A (former) Engineer Rescued
Posted on Thu Jan 5th, 2023 @ 4:36pm by Captain Samuel Woolheater & Crewman Adelaide Kirkby & Lieutenant JG Elijah Carmichael & Senior Chief Petty Officer Emily Charles {Kelea-Salik}
Mission:
Season 6 : Episode 1: Circinus
Location: DECK TWENTY-TWO
Timeline: MD03 - 0300
2556 words - 5.1 OF Standard Post Measure
[ON:]
DECK TWENTY-TWO – JUST OUTSIDE THE WARRANT OFFICERS LOUNGE
The access panel was kicked out by a pair of boots. Specifically, SFMC boots that belonged to Lance Corporal Solomon Raphael. He was a failure at everything else except being a marine. He grew up on a farm just outside of Greenville, North Carolina and worked in his father’s shop. He never could make a go of it and decided to enlist in the Starfleet Marine Corps and he made it all the way to Gunnery Sergeant before his mouth got the better of him. A fresh, butter-bar lieutenant told Gunny Raphael that he was in his seat at the meeting table and demanded that he move. Solomon did change seats but not before saying, “Go ahead and have the chair sir. Just be careful that when you sit you don’t squash your brains too hard!” He was discharged the next day. “Sol” tried to make a go of the family farm as well after inheriting the property from his late father. He married and for two years worked the land but never could make ends meet. He loved his wife, but they fought often. After a three-year marriage, she divorced him. Raphael, with only 140 federation credits left to him decided to try for the marine corps again. After taken a demotion and not so glowing review, he was reinstated to Lance Corporal and assigned to the 62nd Detachment of Division 6. At just 35 years old. he was rough on the outside but those under his command loved him. Because he was a winner and driven to succeed.
“Sol” stepped out and onto the deck. Kicking away the panel that had caused them so much trouble. Another pai of boots appeared and landed beside him. Then another and another. Four search and rescue (SAR) marines, their helmet lights on and in combat armor from the training they had been doing earlier with Captain Woolheater, looked at their surroundings.
“Where are we?” one asked.
Raphael went to the right-hand side of the doorframe and tapped the attached sign plate. It read:
“Alright, you know the drill. In pairs, section by section. Scan for lifesigns and let’s see what’s working” one of the other marines said. Sol called in a loud voice down the dark corridor, “ANYBODY HERE?!” The corridor had no lights. Only the red alert annunciators were flashing. LCARS panels were all offline except for that damned alert message. There was a thick smoke in the air, and it was getting cold. There was debris all over the floor. And there were dead. They walked by the “COFFEE MESS” and only one of those words was accurate. And it wasn’t the word coffee.
They stopped in front of the doors marked “COMPUTER CORE LEVEL 5” and Sol raised his combat tricorder to try and get some readings. “Nothing. Spread out. See if anybody is home.”
The marines spread out and began their search. As they searched each compartment, they marked it with a yellow ribbon. “HELLO!! MARINES!! SEARCH AND RECUE – ANYBODY HERE??!!”
Elysium’s newest engineer was roused from his torpor by the voices growing louder. He was groggy and in excruciating pain. But now somehow he had undergarments on.
“Maven?” The Betazoid called out, trying to pull himself from the mental fog. He glanced around his quarters until he found her mobile emitter. It was leaking bio-neural gel from the baseplate. She must have been hurt during the crash too.
“Maven! Maven, are you ok?! Please answer me.” He screamed, wishing that this was all a nightmare that he could wake up from. “Wake up, Maven.”
He heard the voices just outside his room now. They must be searching for him. But no one on this ship could help her. He would have to. He prayed to the Four Deities that she survived until then.
The combat tricorder picked up the faint life signs of Ltjg Sauvageon. "Huup! I got something. SOL! Over here!"
CREW QUARTERS - ROOM 25 - SECTION "K"
Two marines pried open the door, the maglock helped but the door was off the rails. It open reluctantly. Inside, it was dark and cold. Their flashlight beams lit the room one flashlight at a time.
