When Darkness Falls
Posted on Wed Mar 16th, 2022 @ 8:43pm by Commander Martin Sorenson
Mission:
Between Realities
Location: USS Vesta, Medbay
1571 words - 3.1 OF Standard Post Measure
"Ten cc's terakine." Sorenson held out a hand and, trusting that the hypo that would be dropped into it would contain exactly what he'd ordered, briefly scanned across medbay to the incoming wounded. "Frax, get the head wound! M'ris, check that crewman for shock," he called while applying the hypo that had slapped into his hand.
As soon as the drug took effect, he set to repairing the fractured patella - tricky but a condition he'd treated often enough following sudden jolts to a ship that his hands worked almost automatically, letting him spare peripheral awareness for the situation around him. Medbay was busy but, so far, the injuries were non-critical: sprains, breaks, lacerations, burns. The worst they’d had to deal with were the concussion plus shock and burns cases that Martin privately thought of as standing-near-exploding-panel syndrome. Those could be serious but there wasn’t a medic in Starfleet that didn’t have the drill for assessment and stabilization down to near reflex before being assigned to shipboard duty. Still, after the second jolt from what he assumed had been Tholian weapons fire, the doctor couldn’t help but wish Calley was still fit for duty; the former corpsman navigated her place in this kind of casualty flow with an ease that most of his staff had yet to develop.
Leaving a PA to close the knee, he moved on, checking the triage line in a practiced pass that had become second nature well before he’d joined Starfleet. But no matter how adept you became at compartmentalizing, seeing people bleeding, burnt, and/or cradling broken limbs got to you on some level, in this case, one the doctor recognized as his own frustration rising at not being able to treat each one immediately.
=/\= Medbay, prepare for casualties =/\=
As if we haven't already been receiving them, Martin thought, stopping to apply a burn patch to a crewman's arm. "Acknowledged," he called back to the page, then looked again around his medbay - everyone was busy, either with crew injured during the last hits from the Tholian ships or ready to receive more. What he didn't see yet were members of the away team or the medical team he'd sent to the shuttle bay, but it sounded like he was not going to have time to go check himself. "You heard it, everyone, prep for more. And somebody get me word on that away team."
“Yes, doctor.” Marix paused her task of recording incoming personnel to find a quieter space to comm. She’d barely taken two steps away from the entrance when an anti-grav pallet carrying an unconscious tech came crashing through the door. “Help!” the crewman guiding the makeshift gurney yelled.
Martin was running the instant he spotted them, coming up alongside and visually assessing the man even as he ran the medscanner – scorches marked evidence of another exploding panel case, but the effects of that were secondary to the real issue evidenced by the pool of blood forming under a puncture wound in the upper abdomen.
“He went over the rail and came down on his ODN recoupler,” the other man explained anxiously.
And you pulled it out so he could bleed more?! Martin bit back the harsh comment. “Go, we’ve got this,” he snapped, and turned to trying to ensure that wasn’t a lie. “Ahmed, pack the wound. Ziks, prep him for surgery – 10cc’s morathial and start a unit of whole blood.”
The doctor practically threw himself through the sterilizing field, hurrying back even as orderlies lifted the patient from the pallet and –
WHUMP!
The ship lurched like a sailboat slammed by a tsunami. Caught mid-stride, Martin came down hard with a sharp pain shooting through his ankle. Son of a… He sucked air through his teeth, then pushed up only to have another spike of pain inform him that the ankle was no longer weight bearing. The thought was cut short by awareness that other people and medical supplies were crashing down everywhere. His eyes cut to the man he’d been trying to reach, now prone on the floor with Nurse Ahmed kneeling over him applying pressure to contain renewed bleeding as the deck pitched beneath her.
“Dammit, someone get blood into him,” the doctor yelled, crawling toward them.
Ziks started to rise. “Doctor? Are you –“
He cut the inquiry off with an abrupt wave. “Get the surgical frame set up on the floor. Better while…” he braced as the deck bucked again, “…THIS is going on.”
