Scoop and Run

Posted on 18 Nov 2019 @ 5:15pm by Senior Chief Petty Officer Alexander Rylan & Lieutenant Lucas Abrams M.D. & Lieutenant JG Kemm & Lieutenant JG Shay Mitchell

2,296 words; about a 11 minute read

Mission: Truth and Justice
Location: Deck Six
Timeline: MD15 || 1805 hours

Alex let Kemm push the anti-grav stretcher as he made his way down the corridor. He had one of the disc pistols, but was carrying his phaser in his hand, set to stun. He'd discovered the shock treatment would work on the slugs even if the host was unconscious, because he had stunned two hosts and Kemm had shot them with his disc pistol. As they walked, Alex counted off Jeffries tube access hatches until he came to where he'd hidden Shay.

"Okay, Lieutenant," he said. "One of us has to open that access hatch, and the other has to shoot Lieutenant Mitchell with the disc. I already shot her with a phaser, so she's probably going to be pissed at me anyway. If you want me to shoot her this time, too, I'll do it. But that puts you within arms reach. She should be unconscious and the paralytic shouldn't have worn off yet, but..."

The Kelpian was nervous, something easily indicated by the ganglia fully extended from the back of his neck. He stood at the ready just in front of the closed hatch with his disc shooter pointed straight ahead. "All right, Chief," he said slowly and cautiously. "On your cue."

Alex took a deep breath and let it out. He put one hand on the hatch and held the other in the air in a fist. He extended his thumb, then his index finger, then his middle finger. Nodding at Kemm, at the same time Alex grabbed the hatch with the other hand as well and yanked it open, stepping back as he did and drawing his phaser in case Kemm missed.

As soon as Alex was clear, Kemm fired his disc shooter. He hadn't waited to see if the tube was empty, or where his target was. He had just simply hoped that Ensign Mitchell was still there unconscious.

An unconscious Shay was where Alex left her, taking the disc to her chest. Between being stunned, and being given a paralytic, about the only reaction her body gave to indicate the electrical shock was her back arching. The parasite that was once in control of her body couldn't handle the shock, though, and was now lying next to her.

"That..." remarked Kemm, his ganglia slipping back inside his skull. "That was easier than I thought it would be." He then moved to holster the disc shooter and help pull the freed security officer out of the tube.

Alex stomped on the slug, squishing it, and then helped Kemm with Shay. Once Shay was free of the tube, Alex scanned her with his medical tricorder. "She's doing well," he said. "Now we have to wake her up." Alex took out a hypospray and two ampules. He loaded one, set it to the appropriate dosage and pressed the spray to her neck. "That should counteract the paralytic," he said. He removed the first ampule from the hypo spray and put it away, then loaded the second. Again he set the hypo to the appropriate dose and pressed it against her neck. "And that should somewhat gently counteract the sedative... well... as gently as I can manage, given the time constraints we're under." Alex pulled out his tricorder and scanned Shay again. "Looks like it's working."

As the medications began to do their thing, Shay's eyes began to move behind her eyelids. Her mind was clouded in a fog as she slowly opened them, first looking to Kemm, then looking to Alex. She looked quite confused and attempted to sit up rather slowly, and with a little trouble. "What... happened?"

Alex slowly helped Shay sit up. "Easy there, Ensign," he said. Once she was sitting up, Alex carefully helped her scoot back so she could rest against the bulkhead. "There's perfectly good explanation for all this, and I promise you that someone will fill you in on the whole thing. Just not now. All you need to know now is that something got control of you. It made you do things against your will and you're not responsible for anything you did while under its control. Kemm and I freed you and killed the thing that was controlling you." Alex unscrewed the cap of a small canteen he'd brought with him and handed it to Shay, making sure she had a good grip before he let go. "Go on," he said. "Drink. Hydrating will help clear your head."

Shay accepted the canteen from Alex and began to sip from it. It didn't take long before everything started to come back to her from the moment those things had taken control of the away team, up until her encounter with Alex, which was the last thing that happened to her before she was waking up now. It was one memory in particular that stood out. One that caused her to go pale. "The doctor that was with you... is he...?" She couldn't even bring herself to finish that question.

"Doctor?" Kemm asked, looking slightly confused. "That's right. Senior Chief, when we first met in the corridor, you mentioned you had an associate. You stashed him in a Jefferies Tube as well, yes?"

Alex nodded. "Doctor Abrams was injured," he said. "Traumatic amputation of an arm. He passed out and I had to hide him in Jeffreries tube down the corridor a bit. That's what the Anti-Grav stretcher is for." Alex looked Shay in the eyes. "It wasn't your fault Ensign. You weren't in control. You're going have to come to terms with that, but you're going to have to do it later. We need to go and get Doctor Abrams, RFN. You good to go?"

Kemm's ganglia extended once again as he heard footsteps down the corridor. "We need to get going," he said, tightening the grip on his weapon.

Was she good to go? Absolutely not. Guilt was eating away at her, but she'd have to deal with that later. Right now, she needed to focus her attention elsewhere. "What do you need me to do?"

Alex almost handed her his phaser, but decided she might not be ready for that. Instead, he handed her his disc gun. "Cover our backs," he said. "This is absolutely non-lethal. It's a noticeable electric shock, but it only hurts the slugs. So if you have to shoot someone with it, it won't do them any harm. So you can go ahead and shoot first and ask questions later." Alex quickly showed her how the weapon worked. Then he smiled gently. "Just try not to shoot me in the ass, okay?"

