and signaled the orderlies to move him to a table.

A nearby nurse slid into the spot Gable had vacated, not waiting before he began prepping Kaol's patient for surgery, slicing off what he could of the remains of her uniform and setting up for a transfusion to counter what by now was likely significant blood loss, followed by whatever could be done to slow anything further: A frown at the massive internal bleeding depicted on the scans from the abdominal injuries - he wasn't entirely certain the Doctor shouldn't give up on this one with readings like that - then a small device slapped onto the sublieutenant's right shoulder, which would signal any blood vessels in the area to constrict at that point, at least slowing any further blood loss from the arm. That the nurse knew with a glance at the readings in question couldn't be saved; at least not in any form that would have any use besides as a cause of constant pain. Perhaps in a Federation medical center, with their somewhat superior medical technology. But even then, the nurse doubted it. A strangled gasp from the patient in question that made the nurse realize abruptly she was still awake had him prepping an injection of anesthetic; but at this, finally, he looked at Kaol for orders before making any move to apply it - in a patient in this fragile a state, he wanted to make sure the doctor was prepared to begin working immediately; to minimize the dose necessary. "Doctor?"

Kaol looked at the woman in front of him and then at the readings. Gable was right, they were in a combat situation, there will be countless others coming through those doors... each with wounds equal to or more severe than what he sees in front of him right now. But he was a doctor, his first duty was to his patient: the one in front of him in the here and now. Not the hypothetical ones. And he sure as hell is not responsible for the security of sickbay. The readings didn't look good, even in an ideal situation back on Romulus, this would be a difficult case. He knelt down to be eye level with his patient... someone whose name he doesn't even know, "I'm Dr Kaol Ralaa. I'm going to be taking care of you now. I won't lie to you. You're very seriously injured and I may not be able save your arm. But I'm doing to try my best. Okay?" He really wasn't expecting a response, but if she did hear him and understood him, it would make a difference.

He stood up and looked at the nurse, "Let's get started before anything else happens. We're going to stabilize her internal injuries and do everything we can to save her arm. We may not have a lot of time, let's make all of it count." He extended his hand, "Scalpel." When the nurse handed him the implement, nothing else in the universe mattered. Kaol's focus was on his patient. The entire sickbay could be imploding and he wouldn't even notice. The patient deserves his entire attention. A small voice in the back of his head did note that he was glad that his CMO seemed to be fairly proficient at that bat'leth....

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On the bridge, the surviving officers had cleared away as much of the chaos left by the brief firefight as possible, and Lieutenant Borex had taken residence in the Commander's chair. "Sir, sickbay and engineering both report that all boarders have been eliminated, and it appears we are not being pursued," the security coordinator reported. Borex let out a sigh of relief. With the medical transport limping away from the scene of the battle, its new Commander switched the viewer to view the carnage they were leaving behind. It appeared their attackers had completed their work, and, one by one, were scuttling the ships of the flotilla, as the big transport ship and most of the Birds-of-Prey jumped to warp. The medical transport had been the only ship to escape.

With a grim expression on his face, Borex switched back to navigational view. "I want damage and casualty reports within the hour. Get us as far away from here as we can go, without draining what power we have left." The lieutenant stood. "I will be in the Commander's office. Maybe he had something on file that might help us."

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The Vulture smiled to herself. As planned, the smallest ship of the flotilla had slipped away. The harvest had been quite bountiful, though - her masters would be pleased.

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