The nurse tipped an eyebrow, but understood the priority and quickly set to work re-sterilizing and attaching the IV before getting the surgical support frame in place over the patient. She waited for Sorenson to settle himself beside the frame, and noting the way he sat leaning on a hip to allow one foot to extend, mouthed 'Ice' at one of the orderlies, briefing jerking her head toward where to apply it. One crisis at a time, and right now a surgeon hiding an injured ankle came at the end of the list, but there was no reason to have to leave it to the point of having to cut his boot off later.
The doctor was too focused to even notice when the bag was laid over his boot. Punctured liver – that was bad in the best of circumstances, and surgery on the floor with every bit of equipment not tied down rattling as the ship heaved from ...whatever the frak was going on out there... would not help matters in the slightest, but doing nothing would be a death sentence. “Suction,” he said as he began applying micro-forcescreens as quickly as possible to isolate and seal off the worst of the bleeding so he had a clear field to begin repair. “Activating protoplaser. Keep an eye on his vitals, and make sure this frame is locked down.”
“Magnetic lock active,” Ziks affirmed. “BP 90 over 54, heart rate 66.”
Martin took a steadying breath, trying find some rhythm to compensate for the ship’s rocking as he began the delicate work of tapping small sections of forcescreen, signaling for it to be dropped or pulled back so he could apply a protoplaser to exposed tissue.
BAM!
The ship rocked violently, slamming Martin into the surgical frame. He pushed back, then swallowed hard in horror at the thought of what he might have hit in the split second before reflexively releasing the activation trigger on the protoplaser. But before he could even look properly the frame shut off, along with the lights.
Frak! “Get the back-ups on! Now!” the CMO yelled, scrambling to pull the frame off and try to staunch the wound manually.
"He's seizing!"
“10cc paralone - now!"
Emergency lights and power kicked in, but they were little help beyond illuminating the spill of blood soaking the leg of Martin’s scrubs. And vital signs falling to nothing.
“No! Dammit!” the doctor grabbed the hand protoplaser – there was no time to reset the surgical frame. “Push a unit of blood, 5 cc’s cordrazine, and start neurostimulation -"
"...Doctor." A hand fell on his shoulder, gently pulling him away. "Doctor, he's gone."
Martin looked up into Ziks' eyes read the grim sympathy in her expression. A glance at the monitor showed pulse, BP, respiration, brain waves - all flat. We should have been able to save him, if only... He closed his eyes, momentarily squeezing them tight, but with the immediacy of the emergency past, awareness of the rest of medbay rushed in. The scurry of people trying to set things to rights, to sort, treat, or just stabilize patients - including some medbay staff now - as well as a stream of casualties coming in. After that turbulent ride, there'd be more in critical condition. 'Ifs' and regrets would have to wait. He reached across and closed the man's eyes. "Mark time of death."
Sliding over to the biobed, he grabbed a rail. "Contact the teams in engineering and the hangar, and find out if they need support," he said hoisting himself up, only to immediately feel arms wrap from either side to assist. "It's only an ankle," he chided, possibly with a bit more annoyance than was warranted. "There are certainly people scattered around the ship with worse. Start putting together search teams - whoever we can spare."
Nurse Ahmed nodded and headed into main medbay to carry out his orders. Ziks however didn't budge, other than to lift a brow at him. "Speaking of people we can spare, you are not one of them," she noted pointedly. "Get on the bed so I can fix that ankle."
He nearly started to object, but Ziks was right. Still... He lifted brows back at her. "Are you giving me an order, Lieutenant?"
"Yes, sir, I believe I am," she responded. There was almost a hint of thin smile. She'd been a Starfleet nurse long enough to know an injured Commander, even a CMO, was a patient, and that meant she got to tell them to submit to treatment.
Martin knew it too, and in the odd ping-pong of emotions that came with emergencies, nearly laughed despite himself. "Okay, pulling rank. Just wanted to be clear." He obediently pushed himself onto the bed and swung his leg up. "Make it fast."
