Retreat (Part 1 of 5)

Posted on 31 Aug 2019 @ 12:05pm by Rear Admiral Lirha Saalm & Commander Allyndra illm Warraquim & Commander Luke Wyatt & Lieutenant Amaranai Franklin & Lieutenant Lake ir-Llantrisant & Lieutenant Commander Ryan Alexander & Lieutenant JG Sofie Ullswater & Chief Warrant Officer 3 Alexion Wylde & Senior Chief Petty Officer Goldie Brown & EMH Mark X-C "Shirley" & Laeon Wylde & Verity Thorne & LuAnn Lovegood PhD & Crewman Leander Fionn
Edited on on 31 Aug 2019 @ 12:09pm

3,182 words; about a 16 minute read

Mission: Episode 17 - Crystal of Life
Location: Latari System, USS Galileo-A
Timeline: MD 01, 0621 hrs

Previously, on The Battle of Latari (Part 6)...

"Luke, get us out of here!" Saalm instructed. "Disengage and set course for the convoy position, warp 1."

Ryan had only just begun to notice the issue with power to the nacelles when the Captain had told Luke to go to warp. The matter-antimatter reactions were holding steady, which was a miracle in and of it self, but Ryan noticed that the EPS power taps or several of the EPS power distribution nodes were not routing power to the nacelles properly. Ryan furrowed his brow as he typed in a series of overrides that bypassed the damaged systems, and utilized the two remaining working lines into the nacelles. He really needed to get down and help repair the power distribution systems, but his workaround should hold for a little while. "Power to the warp nacelles should be stabilized for now captain."

Luke watched the power reading as he flicked between different screens, "Disengage, steady the power as much as we can and set a heading..." A console erupted sending sparks across the bridge. "Set ahead for the convoy warp 1 now!" Holding on to the chair of his seat Luke watched as the bridge crew went into action.

And Now, the Continuation...

[ON]

At the command of Galileo's acting XO, the tiny Nova-class starship charged its warp drive and its nacelles began to glow bright white. With a quick flash in the cosmos, the vessel elongated then snapped into low warp, escaping the combat zone.

Inside the vessel's damaged bridge, the Orion captain continued to scan her displays and the personnel present - especially the injured. Mastrel appeared to be tending to Darius but she could still see Brown behind her on the ground in her peripheral vision. Saalm had put out a call to sickbay but knew it would take time for the emergency response team to arrive.

The tactical display next to Lirha's chair still showed sensor data from the Trial but now with new, unidentifiable energy signatures. The captain swallowed a lump in her throat when she realized the Miranda-class wasn't moving with them in retreat.

"Put the Trial on screen, maximum magnification. She's not with us...something is happening."

Ullswater pulled up the image on the screen for the captain but was not entirely sure what she was seeing. A lattice like structure of yellow beams seemed to be forming around the Trial. She focused the active sensors on the area and realised that this was likely one of the web structures that the Tholians were known to use. "They're constructing a lattice of energy filaments." She called over to the captain, though she suspected that the captain likely knew more about this weapon than she did "I think they could do significant damage if a ship was to come into contact with them."

Saalm stared at the real-time image of Trial on the main viewer while listening to the science officer's report. Mild horror was the easiest way to describe her dreadful feelings and a pit now formed in her stomach. Silence ensued then Lirha looked to her XO with purpose. "That's a Tholian web," she identified with certainty. Though she'd never personally seen the weapon employed until now, all tactical intelligence reports from over a hundred years coincided with what they were now seeing. "We have to go back and help them..."

It was a time like this Luke hated how his mind worked, as it did a daunting realisation hit him. "We can not." He said simply. "We must remain on course to the convoy. There's nothing more we can do here and go back now will result in..." His Adam's apple moved as he took a gulp swallowing his own words the sourness leaving a horrid taste in the back of his through, "Going back now will result in more casualties, Continue withdrawing."

Amaranai was bleeding more now. She had ripped part of her uniform and was holding it against her head. Her head pounded and she had to force herself to focus on what remained of her screens.

