Rebirth

Posted on Mon Feb 23rd, 2015 @ 12:58pm by Captain Jey Cleh & Commodore Kathleen O'Shea & Commander Andrew Matheson & Lieutenant Commander Rosaleen O'Donnell

Mission: Bloodpath
Location: USS Bettina
Timeline: Directly follows "Down the rabbit hole - part 2" and "Old adversary returns"

When Lizzy had gone to tell the others about Rosaleen, she'd been distracted by the sudden appearance of the Romulan woman who'd called herself Rhian.

Having forgotten for the moment about telling the others, she decided to head back to the Morgue of the Bettina. She was already worried enough about what was happening, so being there was probably the better idea.

As she approached the door, she stopped. For some odd reason, the door refused to open. "Great... Now I'm locked out." She wasn't waiting long, before something happened.

"Jey, get in here now!"

Moments after the words rang through her COMM badge, the door to the Morgue opened. What caught her attention wasn't the fact that Andrew was having issues on the floor, but it was the fact that Rosaleen was alive, and...

"Shit!" Lizzy exclaimed, as she ran into the room, moving to where Kathleen was holding Rosaleen. It was easy to see what was wrong with Rosaleen, based on how shoddy she was put back together by the medics. Blood was seeping out of her chest wound, soaking through the woman's shirt, and into Kathleen's clothes. "She's bleeding to death! Get me that tray of tools, while I get this shirt off her!" She said, gesturing to a nearby tray of medical equipment, before pulling Rosaleen from Kathleen's arms to lay her flat on her back, then ripping the front of her shirt open.

This wasn't Kathleen's first rodeo, so she knew essentially what Jey needed. That much she was at least sure of. Now if only she was even half as sure about Jey...

"Here...and here." She sat the trays down, then went to grab a Med-Tricorder. Returning, she could see the blood seeping from numerous places on Rosaleen's torso.

Unlike how Lizzy had been on the night Rosaleen was shot, she now let her medical instincts take over. As soon as the trays were where she could get them, the first thing she grabbed was the laser scalpel. She knew normally pain medication was a high priority, but time was of the essence as she used the scalpel to reopen the wound. "All the years I spent in school to become a doctor..." She muttered, as she worked diligently. She clamped down on a bleeder with her fingers, long enough to get it sealed as she continued muttering. "And here I am, out in the middle of nowhere..." As she muttered, she managed to get the heavy bleeding under control, and was now working on the rest. "On this backwoods planet, sewing up someone who's supposed to be dead!"

As she worked, she felt Rosaleen's temperature suddenly drop. This had the effect of slowing her entire physiology down, slowing down the bleed-out process. I also served the added bonus of easing her torture. Kathleen had tears flowing freely...with the connection she was maintaining she was sensing the agony that Rosaleen was in.

'You're not leaving us again.'

Even lying half-unconscious across the room, Andrew felt the pain radiating off of Rosaleen in waves. With a barely audible grunt, he psychically reached out to initiate contact with them again, doing what he could to siphon off some of the pain. No one would ever say it was a brilliant idea, but it was all he could manage to do at the moment.

Lizzy continued to mutter as she worked on Rosaleen. Her hands were covered in blood, and she was easily working against the clock. "Does it make sense? No..." She said, as she sealed another bleeder up. By now she wasn't far from being finished, as she was working quickly, and efficiently to seal up the areas where Rosaleen was bleeding out from. "None of it makes any damned sense..." She stopped, as she felt Rosaleen's body temperature plummet. "Blankets! Her body temperature is dropping sharply! Get me some blankets!"

Kathleen looked up at Jey. "No. I am doing this to her. It will slow things down enough for you to proceed with a likelihood of success. Just concentrate on what you need to."

"You'll have to explain that one to me later." Lizzy replied, going back to work. She was nearly finished. Most of the bleeding had been stopped, but her chest cavity had a fairly decent amount of blood pooled in from the bleeding. With nothing in the room to provide suctioning, she came up with an idea on the fly. She'd done it before with mixed results, but it was better than the alternative. "There's too much blood in her chest cavity. I can't close her up like this, or it'll kill her. Help me roll her on her side to let some of it drain out."

Kathleen assisted Jey, maintaining contact with Rosaleen throughout the 'procedure'...one had to call it so, Kathleen decided as it effectively did the job. Upon completion, Kathleen closed her eyes as Jey worked, and seemed to be mumbling something that was not audible to those around her.

With the bleeding stopped, and most of the pooled blood drained from Rosaleen's chest cavity, Lizzy went about the process of closing up the woman's wound. "She's going to likely be in a lot of pain over the next couple of days." Lizzy said absently as she turned the scalpel off, and set it down. She picked up the nearby medical tricorder to check Rosaleen's medical stats. Her hands were covered in Rosaleen's blood, but for the moment, she didn't care. She just wanted to see Rosaleen up, and moving around again. "She's also lost a lot of blood. Is she allergic to any kinds of medication?"

