Zeva system
U.S.S. James T. Kirk
Captain Harry Kim watched from his center seat of the bridge as the last of the Nygleian fleet limped away from the smaller Starfleet vessels and the planet they were defending. "Sir, the Nygleians are retreating," the lieutenant at tactical reported.
He nodded in reply. "Keep an eye on them. I don't want any surprises," he ordered. He suppressed a yawn; more than forty hours had gone by since the armada was detected, and he had probably slept for three of those. He glanced behind him at the OFA fighter wing commander. "Captain, I'd like to start calling in the fighters. No use keeping them out there if they're not doing anything."
Captain Lopez nodded in agreement. "We'll bring them in gradually by squadron. Third squadron has been out the longest and was due to come in soon anyway. Assuming our friends don't come back, we should have everyone in after five hours."
"Five hours?" Kim repeated with a frown. "Is it really necessary to keep them out that long?"
"We don't want any surprises. If the Nygleians do come back, we'll already have some pilots ready to attack. Besides, have you ever met a pilot who complained about having to fly?" Kim had to admit that Lopez had a point; he couldn't imagine Tom Paris turning down a chance to play around in those single-pilot fighters without the enemy around.
"Understood," he said. He turned to the operations officer. "What about our teams on the surface? Any word?"
"Dr. Jackson is reporting in every eight hours. At last update, he estimated another hundred hours of surgery."
"One hundred more hours?" Kim repeated with a frown. More than four more days of orbiting Zeva V without anything to do except wait for the medical teams to finish on the surface. "How far behind is this putting us in picking up the Bajorans?"
"Assuming it's only another hundred hours, we'll be nine days behind schedule."
"Not quite how I wanted to start this new working relationship," he muttered. He went over his options in his head, disregarding each as they came up. They couldn't leave the medical teams unprotected on the surface while they left for Bajor. With the risks of the Nygleians returning for whatever they wanted from Zeva V, he wouldn't even consider that, even if the medical team didn't include his niece and goddaughter. They couldn't send another ship for their new ground unit; there weren't any other ships in the area large enough to accommodate six hundred Bajoran soldiers. He sighed in resignation as he rose from his chair. "I'll be in my ready room," he announced, "letting Colonel Jena know that it's going to be even longer than we thought. Commander, you have the bridge."
It was turning into a banner first week of his new command.
Zeva system
Peretal, Zeva V
Drs. Alex Kellogg and Abbey Paris fell into an easy rhythm of treating patients—splitting the more difficult cases equally, helping each other when necessary, and exchanging light-hearted stories over the patient cots. Even though he graduated from Starfleet Medical almost ten years before her, Paris found that Kellogg knew many of her former professors, having either had them as teachers or worked with them professionally, and he did pretty good impressions. By this time, many of the smaller Starfleet medical teams, as well as some of the nearby Zevian hospitals in various stages of disrepair, began evacuating their more critical and surgically complicated cases to them, as they were the only site with the proper facilities. The stress of the extra patient load was beginning to get to the four Starfleet physicians and their five Zevian counterparts who had joined their ranks, and Paris was relieved to have a little bit of good humor in the mix, as macabre as it may be.
She was in the middle of a detailed story about her first medical rotation aboard a starship when one of the medics burst into the patient area, trying valiantly to catch his breath. "Sirs," he said between gasps. "There's a section of the stadium that collapsed about a hundred meters from here. We just detected life signs in the rubble, but they're buried, and with the interference from the Nygleian weapons, we can't even tell how many are under there. We're working on setting up transport enhancers, so be prepared to receive casualties."
"No!" Dr. Rex Jackson exclaimed, having suddenly appeared behind Dr. Paris' shoulder. "Do not beam them out. We don't know the nature of their injuries; transporting might be fatal. Besides, if your tricorders can't differentiate life signs, I don't think the pattern buffers would be any more successful."
The medic frowned. "But sir, we have to try something. We can't just leave them down there to die."
"So you're telling me there's no way to get to the patients."
