Saving Syren

Posted on Tue Apr 2nd, 2019 @ 6:48am by Lieutenant JG Gallia Norris
Edited on on Sun Apr 28th, 2019 @ 10:46am

Mission: Season 2: Episode 3: Determination is not always a good thing
Location: Field Hospital
Timeline: during "Taking out the Rubbish"
1167 words - 2.3 OF Standard Post Measure

“It’s urgent, she’s bleeding to death!” Anderson bellowed as he carried Syren in to the hospital. They had driven about as far as they had to before Anderson was confident they could trust the transporter again, and then beamed straight into the ward.

The woman known as Syren was lucky Estelle didn’t know she had been part of the group that had abducted Liorga in the first place. Liorga had only told her about the good things she’d done, and as such Estelle hastened to the rescue. “Put her on the bed. Get her…”

“B negative blood, coming up”, the nurse said. He’d already run the scan to determine what blood she needed. He wasn’t just good, he also wanted to prove to those Starfleet types that he was.

Another doctor busied himself with the other girl, the younger one nobody knew, except perhaps Liorga. A cut throat, which was nasty but there was hope if they didn’t take longer than five minutes to fix it. She, too, would get a lot of blood, and immediately had an oxygenator for her blood hooked up. They’d have to clean her lungs later.

“That’s Emmy.” Liorga informed the other doctor, “She might be all of seventeen.” She walked next to Estelle’s table, “This is Syren, she’s the one who helped me escape. Estelle, you’ve got to save her if you can. I owe her my life.”

“I’ll do my best”, Estelle said, looking over the injuries. “But she’ll need emergency surgery.” She waved over two nurses. “Take off her clothes, wash her, and quickly.” She looked at Liorga and smiled at her. “Did you get them all?” She was glad Liorga was back safe.

“I haven’t checked with Home Guard yet, but I saw Blue outside with Sami Justice, she’s pretty sure all the hostages came out.” Liorga replied.

“Good”, Estelle smiled. She gave Liorga a quick kiss. “Now please excuse me, I need to go into surgery.” She gently squeezed Liorga’s arm before breaking contact and heading in. She’d have liked a bit more time with Liorga, but it would have to wait until night time.

“Right.” Liorga nodded, “Good luck.”

Inside, Estelle saw that Syren’s injuries were extensive, more so than on first glance. The face was what Estelle referred to as a Nebenkriegsschauplatz, a German word meaning the side show of a theatre of war. The real fight was with the internal organs.

“I’m going to need a lot of suction, and she’ll need a lot of blood”, Estelle said before she opened her up. Blood oozed from the wound immediately, and she had difficulty operating her laser scalpel. She had to move by scanner alone, despite its already proven unreliability, because she couldn’t see anything at first.

Once cleared, she programmed the surgical frame to target individual ruptured blood vessels and close them up. If this same technology was good enough to repair arteries inside a person’s skull a hundred years ago, Estelle was determined to get it to work on Syren’s much less delicate wounds. But it took some time, with this unfamiliar interface. “How much blood have we got left?” she asked.

“Enough, doctor”, Joe King said. “Do your thing.”

While more of the red stuff kept running right through her, Estelle took precious minutes programming and making sure the device caught all of the problems. When it finally started working, Estelle could busy herself with re-arranging the woman’s ribs and sternum. That bastard had punched hard. Estelle couldn’t even imagine feeling this much rage, or wanting to cause this much damage on someone. Even the most bloodthirsty Klingon usually went for a swift kill, this was torture.

With the ribs in place, Estelle looked at the face. Already she could tell there wasn’t much she could do in the field hospital. For her to look normal again would require better facilities. But at least she could mend the jaw. She’d be able to speak and eat. Well, after getting some new teeth. But the ability to drink was better than nothing at all. Only when one could drink, one was able to enjoy the most important culinary delight in the universe: freshly brewed coffee.

She checked on the progress with the surgical frame. All was going to plan. Good. Now to piece the seven separate jaw pieces back together and Estelle was almost done. By now, her blood pressure had normalised and she was no longer leaking in a few dozen places. “Now this will keep her alive until we can put on the fine touches”, Estelle finally concluded. “Get her to post-op, mark her for priority evacuation to the Elysium.”

As Joe King carried out her orders, Estelle quickly checked on the other girl. “Have Julia tell the others they’ll make it?” she called after King.

Estelle quickly checked on post-op, then walked back out into pre-op, this time with Gallia in tow, looking for Liorga. “They’re both pulling through”, she told her. “But ‘Syren’ will need more operations down the road.”

“I kind of figured.” Liorga nodded, the damage was bad and, if she was pressed, she’d freely admit that she’d never expected Syren to survive, “But there are plenty of people who do that kind of thing. Thanks for saving her life, baby.”

“All in a day’s work”, Estelle smirked. “Though with this level of tech, they should give me a medal or something.”

“I’ll call command in the morning.” Liorga joked, “Come on, let’s go celebrate the hostage rescue and Super Doc’s latest triumph.” Out of the corner of her eye she saw HG troops marching Dunphy to the holding area Gallia had set up, “Sadly that bastard also survived…”

“I think he might be a bit worse off having survived”, Estelle said. “Imagine what it’ll be like in the correctional facility, once the other inmates find out what exactly he’s in there for.” She breathed out. “Well, I shouldn’t be giving in to those dark thoughts. Let’s get some coffee?” She put one arm around Liorga, and the other around Gallia, steering them in the direction of the replicator, for lack of any better source.

“I should’ve pulled the trigger for sure.” Gallia chided herself, “Why I didnae put him outta our misery I’ll never know…”

“If you’d done that, he’d be out of his misery too.” Liorga said, she’d explain later why Gallia should be glad she didn’t pull the trigger.

“And always remember Gandalf’s words to Frodo, about the virtue of mercy”, Estelle added.

“Right.” Liorga agreed, putting a hand on the kid’s shoulder, she’d explain to her soon how bad it felt to take a life, even one as worthless as Quinton Dunphy’s.

-Off