Calamity upon calamity

Posted on Mon Nov 20th, 2017 @ 12:20am by Commander Bertrand Cuprum & Captain Elijah Michaels & Lieutenant Hel Samedi & Lieutenant Sara'draphia T'eseri & Lieutenant Valeria Mordin & Lieutenant JG Sarah Honeycutt

Mission: When the Sinful strike back
Location: Fearless Engineering

The small engineering department onboard the USS Fearless was pandemonium. Lights were flickering, sparks were emitting from several consoles and panels, the ship's warp core was offline. There was fire in one corner of the small-but-packed space, flames lashing out of a breach in the wall, with sharp debris spread out.

The ship's already small engineering complement was now just two people left able to perform at any capacity; one of them at one of the few remaining functioning consoles, working frantically to keep things from escalating, the other fighting the fire. "Chief Petty Officer Bob Ainsley." the one at the console spoke up as the group entered the small engineering bay. "Please tell me you got my message." He asked. "I can't leave this console and Crewman Halsey is working on the fire. The Lieutenant is over there."

He motioned in the general direction of the breach in the wall, where the remaining two were lying on the floor. One rend asunder and missing an arm and part of his leg, blood spattered everywhere around him. Next to him, Lieutenant Samedi, with blackened face and chest, a piece of debris sticking into her gut, uniform torn and scorched, bleeding profusely. She was twitching and gasping for air.

"I received most of your message. We have medical on the way. Vickers knew a few unconventional shortcuts so we potentially beat them here. Primary is down, Weapons out, outward comms out, shields down. Navigation down, life support holding. Fill me in on the rest." Valeria commented before heading over towards Hel and her companion. "Continue with your operations, I won't hinder or redirect." focusing on the task around them helped keep Valeria cool and focused. The sight before her was too terrible to bear.

With an emergency kit at the ready, the Ts'usugi started to give her best to stabilize Hel. "I'm here." she said, softly. Rather than the cool, professional tone she used with others, this one was softer. Gentler. Reserved for Hel, perhaps. Standard emergency medical training kicked in, though it'd be rough. DO NOT REMOVE THAT PIECE OF DEBRIS was flashing in her mind like a warning sign. Handle the bleeding first. Step by step.

"The fire is spreading, I can't contain it!" yelled Halsey. "You, Lieutenant, can you give me a hand?" he asked Vickers.

Hel gasped for air and coughed up some blood, wincing, twitching, unable to focus her eyes. Though when Val started trying to stabilize her she seemed to search for the Ts'usugi's eyes for a moment.

"How are Sokolov and Samedi?" asked Ainsley. "I just - got knocked down by the blast, saw blood spatter, there's an arm over here. Please tell me they're still alive."

"Sokolov is non-responsive." Valeria said after confirming such. "Samedi, needs a more trained hand that I, but I can hold her until help arrives."

The rabbitess then turned her full attention to Samedi, and brought her face a little closer so that Hel could focus a little better, "I'm here." she said softly, wiping the coughed blood off the pale woman's chin. "Your engineers are performing well. More help is on the way." she assured.

Hel didn't quite seem to comprehend what Val was telling her, but the tone of voice seemed to help, as her eyes focused on the Ts'usugi's. A trembling hand raised and she coughed, spitting out some blood, any attempt at words were mere gurgles, though her hand reached for Sokolov, lying next to her.

Valeria chanced a look over her shoulder towards the chaos of Engineering. Did she even have the right to be here, with as close as she felt to Hel? Would her decisions even be considered fair?

No, but if she could save ONE life, why not make it a life she held in slightly higher regard.

"Medic!" she called out, a rare time of raising her voice. She turned her attention back to Hel, bringing a thumb up to wipe away the blood from around her mouth. "You stay with me." she said, giving Hel's hand a tighter squeeze before going back to that emergency medical kit to bring a tricoder to bear to find the extent of her injuries. There was internal damage, no need for a tricorder for that.

Hurrying into the room, Sarah quickly sized up the situation and moved over to Valeria, "you called for a medic? I'm lieutenant Honeycutt, medical officer. What can you tell me" she asked, pulling out her medical tricorder and beginning her scans.

Valeria motioned to Sokolov, "He's critically injured, and beyond my capacity to stall..." then motioned to Hel, "She's seriously injured. I've done what I can to control blood loss. Internal damage."

"The fire is out!" called Halsey. "What can I do?" he asked.

"Run to the bridge. They need to be updated. I'm doing my best to keep life support going, should be fine. Nothing more I can do. Sokolov is gone. Samedi is critically wounded. Go!" Ainsley told the junior engineer.

One of the Medics, a Warrant Officer then looked over at a Cosnole. "Is that console meant to be flashing?"

"That's not your concern Warrent Officer, tend to the injured" Sarah said, getting to work on Samedi.

