Underfoot

Posted on Tue Feb 18th, 2025 @ 4:51am by Commander Samantha Howard & Captain Shran dh'Klar & Lieutenant Commander Shoniara T’ghann-Travis MD

Mission: Training Cruise
Location: Sickbay

Dr Samantha Howard looked up to keep and eye on the Red Squad cadets that had been assigned to sickbay. To be fair she had been pretty harsh on them to begin with, laying out the expectation from that start that she expected nothing less than their best then assigning the boring task of tricorder diagnostics and recalibration. It was deliberate, in order to establish a clear chain of command where they knew where they stood, the equivalent of starting a medical career in the bedpan room. To their credit they hadn't wavered from their assigned task.

A young Ensign walked in for her physical and headed towards Sam's office.

A moment later Viviana walked over, "Excuse me doctor, but we have completed the diagnostics. Everything is up to spec. We did find one that was slightly off, so we placed it aside. T'Pau wanted to correct the issue, but I told her you would want an engineer to take a look at it. Anything else you need us to do?"

Sam nodded towards the young Ensign who had arrived and indicated the nearby biobed, picking up a PaDD and handing it to the cadet. "You can shadow me whilst I conduct this routine physical. We go a little further in-depth than the standard transfer physical but I'm sure you'll follow along. Access the required file under the Ensigns personnel file" Sam instructed as she pocketed a tricorder for later use.

"Ensign Charters, welcome aboard. Are you ready?" She asked with a kind smile.

Viviana quickly pulled up the file and fell in behind Sam, ready to take note of anything her instructor wished, and prepared to diagnose should she be asked. She took a quick glance over at T'Pau and saw she was across the room in a conversation with the ACMO. It seemed that they were both being proctored by senior officers at the moment.

Sam ran through the standard medical routine first, so that Viviana would become accustomed to the order in which things were done. She verbalized everything in a discreet fashion so that it would be recorded but not overheard by anyone not nearby. She paused when she got to the blood count readings, frowning at the result before rerunning the scan again.

The Ensign instantly knew something was up. "What's wrong? What have you found?" She asked with concern.

"There's a abnormal level of thyroxine in your bloodstream." Sam replied, her mind working through the possibilities for a diagnosis. Before she could finish 5 people were beamed in from an accident in Engineering and the medical team instantly had their hands full.

As Sam quickly went to tend to the injured patients, Viviana took to the one they had been working on. "Please be calm ensign. You have a slight blood abnormality. We will be able to treat you for it in a few minutes, once we deal with these emergency patients. Please, just remain here." She had done her best to put the patient at ease, and now she went over to join Sam and the others in helping to treat the injured engineers. It didn't look like anything was overly complex, most plasma burns, and one appeared to have shrapnel from an exploded console. She took out her tricorder and began scanning a patient right next to Sam.

Sam kept half an eye on the cadet, silently giving her kudos for taking the initiative to help but hoping there would be no mistakes that could further complicated matters.

"You have some shrapnel embedded" Sam said gently to the young engineer. The man was pale and classy, classic signs he was going into shock. He started to sway from where he was sitting on the biobed. "Little help here!" Sam called loudly as she struggled to catch him as he slumped forward.

T'Pau worked with Shon on a patient with plasma burns. Meanwhile Viviana moved to assist Sam with the injured patient that had slumped onto her. "Appears to be going into shock. I would suggest lectrozine to treat the shock and dermaline gel for the burns, followed by use of a dermal regenerator."

"Great diagnosis, but can you help me lie him on the biobed first?" Sam squeaked from underneath, still trying to support the man's weight. Together they shifted him to lie down and Sam's body sagged a little with relief. "He's heavier than he looks " she admitted sheepishly, not letting on that her physical training regime had slipped lately and she most likely wasn't as strong as she should be. "Now, give him a mild sedative so we can get this done before he wakes up again."

Shon quickly assessed Sam for any injuries. apart from a surge of adrenaline she was alright.
Viviana assisted moving the patient to a nearby biobed. "Nurse, 20 cc's terakine, 20 cc's lectrozine, quickly." The nurse quickly brought the hyposprays and she administered them, then pulled out her tricorder and scanned the patient. "He is stabilized. We can treat his burns with the dermaline gel without issue, if you approve."

"Go for your life" Sam nodded as she moved on to the next patient. As she did so the power failed in Sickbay, plunging them into darkness with only the dull red emergency lighting taking over. The biobeds blinked offline one by one, obviously brought on from the console exploding in Engineering earlier.

