Decompression (Part 1 of 2)

Posted on 10 Aug 2012 @ 10:30am by Lieutenant Lilou Zaren & Chief Warrant Officer 3 Lamar Darius

3,693 words; about a 18 minute read

Mission: Episode 01 - Project Sienna
Location: USS Galileo - Deck 2, Various
Timeline: MD07 - 2300 hrs

[ON]

Lilou stared blankly at her PADD as the damage reports came in from all over the ship. The individual problems were ones she knew how to deal with, but the sheer number of them was daunting. Not daunting. Numbing. Not numbing. She just felt numb.

Will Remington was dead. Quinn was in the Sickbay, half of his arm just gone. She could still smell his burning flesh, the scent of it steadfastly remaining with her. Someone had told her once that every time she smelled something, she actually had particles of that thing in her nose. The Galileo was drifting in a nebula. The Captain had been kidnapped. And Will was dead, she thought again.

She stepped woodenly from the turbolift and headed towards the transporter room. That needed to be fixed, for the XO to be able to retrieve the Captain and the rest of the kidnapped crew.

Another list of system reports scrolled down the PADD's screen. With the Klingons off the ship and the ship safely (for the moment) stowed away in the nebula, Lilou had hooked the helmet of her EP suit to the back of her neck and loaded every tool she thought might be moderately useful into her tool belt and thigh holster. There were enough hull breaches that needed to be sealed and dealt with that it warranted leaving the suit on for the time being; that wasn't what was strange. It was her expression, or lack of one, and the glassy nature of her usually bright and alert eyes. She felt too heavy to move, but she was walking. Her hands on the PADD were white-knuckled with tension. Somewhere deep in her mind, solutions were being found to the problems as they arose. Her subconscious was picking up the slack for the shock that was currently winning out over her motor functions. She needed to move, to act, to do something, to be useful, but how could she when she couldn't move? Could barely breathe. Could barely stand to stand at all. It was an effort not to simply drop to the ground and cry, but she knew that wasn't an option.

The holodecks were offline, but that was the least of their worries for now. She knew that. So why she stopped beside them, resting her hand on the door - it made very little sense. There was a seemingly endless list of things for her to do, to repair, to get back to functioning, but she could barely function herself. She tried, earnestly, to pull her hand from the holodeck doors and move on towards the transporter room. A strange, strangled gasping sound put her teeth on edge until she realized, dully, that the sound was coming from her.

Will was dead and parts of Quinn's burned flesh were lodged inexorably in her nostrils.

She shoved her gloves in her mouth and screamed, pressing her forehead against the cold of the holodeck doors.

The dark gray and black tones of his uniform jacket were effective in hiding the blood which dripped down his side, yet it did little to ease the sharp pains which seared through his ribs every time he took a breath. With a hand wrapped gingerly around the shrapnel wound, Lamar slowly made his way through the damaged and smokey corridors of Deck 2. He was hurt but not injured, and knew that there were probably many worse casualties in sickbay at the moment...as well as fatalities. With the attack over and Galileo safely in the Z'Tarnis nebula, his job was now to organize and deploy the junior crew to their various stations. Starting from the shuttlebay, he had meticulously worked his way forward through the ship, visiting all departments and instructing various personnel on their emergency duties. Now, he found himself turning the corner as he approached the holodeck.

The sight of a crewman in an EVA suit caught his attention, and he slowed as she let out a muffled cry with her head buried against the door. He instantly recognized the assistant chief engineer's voice, and it sent a shiver of panic through him. "Lilou? ...Peers!" he yelled as he moved swiftly towards her, afraid that she might be injured. Once he was in range, he put a large hand on the shoulder of her suit to check that she was unharmed.

She jerked at the sound of her name, mortified she'd been caught in her weakness, and turned in time for his hand to land on her shoulder. She opened her mouth to say his name and all that came out was a breathless hiccup. "I'm sorry," she whispered. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry." She pressed her back against the doors, fighting tears, and caught the scent of blood on the air. A whoosh of air rushed out of her, "You're okay, though. You are okay, aren't you?"