Valeria wanted to get up, to go about, to fix things. She wanted to feel useful BUT at the moment, sitting here with Samedi she felt like she was Hel's tether to this world. She trusted Hel's engineers to do their task, and Ainsley seemed the more responsible of her fellow crew.

This mission was a mistake from the start, but it wasn't in her to tell the powers that be that fighting a war is never the right course.

Hel more or less stabilized, breathing came a little bit easier though still ragged. A dermal regenerator stemmed the bleeding for now, but there was still debris lodged inside her, still lots of internal damage.

"Lieutenant! You, erm, " he snapped his fingers. Had Valeria given him her name? He couldn't remember. "Ears!" that'll do. He'd apologize later if he had to. "Over here. Need your help."

Her own lengthy ears gave a twitch as they were singled out. He had to mean her. No one else had distinctive features that could quite be summarized. "I have to help someone else. I'll be back for you." she said as she gave Hel's hand a soft squeeze. "Be here when I return." she said softly before she went over to Ainsley. "Yes?"

"See this flow reading? Keep this at around six-point-three, six-point four. Use this to adjust up. Use this to adjust down." he pointed out controls. "Above six-point-seven, core destabilizes, ship explodes. Below six-point-oh, containment fails, ship explodes." He glanced at Valeria to see that look of comprehension that told him she understood. "I'm going to see if I can manually trigger the core to eject, right now that thing is just a liability."

She watched and listened, those ears clearly not for show nor those eyes just pretty little placeholders. "Understood, six point three to six point four." and her hand hovered over the adjustment controls. "Go. I have this under control." In a loose sense, yes. She knew what she needed to do.

With that Ainsley jogged off to a bulkhead nearby, wrenching it down and crawling into the exposed guts of the ship. Soon enough only two legs were still poking out of the wall, and a muffled muttering and light cursing could be heard.

"Alright let's get the wounded to Sickbay, we will have to do it manually but it shouldn't take long." The Medical Warrant Officer said signalling to the Medical Team.

The wounded were evacuated, being Hel more than anyone. It was too late for poor Sokolov, who had bled out in the meantime. Such was the nature of triage, you save who you can.

Muttering continued to come from inside the wall, becoming louder when a console bleeped. "Ears! What's that bleeping!" came Ainsley's muffled voice.

"Navigational pulses, quick succession. Possibly an old style blind navigational tactic." she reported, her eyes never leaving her station. "Drain on our systems is minimal per ping. As long as they don't abuse it, we'll be fine."

"Huh. Navigation by sonar. Not bad." replied Ainsley, as he evacuated from the wall again, hopping up and over to a nearby cut cable and touching the ends together. There was a rain of sparks and an 'eep' Ainsley would deny ever emitting, as the core ejected and the console Mordin was manning read out a flow rate of zero.

"Flow rate zero. Successful core ejection." Valeria reported, turning to Ainsley for a moment, "Well done." she didn't mention the 'eeep'.

Ainsley heaved a sigh, leaning against a bulkhead, closing his eyes and rubbing his temples for a moment. "Glad that's - "

That's when various alarms rang and a console bleeped alarmingly. Ainsley didn't even have the time to properly head over and check the readings before more alarms rang and the ship rocked and shuddered. "Those madmen! Those brilliant madmen!" he called out, steadying himself. "On the one hand we're making billy bigsteps away from anything that wants to murder us. On the other hand, that stunt killed our reserves. Get into an EVA suit, Lieutenant. Nothing for us left here and the aft of the ship is filling with rads while venting atmo."

Terran expressions were so... expressive. "I'll ask for clarification later. Where are the emergency EVA suits stored?" Valeria inquired while making a quick assessment of Engineering, making sure that others were in the process of preparing for evacuation.

Ainsley popped open a locker and handed one EVA suit to Valeria. It would be an uncomfortable fit, but less so than breathing vacuum while getting cooked from the inside. "Best I figure is we got three minutes to make it off this deck before automatic doors seal us in." Ainsley offered, climbing into a suit of his own.

He wasn't kidding, it was uncomfortable. She had to hold her ears back and down to put the helmet on to allow it to form a satisfactory seal. It was a tight fit (in more places than just the head) but it sure did beat breathing vacuum. "Let's make sure everyone gets out." Valeria mentioned, "You know the Engineering roster better than I do. How many heads should we be counting for?"

"It's just us two now. Sokolov is gone, Samedi was carted off, Halsey is to the best of my knowledge on the bridge already. Come, this way." he offered, leading Mordin to the bridge on a steady jog.

Valeria gave a nod, then proceeded to follow him. Leaving the empty and cold Engineering room felt wrong, even to her. Not in some deep seated sense to never abandon a post. No sir, that post was dead. Just felt odd, like finding a gravestone in a field with your name on it.