AT-4 Rescue Team Delta (Part 2 of 4)

Posted on 14 Nov 2013 @ 10:17am by Rear Admiral Lirha Saalm & Lieutenant Asahi Kita & Lieutenant JG Tykhin Vess & Chief Warrant Officer 2 Riley Cameron & Petty Officer 1st Class Gabriel Stark & Petty Officer 3rd Class Thanis Rothgra & Legatus of Borg & Lieutenant Lilou Zaren & 5 of 8 & 6 of 8 & Chief Warrant Officer 2 Arthur Willis

2,407 words; about a 12 minute read

Mission: Episode 04 - Exodus
Location: Borg Cube - Subjunction 22, Grid 8-9, Repair/Engineering Conduits
Timeline: MD 06 - 1340 hrs

Previously, on Rescue Team Delta (Part 1)...

This was a lot of information for Asahi to absorb in a few seconds. However, with or without the tricorder, he knew the woman would have needed medical assistance. "Lieutenant Markos is searching for Barel as we speak, and child with her." Or so he hoped. "We're searching out Raifi as well, but Tykhin is right, you need immediate medical attention." His knowledge of Trill was subpar, at best. "... Both of you? ... Yes. We'll search for Raifi after we get you beamed out of here."

"Here." With a grimace, They unfolded, gingerly stretching out Lilou's legs and pressing the side of her head to Stark's chest. With her knees away from her abdomen, she peeled the sticky edges of her uniform apart. "Just... recut and... use the... dermal regen- erator to seal it closed. Straight. This time." They felt nauseous. "So We don't... tear it again." Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. "Kita- can you risk... beaming me out? Won't their... sensors...?"

And Now, the Continuation...

[ON]

"I ah..." Asahi seemed nauseous at the sight. "... We're keeping in contact with the Captain, and we have ways around it... Wait..." A thought occurred to him, and he found himself at unease. "... How did you get past all the drones in your state? How did you not end up assimilated?" If Holiday had been assimilated, why hadn't the others? He was missing something. "I know it seems like a lot to ask of you right now, but... it's odd that we found you in this state at all. I didn't think Borg left... anyone in any... unassimilated state like this..."

Stark's jaw became tight with frustration. "She needs help," he whispered harshly. He leant to get the medical tricorder from the kit, using his basic first aid training to work out what could be done. "This isn't a trick, the whys and hows can come later, Borg don't work like that," he pressed a hypo to her neck, to stabilise her, followed by another to ease her pain. It wouldn't help the cause, but it could ease her until they got her to sickbay. "Lieutenant, we should get the others in the team back here, it's not safe for us to be separated, and we need to transport Lilou back to the ship with the next cycle," he swallowed, touching Lilou's neck, feeling it carefully. She felt frozen. He considered her request to open her up and reheal her. He was no doctor, but if no one else could do it, he'd have to. It depended on how long it took before they could get her back. "When's the next cycle? How long until she can be beamed back to the ship?"

"Is that how you came to be here?" Zaren asked, wincing. They could feel the bicaridine hypospray he'd given Them beginning to work through Lilou's system, but it would be a couple minutes before it settled firmly into effect. "You beamed? Past the Borg's scanners? How?"

"Sneaky engineers," Tykhin said as he glanced down at his tricorder, lying open on the deck beside him. "Four minutes to the next cycle," he said. "Just hold them still," he said to Stark.

"I see." Zaren prodded Lilou's abdomen with a grimace. Waiting would take time They did not have if they wanted Zaren conscious through it all. And Zaren had no intention of passing out again and becoming a burden on these officers. "Here. It must be done; We have experience in field medicine. Only let Us guide you. Whoever does not mind bloodying their hands, here-" Zaren dragged Lilou's bloody fingertips along the ragged half-mended, mostly-torn wound gashing open Lilou's abdomen, gritting their teeth. "The laser scalpel should be in there. Yellow tag on its base."

Tykhin nodded and unwrapped a sani-cloth. He started wiping away the ooze and blood along the incision, then pulled out the local anesthetic spray and covered the area in it.

"Yellow tag," Tykhin said to himself. "Damn it, I'm an analyst, not a doctor," he grumbled. Tykhin grabbed the laser scalpel and dermal regenerator. He took a breath and cut as straight a line as he could along the incision.