As Lilou turned to face him, the chief tried to quickly look her over for any signs of injury, yet unfortunately he couldn't see anything below her neck since she was still suited up in the bulky space-faring apparatus. He turned his attention to her face and anguished eyes, noting the moisture and sadness which was apparent within them. "It's okay...I'm fine," he lied to reassure her, then took a painful deep breath and moved his hand up to stroke the side of her face, "Are you okay?" he asked in return, wincing slightly. He wanted to hug her, but knew that it would only cause him more discomfort at the moment.

She nodded, even though she was sure she wasn't. She didn't feel all right. She felt as though she were a hodgepodge of flotsam and jetsam getting ready to fall apart and float away. But she was whole and she had no right to complain. Still, she kept nodding, as though she couldn't stop. An object in motion remains in motion. Until it's cut down. She swallowed hard, pressing her cheek into his hand. "Where were you? Did you see them - when they came on board - did you-" She broke off, searching his face. He looked tired. His breath was labored. She pressed her lips together as panic began to crawl like bile up her throat. "You're not okay."

Lamar was beginning to feel light-headed from the loss of blood and he could feel the warm bodily fluid dripping down his side to his waist, and on to his leg. Up until now he had managed to keep his composure, but knew that he had to get his wound treated eventually. Nevertheless, he didn't want to upset Lilou any further or have her begin to worry about him. She seemed distressed enough as it was. "It's just a small wound," he responded quietly, trying to appease her, then wrapped a protective arm around her shoulder and pulled her close to his uninjured side in a light hug. He leaned down and placed a soft kiss on her cheek, then suddenly felt his head begin to spin. "I was in the shuttlebay..." he started to explain, then awkwardly stumbled against the door.

On a sharp inhale, Lilou turned with him, wrapping her arms around him to try to keep him on his feet. And where she touched, her hands found wet. She'd smelled blood; but the smell of blood was everywhere. The smell of Quinn's blood mixed with the smoky scent of cooking flesh. The smell of Klingon blood and her own comrade's in the closed confines of Main Engineering. The smell of Will's blood on the bridge from when she'd gone up to check in immediately after the departure of the Klingons. Now Lamar- she pulled at his jacket, singularly focused. "Let me see. Why aren't you in Sickbay? I can't- I can't- I can't lose anyone else today, so you'd better not be dying, or I'll kill you. Do you understand?" She held a quicklamp between her teeth to get a better look at the wound in his side. "Sickbay," she repeated, hitching herself under his other arm. "Let's go."

The chief shook his head in protest as she tried to nudge him towards sickbay. "No...I'll be fine...." he replied as he steadied himself against the small Trill engineer. "Marine's don't die unless they have permission." he added with a small smile, trying to inject some levity to the grim situation. Lamar turned slowly to face Lilou and removed his hand from his side so she could see the medium-sized piece of metal protruding from in between his ribs. "It's not very deep...I just need a medkit and someone to pull it out."

Lilou stifled a gasp at the sight of the shard of metal imbedded in Lamar's side. The quicklamp illuminated the shard with a dusky green tint, which made Lamar's blood look more Vulcan than human. And there was so mich of it. "Isn't..." she searched her memories for her basic first aid training, "you're not supposed to pull it out, are you? What if it's- it could have hit something inside." She looked up at him, trying and failing to hide her distress. The joke had had the opposite effect, because now she had reason to be doubly fearful. She'd spent the last two days with a mantra convincing herself that he was no longer a Marine. She swallowed hard. There was a medkit station right between the holodecks, but she didn't want to make his injury worse than it already looked.

"I'll be fine, just...bring me a medkit, Lilou. Please." he said quietly, with a bit of forcefulness to his voice. He didn't want to come across as being short with her but he was experiencing an increasing amount of pain as the time wore by and the adrenaline from the previous battle wore off. And, he really didn't want to have to go down to sickbay for an injury which he felt could be tended to privately. He trusted her enough to be able to assist him.

Lilou looked at him, arrested by the demand in his voice, and nodded. She could do this, if she had to. She told herself she could, even while she was desperately trying to shove the image of Quinn's mangled stump from her mind. Hitting the release mechanism on the wall between the holodecks, she grabbed the kit from inside and brought it back, kneeling on the floor beside him. "Just tell me what you need," she said quietly.

He carefully slumped down on the floor next to her with his back against the wall. "Medical tricorder, autosuture, dermal regenerator....and maybe kiss when we're all finished." he replied with another small smile. Removing the piece of metal in his side was going to be painful, to say the least, yet it was a necessary evil. Hopefully the tricorder scan would reveal no internal injuries and the suture device would be able to cleanly close up the wound, then the final touches could be applied with the dermal regenerator.