"No, sir," he replied forcefully. "We don't know what the structure of the rubble is any further than a meter or two from the top, and from what we can see, the openings are too small for any of us to get through."
"How small?" Paris asked.
"Sir?"
"Are we talking millimeters, centimeters, meters? How small are these openings?"
"There might be a few points with an opening a meter or so in diameter," the medic replied, "but if there are any tunnels down to where the victims are, they're really irregular."
"We have to try," Paris declared. She turned to Dr. Jackson. "Sir, I can go in with a med kit and assess the situation on-site, hopefully stabilize the patients for transport."
"I don't know if you heard me, sir, but we don't even know if tunnels exist. If so, they're too narrow and twisted to traverse."
"With the exception of some of the Zevian patients, I'm the smallest one here," Paris argued. "And narrow and twisted won't be a problem. I was a gymnast once, after all." She turned back to Dr. Jackson. "It's worth a shot. The worst that would happen is that I can't get to them."
"The worst that'll happen is that you get trapped under the rubble and we're out a flight surgeon," Jackson countered.
"I'll be careful," she replied sarcastically. "Let me try, sir. All I need is a med kit and a few people to serve as muscle and help move debris as I direct."
The older physician studied his younger colleague for a moment before nodding his agreement. "Keep the commlink open, and if you get stuck, stop. Don't do anything stupid." He smirked slightly. "Famous last words. The Starfleet flight section isn't all that large. I've worked with more than one Paris in my time. Quite frankly, I'm surprised your father is still alive."
"So are the rest of us," Paris said dryly. She glanced around the hospital and nodded toward the medic lounge. "I'm assuming that would be my muscle?"
"I'll go too." Dr. Paris spun in surprise at the statement to find herself facing Ensign Andrew Riker, leaning casually against a partitioning wall, a faint smirk on his face.
"Absolutely not," she snapped. "I did not spend six hours operating on you to have you playing around a potentially unstable pile of rubble. You need to stay here and rest."
He shrugged. "I feel fine, and I'm completely useless around here, but I can help you out there. Besides," he said, his grin widening, "what better place is there for a patient than right by his doctor?"
"You won't be right by me; I'll be buried under a collapsed stadium trying to get other people out."
"Is he stable?" Dr. Jackson asked.
She frowned. "Well, yes," she admitted.
"Then he goes." When she opened her mouth to protest, he raised a hand to stop her. "He's right, Dr. Paris. We need all the help we can get, and he's not doing anything around here. If sending him to help you move debris keeps a medic around here to help me treat patients, I'm inclined to send him."
She glared at him briefly before turning that toward Riker. "Fine," she snapped, slamming the lid of her med kit shut and heading toward the hospital door. "You better not do anything stupid to hurt yourself."
"Aww, Doc, I didn't know you cared," he joked, jogging a few steps to catch up to her brisk pace.
"I don't," she retorted. "I'd just hate to think that the time I spent repairing your thick skull could have been better spent taking care of someone who has the decency to know when to take care of himself." As frustrated as she was, she didn't turn around, and completely missed his grin.
Arriving at the collapsed section of the stadium, Dr. Paris was able to see what the medic had been talking about. Workers had already been clearing away some of the smaller debris, but there were still larger beams and planks haphazardly arranged under what was once an entire seating area of the stadium. The pile reminded Paris of a game of Pick-Up Sticks, where one wrong move could collapse the entire structure, sending the thin sticks rolling everywhere. "Who's in charge here?" she asked in her loudest, no-nonsense tone.
"That would be me," a man in a gold uniform said, standing from his crouched position a few meters away. "Lt. John Hoskins. I'm with the OFA maintenance team, but I'm a structural engineer by training." Not knowing who she was or what she was doing there, he began to give her an update. "We've managed to place sensor enhancers in the rubble, getting a good diagram of the wreckage and an accurate count of the casualties and their locations. We're working on transport enhancers now. With any luck, we'll be able to beam them out within the hour."
She shook her head. "Bad idea," she informed him. "I'm Dr. Abbey Paris. Until we can assess each patient and make sure that they are medically stable for transport, they're not going anywhere. I'm here to get in there and get people out."
