Operation: Shrapnel Retrieval

Posted on 13 May 2013 @ 8:21pm by Commander Andreus Kohl & Lieutenant JG Delainey Carlisle

2,281 words; about a 11 minute read

Mission: Episode 03 - Frontier
Location: USS Galileo - Deck 4, Sickbay
Timeline: MD 05 - 1540 hours

[ON]

Opening his medical kit again, Andreus Kohl studied its contents again and yet again. It was coming time for his second away mission and Kohl was feeling rather obsessive about being prepared. He had to be ready. He had to be ready for everything. Deep down, he knew there was no possible way to be prepared for everything without dragging a starbase hospital module with him everywhere. But he was all the more paranoid after his first away mission. The pilot burned, the security officer impaled in the leg, and the science chief pelleted with shrapnel. And that had just been aboard a shuttlecraft. This time, there was a whole planet of dangers awaiting them.

"...Oh, whatever," Kohl muttered. He snapped the medikit shut.


Timeline: MD 04 - 1207 hours
Location: USS Galileo - Deck 4, Sickbay

For the span of one held breath, the only sound in Galileo's small surgical ward was the electronic beeping that represented steady vital signs. Then there came the musical hum of the transporter, and everyone could breathe again. Sitting beside the central biobed, Andreus Kohl twisted 'round to see the transparent storage container that was positioned just outside the patient's field of vision. Resting in the bottom of the container was a small chunk of crystal, which had been blown apart from the shuttlecraft Virginia's interface console and embedded itself in Maenad Panne's flesh. Although Nurse Practitioner Kohl had escaped the Virginia's crash with little more than strained tendons and a torn up uniform, sterilizing radiation can cleaned the soot from his face and his hair, and his uniform was hidden beneath a crimson surgical gown. Kohl turned back to face the patient, who was laying face down on the biobed.

"We got one," Kohl said, a little too enthusiastically.

Maenad could feel her heart picking up as the reality of what was happening began to settle in. The pain was back, the stinging was still there. The idea that glass was still embedded, damaging her body more and more with every movement, that it could slice an artery, started cutting away at her patience. She wanted it out of her. Now. "Andreus," she said. Her eyes were closed, her teeth clenched. "Please hurry," she tried to keep calm, but she could tell that she wasn't doing a good job of it.

Kohl was straddling a chair beside the biobed, and he rolled just a little bit closer. He tilted his head down and spoke in an undertone: "Do you need some wine?"

Maenad broke into unrestrained laughter. It hurt to laugh, of course, but it was a good hurt nonetheless. "That isn't very funny," she smiled through her wincing. "Knock me out with your gas or something. I cannot bear this." She wasn't sure she meant it, and her tone was hard to read between the laughing and restrained terror, but one thing was for sure: despite her grinning, she wanted to be far, far, away.

"No one's getting a drink without me," Delainey replied, looking down on Maenad. Her eyes appeared brighter when they shined with humor or when she was concentrating, and in this case, it was both. Pre-liminary scans revealed the shrapnel hadn't nicked anything life-threatening, but the doctor was all too aware how easily such tiny pieces could migrate, so she had to act efficiently. "Alright, my dear. We're going to get these invaders out in no time, ok? Andreus is going to give you something for the pain and to relax you, and then using our fancy targeting scanners, I'm going to get to work. Any questions?"

"No," Maenad sighed. She didn't like this. "I don't want to be here."

"...Yeah," Kohl said dryly, and emphasized his point with a nod. "All I'm hearing is blah blah blah 'I need wine' blah blah." He turned his chair to more easily reach the controls on the side of the surgical support frame. Kohl tapped the sequence to make the biobed inject Maenad with another small dose of bicaridine. "Unfortunately," Kohl said, "You'll have to settle for narcotics."

Maenad closed her eyes as the doctors gathered around her. She hated being like this; helpless. She could feel the foreign objects against her insides, against the bottom part of her skin where Kohl had sealed over them. The pain was there, which was starting to numb, but she could feel their presence inside her. She her eyes starting to get moist, but she was able to hold back the tears. Not here, not now. Instead, she sniffed, and hoped that the procedure would get on its way. "Then drug me already," she insisted plaintively.

Taking notice of Maenad's insistence, and recalling her reaction on the shuttle, Kohl touched the biobed's interface again. He increased the dosage of the analgesic to the maximum level in the recommended guidelines from Maenad's medical chart. Kohl listened for the sound of the transporter beaming out another chunk of shrapnel and then he regarded Maenad. "Did you ever find an occasion to drink that beaujolais nouveau?" he asked hopefully.

Maenad smirked. She could feel the drugs in her veins numbing her entire body. Normally such a feeling would send her screaming, but right now it was the best feeling she had ever had. Kohl's comment about her wine even made her try to laugh, but even with all the drugs it caused sharp pains that stopped her. "No," she replied. "I have a year to drink it."

Delainey slid her eyes to Kohl and nodded slightly to encourage him to keep her talking. The scanners helped to locate the various shards, but it took medical expertise to know where to look and to make sure entire pieces were captured rather than simply splintered off in the transport process. A nick in the wrong place could mean the difference between saving the limb and fitting Maenad for a new one. Hitting a button, Delainey's ears were rewarded with the sweet sound of the transporter, but more importantly, her eyes saw the invaders disappear. "You're doing great, Maenad."

Kohl shared an easy smile with Delainey, and he nodded as she continued to manipulate the micro-transporter controls. He folded his arms across his chest and leaned closer to Maenad. "You have a year to drink it?" Kohl said, echoing Maenad's statement in question. "Why one year?"