She drew the tools out one by one, placing them carefully in his reach. Holding the quicklamp between her teeth, she peeled back his jacket, cut his ruined, bloody shirt apart to see the wound more clearly, and winced at the angry gash with the metal sticking out of it. It looked deep, whatever he said. She couldn't smile. She couldn't even try. She knew she ought to, intellectually. That she should be trying to keep his spirits up, encouraging, something, but all she could manage was focusing on the task at hand and refraining from curling on the floor in a ball.

He squeezed her arm gently in gratitude, then picked up the medical tricorder and flipped it open. Using the small probe at the end of the casing, he scanned his own injury while keeping a keen eye on the results being displayed on the tiny screen. The chunk of tritanium appeared to be lodged deep into the tough cartilage between his fifth and sixth ribs, yet there was no indication of any internal organ injuries. Closing the tricorder, he set it down on the floor and looked back up into her worried blue eyes. "Okay...it's not bad." he confirmed, "I just need you to pull the piece out slowly from a clean angle and then," he paused to pick up the autosuture device, "Hold this over the wound immediately afterwards." he instructed.

Lilou nodded at the instructions, pushing her rattled feelings down deep. No room. There never was. Work. She just needed to focus on work. She took a deep breath, tamping down all her grief and fear into a tiny box somewhere deep and hidden, and bit hard on the quicklamp. She had steady hands. She'd use them. Carefully, she took hold of the metal shard and met Lamar's eyes with her own for a moment before drawing it free. The blood ran more steadily as she dropped the shard to the ground and brought the autosuture up to the wound, spreading the cloth out of the way and holding the flesh closed as she did so. Just like welding metal, except metal didn't move so much, nor bleed. As the wound was closed, she leaned back and carefully cleaned the device of Lamar's blood before setting it back in the kit. "Infection," she said quietly, looking through the kit with bloody fingers and blank gaze.

Gritting his teeth as Lilou pulled the debris from his body, the chief couldn't help but let out a cry of pain as the metal object finally came free from the confines of his abdomen. He shut his eyes in distress then leaned his head back against the door and breathed heavily in an attempt to regain his composure. Several long moments passed before he heard her voice again, this time mentioning something about an infection. "I'll go to sickbay in the morning and bring the kit with me." he mumbled back to her absentmindedly. Her concern was valid but in his opinion, it was the least of their worries, all things considered. "Help me up?" he asked with a whisper before realizing the awkwardness of his request. He was almost a foot taller and about a hundred pounds heavier than her, yet in his current state he required a bit of assistance to get back on his feet.

Lilou nodded again, giving up her search for antibiotics and bracing herself against the wall with one hand, while offering him the other. She'd dragged Quinn through long, complicated access shafts. She could pull Lamar to his feet. But she couldn't help herself. Little niggling doubts sprang out, accompanied by the smell of blood and cauterized flesh and memories of Quinn's missing arm and Remington lying dead on the Bridge. "It could get worse- If you leave it, it could get worse-" She took his arm, "Careful when you stand up. Sutures pull out easy."

"Sickbay tomorrow...I promise." he replied in agreement as she helped him back to his feet. The blood loss from his body had become rather severe at this point and he felt light-headed as he tried to stand. Bracing himself against his companion, he slung an arm around her shoulder for support. "I forgot about the dermal regenerator," he admitted sheepishly, "It should help reinforce the stitches." he added, hoping she could retrieve and apply the device for him.

"Hold on," she secured his hand on her back at the line clasp and folded over, grabbing the dermal regenerator and running it over the wound. "I did too. Forget." She stood up, wiping her hands off on her thighs and trying to keep her breath steady. "I'm sorry," she whispered.

Sorry for what? he wondered curiously. It wasn't her fault that he was standing near a console in the shuttlebay when the ship was hit by a torpedo, nor that he had managed to find her amidst the chaotic and damaged ship. And it certainly was no fault of hers for forgetting a mere dermal regenerator. "It's okay, don't be sorry." he replied. The discomfort in his side was now substantially less with the foreign object no long protruding from him, but he was already feeling rather fatigued. Some rest would probably be good right about now, he thought to himself. "I think I need to go to my quarters for a few hours," he admitted, "Can you walk with me?"

