Beyond The Storm - Part 1

Posted on 20 Sep 2012 @ 12:59pm by Captain Jonathan Holliday & EMH Mark X-C "Shirley" & Rear Admiral Lirha Saalm & Lieutenant Commander Pola Ni Dhuinn M.D. & Commander Andreus Kohl & Lieutenant Commander Evelyn Coleman

2,595 words; about a 13 minute read

Mission: Episode 01 - Project Sienna
Location: USS Galileo - Sickbay
Timeline: MD09 - 2345hrs

[ON]

=^= Transporter Room to Sickbay - prepare to receive casualties. =^=

Thanks to some quick thinking by the transporter chief on duty, Sickbay suddenly became the destination of the bulk of the rescue party that had boarded the nearby Bird of Prey and affected the rescue of Commander Saalm and Lieutenant Coleman.

Their time in captivity had left them looking worse for wear, but whilst Coleman's injuries were strictly physical, much like the flesh wound burdened by their XO, Galileo's captain was in a far worse state.

Andreus Kohl materialized on his knees on the deck plates in Sickbay. Although Holliday had been his immediate patient on the Bird of Prey, the Sickbay setting switched his mind over to triage mode. Kohl bounded to his feet, and moved over to Captain Saalm, helping to ease her onto the central biobed in the ICU.

Seeing Kohl, Pola rushed into action. Knocking he had been on the away team, she was completely reliant on him to feed her information on what had happened. "Kohl....give me a run down straight away?" Passing her eyes over Evelyn and Jonathan, she deemed that they could wait. From what she'd seen of the ship's CO, the worst of the damage had been done to the woman herself.

"Commander Holliday has a disruptor burn to the shoulder and Lieutenant Coleman is in fighting form despite her injuries," Kohl said as briefly as he could, while he touched the controls on the biobed to encase Saalm within a surgical support frame. "Commander Saalm's breathing and circulation are relatively stable. I've staunched the bleeding, but even worse than the physical trauma, I'm told the Klingons injected her with a neural toxin. My tricorder wasn't able to immediately identify it."

Evelyn looked between Pola, Kohl and the EMH. "Look if you want I can treat myself and Holliday, I do have medical expertise, that way the three of you can focus on more important patients and the two of us can leave here and not take up any room. As for me, I'll agree to a complete medical physcial examination once this mission is over." She offered, not wanting to add any burden for them.

Ignoring the officer who address her for a moment, Pola concentrated on the patient at hand. "Damn it...EMH, I need you to do a complete analysis of the neural toxin and get me a resolution with speed." Looking down at the readout on the biobed monitors, the Doctor swore softly under her breath. "Her neuroreceptor activity is showing highly elevated levels of pain, way beyond anything which I would expect. Did you see anything which may cause this?"

Grabbing two hyposprays, she looked down at her hands. "Blast...I can't administer anything until we know what's in her system. Anything we give her might kill her." While waiting for answers she turned to Evelyn, "Go...I will need everyone on hands with this but can you stay around? You here there, you many be able to help us."

Leaping into action the EMH grabbed a hypospray and an empty cartridge, before applying it to the captain's neck, removing a small portion of her blood for analysis. It would not take too long to work through the possible toxins - the Klingons were a little out of touch with modern bioengineering, but the ones they had were still as deadly.

Disappearing from view, the hologram deftly removed the captain's blood from the hypospray tube and placed a small quantity onto a microscope slide, before sealing it with a cover slip and thrusting it under the microscope within the medical science bay. Tapping a few commands, the photonic doctor watched as the image quickly took resolution on the screen in front of him.

Swimming throughout her circulatory system were small cells, each working their way towards nerve fibres, neural pathways, anything that might have been responsible for the transmission of information within the host, slowly penetrating the cell membrane and terminating the cell. The computer took only a few moments to analyse the data and come up with a solution.

Turning the screen off, the hologram leapt to his feet and virtually sprinted back into the main chamber.

"It's a viral agent...breaks down the interactions between neurons....susceptible to omicron radiation. We need to get her into the surgical bay, isolate her with a forcefield and irradiate her tissues...then we can get to work repairing the damaged neurons."

Roughly dragging her hand through her hair, Pola realised that for the first time in all of this, she felt honest fear. This was not a good situation, the damage was extensive and these foreign bodies where making the situation far worse. "Kohl! I need to know what the hell is causing the intense pain and I need it now! If we try anything to her now, we are going to send her body into complete shock and we will lose her altogether."

