Triage is No Algorithm

Posted on Sun Jul 13th, 2025 @ 10:59am by Captain Shran dh'Klar & Lieutenant JG Kate Kono & Lieutenant Seth Travis & Lieutenant JG Benjamin "Ben" Dalton & Lieutenant JG Viviana Del Rio

2,522 words; about a 13 minute read

Mission: Wounds From the Mirror
Location: USS Washington

A medic and two security officers approached at speed towards the down officers. Shasta sobbing, she mentioned her father was in their quarters injured as well. The medic handed a device to one of the security officers and told him to use it on Kate. She knelt down and scanned Ben, then quickly moved over to Eislyn. She pulled out a hypo and injected Eislyn and then ordered that all three of them needed to be sent to sickbay immediately. She raced into the quarters with Shasta following, checking on Seth. Kate, Ben, and Eislyn dematerialized, and moments later materialized in sickbay.

Viviana injected the patient she was working on and then rushed over to assess the situation. Dr. Perim had arrived and was deep into surgery, so when Vivana called out for assistance, the EMH was the only help she received. "These two aren't in immediate danger, but this Trill, she will need immediate surgery" she explained to the hologram.

The EMH scanned the three and then offered a concurring opinion, "Severe laceration to the liver and trauma to the surround tissue as well as a disruptor blast to the shoulder, both simple fixes. He will require minor preparation before having a pair of biosynthetic limbs attached as well as needing minor surgery to repair the damage to his arm. Severe damage to the abdomen and it appears she is a joined Trill. The symbiont is in distress."

"I'm aware. I'll handle Eislyn here; you deal with Kate and Ben" Viviana ordered. She began to furious work the problem, her mind and body focused on the task at hand.

The hum of the transporter filled Sickbay as Shasta, her baby sister and Seth materialized in Sickbay. "My Dad needs help." Shasta said through her tears. "He was shot while protecting us. He saved us." Seth had been shot in the chest with a disruptor at fairly close range.

Kate couldn't believe she was still conscious after everything that happened. Her chest throbbed and her head felt like it would explode. Still, she looked over to where Ben was.

"Don't worry. Even if your legless I'm going to screw your brains out when we get home," the half-baked lieutenant held a trembling hand out and threw out the victory sign with her index and middle finger. She then pointed to the open chest that was killing her. "Doctor! This red stuff is supposed to be on the inside

Ben was fading in and out of consciousness. He was in pain at his shoulder and his legs, in fact he couldn't feel his legs. What was Kate saying about his legs? He couldn't focus so he simply nodded.

With Perim already occupied and Viviana trying to save Eislyn, it was up to the EMH to deal with Seth. The hologram picked Seth up and transported him over to a biobed and scanned him. Severe thoracic trauma, cardiopulmonary system failure in two minutes. The tricorder was clear on the issue. The disruptor blast had left Seth in mortal danger. The EMH began working quickly. Within a minute the sound on the monitors for one of the patients being operated on signaled flatline, and despite all measures that could be taken, the patient was now dead.

Kate woke up without knowing how much time had passed. Her torso was still in a considerable amount of phantom pain that she had only read about in medical papers. She felt flatter than usual, like -- she had been demolished by a steamroller. Great, Kate thought to herself. Just what I need -- to be even flatter than before. Kate still smiled slightly as she managed to sit up and look down at herself. She moved the gown over to the side to see that she had skin again. She couldn't care less that she'd just exposed herself full-frontal to the world. Her priorities were to make sure she was put back together again followed by checking on Ben. The priority was only in that order simply because she needed a body to move to Ben, otherwise it would have been Ben first before all else. Ben before her...

Ben Her...

Ben lay still on his biobed. His mind was awhirl. His legs were gone below the mid-thigh, but Kate was alive, he had saved her. That was the important thing, saving Kate. He turned his head and saw her sitting up and giving herself a look over. "Still as beautiful as ever." He whispered not sure if she heard him or not and it didn't matter. He loved her and if he lost his legs to save her it was a fair exchange for there would never be anyone like Kate again. She was an original and she was his, or was she? He was suddenly worried Kate would leave him now with his legs somewhere on another deck. He told himself he was being silly, but the thought nagged at him, and he began to cry softly, silently at what he imagined he was losing.