Maenad sighed. She didn't feel like she was doing great. She felt drugged up, numb, and impatient. She wondered where Liyar was. "Why one year?" The question was rhetorical, because she answered it without skipping a beat. "Because," her accent was more obvious now, as she drifted into a world of drowsiness and muffled sounds. It reminded her a lot of being stoned, but something in between that and normal consciousness. "It is a wine very special that is, you know, only fermented for about two or three months. It is better to drink it sooner than later." Her eyes were still closed, her head sideways on the pillow, her words far from fluid. She spoke as if the question were an obvious one, but she wasn't paying enough attention to herself to notice her tone. "That is why it is called nouveau, because it is new."

Recalling the scarcity of the vintage, the way Maenad had suggested Kohl would never find it on Vega Colony, Kohl made a small, "huh," sound of curiosity. "How did you come by," Kohl asked, "a bottle of such nouveau wine?"

"I brought it with me from Earth, of course," she frowned. "My parents got one for me in Nantes, and they sent it to me."

A thin line of perspiration had begun to travel down Delainey's nose, an indication of the doctor's intense concentration. She was having trouble getting a good lock on a particular piece of debris because it appeared to be intertwined with one of Maenad's veins. Carlisle couldn't afford to initiate transport carelessly, or she might take more of Maenad than was wise.

She was grateful to Andreus for keeping Maenad distracted as Carlisle positioned and re-positioned the scanner to get the majority of the material invader. With most of her concentration on her work, Delainey was vaguely aware Panne was sounding less alert than before. She locked eyes with Kohl, silently looking for confirmation Maenad was still stable.

Catching the question in Delainey's eyes, Kohl kept an eye on the biofunction monitor while Delainey operated the surgical controls. Having also noticed the concern in Delainey's expression, Kohl soothingly said to her, "You have plenty of time," but he covered it up by finishing with Maenad, "to finish that wine." He looked to the biofunction monitor again. "Mind you," he said, "If you find spectacular life on the moons of Rojar II, you'll have more than enough reason."

Maenad only smiled, completely oblivious that her life was in peril. Had she known, she would have had a panic attack. She was still thinking about the wine. It was not supposed to be drunk until November, but Maenad had gotten a bottle ahead of time. Her parents spoiled her, she thought with a grin. "Am I going to be okay?" she asked a little heavily, still accented.

Unaware of the shrapnel fragment that had shifted enough to entangle with a blood vessel, Kohl didn't even have to lie. "You're going to be even better than before," Kohl remarked. "Didn't we mention this surgery also comes with a massage?"

"I don't think it does," Maenad mumbled back. She felt like she'd gone to another world.

Kohl shrugged at that; he wasn't about to press the issue. "What are you working on," Kohl asked, "When we don't have something bizarre in the sights of the ship's sensors?"

Maenad could feel the tingling of the transporter taking pieces out of her, and then the empty spaces where the flesh slowly sunk back into place. She was wondering how much pain she would be in if not for the drugs. She didn't even hear Kohl's question, she was so distracted. She knew that he had asked something, but didn't know what. Not wanting to seem like she wasn't listening, she decided to reply to the question that she thought he'd asked. "On the surface I was looking for interesting rocks," she muttered, her accent now stronger. "I got a sample from down about one metre. It was really nice. It was deadly on the planet," she spoke her thoughts as they came, "but it was beautiful and I think you should have gone outside too. It would have been nice to share."

Bolstered by Kohl's reassurance, Delainey took an inward breath and re-focused on her challenge. The invaders were not going to win. They would be conquered. A few minutes later, a wry smile could be seen on her features as she worked. "Almost got em all."

Inside Kohl's head, he was hooting and hollering with thanks that the surgery was almost complete. Maenad's anxiety about the surgery had put a knot in his stomach, despite how routine the surgery really was. Even worse, the shock and the adrenaline rush from the emergency landing and the triage felt as if it had been a long, long time ago now. Kohl felt fatigued down to his bones, and there were new aches blossoming in his own body that he hadn't noticed before.

"Will we have another change to return to Rojar I?" Kohl asked Maenad. "Complete the survey, take some holoimages, maybe go for a walk..."

"I don't know," she said honestly. It was a remarkable place; all ten minutes of it that she saw in person. The drugs had taken away all feeling in her arm and back now, and Maenad frowned as she tried to feel individual parts of her body. She was trying to do this by concentrating on her shoulder blade, her shoulder, her elbow, the base of her neck - she couldn't tell if she was successful.

"Oh damn," Kohl muttered. He looked over at Maenad's vitals, made sure her body was doing well. "It will be a shame if we miss out."

"I can't feel anything," Maenad said after another minute or so. Her trying to feel without touching was clearly not working out. "Am I all right? Are we almost done?" she sounded groggy and concerned.

"One more piece to go," Delainey replied. "You're alright, I promise. Your adrenaline is wearing off and the drugs are taking over." Carlisle bit her lip and with a satisfying slap on the panel, she watched the last piece of shrapnel shimmer out of existence and land with a satisfying *ping* into the nearby container.

Carlisle took a few moments to survey her work before offering, "The worst is over, Maenad. It'll just take a few moments to stitch you up and then you and Andreus can get some rest."

Well, that was a relief. "Thank you," she smiled to the side. Maenad couldn't see Carlisle, but her voice soothed the stress that started building. She wanted to get up, but stopped herself. She could get up when Kohl said so, Maenad thought. Then she would go home to bed.

Delainey placed a free hand reassuringly on Maenad's uninjured arm. "Anytime, though for the record, if you wanted to see me, you could have just invited me to lunch," she teased.

***

[OFF]


Lieutenant (JG) Delainey Carlisle, M.D., Ph.D.
Assistant Chief Counselor/Doctor
USS Galileo

Lieutenant (JG) Andreus Kohl
Assistant Chief Medical Officer
USS Galileo

Lieutenant (JG) Maenad Panne
Chief Science Officer
USS Galileo

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