Chapter 35 - Triage
Kirk heard a shrill voice shouting what sounded like "Muster!" which meant the team was returning to the beam-in area. He waited until the vibration of footsteps retreated, put his phaser around the corner and fired a stun in case the enemy was trying to follow the team. He glanced around the corner to see the result.
Nothing moved. He waited, breathing heavily. He coughed. The mask might be damaged, letting in poison gas. He stood and, with a last burst of strength, hobble-ran with a severe limp, tripping over colonist bodies and around the next corner. The doors leading into the manufacturing bay were open now. A bot turned and fired as he hurried past one. It ricocheted off his reflective plates and scattered along the walls. Searing burns struck across his arm and torso where the plates parted to let him move. He stubbornly kept at the hobbled running, considered himself lucky he didn't get shot in the head. The ship loomed huge around him. The passageway didn't look familiar even though he was sure he was backtracking.
"Commander Kirk!"
Kirk stumbled to a halt, nearly folding his right leg. He caught himself from the half fall, found a sense of vertical in the better lighting. Glissen was helping someone much taller than her. Kirk took the man's arm over his own shoulder, even though he needed the help nearly as much.
"Air's clear here, sir."
Kirk tugged his mask down, breathed freely. Coughed.
"Kirk?"
"Commander Pizzaro," Kirk said, mostly reading the man's lips. "Been a while." To Glissen: "Got everyone?" He was on automatic. He would be lucky to hear the answer.
"We think so. We hope so. We have all of our crew. That I have an accurate count on. Lots of walking wounded. Two of ours dead. Three imprisoned Starfleet dead. Not sure how many enemy dead and wounded, but as long as they aren't shooting at us . . ."
Kirk heard this as a warble, but it was getting easier to understand. He interrupted. "Let's get out before the enemy regroup."
They shuffled to the beam in area, which was quiet enough it almost felt like home.
Kirk flipped open his communicator. "Ranger, commence beam out. Take my signal and Glissen's last. Otherwise at your discretion." He helped Pizarro to the floor and crouched to push the man's feet in close to his body, draped the man's weak arms around his knees, and held his arms in place with one hand, waiting for the transporter to lock on. Around them people were limping or crawling into positions to make transporter locks easier to obtain.
Pizzarro squinted at him. His voice was faint, but Kirk heard it. "Good to see you, Kirk."
"Good to see you too, sir." Kirk realized only after he spoke that they were now the same rank.
Pizzarro noticed it too. "You got your stripes back."
A party of eight transported away.
"I did. Funny story about that."
"I'd like to hear it. Could use a funny story." Pizarro raised his head which had gone limp. "I never imagined you'd survived that drop on Wolfram. Any word on the Sanchez?"
"She's drifting nearby. Life support is about all that's functional. Tried to be selective about the damage so we can bring her back into service quickly."
The next group beamed away, and within half a minute, the next. Kirk would have to single out the transporter techs for special commendation.
Pizarro looked around. "I don't know what happened to Mitchell. I know you were good friends. I haven't seen him."
"I have."
"That's good."
Kirk bit his lips, composed himself. "He was commanding the Sanchez." Kirk let that sink in. Pizarro simply appeared confused. Kirk said, "You have a good hold? I'm keeping you from getting beamed out." Kirk released him and rocked back on his heels.
Kirk strained to get to his feet, got a hand up from Glissen, put his phaser back in his hand and hobbled over to check the approaches to their location. Behind him, the transporter kept running on a short cycle.
Kirk thought he saw something. He hobbled forward along the wall to glance down a side passage, leading with his weapon.
"Kirk, I can't grab you through the hole in the shielding if you keep moving around." This came over his communicator.
Kirk fired at the lead figure of four armed figures that were running at him. The figure fell, skidded.
"Tell me when it's the last round for transport."
"You are the last round. Sir."
Kirk ducked behind a structural pillar and pressed himself there. "Energize."