Evelyn stood up, and moved to get a medical tricorder to treat Jonathan, but the debate amongst the doctors over the Captain's condition disturbed her. She made her way towards the group, "All you need to calm down." She said, "the Captain will be fine...as long as you all stop treating this as purely Klingon. If I'm not mistaken the Gorn uses neural agent against their prey they intend to eat..." She hinted, hoping she nudged the two Doctors on what path take.

Kohl was thankful --relieved, really-- for Evelyn's interjection. He didn't know how to answer Pola's question yet. Seemingly non-organic pain was a complicated thing to diagnose for any medical officer, and Kohl's Nurse Practitioner training had its limits. He was stood beside the biobed with his hands on the LCARS panel on the surgical support frame. He was swiping his hand across the panel, interchanging between sensor composite data and the pop-up menus with recommendations from the medical databases. Kohl balled his hands into fists when he saw something, afraid he might accidentally lose the information by touching the screen. He spoke up.

"Her immune system is producing proinflammatory cytokines. Their interaction with her peripheral nervous system would cause the kind of pain we're seeing," Kohl reported. "If I'm reading this right, this kind of immune response can be caused by infection, by endotoxins," --Kohl looked up at Evelyn-- "or by venom."

"There must be an antibody in the database for this. Kohl can y...." Pola's words were suddenly cut off as the monitors surrounding the biobed started to set out an alarm. Her eyes immediately drawn to the Captain's life signs, she realised that the woman was going into cardiac arrest. Moving over the body, she started heart compressions. "Kohl get me the antibody, it's all we have to go on right now. It we don't reduce the stress on her system we won't be able to get her back."

Looking around her, she located the EMH as she continued the heart compressions. "Get me 10cc's of benjisisrinde, it's the best drug we can use on an Orion to get her heart restarted." Breaking for a moment to pick up a cardiostimulator, Pola started to apply an electrical shock to try restart the heart.

"The computer recommends a glucocorticoid," Kohl said, speaking tersely without raising his voice, "to depress the immune activity that's causing the pain. But I-- I don't know how that will interact with her other treatments?"

Still performing the chest compressions, alternating with electric discharges, Pola looked over at the EMH to hurry him along. "At this point we will have to risk it. If her heart stays stopped for any longer then it'll be too late."

"Got it," Kohl said as he spun away from the biobed. He sprinted over to the replicator and used his access code to replicate a hypospray cartridge from the pharmacological database. Orion glucocorticoids weren't common in their medical stores.

Grabbing a hypospray, the hologram loaded the appropriate cartridge and deftly administered the required dose. Thankfully, having a copy of almost every medical text on record within his program, he was more than capable of analysing the current situation.

"The captain will be fine - her immune system has redundant backups....just do it."

As soon as the EMH gave the order, Nurse Kohl was back at his side with a new hypospray, and he applied it to the Captain's neck.

Evelyn turned around and walked back to Holliday, "You doing alright there hero?" She asked as she scanned his shoulder wounds.

So far, the XO had remained silent, allowing the more important casualty to be dealt with first. He had forgotten quite how painful a disruptor wound could be, but nothing he hadn't been able to deal with.

"Well luckily I shoot with my other arm...it's just a flesh wound, nothing serious."

"That is how I feel," she said reading the results of the scan. She moved to get a hypospray and a dermal regenerator. Evelyn walked back, "This is for the pain." She said bringing the spray to his neck and the small hiss sound indicated the drug is now in his system. She then began treating the wound with the other device. "Compared to the Captain, the Klingons did nothing to me."

Bending his neck to give the El Aurian access to the correct point to adminster the drugs, Holliday was glad to feel the virtually instantaneous relief that the sudden flood of painkillers into his system.

"Thanks...it takes the edge off....I should have been there....the captain suffered because I didn't step up....if she makes it I'm prepared to take the consequences."

"Will you knock that off." Evelyn replied shaking her head, finishing up healing his wound. "We don't have time, nor could we afford you having a guilt trip now, Commander." She said as she clicked the device off. His shoulder looks as if it was never injured. "Push all of the guilt to the back of your mind. You understand me?" she asked looking directly into his eyes.

Laughing to himself as he watched his flesh slowly reform from what only a few moments ago was a charred mess of disruptor fire against muscle and skin. He woud be in need of a new uniform, but that was better than being in need of a whole new arm.

