Consequences
Rating: T+
Summary: All choices have consequences whether they be good or bad
Disclaimer: All cannon characters are owned by the Great Flanneled One, and now Disney. All Enterprise characters are owned by the Great Bird of the Galaxy. All others are mine. I make no money off this.
Note: This is a sequel to Choices
Timeline: 40BBY
Speech: " "
Training Bond communications: /
Internal thoughts: italics
Chapter Three
Phlox stood in the Transporter Room with one of the anti-grav stretchers from sickbay. It was an interesting place to retrieve an injured sentient being. Normally he'd be outside the docking bay. Apparently the Captain thought it was urgent enough to actually use the transporter for something other than inanimate objects. It made him wonder if the technology would actually heal injuries instead of just rebuilding the body the way it was before being reduced to pure energy. The comm he received from Lt. Reed was vague at best. All he knew was that his services were needed. His musings were interrupted when the comm crackled to life.
"Dr. Phlox, the transporter is online now. There should be something coming through at any time," the officer spoke with a clipped, formal accent.
The area before him began to glow, along with the normal transporter, if it could be considered normal, sound. "Yes, I can see that, Lieutenant," the Denublian answered with a smile. The light and sound eventually dissipated revealing a badly injured human in its place. From his years of medical practice on Terra he knew the one before him was a male. He reached over to the comm and pressed one of the buttons, "Mr. Reed, our human is here." And with that he disconnected the line.
Taking several steps forward, he knelt down and with gentle hands tipped his head to the side. He then pulled some of the charred remains of the clothing away to see his pale skin and the spidery red marks all over. "Come, lets get him on the stretcher. We have a lot of work ahead of us," he ordered, a frown on his face.
While letting the ensign direct the stretcher, Phlox pulled out his medical computer and began his initial examination. What came back was not good. His frown deepened. He always hated it when he couldn't do anything. What he would do was make him as comfortable as possible, but it would be a futile effort in the end. Apparently he wasn't as tight-lipped as he thought he was for the ensign with him, a Lupe Ramirez, caught his attention, "Doctor?"
Ramirez was also a medic, so he knew at least the basics of how to help the wounded.
Phlox hated being the bearer of bad news. "We will do what we can, Ensign, but he is dying. Right now all we can do is keep him as stable for as long as possible."
Ramirez nodded. His voice somber, "Yes, Doctor."
As soon as they made it to sickbay several other ship personnel who were currently stationed there helped move the patient to the triage bio-bed. With the removal of what was left of his clothing it was obvious just how bad off he was. Reaching over to the wall Phlox activated the computers so they could do a full body scan. His vitals were already weaker from the earlier scan. It wasn't good, but he still wanted to give him the dignity he deserved with what little time he had left. And with that he started with his fingers and skin. His skin needed to be healed. That would at least keep him from loosing any more internal fluids, and help his immune system fight off any infections. For a moment he wondered why he did this, but decided that he would do it anyway.
"Ramirez," he called out to the highest ranked officer present, the same officer who followed him to the transporter room. "Could you had me that skin-regenerator? I want to at least try and heal the outer layers of his skin."
The dark-hair human retrieved the instrument.
It didn't take that long to heal the skin. Phlox then went to fix his fingers. The bones were fused in their curled position. With gentle hands he turned over his patient's hands and found where the electrical current entered into his patient's body. "Come Ramirez." When the Ensign was beside him, he continued, "If you look closely you will find holes on the ends of his fingers. This is where the current entered his body. This is why his fingers are fused in their curled position."
Reaching over, Phlox picked up another object. This one actually broke the fingers bones, which allowed them to be reset back to how they were supposed to be. When finished, he used the skin-regenerator to seal the holes in the fingers, though he didn't know why it was necessary.
"Dr. Phlox," Captain Archer's voice came from speakers in the ceiling. Handing the regenerator over to Ramirez, Phlox went over to a small communications station. "Yes, Captain?"
"Commander Tucker and I are just about to dock. We have another human on board, but he's in much better condition."
"Good, good." Phlox nodded with a smile. "I'll send a few down to pick him up." Turning, the Denublian called to two other officers, "Ensigns Johnson and Tanner, please take another stretcher, this time to the hanger."
The two men nodded then went to retrieve the object before heading out of sickbay. Once they had left, Phlox turned back to the console. "Captain, I have two men on their way down now."
"Good, because we've just landed. We'll wait until they arrive. Archer out."
Phlox nodded absently before turning his attention back to his current patient. He came back over to the bio-bed and shook his head. "You know, I wish there was more I could do for you, but at this point there's nothing." If there was one thing, he hated when there was nothing that could be done other than nothing short of what the humans called a miracle.
Archer set foot back on the bridge, alone. Trip had already gone back to engineering for some routine maintenance work after their little jaunt planetside. As soon as the hanger was pressurized two Ensigns came and took the second human back to sickbay. All the while Trip was casting his gaze towards the hanger bay doors. Archer knew him too well to know that he was itching to get back down to the planet and take a good look at the propulsion system that the unknown transport had.
"Captain," T'Pol acknowledge his presence, giving up the command. She stood and moved back to her normal work station.
While nodding to her, he descended the few steps and moved towards the helm. "Lieutenant, scan the plant and see if you can find the transport."
"Aye, sir." Travis moved his fingers across the instruments.
"Found it, sir," Travis voice was triumphant.
"Good, now take her down nice and easy, Lieutenant."
Instead of answering, Travis only nodded. The only way they could tell they were now moving was how the planet was growing in size. The dampener controls easily kept the ship from making any sudden movements. Soon instead of seeing the dark expanse of space on the viewscreen, it lightened to show first the upper atmosphere, and then the blue deepened to something similar to what one would see on Terra. It took a bit before the unknown transport was in range.