Zaren stifled a cry against Stark's uniform, then panted, "Now the- regener- yes. That. Nnnngah!- Keep the flesh- kuh- closed. Still."

Tykhin followed along from one side of the incision to the other, holding the skin together with one hand and following up with the dermal regenerator in the other.

Lilou's face scrunched in pain, pulling at the connections of the partially installed implant at her cheek, as the flesh of her abdomen was molded together again. She seemed to melt as the skin closed smooth and the bleeding stopped. Likely internal damage, They surmised, but They would survive it. "Thank you, thank you," tears blurred Their eye. "Faaaah- damn it. There's not- time for this." Blearily, They opened and closed Lilou's bloody hand, "There should be another hypospray in that kit. Corophizine. For infection. That should- hold us. Ffff." The tremors were returning, but at least They was no longer leaking blood everywhere.

Tykhin reached in and pulled out another hypospray, smearing the inside of the kit with his bloody hands. "I've only got one of these left," he said. He glanced down at his tricorder again.

"Three minutes, sir. Orders?" he asked, looking up at Asahi.

Asahi had kept silent up until this point, choosing instead to contemplate the whys he had asked earlier. Borg or not, something didn't seem right about this situation. "... If she can wait three minutes, hold off on the hypospray. If she can't wait three minutes, give it to her." He gave Stark a cursory look. "We take her with us until those three minutes. I'm not leaving her exposed. We go back to the others for now. I don't like this area. Something's off, and I can't place what." A hand went to his comm badge. "Delta Team to Bridge. Requesting one evac of Lilou Peers with a medical team on standby." He glanced over his shoulder, cringing. "She's alive and conscious, but not in the best condition."

On Galileo's bridge at the primary mission ops station, the captain was closely monitoring the progress of all four away teams. Kita's voice sounded across the comm as soon as he reported in, and Lirha quickly acknowledged his update. "Delta team, Saalm. Proceed with evacuation, our medical teams are standing by." she replied, feeling very grateful they had found Lilou but also concerned about her present state.

"Wait!" Gabriel shook his head quickly after Kita had finished talking to the bridge, keeping one arm around the wounded woman and lifting his other hand up to stop the others moving. "We can't take her anywhere, she doesn't have a cloak, and she's clearly not Borg. She'll stick out like a sore thumb to them, I take it that's why she was hiding in the first place...not to mention her physical condition, being dragged around for the next couple of minutes isn't going to help," he pointed out with a frown.

"What cloak?" Zaren asked, trying to keep up with the conversation. The bicaridine had made soft-edged what had already been blurry, and They were not entirely sure why the administration of an antibiotic needed to be delayed. Preserving field supplies, Selik presumed. "The Borg are one. They know Our face and know that We escaped them. We do not wish to endanger you."

"You're the least of our problems," Tykhin mumbled. He put the hypospray to Peers' neck and pressed the button. His hands were a bloody mess and he started trying to wipe them clean on his uniform jacket.

"We're wearing individual cloak - shield - things, to hide from the Borg," Gabriel said, the not very technical minded security crewman replying in a not particularly technical way. He had to agree with Lilou, she would endanger them moving around, but more, them moving her around would endanger Lilou. He looked back to Kita, holding his breath. "Lieutenant, I would recommend we stay put with Peers," he frowned, still using the old name, confused as to what was going on with them. "Keep close to her, and hope they don't notice her for two minutes, or that these cloaks around her will interfere with their sensors. For the sake of team safety, we should get the engineers back with us as soon as possible so we can stay together and resume the search for other crew."

Tykhin looked up from his hands, still wiping them. He had to agree with Stark. "Look, we're eight minutes in now, sir, and we've only gone 15 meters; we're stalling. The crewmen are right there," he gestured to the two figures bent over the blue-green light down the corridor. "By the time you go see if they've found anything and bring them back, Peers will be onboard the Galileo," he pointed out.

Asahi gave the duo an oddly perturbed look. Despite potential agreement he may have had with them, quite a few of his orders had either been sassed at or disputed in some manner. It made actually leading difficult, not that the man knew how to do that well. Hand to commbadge, he nodded. "The lieutenant should be on board in two minutes." Giving both Stark and Tykhin another nod, he continued his order. "If anything hairy or weird happens before I get back, hightail it, whether they see her or not."