"Stay calm, get the palm beacons" Sam ordered as she switched to more manual methods. "Bridge, we've lost power here."

As the palm beacons were being grabbed power returned to sickbay. Engineering signaled Sam, =^=Apologies for the brief blackout doctor. Hope it didn't cause you any issue with treating my injured engineers. =^=

"We're doing the best we can, power would be nice whenever you can manage it though" Sam closed the channel, not wanting to burden the bridge crew further when it appeared they had their hands full. The gels and hypos worked, as did tricorders but treatment via palm beacon wasn't ideal. They would have to make do.

"How's your patient?" She called over to Viviana, injecting her own patient with an analgesic and beginning the burns treatment regime.

Viviana began to scan Sam. "Are you feeling alright? You seem to be having some vision problems."

Shon interrupted Viviana please help T'Pau with the burns patient and be ready for incoming wounded. I will. look after our Chief Medical Officer." Viviana looked at her as though she would resist the order. "Now Cadet" Shon said with a look that would brook no disobedience.

"Sam, how are you feeling?" Shon asked as she began her scan, half an eye on the cadets.

Sam looked around, confusion evident on her face. "I'm fine. Why is everyone looking at me strangely?" She asked, a touch of fear in her voice.

Viviana was concerned about Sam, but she was ordered to treat the other patients with T'Pau and that was what she would do. "T'Pau, this patient needs to be treated with dermaline gel and then a quick use of a dermal regenerator." T'Pau nodded and went to work. Viviana went over to the other patient and scanned him. "Nurse, 10 cc's axonol, 50 cc's hyronalin." She looked to Shon and Sam, "This patient has plasma radiation damage. Engineering may be sending us additional patients. We will need to prepare for radiation treatments."

Sam moved backwards, hands in front of her defensively until her back bumped into a biobed. Her fight or flight response was well and truly triggered. "There's nothing wrong with me, leave me alone!"

Shon moved over to her. "Sam, hey it's okay calm down. After this is over, we need to have a Meta scan of your eyes that's all, the cadets are doing well. "Listen up cadets" Shon called. Any patients who are stable can be moved to secondary, hand over to the nurses there, stock up and move on."

"All of these patients will be fully stable in just a few moments" Viviana responded. She began checking with the nursing staff to ensure all treatments were noted and underway, as well as making sure no further direct doctor oversight was required.

Sam was convinced there was something wrong and that she couldn't trust what she was seeing. They kept talking about her eyes, which meant something was wrong with them, so if she could see, it must be what she was seeing that was the problem. Or was it a hallucination? Her rational brain tried to calm her emotive brain, but it was a pretty even battle. She just needed to stay calm.

Shon walked around making sure the patients were well enough to be transferred to secondary care. “T’Pau remember these patient’s need reassurance as well as treatment. “Well done Viviana you are getting it right. Keep up the good work.” Shon returned to Sam, “Feeling better?” She asked.

T'Pau arched an eyebrow in traditional Vulcan fashioned but took the comment and continued to perform her duties.

"I feel fine that's the problem, but everyone keeps going on about checking my eyes so obviously something very much IS wrong" Sam replied, trying to keep calm. If she trusted her eyes the team were finishing up treating the engineers and the power had been restored.

"I know you feel fine, but I just want you to sit for a moment and rest. Everything is now under control, and we now have bio beds for any further patients. The Cadets are doing well although we need to make sure they operate under our, or my supervision." Shon smiled as she scanned her friend, boss and mentor.

"Sam your blood pressure is dangerously high, so I am going to give you a hypo of Hypalazine." she adjusted her hypo and placed the tip on Sam's carotid artery listening to the satisfying hiss as she depressed the button.

The headache that had been hammering inside Sam's skull began to diminish as the medication took hold. "Must be a virus or something. My blood pressure is generally fine" she mused absently, rubbing the spot on her neck where the medication had entered. "Is everyone OK?"

Suddenly the red alert klaxons began to sound, followed by the intruder alert warning a few minutes later as the ship shook from obvious combat. "I believe we have all the patients well taken cared for. I believe we are ready to take on any additional injuries as they come in" Viviana said to Sam and Shon. She then stepped in closer to the two senior medical officers. "My apologies for being presumptuous, but I do believe you have been purposely infected with a synthetic disease, and I believe the infecting agent was in your coffee. I don't know exactly the science used to create this synthetic virus though. It has an Iconian signature, which I find strange considering they are an extinct species." She pulled out her tricorder to show her data to the senior medical officers, "T'Pau and I took it upon ourselves to assist as we could once we completed the current medical matters."

TBC