Andrew heard 'medication' and realized he probably should say something. "If any... of that medication... is for pain, I... am trying to block... some of it... for Rosaleen. Let... me get out... of that part of... her head before... you use it so... you can get a... good base reading." He forced his eyes open and gently rolled his head to look at the other parties in the room. The room went swimming again when he did that, and he winced involuntarily.

Kathleen looked at Andrew for the first time since returning. "You can let go now. Rest yourself. The danger is past for her. For all of us." She then turned to face Jey. "No, she is not. And...thank you."

"Don't thank me yet." Lizzy replied, as she grabbed a hypo. She loaded it with a green cartridge, and pressed it to Rosaleen's neck. "She's lost a lot of blood, which means she's still in critical condition." She looked over at Andrew for a moment. "Computer, emergency transport for every occupant of this room to Sickbay."

*Bettina - Sickbay*

As they materialized, Lizzy looked at Kathleen. "Help me get her up onto a bio-bed." She said. "Then I'll check on Andrew."

Andrew started withdrawing his psychic connections from Rosaleen and Kathleen, which helped reduce the perception of the room swimming around on him a fair bit. Seeing a chair nearby, he dragged himself up into it and rested his head in his hands. "I should be okay until Ms. O'Donnell is stabilized. I promise I won't leave this chair or my own head until then."

He then closed his eyes and tried to sort out all the impressions he'd gotten on this rescue operation. At least three separate consciousnesses, each with their own slightly different time stream, not counting Kathleen's jaunt forward... He mentally shuddered at the thought of what his brain wave patterns must look like at the moment.

Kathleen took a final 'feel' of Rosaleen before deciding for herself that it was ok to break contact, then retracted herself and moved to assist Jey. As the two moved Rosaleen onto the bed, the medic who had closed her up walked in.

"What the hell!?" He said. "What is she doing out of the morgue!?"

"Breathing on her own." Lizzy said sarcastically. "No thanks to you. Where the hell did you learn to close up a body?"

He just stood there looking at her as if she'd just said something completely stupid, then turned and walked away.

"Amateurs..." Lizzy muttered as she began hooking Rosaleen up to the required machines to do a blood transfusion. "Letting this machine replicate the needed blood, and get her out of critical condition is going to eat up some of our energy reserves." She said as she looked at Kathleen. "We might have to resort to other sources, before we're done on this planet."

And with that statement, Kathleen was reminded of everything that they faced on Taranok. There were a million things that needed accomplished, and this was not even on the list. "I'll work on getting more generators brought in, including some alternative energy source units." Add it to the list...

With Rosaleen taken care of as best she could be for the moment, Lizzy did a quick clean up to remove the blood from her hands. She'd change her clothes the moment she got the chance. In the meantime, she grabbed a Tricorder, and moved over to where Andrew was sitting with his eyes closed. She removed the wand, and began getting detailed scans. From the scans she took, he was in some pain, and his brain waves were erratic, with high neural activity. It would be a wonder if there were no damage to his neural pathways after this.

Lizzy set the Tricorder down, before picking up a Hypospray, and moved back to where Andrew was sitting. "Mr. Matheson, I can give you something for the pain, and a light neural suppressant to help ease your other symptoms," She told him. "but I want you to get some rest, and report directly to me if your symptoms get worse, or if any new ones crop up." She stood looking at him, waiting to see whether he would accept, or deny the offer of medication.

Andrew looked up at the captain. "Thank you, ma'am. I would greatly appreciate both of those. And rest is right at the top of my agenda." He winced again when he remembered the length of the agenda. There was the upcoming conference with the planetary government, the ongoing situation with the sniper that threatened to be its own diplomatic incident, a newly required conference with Kathleen and Rosaleen over what had just happened, a newly required call to his wife in case any of what had just happened had been sent over their telepathic link...

Actually, come to think of it, he was sensing slightly less than usual across that link. It was possible that he was just noticing it less at the moment in the backlash of what he had just endured, but it was unsettling to say the least. He added it to the list of things to ask the commodore about later.

Lizzy pressed the hypo to his neck with a hiss. "This should help ease the pain." She said, then turned to look at Kathleen. "Are you ok?"

Kathleen looked up from the PADD that she had somehow acquired. "I'm fine. Just take care of Rose please." Kathleen went back to checking the hundreds of notes and messages that had made their way into her inbox over the last several hours. Everything she had seen so far led to one conclusion: This deployment was an absolute cluster. Zero organization. Well she would change that starting...

'What in the world...' "Captain, why is Masters listed off active flight duty? That is the last thing we need during a scenario like this. She needs to be as active and mobile as possible in her position."

"She stole a shuttle, and violated a no fly order." Lizzy said, as she turned back to where Rosaleen was laying with tubes in her arms. "Besides that, I needed her help on the ground at the time, because we were sorely short staffed."

"I want her restored immediately. I need her to be able to function in her full capacity. We are severely exposed here. All of these people are in grave danger."

"That's your call, Kathleen." Lizzy said, her attention still primarily focused on her patient. "With you here, it takes decisions like that one off my shoulders. I've already made enough mistakes here, and upset a lot of people, many of whom are loyal to you, and not me."