And he was off to find the others again, mumbling. "Wasn't cut out for this tactical crap..."

"Stay safe," Zaren gave them as sturdy a nod as They could muster. "Thank you. For coming for Us. For coming for us all." Lilou's body was enveloped in a shimmer of blue and disappeared.

Tykhin shared a look with Stark after Peers was beamed out. "If they'd just sent a few teams of you guys, this would all be over by now," he observed dryly. He grabbed his tricorder and packed the remnants of their medical supplies back into the kit.


Meanwhile... Down the Corridor

"I guess the Borg must have something like internal sensors....maybe I can try accessing them...." Cameron muttered to himself, flipping his tricorder open and beginning the process of scanning for an access node. In such a small space it didn't take long for him to track down exactly what he needed. Walking a few metres up the hallway, he took hold of a cover panel and pulled it free, the green glow of Borg tech lighting up his face as he stared into the conduit.

"Here...looks like the Borg equivalent of a data processing unit. Think we can get a probe in here?"

Thanis dragged his gaze away from the crate and the approach. Be useful. Get things done. Don't question. He hurried over to Cameron's side and pulled a microdrill, calibrator, and PADD connection probe from his belt. "There's a couple layers," he said around the calibrator gently held between his teeth, "a' wiring in here..." He drilled the bolts of the first layer free and watched as a domino of three levels of intricately wired access points opened up. "Or more." He spat the calibrator into his hand, his brows worried. "We can get a probe in," he said with a shake of his head, "But there's no telling what we're pulling, or whether there's a system relay to let them know we're downloading data, or..."

"Och sod it! We won't know unless we try - you install the probe and I'll monitor the data flow - if we stay passive they might not see us as a threat." Riley replied, his face still buried in the data flooding into his tricorder. The thought was that if they monitored the latent data flow rather than trying to manipulate it, the Borg might be unaffected by their presence.

"Yes, sir." Thanis wasn't sure he agreed, but he was only an apprentice. Cameron had to know better than him and now wasn't the time to ask questions. He thought about the various images of access nodes he'd seen over years of study and tried to guess at where he was supposed to place the probe. Carefully, he balanced the PADD against the wall with his elbow and calibrated the probe, scanning the data for relevant information.

"Aye you little beauty...alright let's see what you've got shall we!"

Turning his tricorder to passive mode, the engineer began to filter his way through the data that was moving through the stream, rather than sending out search criteria, he was hoping to just piggyback an existing signal pathway instead.

"Regeneration protocols...door overrides....here...this file looks like a list of drones - must be their equivalent of a crew manifest....and oh look....a few dozen new recruits.....Thanis, see if you can find something that might be a sensor feed?"

Thanis bit the tip of his tongue between his teeth, scouring the data stream on the PADD, and took up the secondary probe line between his fingers. If that had been personnel information... if you could call it that... Federation standards would presume that sensor feeds would be available on the secondary console to the top left. But they weren't Federation and there were three console connections instead of two. No markings... no clue as to where the next probe should go... his stomach twisted nervously. There were at least a dozen connection points that looked like that could have been to sensor routing. Taking his heart into his hands, he chose one at random and prayed.

To Be Continued...

[OFF]

--

CAPT Lirha Saalm
Commanding Officer
USS Galileo

Lieutenant JG Tykhin Vess
Intelligence Officer
USS Venture

Lieutenant JG Asahi Kita
Engineering Officer
USS Galileo

WO Riley Cameron
Engineering Officer
USS Galileo
[PNPC - John Holliday]

PO2 Gabriel Stark
Security/Tactical
USS Galileo
[PNPC - Scarlet Blake]

Crewman Apprentice Thanis Rothgra
Engineering Officer
USS Galileo
[PNPC - Lilou Zaren]

Senior Chief Petty Officer Arthur Willis
Engineering Computer Specialist
USS Galileo
[PNPC - Markum Quinn]

Legatus of Borg
Narrator
[PNPC - John Holliday]

LTJG Lilou Zaren
Asst. Chief Engineering Officer
USS Galileo

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