"Got him! There. Betazoid. Male. Computer is down so I have no idea who it is. Hey? HEY!" They called as the gingerly, carefully climbed over the debris that used to be someone's quarters. Switching modes, Raphael scanned the man with the marine tricorder now in medical mode. Not as robust as a medical tri-corder, but good enough to get to the heart of what is wrong. Sol said, "He's injured. Pretty bad. Looks like he's got three broken ribs...no internal bleeding. And his back...lower back is strained. One of his....pads...on the spine looks like it popped or got torn. Cuts and bruises all over and he has a mild concussion. We have to be carefull when we move him." Raphael said, "Crewman? Can you look at me? Tell me your name?"
The man didn't answer right away. Instead, he kept repeating the word "Maven". But it was unknown to them what he was talking about. "He has hit his head, I don't see signs of concussion but, he may be a bit dazed. His back is not good. You two - clear a spot here. Get the mattress board and his mattress from the sleeping area. We need to move this man and get him to secondary sickbay."
They did as they were told, clearing a space in the middle of Helias' living quarters. The mattress and the mattress board were then moved close by and the plan was to secure him, immobilize him as best as they could and then carry him one deck down to the medics.
The Betazoid managed to rouse himself to consciousness, fighting the desire to pass out again. “Sauvageon. Engineering Lieutenant.” He croaked weakly. The whole of his body screamed in pain.
Sol listened as he heard the man speak, "He's an Engineer! Oh...you're a keeper Lieutenant!" They carefully, very, very carefully, slid and moved the man from his trapped position and immobilized him what what they had on hand. There was only single backpack that had medical supplies in it. But they only had basic medical training and what the medical tricorder told them was that this crewman had an injured back as the most severe injury. And Sgt. Raphael did not let them administer any pain killers.
"But he's in pain. We can lessen his pain...we..." the marine protested.
"This is not a debate. If we dope him up on pain killers and he passes out how are we going to know how to revive him if he stops breathing? He has an injured back if we are reading the medical tricorder correctly. Now. I need him to to yell or scream or do something to let us know that we are pushing him too far. If we move him too rough; he may not walk again. And we need all the engineers we can find right now. No pain meds. Let's GO!" And Sol was done. There was no further discussion.
After securing him to the mattress and mattress frame, they lifted him up each man at the corner. And they made their way back to the turboshaft. They set him down and using maglocks and brute strength, forced open the door to the lift. Raphael turned and said, "OK, now the fun part. Those straps, we need to tie them at each corner. Then, at the top, tie them together so we have a an upside down "U" shape. In the SAR backpack is fifty meters (164 feet) of polydural rope. We tie that to the top and the bottom. Then two go below, two atop and we lower the LT here down to twenty-three."
The plan was simple and there was only one deck. In twenty-minutes, Lieutenant Helias Sauvageon was lowered and then carried onto deck twenty-three.
"MEDIC!!" Sergeant Raphael called as they carried the man in. "Make a hole! Move! Move-move-move.....injured man coming through...thank you. I need a doctor. Now."
“Whoa-whoa-whoa!! Ho’ed up there Sergeant! No more patients on this deck! You got to take them either to main medical or marine medical’ the kid said.
Solomon looked at him, “Get out of my way, private.”
“Sergeant! I have my orders sir, no more patients!”
“Do you know who we got here? The assistant chief of Engineering. His back is fucked up. This is secondary medical, he needs a medic and I mean now.” Raphael and the other three marines tried to get around the sentry, who was now getting some backup. 2nd Lieutenant Bryce came over from the 3rd Platoon.
“PRIVATE! Sergeant! What the hell is going on here? Why are you attempting to get around these men Sergeant Raphael?” the officer asked.
“Sir! Injured assistant chief of engineering here. Needs a medic on the double. This is a medical deck, there are doctors here. I am not as bright as you Lieutenant. But I thought this would be a good place to take him. Sir!”
Bryce looked at Helias and then the Sergeant, “Let them through!”
Sol said, “Thank you Lieutenant! You saved a life today sir!”
The four marines carried Helias through, but they could find no biobeds. They couldn’t even find a place on the floor. After much consternation and name calling, after pleading and getting no where, the best they got was a hypo of string pain killers for Helias.
“That’s it?! A shot of pain killer and ‘on-yer-way’” Sol asked the medic.