Shay accepted the new weapon from Alex and quickly looked it over as she listened to his instructions on how to use it. She noticed her tactical belt was missing, but couldn't blame him for taking it, and her phaser, from her. With everything she had on it, she'd have been able to cause some serious damage to the ship and her crew. "Got it. Don't shoot you in the ass," she said, trying to lighten her own mood, though, it wasn't exactly working. The young woman would need a lot of therapy after this. "I've got your backs. Do what you need to, and I'll be close behind."

Alex nodded and the trio made their way through the corridors towards the Jefferies Tube he'd stashed Abrams in. They made it to the tube and Alex parked the stretcher near the hatch. He opened the hatch and saw a semi conscious Lucas Abrams. He quickly scanned the wounded surgeon and then just as quickly gave him another dose of painkillers. "Ensign," he said to Shay. "Can you cover the Lieutenant and me while we maneuver Doctor Abrams out of the tube and onto the stretcher. Hey!" He said when he saw a look in Shay's eyes that he knew all too well. "Not your fault, and not the time. He's alive, and he's going to be fine." Alex made a point of drawing his phaser, turning it around butt first and handing it deliberately to Shay. "In case the disc pistol isn't enough." Hopefully the message was clear. Alex trusted Shay enough that he was handing her an actual weapon, one that could incapacitate him or kill him. Then he turned his back to her and got to work. In other words, despite what she'd done, he trusted her.

Shay took the phaser and averted her gaze from Lucas. Seeing the big man in her current state was enough to make her want to turn the phaser on herself, but she somehow found the inner strength to keep from doing that. She made sure the weapon was set to stun only, then turned her attention to the corridor around them. No one would be hurting anyone else as long as their was breath in her body. "I'm okay," she lied. "Just get the doc, and get him back to sickbay as quickly as you possibly can."

As the Kelpien began to help the Senior Chief, two officers in blue came around the corner. One of them, the ensign, was armed with a phaser. "What's going on here?" she asked, raising her phaser at the group. "Why are you bothering with the dead?" she then asked Mitchell, knowing she was one of their kind.

"Dead? You must be seeing something I'm missing," Shay said as she brought the disc shooter forward. She was thankful to be back in control of herself, but knew there would still be plenty of demons to battle once this was all over. There was no hesitation in her movements, either. Once the new weapon she held was leveled at the officer holding the phaser, she fired, watching a disc land on the Ensign's torso.

The ensign convulsed and fell on the floor, continuing to act as if she had a seizure. The ensign's companion, a lieutenant, growled and charged at Shay. "Traitor!" he shouted, the fury in his eyes hinting he would rip that weapon from her hand.

Shay fired a second disc at the charging man. She was once a traitor, but not any longer. Now, she was fighting for the good guys again, and felt obligated to make sure the ship was cleared of every last one of them. Something, the young woman was sure all the others who were once infected would be doing also. "Get the doctor back to sickbay and do what you can to fix him... if you can fix him," she said, unable to hide the guilt she felt. "I'm going to make sure these two are okay, then clear work on clearing this deck and move to others. I know where they were ordered to go."

The ensign in blue had stopped convulsing by now, and was struggling to get up. She couldn't help but notice that the lieutenant beside her was shaking uncontrollably as something was slithering out of his ear. Pain aside, a surge of adrenaline brought the ensign to her feet and the heel of her boot on top of the Dolmoqour, shouting on each successive stomp, "That's! For! Taking! Over! Our! Bodies!"

From years of practice, Alex pretty much kept everything other than Lucas on the periphery of his focus. If something jumped off he'd need to deal with, he'd notice. Otherwise, he had to trust that Mitchell could handle things. He injected Lucas' stump with an anesthetic and hooked him up to the anti-grav stretcher's life support functions. "Doctor Abrams? Can you hear me? It's Alex Rylan. I came back for you just like I said I would. Now I'm going to take you back to Sickbay and get you sorted."

Lucas could only nod his head. It wasn't that he couldn't speak, he just didn't want to for fear that he might scream from the pain if he left his current happy place. The large man was quite pale, and his breathing was a bit labored, but he was definitely alive. Something he'd have to thank Alex for once all of this was over.

Once the others were taken care of, Shay moved over to Lucas and took his hand into hers. "I'm so sorry for what I did to you," she said quietly, fighting tears back.

The big man on the anti-grav cart still didn't want to speak, but he gave Shay's hand a gentle squeeze in an effort to let her know he was okay. He'd speak with her in the future, however, now wasn't the time for that. He needed medical attention and fast.

Shay returned the squeeze and let the doctor's hand go, then gave Alex a nod. "I'll stop by and check in with you when this is all over," she said. Instead of waiting for a reply, the young woman checked the phaser and disc shooter, then made her way down the corridor feeling like she was ready for anything.

After Shay was gone, Alex looked over at Kemm. "Well, Lieutenant," he said. "You're the only one with a weapon and I've got to monitor Doctor Abrams. Looks like you get to take point as we meander back to Sickbay... but a fairly quick meander, please, sir. I've stabilized the doctor, but he could do with a visit to Sickbay."

Kemm nodded to the Corpsman, but the Captain's final orders still echoed in his mind. "You!" he called to the ensign as the Kelpian stood behind the cart. "Go with Mitchell. Don't let her out of your sight." The ensign nodded and ran off after Mitchell. Then, to the recovering lieutenant in blue, Kemm handed him both his phaser and disc shooter. "Cover us on the way to sickbay. We still don't know friend from foe. Mister Rylan, let's get moving."

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