"Activate the Tractor Beam. I want that ship."
"Yes, sir." Travis began the process to make sure that the computers were able to do their job properly.
"Tractor Beam is now online, Captain," Malcolm Reed announced from his position. "And we are now in range."
"Then let's get her, Lieutenant." Jon smiled as he turned and went back to his chair.
The process didn't take long since the unknown transport was a little larger than their own pods. At least the had the room in their main shuttle bay to house the ship. Once it was inside and the hanger bay doors closed Travis moved the Enterprise back into a regular orbit.
With nothing else to do except monitor the instruments, Jon stood back up and moved towards the lift. "I'm going to check up on our visitors. You know where to find me."
"Good, you're here," Phlox came towards him as soon as he entered sickbay.
Jon paused then moved towards the two bio-beds that were now occupied. "How are they?" he looked down to the two men who were unconscious.
Phlox frowned, then moved back to the monitors. "The older one I expect to make a full recovery. He's had a concussion, and blood loss. It's the younger one I'm not sure about." The Denublian focused his full attention on the younger of the two. "I'm not sure about him. You probably realized he was electrocuted and," he paused, "I really don't expect him to make it past the next few hours. I'm really quite surprised that he's still alive." Indicating the monitors, he continued, "As you can see the damage is quite extensive. It's obvious that he was hit with much more than an average human can tolerate safely."
Jon shook his head. "I still don't know how humans could get this far out into space from Earth."
Phlox shrugged. "Who knows, at least at this point. Like I mentioned before, the older one should be waking at any time now." He indicated the monitor screen above his head and placed on the wall, "As you can see his brain waves are quite active."
Instead of looking at that Jon had his full attention on the younger man. His hands were bandages, and his fingers were now straight, so they had been fixed from their curled position. Such a waste, he shook his head. "Keep me informed, Doctor," and he turned and left the two men in the care of the Denublian.
As soon as the doors were closed, and he was out in the relatively empty corridor Jon stopped and muttered, "No one should have to die by electrocution."
"Cap'n?" Trip's voice came from behind.
Jon turned around. Trip stood there, his eyes narrowed, but his brow furrowed. It was obvious what the younger man was thinking. For a moment he debated on whether to tell him or not. In the end he did, for he had a feeling that he, better yet, their unknown guests would need his services. "You know the younger one we had transported?" At Trip's nod, he continued, "He's almost dead. Phlox doesn't expect him to make any sort of recovery."
"Come again?" Trip's head came back slightly.
"You heard me right." Jon sighed and closed his eyes.
"Damn," Trip muttered. "I hope it's not the one I wanted to talk to." He turned and looked towards the door that led into sickbay. He remained quiet for a few minutes. "How?" Trip turned and looked once again towards Jon.
"Electrocution."
Trip made a face. "Ugh…he must have absorbed the electrical current that ran through the ship either during or after impact."
"Either way, Dr. Phlox doesn't understand why he's still alive. Even shuttle pods have a current that's more that what a human can tolerate safely."
A beep from the communications panel nearby, and Phlox's voice kept Jon from saying anything else. "Captain, I believe you should come back to sickbay. I also think it would be wise for Sub-Commander T'Pol to come along," the Denublian sounded almost bemused.
Jon shrugged to Trip then turned back to the panel. "I'll be right there."
"I wonder what happened?" Trip had a thoughtful look on his face.
"At this point, I don't really know." Pressing another button Jon continued, "Sub-Commander T'Pol this is the Captain. Could you please meet me in sickbay?" After her acknowledgment Jon turned back to Trip, "I'll keep you posted."
"Aye, Cap'n." Trip nodded then turned and went back in the general direction of engineering.
Jon remained in place and watched until his friend disappeared around a corner. He then turned back to sickbay. The door opened with a whoosh. He stumbled to a stop just inside the room at what was before him. A couple of moments later T'Pol neatly stepped around him and she too stopped. The older human was on his feet and standing over the younger one. One hand was on the unconscious one's forehead and the other grasped the closest wrist.
With quiet steps, Jon approached Phlox. "Do you know what's happening?" he kept his voice low.
Phlox actually frowned for once. "I don't know. I tried to stop him, but he gave me this look that told me not to interfere."
All Jon could do was nod. When he turned to look at their Vulcan as she approached. Jon knew her well enough to know that she was intensely curious as to what was happening in front of them. "Can you sense what's happening?"
She closed her eyes and sighed. A moment later they flew open, eyes wide. "Healing trance."
Jon's mouth opened then closed it. "How? I didn't know we humans could do that."
"Normally you can't, but this one can," Phlox answered. He stroked his chin and now looked just as curious as T'Pol was. Glancing over to the monitor, he hummed while now messing around with the computers. "Interesting."
"What is it?"
Phlox pointed to the screen that showed the life signs of the younger human. "As you can see, his vitals are stabilizing. I believe he shall live. How much damage from the electrocution is yet to be seen." When they reached an average, albeit lower than normal, level, Phlox turned back to the older of the two. "Come," he said in a low voice as he approached.
"Why?"
Before Phlox could answer, the older man's knees buckled, and he sank to the floor. Phlox was close enough so that he caught him before he collapsed entirely. With Jon's added strength the two managed to get him back onto his bio-bed.
"I forgot just how big he is," Jon wiped his forehead and was breathing hard.
"Yes, quite large for a human male I should say," Phlox concluded with a smile as he scanned him once again.
After regaining his breath Jon turned back to T'Pol. "What are your thoughts about this?"
She frowned. "I have yet to come up with a satisfactory conclusion for what I have seen. This will require more study."
Phlox gave her a dry look. "If you want to talk to him, it's out of the question at least for now. He's asleep. I'll inform you when he wakes back up." With a shooing motion he dismissed the two officers from sickbay.
TBC…