I don't own ST:TNG or its characters…

Author's Note: I may be a trekkie, but my technobabble skills are substandard. Apologies for that (and any tips or corrections would be helpful)…

From Bad to Worse

Sam Lavelle groaned as consciousness returned to him. Chasing it was the extreme stabbing pain engulfing his lower right leg, as well as the memories as to its source. He groaned, but it didn't do much to make him feel better.

"Welcome back to the land of the living," said a gentle female voice. It was said in a light playful manner, but he couldn't miss the strained undertone. Its owner was under an extreme amount of stress. He forced his eyes open to see the round face of the Manitoba's Chief Engineer, Geena Skolowolski, pathetic smile lighting her weary features.

"Wh-What happened?" Sam managed to croak out. His throat was dry and scratchy. "How long have I been out?"

"It's been four hours since I came around," she supplied. Her face grew sad, adding a further depth of despair to her distraught features. "I don't know how long it's been since...since the Manitoba was destroyed." The last part emerged from her throat as a barely audible whisper, but Sam heard it all the same.

Destroyed?! Then where were they? Sam quickly surveyed his surroundings. The lighting was poor, and there was debris scattered all over the place, and he was admittedly not all that familiar with this section of the ship despite serving aboard it for almost two years, but to him it appeared like Engineering. The look of confusion that spread across his face seemed to prompt the Chief Engineer to explain.

"The final barrage we received, the one that knocked us unconscious, it was too much for the Manitoba to handle. Her structural integrity failed. She was ripped apart," Geena explained, sadness lining her voice as well as what features Sam could make out in the severely dim light. He didn't know the engineer that well, but he had never seen her in such a somber mood before. It took a minute for her recitation of the ship's doom to sink in, and when it did, it still failed to elucidate the situation to him.

"Then, where are we? How are we even alive?"

"When the ship was torn apart, we were lucky enough to be in an area between bulkheads that stayed in tact," she supplied. She gestured to a large pile of twisted metal behind her. "Beyond that rubble, not more than three meters from where we are is nothing but the vacuum of space."

"And less than a meter to your right…," she pointed half-heartedly to the wall in front of her, just beyond where he lay.

"Vacuum," he finished for her, the gravity, or lack there of it, sinking in. That brought up another concern, which he voiced. "How are we sitting here? I mean, there shouldn't be any artificial gravity…or oxygen for that matter?"

"As best as I can figure from tricorder scans is that we're sitting in a section that includes redundancy systems, as well as a good portion of Engineering except for the warp core."

"No warp core equals no power, though. Doesn't it?" He really needed to spend more time in Engineering. He had no clue what was going on. As far as the little he knew about how starships worked, they should be dead, crushed or floating through space.

"Not necessarily," Geena answered. She was trying to be patient with the lieutienent-commander, because she knew he wasn't a starship design and operations expert; he wasn't even a proficient. However, she was exhausted, stressed well beyond her limits, and fast on her way to having a migrane. "Since the outbreak of the war, Starfleet engineers have been trying to find ways to combat power losses during battle scenarios. In the past, a total loss of power would probably mean the destruction of a vessel in a firefight. So, all ships have been installing redundancy systems. Many sections can remain functioning under separate power cells installed in various areas about the ship. We're sitting on top of one such network of backup devices."

He gave her a blank look. Even without the headache he would've been struggling to follow the obviously-smarter-than-him brunette's explanation. Geena decided to give him the bottom line.

"We have limited power-I'm not sure for how long," she said, trying to be clear enough so that the traumatized commander could understand. "There's an atmosphere recycler in this section, but it appears to be damaged. I've managed to setup forcefields to prevent what atmosphere we have from venting out into space, and maybe there's a chance we'll get a few days worth out of the recycler."

"You've setup forcefields?" he asked, forcing his mind to focus. "How?"

She opened her mouth to speak, but he cut her off. "

"Wait-I don't want to know," he said, then attempted a smile which turned out a wince in his present state. "Good job, Chief. We may get out of this yet."

"Don't celebrate too soon," she warned. "According to my tricorder readings, the warp core is still in the immediate vicinity. It appears stable for the time being, but without proper shielding, we'll be exposed to the radiation every time it passes close to us. Not to mention, it could become unstable without warning."