"Yes boss....you're pretty handy with a dermal regenerator Miss Coleman."

"I'm a woman of all Trades, Mr. Holliday." She smiled, "I'm going to remain here to help them with the Captain, you go do what you need to do, Commander."

"Someone has to sit in the big chair at the end of the day - looks like my tenure there is going to be a little longer than I would have thought. Carry on Lieutenant."

Picking himself up from the biobed, Holliday flexed his shoulder a little, getting used to the temporary degree of tenderness that always came with the regeneration of damaged flesh. It would subside in a few hours, a day at most, but for now he would have to just be grateful that he no longer had a disruptor wound taking his arm out of action.

"A new uniform might be in order first though...can't be on the Bridge in tatters."

Nodding to his Intelligence officer, before taking a brief glance towards the biobed as the medical staff of the Galileo continued their work, Holliday turned on his heels, and headed out into the corridor.

Having gotten Lirha heart to restart, Pola was more relieved then her body language may have indicated. Between herself and Kohl, they had been able to transfer her to the surgical area where she was currently pulling on surgical scrubs. The two areas where some burrowing had occurred into her skin and cause sever damage to the skin, nerves and even the bone where the tip seemed to have gone into the bone. "Kohl, make sure we have approvaline onhand, I can't afford for her to code again. I'll also need micro sutures for these injuries and an aqueous solution." Placing her surgical glasses on her nose, she moved down to reach the injury areas, using a finely tuned laser scalpel to start cutting away the areas of destroyed and burned muscle.

Kohl was punching his arms through a crimson surgical gown and then pulling it over his uniform. He nodded at each of Pola's orders, and turned them into a numbered list in his head. As soon as his hands were relatively free, he switched out a couple of items on one of the anti-grav carts he had prepared for emergency surgeries. Kohl gave the cart a good shove to send it careering towards the biobed where Pola was working. As Kohl closed the distance between himself and Pola, he cinched up the back of his surgical scrubs and pulled on his gloves.

As she looked at the monitors, Pola realised something more, "Damn! There's bleeding in the abdomen cavity." Looking down at the injuries she was currently repairing, she tried to weight up the options. "Kohl, these wounds will have to wait, they are moreso cleanup and repair. I have got to get that bleeding stopped. I need a drain and forceps as well as 5cc's of the numbing agent tetracaine. I also need submicron suctures on standby." Moving away from the area she had been working in, Pola readjusted the beam on her scalpel in order to start an incision into the abdomen.

Pushing the anti-grav tray, Kohl followed Pola to the other side of the biobed. Among the other instruments on the tray were the forceps and the drain. Kohl stepped away from the surgery to collect the tetracaine from the nearest medicine cabinet.

"Well it sounds like my services are needed once again" The EMH called out as he headed towards the surgical bay. Unlike his organic counterparts, there was no need for him to scrub up or swap into surgical clothing as he generally was incapable of transmitting pathogens of any sort within his holomatrix. Stepping into the sterile surgical field, he picked up a tricorder and began to review the most recent data.

"I suggest a subdivision of our work - Dr Ni Dhuinn, if you would prefer to deal with the abdominal bleed, I will rectify the pesky little pathogen running around her synapses...then perhaps we can join forces to repair the bone and tissue damage elsewhere hmm?"

Looking across at the EMH, Pola hadn't been intending to use him given the confined space but now that the scanners where feeding back proper results the damage looked far more extensive then she herself could handle. "Kohl, I'll need you to stay with me for this abdominal bleed." Looking up at the EMH, the Doctor nodded her head to indicate for him to go ahead. "Make sure you compensate for the pheromones suppressants we give her. They shouldn't interfere but in case they do."

Kohl returned to the biobed and he applied the numbing agent Pola prescribed. He laid the submicron suture applicator on the surgical tray within Pola's grasp. Kohl looked over to the EMH when the holographic doctor spoke.

"Very well....let's begin."

To Be Continued....

Lt Cmdr Jonathan Holliday
Executive Officer
USS Galileo

EMX Mk-X
Emergency Medical Hologram
USS Galileo

Lt. JG Evelyn Coleman
Chief Intelligence Officer
USS Galileo

Ensign Andreus Kohl
Nurse
USS Galileo

Lieutenant Pola Ni Dhuinn
Chief Medical Officer
USS Galileo

CMDR Lirha Saalm
Commanding Officer
USS Galileo

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