B'Elanna swept her tricorder over the rubble again. The life sign had been there just a moment ago, she could have sworn it. She swiped the back of her hand across her brow ridges to stop the sweat running to her eyes. She had long ago stripped off her tunic and shirt and was working in her tank top undershirt. Gravel dust, sweat, and grime covered her face, neck, and arms. She had been helping to dig out survivors trapped in the rubble since the first quake had hit at mid-day. The rescue crew around her had rotated personal members several times throughout the afternoon, but thanks to her Klingon stamina mixed with adrenaline and natural stubbornness, she had kept working non-stop. Now, with evening coming on, she was thinking more about the problem of losing the light than her own exhaustion.
Frustrated, she gave the tricorder a smack, willing it to spit out the life sign readings she seen a moment before. Looking up at the ruined building, she began to scramble up the sloping side of a collapsed wall. Using a jutting pipe to pull herself to the top, she consulted the tricorder again.
There! The life sign she had seen before. The corner of her mouth twitched up in satisfaction. She knew it had been there. Clambering down into center of the wreckage, she followed the signal. Picking her way through the carnage of twisted metal, she watched the reading grow stronger. As she closed in on it, the tricorder began to show two distinct life signs. One was weaker than the other, but both looked stable. B'Elanna's excitement rose as she clambered over a crumpled beam. She was right on top of the signal now.
"I've got two more here!" she called out to the other rescuers. A mixed bunch of Astrudians and Voyager crew converged on her. "It looks like they might be down deep. See if we can get a transport lock on them."
"The transporters are still backed up with beam-out requests, Lieutenant," said Ensign Vorik, maneuvering over broken slabs of concrete to stand beside her. "We can add this request to the list, but it may be some time before the transporter operators are able to attend to it."
"Damn it." B'Elanna thumped her clenched fist against an exposed girder. She took a deep breath, pursed her lips, then looked up a Vorik. "Well Ensign, I guess we need to start digging."
Vorik regarded her for a moment, cocked an eyebrow, then gave a single firm nod. Together with their bare hands they began to pull up the chucks of rubble.