Kirk stepped off the transporter platform. Chapel was working on Pizzaro. Commander Yung was sitting beside him. He was a sunken-eyed, bony shell of what he used to be. The transporter room smelled of fear and months-old sweat. Kirk went to the lockers lining the walls of the transporter room for his personal stash of energy bars, peeled one, and offered it to Yung. The man tore into it.
"Kirk, isn't it?"
"Yes, sir."
"Command gave you a ship?"
Kirk crouched a bit straighter. "Yes, sir."
"Things must be bad."
At the transporter controls, Jones covered her smile with her hand. Kirk gave her a helpless look.
Chapel waved her scanner at Kirk, blanched. "Blast shock," she said.
Kirk stood up, tried to get away from her. "It's nothing."
She popped a new vial onto her hypo, stood, and shot him in the arm with it. Did this with another vial. Kirk felt much better. He gave her a glare and waved at the more obviously injured patients littering the transporter room.
Covering for his battered body, Kirk stepped over to the transporter panel, shedding reflective plate as he went.
"What's our status?" he asked the bridge.
An urgent call for Chapel to come to sickbay for a code red interrupted over the intercom.
Riley replied, "We're all right at the moment. Staying in their blind spot isn't too hard, but I don't like being this close. Should we back off?"
"We should back off to a distance outside the warp field. But no farther. They could put on a spin and hit us and we couldn't outrun the firing. If they try to roll, we need to stay with them."
"Right, sir. Didn't think of that. Just wanted to get away."
"I'm going to see if I can help in sickbay. Remain on the bridge until I can relieve you."
Kirk passed his quarters on the way. He triggered the door, trying not to lean too obviously on the doorframe for support.
Spock looked up.
"Come here," Kirk said.
Spock stood up and approached, gaze tinged with curiosity, an emotion he never seemed to try to suppress. Kirk appreciated the sight of him as he came closer.
Kirk reached up and put a hand behind Spock's neck and pulled him forward. He had to pull against Spock's incredibly stiff back to get their lips to come together. He kissed him aggressively, breathing on him harshly as stretching upward caused him pain. Spock's lips parted, but it might have been in surprise. Spock's neck relaxed, gave in. Kirk tilted his head and pressed his tongue into the heat of Spock's mouth.
Kirk grabbed Spock by the longish hair at the back of his head, pulled them apart, licked his lips to taste them.
Kirk said, "How is your medic qualification?"
Spock's left brow went up. But he recovered an instant later. "I was a medic on the Militant ship. Mostly because I was willing to touch others, which is rare, but I have studied all of the relevant Starfleet crew manuals."
Kirk let him go. "Good enough, come on. We're overwhelmed."
They passed through busy corridors. "It was unnecessary for me to remain in your quarters during your absence."
Despite his injury and despite being overly hyped up on mortal panic to the point of numbness, Kirk felt cold fear at the idea of Spock unguarded.
Kirk growled, "I'm not letting anything happen to you."
The corridor outside sickbay was lined with the injured. Six members of Ranger's security and eight of the rescues. They had rescued seventeen loyal Federation civilians who had been taken prisoner by the rebels and only one had been injured in the actual rescue. Talk in the transporter room indicated that was due in part to the freed Starfleet personnel acting self-sacrificing, but Kirk still felt a surge of pride at that outcome.
Rand was crouched beside a member of security, using a scanner and shaking her head.
"Where are you on triage?" Spock asked her, his voice unsteady.
She pointed at the figure beside her. "Here."
"You are moving too slowly." Spock crouched beside the next, used his personal scanner, stood and moved to the next. Kirk followed, ready to assist. Spock said to Rand, "Keep going down the line the other direction."
The next body was limp. Spock stood crookedly, fell to lean against the wall. His eyes had gone inward.
"Code red," Kirk shouted into sickbay proper.
A reserve nurse in a red shirt came out. He was a broad shouldered man, and he pushed Kirk aside as he came with a large floating kit and started hooking machinery to human.
Kirk walked around and took Spock hard by the arm. "Come on. Best to focus on something else. Give me your scanner."
Spock's gaze came back from the far distance where it had retreated. He bit his lips. Slowly, he pushed straight.
