A Normal Day

Posted on Tue Jan 16th, 2024 @ 1:48am by Lieutenant Commander Rhiana t'Aegis

842 words; about a 4 minute read

Mission: Prelude to Rebirth
Location: Starfleet Academy Medical School
Timeline: 4 September, 2395

[ON]

A warning siren sounded for the umptienth time while the blinking lights of the current alert status painted everything in an eerie, red shade, not unlike the colour of the warm Human blood that was currently oozing out from between her tightly pressed-together fingers. An increasing cooling-wet sensation from her knees informed her that she was likely kneeling in the stuff, too.

Before she could start to dwell on that, a sudden jolt pulled her back to the here and now. The emergency lights were flickering, people were shouting, screaming, groaning in pain. Half of the workstations in the medical bay were out of order. Some had been partially destroyed and were now spewing sparks while the displays of others were showing only gibberish. Medical staff was trying to help the numberous wounded, some lying on the remaining medical beds, others were lying or sitting on the ground while more were being dragged or carried or helped along into the medical bay.

"Jenkins!" Rhiana called out to a young nurse who was trying to scan a wounded crewmembers with a medical scanner that showed the same gibberish as the workstations, "Direct the wounded to triage! Crew lounge 5 for minor injuries. Officer's lounge 2 for serious injuries." She had repeated the same thing several times already, but some of these young people seemed incapable of retaining the information. Some even seemed incapable of functioning normally in the current situation. Of course, the situation was all but normal.

"Trahx, relieve me!" Rhiana continued after a quick glance around the aggressively gloomy room. A young Trill managed to make his way over to the kneeling Romulan despite the new jolts and jerks from the ship's movement, likely coming from impacts or malfunctions of the internal dampening fields. Possibly both. But that was not important.

"Press down here," Rhiana told the nurse and nodded towards her bloody fingers. She had been pressing down on the thigh artery of the partially severed leg of an injured crewmember. At least Trahx could follow clear orders and was skilled enough to press down in the right spot. As soon as she was free, Rhiana made her way to a nearby cabinet, wiping her bloody hands on her uniform trouers while stepping over debris and crewmembers to retrieve a hopefully undamaged medical kit. As fast as she could, she returned to the kneeling nurse, knelt down herself and opened the kit. After quickly surveying the contents, she nodded to herself, took out what she needed and, after a minute or three, with a few short instructions given to the nurse, she managed to stop the bloodflow.

"This will hold for now. How many injured?" she asked the nurse as both of them got to their feet, only to almost fall over again from the new jolt, followed by the sound of an explosion not too far off. "We have reports from all decks," Trahx replied and wiped some blood off of his cheek where some debris had torn his skin. He probably had other cuts and bruises. Most, if not all of the crew, had sustained some kind of injury. The number of casualties had been rising steadily ever since the begin of the crisis, which felt like hours ago. Rhiana had been feeling a trickle of warm blood running down the back of her head and into the collar of her uniform for some time now, stemming from when she had hit her head in the first few moments of the attack and she was reasonably certain that she had other injuries. Thankfully, the adrenaline coursing through her veins took care of most of the pain and allowed her to focus on what was important.

Saving lives.

"Get me...," she began, but was interrupted by the computer's voice. "Hull brea [static] 1, 2, [static] 7, 10, 13, [static] 15. Immi [static] warp [static]."

Static.

A blinding light and the distressing sound of the vessel's hull breaking apart. Accompanied by screams from hundreds of crewmembers.

.
.
.

"We expect a better performance if you want to remain in this programme, Commander," the quiet, almost-but-not-quite non-judgmental voice of the Academy instructor cut into the quiet new reality of the black-and-yellow holodeck environment where the assessment had taken place.

Taking a deep breath and blinking as she readjusted to still being alive and her body struggled to accomodate the surplus of adrenaline that now suddenly was not needed anymore, Rhiana did her best not to glare at the instructor. She had expected a better outcome. Failing the - admittedly extremely challening - programme was not an option. Especially not on the second day.

But if she was perfectly honest with herself, she could indeed have done better. She used to be better. She had been trained for these kinds of situations. That had been decades ago, but still...

Taking another breath, she nodded at the instructor. "Aye, sir. It will not happen again."

[OFF]

Lieutenant Commander Rhiana t'Aegis
Second Officer / Chief Security/Tactical Officer
USS Firebird NCC-88298

 

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