Kate quickly stumbled over to Ben's bed and crawled in next to him. "Hey! What's wrong? We made it!" Kate said. "Again..." She added before giggling and pressing her lips to his gently. She couldn't help but run her fingers through his hair and smile while continuing the lock of their lips with zero regard to the fact that they were in the middle of sickbay.

"I'm, I'm overjoyed you made it Kate." Ben answered as Kate crawled in next to him. He was quiet for a moment then he spoke, "I love you Kate." He said before she kissed him gently. "Are you alright? Have you heard anything on Eislyn?" He asked all while Kate ran her fingers through his hair and continued to kiss him right here in Sickbay and he didn't care not one damn bit.

The EMH came over and grabbed Kate by the collar, "Return to your bed or I'll sedate you and place you there myself. This is a sickbay, not a brothel."

Kate tapped a button on the bio bed and the EMH suddenly disappeared and all his tools fell to the ground with a clatter.

Despite sickbay being filled to beyond capacity, it appeared that the worst of it was over, at least for now. Viviana came over to check on Kate and Ben, "Hope you are both feeling alright." She scanned Kate, "Biosynthetic liver is functioning properly, no signs of rejection. Back to bed my dear" she said warmly as she scanned Ben. "We have that arm on the mend, though you won't be swimming any time soon. As for your legs, we'll get you in for the surgical procedure to replace the lost limbs with biosynthetic legs as soon as things calm down around here, promise. You will have a long recovery time, but with hard work and a bit of luck, you'll be back to as close to normal as we can make you."

"Yay!" Kate exclaimed. "But... how is Eislyn? And were you able to retrieve Jane's body from the bathroom?" Kate asked sadly. "I had to leave her in there. What happened? Are we out of danger?" Kate had a thousand questions.

"I can't say if we are out of danger. While the wounded numbers have decreased, we are still getting people in short order. Also don't know about the Jane you are asking about. I've been working almost nonstop for almost 5 hours now." Viviana looked like she didn't want to talk about things.

"Jane was in the bathroom with me when she was killed. Her body will be lying next to a dead Bolian that I blew up with a toilet," Kate explained She sat up next to Ben and kicked her feet over the edge of the bed while looking up at the doctor. "This was all so sudden. Feels like a nightmare."

Ben looked at Viviana and then to Kate, "What about Eislyn? He asked, forgetting about his own injuries. "Don't go Kate." He whispered to her.

Viviana had a somber look about her. "I'm afraid Eislyn was a casualty of this mayhem. The only consolation I can give is that I managed to save the symbiont. We'll have to get it back to Trill within a week, so hopefully all this fighting ends soon." She was visibly shaken having to speak about it.

Kate leaned back against Ben and held his hand after hearing about Eislyn. "Well, shit..." Kate sighed. "We didn't get a chance to know her that well at all. She was a goodie."

Ben closed his eyes and shuddered. So much death, so much destruction. So much pain. Tears leaked from his eyes. He felt guilty and selfish for surviving. At least he still had Kate.

"At least all of her memories will continue to live on in a new host," Kate said, always looking at the bright side to everything. "But she's going to be missed for sure." Kate sighed and tapped the side of the bed panel to bring the EMH back.

"Please state the nature of the medical emergency," the EMH replied. He looked around and narrowed on Kate. "You shut me off. The rest of the crew wouldn't do that. That's rude! And unkind behavior." The EMH picked his PADD and stylus off the ground where it had dropped. He then used the stylus as a pointing device. "... and you're still sitting on the bed when I told you this was sickbay, not..."

Kate tapped the bed again as if in deep thought while the EMH disappeared and the PADD bounced off the carpeted flooring next to the stylus once again.

"... I mean, did she have any family onboard at all? Or, should we contact anyone?" Kate wondered as she tapped the console on the bed again.