Listening to Luke, Amaranai checked her own sensors and confirmed the Tholian Web. She had never seen one in action but had read about them during her tactical training. To Starfleet, at least, little could be done if a ship had been caught in a Tholian Web.

"I have to agree, captain," Amaranai said. "We're in no condition to fight the Tholians or anyone else at the moment."

Lirha grit her teeth and narrowed her eyes at the unhelpful rebukes. From an internal place containing memories of deeply traumatic events, her primal emotions quickly surfaced.

"Come about to heading two-zero-eight," she ordered, the exact reciprocal of their current retreat vector. "Amaranai, ready all torpedo magazines. Ops, full power to forward shields and prepare additional damage control teams."

Goldie was back in her seat, but she couldn't believe what she was hearing. The captain was going to take them into battle when they were at a serious disadvantage? She had no say in this, so she remained silent, but she thought there had to be a better way.

Amaranai heard Lirha and looked back to her console. She pressed a few buttons and readied the torpedoes as requested. This was a bad idea but she had to follow orders.

"Captain!" Said the acting executive officer as he turned to face Lirha his words filled with shock. "I do not concur with that order, we are limping as it is. Half the bridge crew are seriously injured and the ship is in no state to fight one ship let alone all of them. If we go back we will likely not return, and what good will that do anyone. Two destroyed federation ships." Luke let out a breath," Captain seriously consider this order, and not with emotion but with logic, you'll be signing us up for our own funerals, you know me Captain I won't say this light. I do not concur with your order."

Ryan had done as the captain had asked. While there wasn't much power available that he could move around without critically hampering ship systems, he did what could. "Captain, with the damage that we have taken, and unless I move power from critically important systems, I am unable to fully reinforce the shields." Ryan trusted Lirha, and knew that she was doing what she thought was right.

Saalm's eyes snapped from her console to her XO for a long moment, across the wounded bridge, then back to the small tactical display next to her chair. "Objection noted. Now turn us around. That's an order, Mister Wyatt."

The familiar light timbre of Lirha's Orion voice was now forceful and determined. The reports from the bridge stations were indeed bleak but she knew Galileo had more left in her. How could they possibly leave their escort behind to face inexplicable Tholian horrors?

"Sofie," continued the captain while observing Callin still tending to Darius near the conn, "find me a way through their shields. You have one minute!"

"Captain, I-" Ullswater stopped herself, she'd been about to say it was impossible or that she thought turning around was the worst idea anyone had ever had. She wanted to say so many things but she was at the end of her wits and will. There was no way she could do this in a minute she was almost certain of that but right now she felt she had no choice but to close her eyes, take a deep breath, and give it a try. "I'll do my best Captain."


Various Decks

LuAnn had elected to stay in sickbay so the others could take care of the more serious injuries. She prepared triage units to deal with any of the crew that came through the doors, and to take orders for any that were sent to her.

Lake, meanwhile, had never intended to disobey a senior officer’s orders. When Allyndra had ordered him to lie down, entire sections away from Sickbay, Lake ir-Llantrisant had surrendered his medikit to Shirley without complaint. Sure, Lake had tried to dismiss Alexion Wylde’s initial concern for him, but then Allyndra had given him a direct order. A direct order was a direct order. Lake had nodded and had spun on his heel. He marched back in the direction of Sickbay and he hadn't looked back. How was Lake to know he would cross paths with Crewman Leander Fionn between his position and the doors too Sickbay? Fionn had been trudging to Sickbay with an obvious limp, bracing his right palm against his right thigh. As a Counsellor, a Neurologist, and a Doctor in his own right, Lake ir-Llantrisant had draped an arm around Fionn’s shoulders. Helping them both into Sickbay’s ICU, Lake encouraged the young Crewman to lean against him, to take some of the weight off his injured legs.