"Next one," Kirk said, hard and commanding.
Movements still odd, Spock crouched beside the civilian prisoner whose lower leg was missing. The stump had been bandaged with an inflatable. He lay on his side with his arms clutched over his head. Spock scanned his vitals, taking longer this time. He nodded, and moved on to an injured security member. Kirk stayed close beside, trying to bring the same kind of calm to Spock as Spock usually brought to him.
As he scanned Greige, seemingly unaware of the man's alarm, Spock haltingly explained, "I have no difficulty with my own death. It would be illogical to do so. I know I am mortal. The feel of another's death, the sense of the soul slipping away . . ."
Kirk said, "It's all right. It's not weakness if you overcome it."
Greige turned his waxy face to Kirk, seeming confused.
Kirk said to him. "Doing all right, there?"
"I'm fine. Just waiting."
"He's in shock," Spock said. "Needs a warming blanket and oxygen, perhaps a stimulant."
"I'll get them," Kirk said.
Spock turned his head with a jerk toward the figure being worked on as code red. A solid tonal alarm went off on the life support equipment. Spock's eyes faded again.
Kirk had to leave him and let him cope on his own. He returned from the stock room, weaving his way through the chaos of sickbay proper. They were not outfitted for this level of injured, it was almost comedic at this scale.
Kirk hurriedly administered to Greige, who was able to partly help himself, and took Spock hard by the arm again. Had he been human he would have jerked back from the pain.
Spock recovered faster this time, or seemed to. Kirk wondered if he had simply compartmentalized. He seemed robotic in his movements now, but he was moving. They were two thirds done.
Kelly from security was splayed across the corridor at the end of the line. Blood had painted his hair and the side of his face from a cut on his scalp. He was leaning over Hully from engineering who had been in the reserves. Her reflective plate had been cut off her torso, but still covered her arms. She had discoloration under her chin and neck that looked like a blunt force injury exacerbated by the plates.
"She can't breathe!" Kelly pleaded, looked up at them with pained panic.
Spock ran bodily into Kirk to stop him approaching. "Get an airway kit," Spock said.
Kirk found the right bag in the storage area because of the icon of humanoid lungs, mouth and throat.
Kirk dropped to his battered knees where Hully's long hair splayed over the deck. Her chest was heaving, her lips were bluing. Spock was moving with surety now. He was straddling her, had her uniform unsealed. Drying blood was smeared over her front from the laceration under her chin forming a grossly sexual tableau.
"Swelling injury," Spock said.
Kirk pulled the kit open from the top like he'd seen medical staff do and pulled it apart and taut so all the equipment stood out, shiny and clean. Spock plucked up a bent tube with a curved disk and a glinting metal flute on the end of it. He turned it one way than the other. Used the scanner.
"Do you know what you're doing?" Kelly demanded.
Kirk held up a hand to quiet him.
Spock said, "Humans are just machines." He pressed the fluted end into her neck and it gave way with a punching sound.
Kirk had looked away without intending to. The airy sound that rushed through the tube made him look back. Spock slipped a disk down into place against her neck, sprayed goo generously around it to keep it in place. Used his scanner again.
"Look good?" Kirk asked.
"Oxygenation at 70% and rising rapidly." He stood up with graceful ease and stepped over limbs and medical equipment back to where he'd left off.
Kirk patted Kelly's shoulder and, with legs quivering under the strain, managed to stand again, using Kelly as a support. He gingerly stepped over bodies and equipment to reach Spock.
Kirk leaned against the wall while Spock and Rand finished a second round of triage together and tagged patients. The door to sickbay was locked open. Chapel was working on three beds at once, directing the two nurses and the reserves to work on the other patients with quite a bit of shouting.
The comm whistled for Kirk. He reached over his shoulder to hit the switch.
"Commander, we just received a broad beam communication from the Lexington. She is approaching at top warp speed, a few hours ahead of Potemkin."
Kirk felt his insides melt in relief. "ETA?"
"Oh six hundred fifteen, about seven hours from now."
"Warn them we need urgent medical support upon arrival."