Back from the Brink

Posted on Sat Dec 22nd, 2018 @ 12:39am by Lieutenant Danica Kovitz

Mission: MISSION 0 - History Speaks
Location: Sickbay, USS Elysium
Timeline: MD -17, A day or so after the destruction of the USS Grissom)
1381 words - 2.8 OF Standard Post Measure

The world came back to her in flashes. At first, she couldn't tell where she was. It was so overwhelmingly bright that Danica could barely open her eyes. She clearly wasn't in the dark escape pod anymore. But eventually, her eyes adjusted enough for her to recognize the teal uniforms of Starfleet Medical staff.

So she was on a ship, in sickbay. She was on a biobed, surrounded by numerous pieces of equipment. Her mind was too scattered to pick up more information than that, and any attempt to move was dissuaded by either searing pain in her left side. She made an attempt or two to speak, but heard nothing come from her mouth, not that she was hearing anything above the loud ringing anyway.

A few moments later, she drifted back into the darkness.

--

Estelle saw the most obvious problem was the piece of hull sticking out of her patient, but as long as it remained where it was, there was no imminent danger. This woman had survived a few days like that, and she would last a bit longer. No, her first priority was the head trauma. Pressure inside the skull was past the point where it was life-threatening, and untreated would have been her cause of death if the lifepod had been found a day or so later.

She noticed the other woman was struggling, attempting to regain consciousness, fighting for her life. Estelle instructed the computer to present a three-dimensional holographic image of her patient's brain in the air above the biobed, magnified by a factor of five. This made spotting the damage and repairing it a lot easier. Her hands worked with the instruments but she looked at the image in front of her to guide them, close up blood vessels and relieve the pressure.

Only then did she start giving her fresh blood to replace what she had lost, along with water and nutrients. Estelle decided she'd have to build up to a stronger pulse and higher blood pressure first before she'd start removing the offending piece of metal. The groan she expected to hear any moment now would signal the point when Estelle would have to administer some pain relief.

Danica could tell someone was in the room, but things were coming to her slowly. The incessant pounding in her head had slowed. It was almost peaceful, until...

A sharp jagged pain cut right through her dull slumber. If she’d had the strength, she would easily have screamed. Instead, she managed a fairly loud, sustained groan and felt each of her muscles tense up.

"Ah, good, you're with us again", Estelle said, injecting her at the neck with an anaesthetic that temporarily prevented signals from travelling through the spinal cord, numbing the entire body but keeping her conscious. "Can you tell me what happened?" She figured she'd test what mental powers she still had, if only to see if more repairs were needed.

The numbing agent acted quickly, shutting off the nerves along with it. Danica briefly panicked from the loss of mobility, but the removal of the pain gave her a moment of clarity. Words came slowly to her, her voice crackly and hoarse. “Warp core breach. Grissom. I think...a relay blew. Can’t quite remember.” The events flooded back to her a bit faster. She let out a panicked gasp. “Did you find any other pods?”

"I don't know", Estelle said. "I've been awake for all of the time to put on my uniform and have some coffee, upon bringing you in." She removed the foreign body and immediately stopped the bleeding with the protoplaser. It didn't look pretty but there was time for fixing that later. "What's your name? Mine's Estelle Hertz. Most people pronounce it hurts for some reason, though."

“I’m Danica Kovitz. Most people just pronounce it Kovitz,” she said. Humor after what had just happened? She had clearly suffered some form of brain trauma. A second realization hit her. A decent amount of her uniform had been removed, leaving her in the undershirt. “Wait, the uniform I had on. I...I need that combadge.”

"Not right now you don't", Estelle said, not looking up from the work she was doing, except to exchange glances with her nurse about which instruments she was going to need. "You'll have it back in a little while, this shouldn't take much longer. But you'll have to rest for a few days."

“I just can’t lose it,” the wounded officer said. “A friend...gave up his life to get me to safety. It’s the last thing I have from him. I just can’t...I can’t lose that too.” After a moment, her mind calmed a bit more. “What ship is this?”

"It's the Elysium", Estelle said. "We're on our way to disaster relief, you'll be with us for a while." A quick exchange of glances with the nurse later, and the nurse brought over the combadge and placed it on Danica's undershirt. "So much for the bad news. The good news is, you'll make a full recovery in the space of a week or so."

With the slightly damaged combadge back on her person, she felt strangely more at peace. Estelle’s words were certainly good news. But nothing really felt like good news right now. “I...thank you. I had been pretty sure I wouldn’t survive that. I’d been in the pod for what felt like days.”

"Three, from the looks of things", Estelle said, "we've cleaned up most of the mess before we woke you, though, and you'll be able to take a sonic shower in a little while." It was true, her patient didn't exactly smell of roses.

“A shower would be nice.” She wanted the moment alone as much as the shower itself. Three days? They’d have found another pod by now if one had escaped. She was certain of it. She really was the last survivor of the Grissom. She wasn’t ready to process that yet. Or to process who that meant hadn’t survived. “I wouldn’t mind a real bed either.”

"You'll enjoy a few days of care here in our ICU", Estelle said, closing up. "And if you need anything, let me or one of the nurses know." She pointed to a young Ensign next to the bed. "As soon as the effects of the anesthetic have worn off, Marie-Jo Anna here will help you into the shower, and I'll have a fresh cup of coffee ready for you after."

Danica nodded. Her eye lids suddenly felt heavy again. Coffee and a shower would be good too. Otherwise, she wasn't going to stay awake a lot longer. "I'd welcome them both. I'm also absolutely famished. Any chance you'd let me actually eat something?"

"Yes, there will be biscuits with the coffee", Estelle smiled. She figured starting slow would be good. Coffee stimulated the digestive process, and biscuits were easy to digest. On top of the nutrients she had already been given, that would speed up recovery.

"Sounds delicious," Dani replied. She wiggled one of her fingers, feeling the anesthetic begin to wane. She knew that would probably bring some more pain with it, but she was on the path to recovery. She wouldn't mind changing out of her uniform into something more comfortable either. The realization hit her that she had nothing to change into. Much of what she owned but what was left of the clothing on her back had gone up with the Grissom. There would be a lot of adjusting to do, without even thinking of the human losses. She'd appreciate a few moments alone in the shower. She didn't want to do it here, in front of the woman who'd saved her life, but she felt a sadness coming that she wouldn't be able to contain.

Estelle nodded at her. "I'll see you in your room in a few minutes then." With that, she let the nurse take over. She'd use the time to go over all of the scans again, just to double-check whether there might be more that she hadn't seen the first time around. She didn't expect to find anything but she was always thorough.