Hoskins shook his head. "I don't think so. It's not exactly stable."
"Neither are they," she retorted, nodding again to the downed structure. "This has already been cleared by Dr. Jackson. I know the risks, but I also know what will happen if we don't get those people out now. What I need from you is that diagram of the pile for me to use as a map and a structural analysis in case anything has to be moved. I also need up-to-date vitals on each of the casualties." Seeing his dubious look, she added, "Don't worry, I'm keeping a commlink open to Dr. Jackson and everyone here."
The engineer studied the slight physician, seeing the determination in her unwavering gaze, and knew that this was not going to be an argument he would win. He sighed in defeat. "Okay, here's what we're going to do." He indicated for her to follow him toward a table loaded with supplies and picked up a gold utility coverall. "This is fitted with tracking devices. It will allow us to follow your progress through the wreckage."
"You're joking, right?" she asked with a frown, holding it up in front of her. It was several centimeters long in the arms and legs and wide enough for two of her to stand in. "You can't even get one my size?"
"That's the smallest we have," Hoskins replied brusquely.
"Oh, come on," she scoffed. "I know I'm short, but I'm not that short."
He raised his eyebrows in reply. "Regardless of how tall you seem to think you are, you're going to have to make do, unless you want us to go back to the maintenance area and replicate one in your size. That should only take an hour."
"Forget it," she said, returning the garment to the table. "Even if it were my size, it's too bulky. I'd never be able to make it through."
"You're not going in without it," Hoskins argued. "Safety protocols. We need to know where you are at all times. As an added bonus to you, it will help us guide you through the tunnels."
"I've got a better idea," she replied, taking several smaller tracking devices, pressing them to her skin behind her ear and on each wrist and ankle. "Head and all four limbs. You should be able to extrapolate positioning from that."
For a few long seconds, neither said anything, their eyes silently challenging each other. Finally, Hoskins conceded and reached for a helmet. "You're not arguing your way out of this one, Doctor."
"I wasn't going to," she replied, slipping it over her blond head and affixing the chin strap. "Brain damage is not on my agenda for this mission. Map?"
"Tricorder," he replied, handing one over.
"Thanks, but I have one," she said, pulling her personal tricorder from her belt. "I just need the map."
He glanced at her tricorder and smirked. "A medical tricorder isn't going to do much good until you get to the patients."
She fixed him with a cold look as she pressed a key on the instrument. She turned it so he could see the standard display. "It's a custom-built tricorder with both medical and standard functions. I have to travel light. I'm not going to be carrying around two tricorders. Can I have the program with the diagram of the wreckage, please?" Her tone was clipped, no-nonsense, inadvertently mimicking the voice B'Elanna Torres used when a subordinate made a mistake.
Hoskins' fair cheeks blushed slightly at the rebuke but didn't say anything as he transferred the schematics of the wreckage from his tricorder to hers. "It's in three dimensions, obviously. You can change the view to any angle with this control," he said, demonstrating on her tricorder. He scanned each of the tracker devices she was wearing and quickly entered it into a program. "This will allow you to see your progress as you go."
"And what about my position in relation to the victims?" He pressed a few more controls before passing the tricorder to her hands. She played with the diagram as he demonstrated for a moment, scanning through the simulated wreckage from different angles before nodding. "Great, thanks. I'm also going to need a Sims beacon and a pair of climbing gloves. Gloves that fit."
His cheeks flushed again as he handed her a pair of gloves. "Try these, they're a small. Sims beacons are over there. You also have a light source on your helmet." She nodded, slipping the gloves over her hands and flexing her fingers a few times to assess their fit before nodding her approval and grabbing a Sims beacon for her left wrist.
"Looks like I'm ready to go," she said, tightening the straps on the med kit secured to her back like a backpack. "What's the best way in?"
"I'll let you study the vitals of the victims and the diagram and figure that out for yourself," he replied. He frowned as his combadge chirped.