Kathleen started to respond, but decided that it was not the proper time or place. "It's a complex situation. By the way...what ever became of that sniper?"

Andrew was about to make a comment about actually earning loyalty, but bit it back before he could start a fight with it. He had promised, after all. Though since the topic had come up... "I'd like to know that myself. Admittedly I'm biased, having been a target and all that." He winced as his mind pulled up the memories from the lakeside. Stop that, dammit. You just went through hell and back to make those memories moot. "I'm also curious why we'd be getting shot at if we were invited here."

"She's in the Bettina's brig, under guard." Lizzy replied, then paused as she remembered what happened after she left the morgue. She turned to Kathleen with a curious look. "Does the name Rhian Terek ring any bells?"

Andrew slowly shook his head and winced at the fresh bout of pain that triggered. No sudden movements. Check. He pulled out his PADD to see if that was a name he should know in this situation.

'Are you freaking kidding me...' "Oh, that is a name I am quite familiar with. Now my question is why do you ask?"

"She's here at the base. Showed up while you two were bringing Rosaleen back in the Morgue." Lizzy said, looking at Kathleen. "She talked about you as if you two were old friends."

Andrew felt his jaw start to drop open and willed it back closed. Given recent events, any old friend of the commodore was likely to make things at least 25% more interesting, if not more. And quite frankly, after the day he'd had, more interesting could wait until tomorrow.

"I don't like the way she looks at me." Lizzy said absently, as she picked up one of Rosaleen's wrists, gazing at the chronometer on the wall to check the woman's vitals the old fashioned way. "Not someone I want to trust..."

"You have no idea." Kathleen responded. As the moments passed the more drained she felt. 'Walking Dead' would almost be an apt description soon if she did not get some sleep. "I need to rest for a bit. Think you can handle things for a bit longer Captain?"

Satisfied that Rosaleen's pulse was at least steady, she let go of the woman's wrist, and pulled the privacy curtain. She proceeded to remove the rest of the woman's clothes, and covered her with a medical blanket, before pulling the curtain away again. "It looks like Rosaleen will make a full recovery." She said as she finally took a seat with a heavy sigh. "I think I can handle things for a bit longer. I'll work with one of the medics to keep her under 24 hour observation. Get some rest."

Andrew gingerly stood up. "I'm thinking I need to find some rest before it finds me too. Commodore, I have some diplomacy concerns I'd like to talk with you about at some point in the near future."

Kathleen did manage a nod, but was cut off by Jey before she could respond further.

"Mr. Matheson, you're not going anywhere just yet." Lizzy told Andrew. As he stood up, she moved to where he was, and took his arm to help provide some support, her medical skills in full swing now. "I want to keep you under observation for your own safety, so you can use one of the other beds in here." she gestured to the two other bio-beds that were in sickbay.

Andrew did a quick check of his shielding capabilities. His telepathic wards were in decent shape, all things considered, but he was almost wide open empathically. This surprised him because that implied he'd been working that part of his brain a lot harder than he thought he had. It also had another nasty complication. "Never let it be said that I'm an ungrateful patient. However, if a particularly emotional or painful trauma case comes in, I may need to either leave quickly or be completely sedated. My empathic barriers aren't in great shape and I could quite easily get into a feedback loop. That wouldn't end well for anyone involved." He let himself be guided to a bed during this conversation.

"I'll keep a sedative nearby, but I can't let you leave here, until you're more stable." Lizzy said. She helped him onto the bed, and grabbed a blanket for him. She moved to cover him up with the blanket, but stopped as she stared at Rosaleen for a moment. To anyone else, it would seem like she was in a daze, but in all reality, her mind was going back into the past, reliving the death of her parents. "I should've done this a long time ago..." She said absently, not even realizing she was speaking out loud.

Andrew looked at the captain curiously. "What should you have done a long time ago, ma'am? I sincerely doubt you're referring to getting a blanket for me." He chuckled to try to take the edge off the comment but watched her intently. Looking over at Rosaleen was not going to end well, so the captain was as good a target as any.

Lizzy blinked a few times as Andrew's reply brought her back to the present. "What?" She she asked looking over at Andrew, then his question finally registered. "Oh, sorry. It's nothing." She lied, trying to deflect, or brush his curiosity aside. In her situation, the last thing she needed was for people to start asking questions, and digging into her past again. With Kathleen's help, she had already managed to prevent others from learning the truth. "Try to get some rest."

He nodded. "You too, ma'am." He pulled out his PADD and drafted a quick note to Lt. Denova advising that he might need to keep an eye on things for a little bit, given his current restriction to sickbay.

"Andrew, I'll get with you a bit later when we both have rested a bit. I don't know that I could absorb anything else at the moment." She turned to look at Rosaleen. "Take care of her Jey."

"I will." Lizzy replied. She knew nothing else needed to be said right then.

-----------------

Commodore Kathleen O'Shea
Commanding Officer
Starbase 80

Lt. Cmdr. Andrew Matheson
Chief Diplomatic Officer
Starbase 80

Captain Jey Cleh
Executive Officer
Chief Medical Officer
Starbase 80