Casualties - please leave comments of how you feel about the story so far
All was still in the blackened space voyager called the void. Not a star lit their way nor a distant asteroid. There was nothing out there, not another ship, a planet or a single piece of stray garbage. Nothing but a giant ship and it's crew struggling to survive. No one was managing tactile, no one was checking warp field output, no one was steering the ship. It did that manually, and there was nothing to navigate. The ship was on auto pilot as it had been for many months. It was like every other day on voyager where no one had to do their jobs because there was no job to do. The day was just like every other day, except the ship wasn't moving, and no one was at their station because they were unconscious. If not dead. What did this, near two light years away. Systems were crashing, beams were falling, alerts flashing, life support failing. The ship was in tact externally, there were many bumps and breaches, Deck 12 might as well have been gone. Internally the ship was in thousands of pieces. The asteroids had penetrated the shields half way through the storm. It it wasn't for the last minute adjustments it would have been crippled with absolutely no survivors.
The bridge only had the sounds of censors, alerts and moans of pain from unconscious crew members. Tuvok, B'Elanna and Tom were all collapsed at their stations. Chakotay and the captain had been hurled from their chairs when a 20 ton rock barely got through the shields. It was the first one to penetrate and it made sure everyone was watching when it hit. It bounced off the ship after its speed had weakened from the shields, but it gave way to nearly a hundred more rocks to come. All after were easily able to damage the ship in their own way, most knocking out power grids and causing overloads. Whenever one hit the ship it would twist to that direction at five g's of force which knocked out most of the crew if they hadn't been already by hitting their head or from a plasma explosion. Barely anyone stayed awake through the entire thing but if they were the horrors they witnessed would haunt them forever.
Deck two section 13. The mess hall was where everyone went to eat or talk in groups when not on duty. Over 20 crew members had been in the mess hall when they were first hit. Everything in neelixs kitchen was in disarray, post from the kitchen ended up against the opposite wall of the room. Neelix himself had been thrown against the bulkhead in the back of the storage room. People were just starting to come around, it a few, it was hard to tell if others were just still unconscious or dead. It was easy to tell that crewman Chel was dead, not so much if neelix was. Ensign Tal and crewman Douglas were some of the first to come to. Neither of them had been hit with any objects or were slammed into anything. In those kinds of situations the first thing an officer was supposed to do was assess and triage but Tal was a weary thing, she was overtaken by what she saw. Fifteen crew members all with serious damage, overthrown tables, debris flying by through the window. People covered in chairs and table all which had been jerked to the ground or knocked from their hinges. Tal started pulling tables off crewmembers near the door. She found Ltd. Morris with his head against the wall surrounded by shards of glass from a broken plate. He had a pulse but so faint that she began to thought it was the vibrations of the ship.
Douglas brought Neelix to his feet, he had some cuts and a first degree burn from a hot pot but he was non the worse. He being the loyal crewman that he was, Neelix insisted on going to the bridge to do whatever he could to help. Despite Douglas's suggestion neelix left hastily leaving the two other able officers to once again continue their analysis. They saw that the largest table in the corner was covering two officers and both moved to get it off. One of the support beams had been loosened in one of the hits and was now leaning on the table. It was probably about seventy pounds of heavily concentrated metal leaned against a twenty pound table which covered three people. It wouldn't be an easy feet to remove it. Her and Douglas braced their backs against it an pushed it with all their strength, it didn't sound too difficult to the angle that it was at with the combined fact that it was still somewhat attached to the ceiling didn't help.
"Do you remember what happened, do you know?" Douglas asked Tal in the midst of the pushing.
"No!" She answered feeling the top of the bulkhead finally break. "All I remember is being hit for the fourth time and then... nothing. I- I've never been knocked out before. I was wide awake and the..." She started contemplating but helped Douglas remove the table. He was strangely calm through the entire situation at that point, probably because he had seen worse in the maquis.
They removed the table revealing the trapped crew members, they were all Starfleet security officers who had been laughing and eating together, swapping stories about family and enemies back home. Talk knew them well though she wasn't security. She had been eating with them when the first meteor hit the shields, she had stood up and attempted to leave for astrometrics but she obviously didn't get too far, she got to the doors and collapsed. She took the recorder one was holding to check their vitals. All were alive miraculously but their vitals were unstable. Two needed surgery the third was fine and woke up when he was tapped.
"Wake up!" A voice was heard not by any officer. "Wake up!" They turned the the left entrance door where the small voice was coming from. It was becoming more stressed and upset with each yell, more high, and more worried. They were sitting over the body of a blue shirted ensign that from a distance couldn't be identified. "Wake up!" They yelled again. Douglas went to her and keeled down to where the frightened crewmember. His voice and expression had no worry. No emotion whatsoever and get you could see compassion in his eyes. He took the crewmans hand.