Thinking he was safe —thinking he would be fine now— Fionn released his hand off his leg. How could he have known? Fionn’s expertise was sensor tech, not biology. He hadn’t known the laceration to his leg was far worse than he’d realized. Because he removed the pressure from the wound in his trousers and his thigh, gushes of blood starting to squirt out of his leg.

In that heartbeat, feeling Fionn go limp against him, Lake couldn’t be a patient. "LuAnn! Please!" Lake shouted out. There was a halting lilt to his proclamations. He hesitated and then he made his decision. He made his decision consciously. Lake couldn’t lie down. He begged, "Get me a protoplaser!"

She grabbed the instrument and ran over to him. "Let's get him to a biobed so we can work on him." She carefully took the other side of Fionn and half-carrying, half-dragging him to the biobed. "You hook him up, I'll stop the bleeding." Lake was ready to fall over himself and would need to be taken care of next.

She began to repair the worst of the damage first, to stop the bleeding. In her mind she ran over the procedures she'd been taught in her triage courses. Bleeding, breathing, breaks. Stop the bleeding, top him off, and then deal with the rest. She hoped he didn't go into shock on top of it all.

Moving to the opposite side of the biobed, Lake reached for the biofunction monitor to access the bed's internal treatment systems. As stubbornly as he wanted to help this patient, even he had to silently acknowledge relief that LuAnn was the one handling the protoplaser to halt Fionn's bleeding. Lake was blinking rapidly to keep the LCARS interface clear in his field of vision. Even coordinating his fingertips to strike the correct contacts on the interface panel was proving difficult given the slight vertigo he was feeling from the ringing in his ears.

All the same, Lake was experienced enough to support a blood loss case on something close to autopilot. He activated one of the biobed's hyposprays to apply a mild analgesic to minimize Fionn's pain and he increased the steri-field generation in the area of Fionn's leg where LuAnn was working. Sliding his fingers down through menu options on the screen, Lake kept LuAnn aware of the progress he was making. "I'm administering hypertonic saline with an added viscosity enhancement to prevent shock," Lake said, as the biobed's intravenous units attached themselves to Fionn.

LuAnn nodded acknowledgement as most of her concentration was on what she was doing. She finished with the bleeders and checked to make sure she had everything. There was a tiny one she quickly repaired. Then one that started further up his thigh. "I got them all. Let's get some blood in him. She glanced at Lake. "Then I'll take care of you."

Intentional or not, Lake ran from LuAnn at the suggestion that he was a patient. She must have seen him strike his head on a biobed, like all the others, and his uncoordinated efforts with this patient weren't much better. He sprinted to the replicator and confirmed they were still operating. There were blood stores they could pull from, but Lake was determined to keep using the high-tech solutions for as long as they continued to function. He fed the computer the details of Fionn's blood from his medical tricorder and he replicated a couple of sizable biobed cartridges filled with suitable blood.

Having made his way back to the biobedside, Lake requested, "Prescribe me thirty ccs of alkysine," given his close familiarity with the Romulan brain. He plugged one of the blood cartridges into the biobed and then he manipulated the interface to program the parameters of the biobed's blood transfusion. "It will reduce the, likely, swelling in my brain and alleviate any symptoms," Lake declared. "...I can still help the crew if you treat me."

"If you lie down," LuAnn said. "Otherwise, I'll have to do it by force." She smiled sweetly, but she was quiet capable of knocking him out, one way or another.


Observation Lounge

Shirley was already mid-step in her stride when she materialized in the Observation Lounge. Given her ability to translocate from one part of the ship to another instantly --as an Emergency Medical Hologram-- Shirley had arrived in the lounge before the team from Sickbay, but she wasn't the first. A smattering of crew members had already started to congregate in the lounge --as an emergency shelter-- and a couple of them looked like they could be patients too. With all the strength of the Galileo's forcefield system, Shirley brushed her hands against a couple of the small tables and those tables were launched against the bulkhead, as if by telekinesis.