*L.T., we're ready to move this over here,* the voice said.
"Acknowledged. Be careful," he replied before disconnecting and turning back to Dr. Paris. "Hang tight here for a few minutes. We have teams slowly clearing through the rubble. They're moving a rather large beam away, and I don't want anyone in there until we know it's still stable." He walked away, barking commands to the engineering crew before she had the chance to respond.
"Might as well make myself useful," she muttered, walking over to a small group of Starfleet crewmen in various stages of injury, one medic doing his best to treat them. She saw a young man standing and waiting for the medic's attention, his teal uniform shirt identifying him as a medic himself, his face a grimace of pain as he used his good hand to support an arm at an unnatural angle. "Broken arm, Crewman?" she asked.
"I haven't scanned it, sir, but that's my diagnosis," he replied. She gave him a quick grin as she swung the med kit from her back and pulled out an osteoregenerator.
"Good as new," she declared a moment later. "Well, not quite as new. I want you to take it easy for the new few hours, no heavy lifting."
"Yes, sir," he replied sullenly. An idea suddenly came to her.
"Actually, since you can't clear away rubble, I have a job for you." She waved him over to one of the portable computer displays. "I need you to be my eyes on the patients as I'm moving through the wreckage; I can't monitor my progress and their vital signs at the same time. Right now, the most critical patient is here, and I'm going in from here to get to her first." She tapped the display as she spoke. "I need you to monitor each of them and keep me up to date on their status. If anything bad is going to happen, I want to know about it before it happens. Understood?"
"Yes, sir," he replied, his eyes on the display.
"What sickbay are you assigned to?" she asked conversationally.
"Main," he replied. "But after this, I'm thinking about putting in a transfer request to the flight sickbay. You docs are amazing."
"Thanks," she replied with a grin. She nodded toward the display. "You do this for me, I'll personally request that you get that transfer."
"Yes, ma'am," he replied, grinning back at her. She patted his arm before returning her instruments to her med kit. He was just a kid, probably only a year or so out of secondary school. He should have been in college, drinking and making bad decisions, not halfway across the Federation helping dig spectators out from under a collapsed stadium. But then again, she mused, should any of us be here?
She decided to ponder that thought later as she headed toward the spot she planned on entering the pile of rubble. Pulling out her tricorder, she opened the map of the wreckage and flipped through the various views, trying to get an idea of the path she would take. "You okay?" a soft voice asked from over her shoulder.
She jumped in surprise and spun to face Ensign Riker and paused for a minute at the serious, concerned expression on his face before she reminded herself who she was dealing with. "I'm fine, Ensign," she shot back. "Shouldn't you be helping them make sure everything is stable so I can get started?"
"Actually, we're done," he said. "I came over here to tell you that. Are you sure you're okay? You seem a little…nervous."
She opened her mouth to deny it before remembering that she was speaking to an empath. "Nervous I won't be able to get in, or won't be able to get them out," she admitted. "But there's no use thinking about that yet. Might as well focus on the positive."
"Right," he agreed softly. He paused before adding, "Take care of yourself, Doc."
She snorted in reply as she placed her helmet on her head and again tightened the strap. "You trained under my sister, Ensign. You should know by now that Parises have very active guardian angels."
He grinned. "Actually, I trained under your father as well, while I was at the Academy. Both are either damned talented or damned lucky."
"Or a little of both," she said dryly. She permitted herself a small smile before she was back to business, tapping her combadge. "Open commlink to Dr. Rex Jackson, Lt. John Hoskins, and the engineering command center."
*You about to go in, Paris?* Dr. Jackson immediately asked over the open link.
"If it's okay with Lt. Hoskins," she replied. She could see the engineer standing a few meters away from the supply table, studying the wreckage schematics.
*You're cleared to go,* he finally replied. *Good luck, Doctor.*
"Thanks," she replied dryly. She glanced back at Riker and quickly turned away from his expression, not wanting to give it the time to figure out what it meant. With a deep breath, she placed her hands on a stable-looking beam, leaned in, and took the first step into the wreckage.