"Calm down Naomi. It'll be fine. Your mother will be fine." He Saud to the young girl crouching over Samantha's body. He took the tricorder from Tal to scan her. He read it for a long time with still no expression. He moved it up and down her body again and again and again, an eternity for Naomi. Then he final stopped looking, his expression had changed. His mouth was open but but the way he wore it made it mean anything, it could have meant anything. "She's fine Naomi. Can you go get the doctor, see if he's still online?" He said calmly
"Can I see it?" Naomi said pointing the the tricorder being the scientist she was. She was always questioning everything.
"There's no time Naomi. I need you to go." Douglas Saud not even raising his voice. Naomi returned the same face to him stood up and left for the medical bay. Once she was gone Douglas stood up and closed the scanner.
"How is she really Douglas?" Tal asked knowing his expression was just a mask. He turned to her giving the same as he had given Naomi, mouth slightly open, eyes compassionate yet subtle.
"She's certainly not okay. Shes, alive. But barely so I don't know." He shrugged. "I don't know."
Chakotay walked talia to her dorm to be sure she didn't fall on the way there(because she was drunk as hell). But it wasn't just for that or for the injection of anti alcoholic toxins, it was because he enjoyed her company. Everyday they would swap stories with one another about home, latest academy gossip, or the crazy things Talia would think of. She was a fascinating beautiful girl. She had many friends on the academy tennis team she was on which she was often with, she was a champion at tennis. She had less spots than the average trill but they made her face twice as attractive, she had the body of a dancer and the muscle of an athlete and the brain of a scientist. She was destined for great things and great people. With the way she looked she could have anyone she wanted but everyone was boring to her, aNd her connection to Chakotay was tighter than anyone she had ever known.
They walked inside the dorm and immediately found the injection to make them sober. It was fun to be drunk for a while but twenty-four century kids preferred to have their brains in tact. It was basically a hypo spray but it gave you a headache afterwords that you couldn't get rid of. The both injected themselves with it and the world through the eyes of alcohol disappeared with a headache.
"Well there we go." Tailia said as she rolled her shoulders. She sat on her bed of her small form room and lay back with her feet still on the ground. Her bed was a mess of tangled sheets and clothes. The bed next to hers was made up with clothes folded and bags gone. Talia's roommates bed, a bolian. She headed for the month on a field assignment to Saturn. Talia was scheduled for a mission two months later to the Kardashian border for her assignment.
Chakotay moved her to the edge of her tiny twin sized bed and threw her legs on top of his then handed her a padd with her report on it. She started working on it without saying a word to each other, they didn't mind, they were content with doing their own things. Chakotay reached and grabbed for a book on her roommates dresser.
"I think you have a transmission on you computer." Chakotay said as he started reading. The computer had been beeping since they had gotten in and it was starting to get irritating to him. Talia took her legs back and opened the transmission which was in written form. It was common to get letters from her dad or brother. As she read Chakotay stared at the book but his head was too full and pounding to concentrate, concentrate on anything but his grades. They were so bad, he was nearly failing three classes; and talia, who was staring wide eyed at the computer screen was thriving. "So, anything good?" He asked pulling his nose up.
She slowly stepped back to the bed. Her hand was on her stomach and her face was a pale white, she couldn't sit down, couldn't breathe. Chakotays face changed with worry, for Talia didn't get upset like this. He stood up from the bed somewhat scared and braced her shoulders with his hands. "What happened Talia?" He whispered. She kept her face.
"My brother died." She said with the same tone in her voice. Chakotays face became even more worrisome as she spoke so he took her head and leaned it against his chest. He put his hands on her back and head. Her expression turned to sadness and she closed her eyes. Tears rolled down her face but she didn't make a sound. Chakotay let her lean against his chest as she quietly grieved and didn't mind. Her brother was her world, more a part of it than he was. Her brother Cado had been serving aboard the Uss. Crassus which patrolled the bad lands. He had transferred to the ship from the Vortex only two weeks before which is when they last spoke. They had talked for two hours straight, but now talia was at a loss for words.
Deck by deck, one by one, life started to return on the ship. People were walking with horrible injuries, concussions, broken limbs. The turbo lifts weren't working either which meant they were disconnected from the doctor. The command center had taken heavy damage on the bridge do communication quality was poor at best. That didn't stop anyone or everyone from talking on it. Kim awoke to the comm traffic and ringing in his ears, he thought all the noise was in his head or a dream. But he started to look around the bridge seeing an unconscious crew and debris through the view screen. Beams had fallen and smoke was coming out of the ceiling. An ensign next to him was missing a hand and was surely dead. He touched his own head and his hand felt the thick warn sensation of blood spewing out of his forehead. No. This was too real to be a dream.