She looked at him pensively when she had finished revealing their dire situation. Sam swallowed hard when he saw the fear in her eyes. He felt bad, that he couldn't provide the reassurance she blatantly needed, and deserved. It was a failing of his, that he had always been wary of, something that marked good leadership, something that he lacked. Keeping up morale had never been a strong point for Sam. And now it seemed to completely fail him. Thus, it was Geena who again picked up the conversation.

"I've begun to work on configuring a subspace emergency beacon," she said more cheerfully. "With any luck I'll have it completed within a couple of hours and it won't be more than a day for Starfleet to send help."

"Great," Sam tried to return just as optimistically, but mostly failed. He moved to get up, but stopped with only his head and shoulders off of the ground. It was either the dizziness that swamped his brain or the rather forceful hand Geena had placed on his chest that stayed him. It was probably a combination of both.

"Oh, no you don't," she scolded. He conceded to both her and his pounding head by lying back down. "That wound is pretty bad. I managed to stop the bleeding…"

Sam for the first time seemed to realize that his companion was markedly underdressed since the last he saw her. She was still wearing her uniform bottoms and boots, but her top seemed to have almost entirely disappeared, except for the grey tank top she currently was sporting. He noted that she had nice, toned arm muscles-probably all that climbing through Jeffrey's tubes. Her uniform top had been placed under his right leg to elevate the ankle the Jem'Hadar had sliced open. Her yellow undershirt had been used as bandages for the wound.

"Commander?" she asked, looking slightly worried over his failure to remain focused. She had been afraid that he wasn't going to regain consciousness at all. So he was doing pretty well, considering. "This is important. Try to listen."

He tried to concentrate on her face and what she was going to tell him, but he was distracted by her features. Had he noticed how pretty she was earlier, perhaps he would've paid more attention to what was happening in Engineering, instead of avoiding the section of the ship as much as he possibly could've.

"Call me 'Sam'," he informed her. She gave him an exasperated look, but decided to try to update him of his condition anyway.

"I found an emergency Medkit," she said. "…or what's left of one. All I could salvage was the hypospray and some painkillers. There isn't much, but if you need some just let me know. Are you in much pain now…uh…Sam?"

"Not too bad," he answered, finally able to pay enough attention to listen. "I'm just having trouble concentrating."

"I hope it's not a concussion," she said. That wouldn't be good since she had no real way to keep him awake, especially since she needed to concentrate on rigging the subspace beacon. Hopefully it was just pain or shock that was making him disoriented.

"I don't think it's that," he said to her relief, even though she didn't quite trust his judgment on the matter given his current state of health and mind.

"Hmm…" she tried to consider the options logically. "Do you remember hitting your head at all during the struggle?"

Sam shook his head, which screamed back at him.

"May I?" Geena asked whilst hesitantly leaning closer to him.

"Sure," Sam gave her permission to examine his head for wounds. "Knock yourself out."

"Thanks, but I've already been unconscious once in the past day," she returned lightly as she placed a hand on his head. It was cool and refreshing, and pleasantly gentle as it moved through his hair and over his scalp.

"You're cold?" he asked. He wasn't sure if she was actually suffering from a temperature discomfort. Some women's hands were just cold all the time.

"A little," she responded, still searching his skull for signs of contusion. "No real lifesupport…remember?"

"Oh right," he conceded. "Then won't we freeze to death before anyone can find us or our air supply fails?"

"It doesn't look like you suffered any brain damage," she said playfully as she pulled back to sit beside him on her knees. "Although, it's kind of difficult to tell with you."

Sam wasn't familiar with the woman all that much, so it took him a moment to realize her jest, to which he finally smiled, but she had already moved on.

"We may freeze to death," the engineer conceded. "But the warp core is still floating nearby and we'll probably continue to pass in close proximity to it every so often, inundating ourselves with radiation. We'll probably go from freezing to sweating several times before our artificial atmosphere finally becomes depleted of oxygen."

"This should be fun, then," Sam said, letting his sarcasm loose. It made him feel a little better.

"Lots and lots," she replied with equal sarcasm, but not maliciously. "But, not to potentially cut our little vacation short or anything, I think I'll work on getting that distress signal setup…you know, in case you get sick of all this rest and relaxation."

"Good idea, Chief," Sam conferred. "And speaking of rest, I think I'm going to get a little now."

She nodded her head to him before rising to her feet and walking the few steps to the edge of the metal heap, which contained a partially lit-up computer interface and a number of exposed circuits. She spoke up to catch him before he fell asleep.

"Oh, and Sam…"

"Yes?"

"You can call me 'Geena'."