"Over here," Shirley announced to the Betazoid Operations Crewman who was waiting for her. As she said the words, Shirley gesticulated wildly at the space she'd cleared up. "Line up the biobeds here," Shirley demanded. She ran over to join the Crewman at the anti-grav pallet, and starting greedily snatching up the folded-flat emergency biobeds. As the Sickbay team started to arrive, Shirley was unfolding one of the biobed's legs to place it in position.

"Here..." Verity moved quickly when he saw what she was doing, running to help her get the beds set up. He glanced up to her, his throat tight. He would never say out loud what he was thinking; that they were a small team for such a chaotic battle...and that he himself was no doctor, he was a Chaplain, with enough field medic training to not be completely useless. It made him nervous. It made him pray.

Allyndra had left the rest to get organized. Her goal was to get to engineering ascertain the injuries there as keeping the ship going was falling on their shoulders, also if they could verify a holodeck was alright and could get power she could get a secondary sickbay up and running over temporary triages. She heard the call from the bridge for a medic but figured some other trained person would answer.

Content that no emergency cases had arrived at the lounge yet, Alexion glanced around as he caught hold of his case, ready to head to the bridge. He stopped dead in his tracks when the familiar, slender figure walked through the doors, his breath catching. "Laeon?"

"Dad..." the youth made his way over with worry and confusion clear in his eyes, holding his arm to his side awkwardly. "What's going on? This is..."

"Space," Alexion muttered in their language as he quickly took his state in with worried eyes. He saw the way he held his arm, the already angry bruise on his head. He reached out, not giving him a choice as he gripped the side of his face to make sure there was nothing seriously wrong. "It's space going on. Stay here and wait to be seen, I'll be back soon," he promised as he touched his son's hair briefly, watching as Laeon nodded reluctantly and moved to be out the way.

Alexion took a breath as he forced down the concern in him before raising his voice to the others. "I'm heading for the bridge, I'll be as quick as I can. Call me if you need me..." he assured even as he headed out the door with a firm stride.

"Over here, dear," the Emergency Medical Hologram beckoned to Laeon, having eavesdropped on the conversation he'd had with his father. In her current incarnation, Shirley had been struggling to relate to her coworkers in Sickbay, but she still understood the importance of patient care. Moving to Laeon's side, she rest her hands on his shoulders lightly and guided him to one of the prepped biobeds. "Is it your arm that hurts?" Shirley asked, given Laeon's body language; "Or anywhere else?"

Laeon nodded, frowning as he reached to rub at the blossoming bruise across his temple. "I managed to hit my head too when I fell," he said quietly, in lightly accented standard. He watched her with curious violet eyes, leaning in. "What's going on?" he asked again, figuring it was worth trying again with someone else. It was clear that the young Vaeron, who looked to be the equivalent of a human teenager, was somewhat frustrated at being kept in the dark.

At Laeon's question, Shirley huffed out a breath of air in the direction of the bright right fringe hanging over one eye. "I'm afraid you would know better than I," Shirley replied. All the while, she had raised her medical tricorder in Laeon's direction, evaluating his vital signs and any signs of trauma to his head. "They don't activate my program until everything has thoroughly," she said, "(and I can't stress this enough) gone all the way to hell."

Laeon watched her with mild surprise at the feeling she'd put into the words. He knew she was a hologram. He could feel it too. But the words really had come across with a sense of emotion that he hadn't expected. "I guess we've both been left in the dark then...."

A call came in from Allyndra indicating that the holodecks were up and running and set up as emergency sickbays and that patients could be routed there.

Shirley cocked her chin up and folded her arms under her breasts. She breathed out a puff of air through her nose, or at least, that was how her personality subroutine kicked in to demonstrate her mental exertion as she considered Allyndra's orders. "Understood, Doctor," replied the Emergency Medical Hologram. "Shirley out." Spinning back in Laeon's direction, she took hold of his arm with a gentle and ginger grip. "We'd better patch you up," she affirmed; "I'm gonna need a nurse."

To Be Continued...

[OFF]

--

All Crew
Various Positions
USS Galileo-A

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