"Please state the nature of the medical emergency." The EMH suddenly looked shocked as he picked the PADD and Stylus up again. "That's it! I'm having a talk with the captain about my deactivation controls. get off that bed and do what you're told, Lieutenant."

Kate rubbed her chin and kept her hand tight on Bens as she looked to the other doctor who couldn't be turned off.

"I know sometimes it's the captain's burden to do such things but --," Kate shut the EMH off again and the PADD and Stylus hit the floor again. "... considering we were there when it all happened, maybe we should?" Kate looked to Ben to see what he thought about the dilemma in her head. Perhaps it was just guilt seeping its way into her. She wondered if there was anything she could have done differently.

Ben squeezed Kate's hand with his good hand. "We'll write the letter together Kate. As you said we were there." He finished softly.

Viviana remained distraught. She wasn't ready to tell anyone that Eislyn was the first patient she had lost. She had to write the death certificate. She had started it, but it was still sitting on the computer terminal waiting to be completed. "The captain may allow you to write a note to be included. She doesn't have any family aboard the ship, but she has a cousin in StarFleet, a Lt Cmdr named Ezri Dax." She picked up the PaDD and placed it on a nearby table. "If you don't mind, we need the EMH right now. Dr Perim and I can't handle things alone."

Kate nodded and turned the EMH back on.

Kate leaned back, "I've heard of Ezri Dax. She dated that cute guy on..." Kate snapped her fingers and rolled her eyes. "Deep Space Six! I think..." She turned to Ben, "He's not as cute as you, don't worry." She turned back to Viviana. "Yeah I'll totes write her a note," Kate said somberly.

Ben just simply nodded as Kate rambled along and a small, tired smile came to his face as he realized just how happy he was to be able to hear it.

The EMH kept shutting of and turning back on again as he walked through sickbay. Every time he came back it looked as if he was doing the ancient 80's robot dance. Either way, the ultimate goal was to get him to stop telling her she couldn't sit on the bed with her boyfriend. She turned the EMH on and kept him on one last time while giving him a cute smile and a little wave.

"I really like these bedside controls. When you override them you can have full control of your personal holographic medical care," Kate stated. She laid down next to Ben and picked one of her own PADD's up to claim as her own so that she could write a few letters to two special people's families that deserved to know what happened.

Viviana finally snapped. "If you deactivate him again, I sedate you and put you in a stasis unit. In case you hadn't noticed, we are short staffed and up to our necks in casualties!" The emotional toll along with the physical exhaustion was nothing like what she had ever dealt with at the Academy. This must've been what the doctors had to deal with during the war, that was all she could think about. Eislyn's eyes haunted her, the look of life draining from them replayed in her mind on a constant loop.

The EMH rematerialized, and annoyed look on its face. It immediately saw Viviana and recognized the condition. "Come along doctor" he said as it led Viviana away.

"Kate," Ben said softly, "Stop. Let the doctors do their jobs. They are under an enormous amount of pressure. The EMH is an ass but he is also a doctor. Just lie here next to me, Let me feel you next to me."

"Only next to you?" Kate winked playfully at Ben. She had a bad day but she chose to focus on the good things right now as she pressed her forehead next to Ben's and smiled. "Glad we got through this, even though some couldn't. I was worried."

"Kate. For now, just next to me" Ben repeated softly. He hurt all over and he was elated Kate was okay and here with him. He would need her positive strength in the days and weeks ahead.

Viviana sat alone in Sam's office. She tried to collect herself. This was no time for her to have a breakdown. She'd need to apologize to Kate, but that would have to come later. She needed to get back to work. She stood up and took a long soothing breath and let it out slowly. She made her way around, checking on those recovering. She came to Seth Travis...he was the husband of Dr. Dex. She was thankful that the EMH had managed to treat him. The children were huddled around his biobed. She scanned him and took a look at the readouts at the end of the bed, stable condition. The hologram had done good work, though he'd be sore for quite a while.

 

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