"I..." she glanced towards the transporter room, then back at her bloody hands, before landing on Lamar's face again. "I'll walk with you," she repeated his words down to the inflection, blinking in slightly dazed way. So much blood. Her own didn't bother her but other people's blood... She secured his arm around her shoulders, "You didn't hit your head, did you? Because last time I hit my head and thought I was fine, I was apparently not. And I really can't handle you not being fine right now."

"No I didn't hit my head." he answered with a shake of it to somehow prove that he was telling the truth. "But I'm already feeling better...just need a shower and few hours of rest." he added, making sure to keep a good grip on her EVA suit for support. Slowly and deliberately, the two enlisted crewmen walked together through the mangled mess of the corridors and towards the turbolift. Lamar was happy to have found Lilou alive and safe, yet he was now beginning to worry about her mental well-being. She seemed distant and distracted, hey eyes often showing signs of distress each time he looked at her. And rightfully so; after all, she looked like she had just been through hell and back. Maybe she needed a shower too, he thought as they stepped into the semi-damaged lift.

The ride was short and the doors finally hissed open with a flicker of the overhead lights. Using Lilou for support, they both stepped out into the corridor of Deck 3, then made their way around the deck to the familiar-looking door where Lamar's quarters were located. He punched his security code into the door's panel and it too parted with a soft swish. The chief looked wide-eyed as he stepped inside with her, and they came to a stop in the middle of his living room. His room was trashed, a chaotic mess of bulkhead debris laying about everywhere. His dining room table and desk had been flipped over, their contents and belongings spewed all over the floor. Against the far wall to the left, his once-valuable and perfectly conditioned poster of Hakeem Olajuwon lay ripped and crumpled in a broken mess of paper and plastic composites. He swallowed a lump in his throat as he continued to survey the damage, then swayed a bit as he finally took in the full scene. "I guess it could be worse." he joked to himself with a monotonous voice devoid of feeling.

"You could have been one of the hull breaches," Lilou said quietly. "You could have been in here when the ship was hit. You could have been on deck three during the radiation leak." She looked at Lamar solemnly, "You can stay in my bunk. It's small, but I don't have much, so if it got tossed, it won't have made much of a difference."

"I guess you're right...and as long as your shower works, I don't mind." he agreed with an audible sigh. After a long moment he finally moved his arm off of her and took her by the hand, leading her slowly down the short hallway and into the bathroom while inspecting the rest of his quarters. Fortunately, the back end of his small apartment was relatively undamaged, and a quick check of the sonic shower revealed that it was still working. Moving rather gingerly, Lamar removed his blood-soaked uniform and boots, then turned to Lilou to help her out of her EVA suit and uniform as well. Judging from the large and numerous splotches of deep red splattered across her, he guessed she wanted to get clean just as badly as him. "Co'mon...let's clean up. You'll feel better." he said quietly, then leaned down and kissed her softly on the lips.

Lilou was fairly sure he was wrong, but she didn't have the energy to argue the point. Shutting down the tears had left her swimming in the dark again and she couldn't bring herself to risk opening up that narrowly sublimated gorge of pain. So, she let him loosen and peel off her EV suit; as the pressure of the suit released, her overused muscles began to ache in earnest, and that was when he kissed her. It was easier to be here, to ease the suffering of one person, than it was to deal with her own. The first damage reports and lists of parts they didn't have means of replicating right now spun through her mind, but she kissed him back.

It felt nice being able to finally press his lips against hers. He had been especially worried after the damage reports from engineering and the bridge first came in, wondering if she had been injured in the attack. But she had survived, unharmed. At least, she said she had. He still wanted to look her over once they were in the shower, to make sure she indeed was uninjured. Slowly, he took a step back and pulled off his undershirt which revealed a couple more scratches and cuts near the initial shrapnel wound. They were minor, yet still stung with each breath he took. Like his uniform, his Starfleet-issue briefs were also stained deep crimson and he pulled them down off his waist, then tossed them in the corner to be abandoned. He stepped into the shower and looked back at Lilou expectantly.

To Be Continued...

[OFF]

--

MCPO Lamar Darius
Chief of the Boat
USS Galileo
NPC'd by Lirha Saalm

MWO Lilou Peers
Assistant Chief Engineering Officer
USS Galileo

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