As much as he was consciously trying to walk at a dignified pace, Andrei found himself rushing his steps. The wooden doors to the sickbay slid open quietly. As he stepped into the front office, through the open door to the left he could see Tony sitting on a table. He stared, without expression, into another room. The top of Lieutenant Moreau's uniform had been put hastily on the bed and a large, brown gauze wrapping was wound around his right shoulder. As the captain walked into the observation room, Lieutenant Kelly met him. His face was ashen. He wasn't even looking directly at the captain. "Captain..." he started.

Bolerov didn't want to her emotions. He didn't want to here sentiment. He didn't want to hear sympathy. He just needed to know. Firmly, he grabbed Tom's shoulders. Tom slowly looked up. "What's the status?" he demanded.

"They've... got him in the operating room already." he answered slowly.

There was more, Andrei thought. "That's good, yes?" He asked hopefully. This couldn't happen... not on his first official mission as the captain of the Warlord. He had already failed miserably once before. It couldn't happen to him again. He had given orders that had cost lives before. That wasn't the problem. It had been war then, not a political move.

Tom slowly shook his head. "The doc says he probably won't survive the surgery."

Bolerov's eyes narrowed. Slowly, his gaze shifted to the open doorway at the far end of the observation room. He could see Doctor Rass and the EMH working feverously in the cramped operating room. He let go of Lieutenant Kelly and walked over to the doorway.

As he got closer, he could see small, shimmering lines of energy streaking across the doorway. A force field must be in place, Andrei thought. He maneuvered himself as close as he could and gasped. Stephen was lying sideways, naked on the table with some kind of panel arched and extended over his midsection. He was lying on his left side. Through the overhead display, he could see the wound, now freshly opened. It was huge; at least twenty centimeters in diameter. Parts of his lungs and ribs were clearly exposed. Three tubes were connecting Stephen to a large device above him, while a monitoring panel watched every vital sign with lights and noise.

The doctor had pulled a syringe from Stephen's back. He handed it to Hal. "Take these stem cells and manufacture some lung tissue."

"Yes, Doctor," any hint of dislike between the two had vanished. He obediently took the syringe and injected it into an incubator-looking machine. After a few moments, he pressed a series of buttons and slides on the side of the box, then looked through the microscope-looking lenses on its top.

"How long till it's done?" Dorrin asked.

Hal tapped a few controls. "Ninety-seven minutes."

Doctor Rass nodded. "Good. I've finished taking the measurements of his ribs." He turned around to a wall-mounted device that looked similar to an everyday replicator. "I'm putting the calculations into the replicator." He tapped several controls, then pointed his tricorder at it. "I'll have artificial ribs in less than an hour."

Bolerov was morbidly fascinated with this combination of technology and medicine. The rare glimpse into the human anatomy had him transfixed on the display.

The monitoring panel sounded an alarm. Rass looked at the monitor. "Now his liver shut down! Give me twenty ccs of polyadrenaline, stat!" The EMH quickly tapped letters and numbers into the overhead machine. A white liquid began pouring through one of the tubes. Yet more alarms began sounding. "Damnit! He's gone into arrest."

The EMH turned quickly to Captain Bolerov as Rass frantically reached for the stimulators. "His organs have been shutting down ever since he arrived."

Rass poked the stimulators through the panel, presumably onto Stephen's chest. Andrei was getting genuinely panicked. "Aren't you supposed to lay him down before shocking his heart like that?" He asked quickly. His hands began shaking. He made fists to cover their movement. Tom and Tony ran to the door to look.

The EMH went back to the side panel. "Normally, yes. But his entire right side is currently exposed. Laying him down would drain his body fluids."

Rass interrupted. "Charge to two hundred." Hal tapped a few more controls and nodded. "Do it!" Rass yelled. Hal pressed a button and Kirk's body momentarily shook. For a moment, the alarms stopped, then restarted. "Again!" He yelled. Hal started tapping more buttons. "I'm giving him five ccs of tricordrazine." He said as he pressed buttons of his own on the overhead dispenser. He pounded the bed next to Kirk's body. "Come on, Stephen... don't you give up on me!" Hal nodded again. "Do it!"