“Take a good look around. We are just barely holding on here. Now, I can appreciate the difficult situation. But we are full up here. And while we stand here arguing, the Lieutenant here is not getting the medical treatment he needs. I have other patients. Get this man to deck thirty-two. Doctor Elijah Carmichael. Go.”
They were not happy would be an understatement. Back to the turboshaft and deck, by deck. Meter by meter they moved the injured officer. One marine tried to comfort Helias when he was jostled a bit too hard, “Sorry lieutenant. We’re almost there. This is deck twenty-nine. Just three more to go and then the docs will get to work on you sir. You’re doing great. Straps are tight because they have to be sir.”
DECK THIRTY-TWO - MARINE COUNTRY - MARINE MEDICAL
Finally, an hour later at 0430 they arrived on deck thirty-two. Raphael bellowed as they came into marine medical, “ MEDIC! DOCTOR CARMICHAEL!”
Adelaide was there and a few others helped get Helias off of his mattress/gurney and onto a proper bio bed.
Emily had been getting a nap next to George’s bed when the raised voices woke her from her slumber. She wiped her tired eyes, before getting up and moving across to those who needed help. “What do we have? Anyone see what happened?”
Things had calmed down somewhat since the initial incident, of which he was still unsure what happened, he figured he would need to head to the main sick bay soon but wanted to leave here in good order first. Checking over some of the sleeping patients Eli had told Emily to have some time to rest, which gods knew she needed. He quickly rushed over with a medical Tri-Corder and waited for their answers to Emily's questions.
Gunny Raphael answered, "Thank ye gods! I hope you can help this man. We found him on deck twenty-two. He must have been asleep. We had to dig him out from under debris. He fades in and out of consciousness. The tricorder scans indicated that his lower back had been injured and that we should stabilize him with some pain blockers and then immobilize and transport him to the nearest trauma facility. That was on deck twenty-three but they were full up. He acts like something is wrong in the head too. Keeps asking for 'Maven' and we didn't see any other persons. Alive I mean. No one else we could do anything about. We did the best we could for him. Down ten fucking decks on nothing but the mattress backing and a few pads and straps. I heard he's the assistant chief engineer. His name sounds like a french wine. Carbernet Sauvignon or Helluva Sauvignon...I don't know. That's all we got on him doctor Carmichael. Here's the initial tricorder scans we got when we found him. I see your medical computers are up. Here." Sol swiped that data from his combat tricorder to the marine medical computer system. Helias' initial readouts an hour ago were displayed on the biobed screens.
Elijah was grateful for the surprisingly good handover of a patient, sometimes they were lucky to get a name. "Thankyou Gunny" He smiled, "This is great work it seems he's suffering from shock along with his physical injuries you did a great job getting him here. Why don't you get some water and some rations on board, the medical bays are running on reserve power for now." He added before patting the marine on the shoulder, "We can take it for now." Elijah smiled once more before turning to the readouts.
"Yeah, we got work to do" the Sergeant said as the SAR team left the busy medical bay.
"Emily, if you wouldn't mind let's get him on an IV, he's dehydrated and we're about to pump some more stuff into him, prepare a sick bag if he wakes up again but no more painkillers." He didn't want to tell the gunny but pain blockers weren't the best for unconscious patients. "Let's prepare the surgical bed as well, I don't want to waste any more time."
Emily nodded. “Right away Doctor” she paused long enough to smile at Elijah. “For what it’s worth... I’m glad you’re here.” With that she went to get an IV and sick bag. Once done she’d prepare a surgical bed as well, once she could clear a suitable bed.
She was gone before he could say thankyou and that he was glad she was here too. Clearing his throat he turned back to the seemingly unconscious engineer. “Ok Mr Sauvageon” Elijah was looking at the screen to try and pronounce his name right, “I’m going to run a few very basic checks we call them AVPU, Alert, Voice, Pain and unresponsive now can you hear my voice? Please wiggle your fingers” while he was waiting for a response Elijah peeled back his eye lids and shone a light in to see if there was a flicker of movement or dilation of the pupils.
[OFF:]
OOC: One regrets the departure of any of our fellow players. One of the last emails from this player was that he was feeling unwell. A speedy recovery, a return to health and best wishes for the New Year. For the authors left in this post one wishes to acknowledge their efforts. Permission to publish this joint post was given by the Commodore.
