Pick Yourself Up

Posted on 20 Aug 2016 @ 8:16am by Commander Jayla Kij & Master Chief Petty Officer Anya Bergman Ph.D.
Edited on on 20 Aug 2016 @ 8:18am

1,243 words; about a 6 minute read

Mission: Click Three Times
Location: Sick Bay
Timeline: MD 6 : 1345

Very slowly, Jayla's eyes opened and she took a breath, only to wince. One hand went immediately to her rib cage and prodded softly. She found two cracked ribs, but nothing broken all the way through. Well, that was something. She remembered hitting her head- again!- and then nothing. She blinked, trying to make her eyes work and then realized that the problem wasn't her eyes. The problem was that there we no lights save the blinking red of the red alert.

Carefully, she sat up and looked around. Everyone was out, it seemed. She managed to crawl a couple of steps to the person nearest her- she couldn't tell who it was- and reached for her tricorder. Thankfully it still worked. She started scanning whoever it was to see how they were before attempting to wake them.

Peeta awoke not to far from Jayla. He sat up groggily. "Alright Doc?" He shouted to her. "What happened?" He asked.

Jayla shook her head. "No idea," she said. "Either we won royally or we lost royally. Your guess is as good as mine."

Erin cradling and arm approached doctor Kij. "where do you need me?"

Jayla glanced up and could just barely make out Doctor Dodson cradling her arm. "I need you to get that arm looked at first," she said. "Harrison, check Dodson's arm. Once it's in good shape, both of you start checking on people. Tricorders seem to be working, so hopefully other equipment will as well.

Peeta walked over to Dodson and scanned her arm with his tricorder. "Looks like a small hairline fracture." He said, fixing the arm and giving the Doctor a hypospray for the pain. "How's that feeling?" He asked, smiling.

T'Lura slowly opened her eyes, and tried to ascertain her current location. She was not in her quarters - there was no viewport, and no sign of the Vol'Shiar incense she used to scent the room. There was a faint intermittent red glow - she recognized the ship's red alert lights. She could make out the contours of various objects -

Biobeds. So she was in Sickbay. But why was she on the floor?

She remembered now. There was the threat of a Romulan vessel about to fire a deadly radiation weapon at them. Then something like an explosion, and they were thrown around the room like rag dolls. She tried to determine her own condition. She could feel no major injuries. Bruises and contusions, certainly. But there did not seem to be any broken bones.

She heard voices at the far end of the room. Next to the biobed was a small dispensory. She reached in, and grabbed a tricorder, and a palm beacon. She activated the beacon, which gave them a bit more light, and walked over.

"Is anyone hurt?" she asked.

"T'Lura?" Jayla guessed from the calm, matter-of-fact sort of voice nearby. "I think a lot of people are. I don't seem to be any worse than I was before. Still, I suppose it wouldn't be a bad idea for you to give me a quick scan."

The figure she was was checking over stirred slightly and muttered something that Jayla couldn't understand, but that gave her an idea of who it was. "Nurse Lane?" she said. "Penny, are you okay?"

"I think so," gasped Nurse Lane. "M'head hurts. Otherwise, I'm okay. I think."

"Seems like it," Jayla told her, checking the scan results. "A bit of shock. I imagine all of us have that. Just lie still for a bit, okay?"

"Okay," said Lane weakly.

Jayla turned back to T'Lura. "All right," she said. "Give me a once over, just in case"

Deborah was throughly tired of being bounced off various parts of Sickbay: bulkheads, biobeds, desks, the floor. She was tired of reaching for the safety of a handle or immovable object only to watch it sail by out of reach. As far as she could tell she still had two of everything but she just ached. Her fingers reached to activate the biobed monitor for her current patient but the screen remained stubbornly black.

"Oh well. Let's do this the old fashioned way then," she said to no-one in particular. Deborah unholstered her tricorder and pointed it towards herself. The device burbled approvingly at her. She was now free to focus on the others.

T'Lura flipped open her tricorder, and scanned the ship's Chief Medical Officer. "You are still suffering from the effects of the concussion, but there are signs of improvement since your last scan. The effects are mild now, and you are responding well to the medication. There are a few bruises, but no major injuries," she concluded, putting away the device.

"You mean I haven't got any cracked ribs?" she asked, part relieved and part concerned. "I could have sworn a couple of them were cracked." Her hand went to her side again and she prodded gently, but sure enough, all ribs were fine. "Hm," she said. "Well, then... Let's start checking on people. Check the ones who were already here first. Um..." Her brain had decided to stop working. "What else is there?" she asked no one in particular.

Someone pried the doors open. T'Lura ran to them, and collected Lt. Di Pasquale from the arms of Commander Bast. She fetched the nearest doctor, who turned out to be Abrams, and let the tall man examine the Security Chief while she moved on to the other patients.

But first, she thought, they could use a bit more light. She collected palm beacons from storage, and turned them on, placing them around the room. They finally had a bit of light to work with, and could at least walk around without bumping into debris - or each other.

"Thanks, T'Lura," said Jayla, finally pulling herself off the floor. She put out a hand to grip the wall as the room spun slightly, but then everything settled down again. "Okay," she said. "Let's check these patients. The ones who were here first, then the Medical Personnel. Abrams, T'Lura, Lane and I will stay here to deal with those who are able to make it here. The rest of you grab medkits and get to the other decks any way you can and seek out anyone who needs help."

T'Lura surveyed the biobeds, walking over to each patient with her tricorder and performing in-depth scans. With the Sickbay computer off-line, they had no access to the previous scans and complete patient charts, so she started building new ones, stored in data PaDDs that she placed at the foot of each bed. She knew that it was only a matter of time before more wounded came through the door, and it was only logical that they try to clear as many biobeds as possible.

Ensign Kellogg had been brought in with a broken tib-fib following the previous night's shakeup. The leg had been braced until it could be treated. She pulled a bone fusion generator from the storage compartment, fixed the leg, gave the patient a hypo for the pain, and brought the data padd with the patient's chart to Doctor Kij for discharge.

Walking over next to Lieutenant Mills's bedside, she carried a dermal regenerator to fix the forehead laceration the man had suffered, and again flagged him for discharge.

And just in time, as two Security officers walked through the open Sickbay doors, carrying injured crewmembers.

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