Pulled from the River

Posted on Mon Jul 31st, 2023 @ 2:16am by Lieutenant Commander Lyra Cassiel & Chief Petty Officer Virginia Pryce & Private 1st Class Cedrik Feng & Lieutenant Dr. Daniel Brasken

Mission: S1 Episode 5: Ex Post Facto
Location: Sickbay
Timeline: Date 2371-08-20 at 0540
1864 words - 3.7 OF Standard Post Measure

ON

Cedrik had moved quickly to the main surgical bay, cradling the mostly unconscious Lyra in his arms. Though she had collapsed she was drifting in and out and making sounds of protest and ineffectual anger. This whole thing really had the young medic in a daze and right now he was running on training and training alone. His first mission out and he was already wondering if he was made of the right stuff for this elite squad. He carried her into the suite where the nurses had already set up an array of various equipment and set her down on the bed in the middle. He stepped back then and noticed the Banean doctor standing in the corner with a security guard. Walking over, he dismissed the man and took his place.

Virginia immediately moved to the bio bed and initiated the scanner there and not a moment after she did so, alarms began to beep angrily. She frowned, looking up and seeing the seriousness of the readings. Another of the assisting nurses loaded up a hypospray of anesthizine in anticipation of the need, but it was to Daniel they looked for guidance.

Daniel's eyes went to the monitors as he followed Cedrik to the bed. His eyes darting between the variety of sensors and information that was being presented. The external wounds were obvious, but location along with the fact that they seemed cauterized and clotted showed their lack of criticality. What jumped out at Daniel first was the elevated blood pressure and adrenaline were the most immediate.

"Anesthizine and hydrochlorothiazide, we need to get her numbers down before something ruptures." Daniel gives a direct command to Virginia before looking to another nurse. "I want neural monitors, scan for intercranial pressure and neural pathway degradation." He also loaded up a quick hypo of saline solution and injected several times along her arms and legs to put reserves into place for the body to absorb naturally.

"Anesthizine." Virginia repeated and injected what she had into her hand into Lyra. She set it down and picked up another next to it. "Hydrochlorothiazide."

As she did this, another nurse set up the monitors on the sides of Lyra's neck. Immediately, the readouts showed severe degradation of her neural pathways and she was well on her way to general synaptic failure. It wasn't something that couldn't be reversed and healed... unless she went over that edge. An edge that she was dangerously close to. Without thinking and without orders, she quickly picked up a neural oscillator and began to utilize it to stabilize Lyra's erratic brain waves.

"There was some... trouble integrating the memory engram with her physiology." The Banean doctor Feras Nals said as he stepped forward. "Please, allow me to assist you in removing it."

"Why the hell do you think I kept you alive and functional from the previous meetings?" Daniel shook his head and pointed to the control panel. "Find out what you need while I manage the damage that was done."

"Virginia, those numbers aren't coming down enough...Give her amobarbitazone, we need to counter what they pumped into her.." Daniel grabbed a laser scalpel and went about removing the restraints as quickly as he could while they worked to get her stabilized.

Virginia nodded to one of the other nurses who too over to administer the amobarbitazone while she continued to use the neural oscillator. The third nurse assisted Daniel with the restraints and set them aside as they were removed.

"Your brains seem to have a much more complex series of neural links that we didn't account for." Nals said and moved up to the biobed, opening a box of his own tools of which he took one out and began to run it above Lyra's forehead. "Mm... yes. Significant damage but still time to reverse the process. I will begin now."

"If you remove a single engram outside of what is necessary, our security detail will be the least of your worries." Daniel paused just long enough to catch Nals' eyes before continuing. He kept a peripheral eye on the Banean while he looked back at the readings and cursed. "You better work quickly...these numbers indicate another round will cause her whole synaptic system to fail."

The physical numbers were getting better, if slowly. The trauma would take some time for her body to recognize it was no longer in crisis mode. Looking to the nameless nurse he gestured at Lyra's arms. "Dermal regeneration, low setting, I don't want her going into shock." From there he grabbed moved over to her shoulder and went to his own work. The muscle an blood vessels were a mess, he would have to clean it up manually before he could allow the automated systems to take over repair.

"I am working as fast as I can without causing further harm." Nals replied while keeping the irritation from his voice.

One of the other nurses reached out to cut Lyra's clothes away from her torso so that they could access her wounds better. This left her upper half bare, but of course they were doctors and this was a professional setting, so it hardly mattered. The trauma and bruising on her body was plain to see, and Virginia allowed herself but a moment to frown before focusing back up on what she was doing.

Daniel finished re-exposing the nerves and blood vessels in her shoulder, activating a positive pressure field to hold the blood back as he grabbed a micro suture device and went to work about closing the wound. He was feeling better about Lyra's chances, depending on how the Banaen did with their work, of course. Going about his sutures, Daniel's eyes kept flashing up to her biometrics to keep track of how things were progressing.

He was feeling better about it until he saw the numbers that had been coming down in a reasonable pace all of a sudden fall off into a pit. Her adrenaline that had been pushing blood pressure up so high was responding well to the treatment but now the numbers dropped nearly a mark a second. The suture device flew from his hand onto the tray as he stepped to the control panel, working through the readings that were being pieced together to make the overall dashboard. "She's bleeding internally...find it!"

Immediately the nurses did as he asked, intense expressions on their faces which suddenly became surprised and startled when Lyra let out a groan and shifted.

“You Terrans have such interesting, resilient brains. Are you all like this?” The Banean asked, either unaware or uncaring of the current emergency.

“I’ve found it. Her spleen has a grade three laceration.” As she spoke, Virginia was already reaching for the exoscalpel and autosuture. “Her blood pressure lowering must have uncovered it.”

She immediately used one of their sonic sterilizers to clean and sterilize the area she knew Daniel would want to enter to assess the injury from. Another nurse stepped up and was going to begin tending to Lyra’s shoulder from where Daniel left off, but Virginia put up her hand. “No, don’t. That isn’t a threat anymore and right now her body is being taxed enough as it is.”

Daniel did not speak at this point, he simply grabbed tools and set to work. First he had to open her up without causing the body even further shock, so the smallest possible incision to both give him room to work and to minimize secondary reactions. From there he needed to get visual on the real damage. He decided to go up from under the ribs, rather than between two, his scope pushing up until he had the rupture on screen.

There it was...the red pulp was dumping blood into her chest cavity and likely with it the toxins it was supposed to filter out. Another tool insert next to the camera, carefully thread up next to it before he activated the gentle suction on the camera device. The damage was bad, but repairable so long as he worked quickly.

The rest of the noises of the sickbay faded out from his awareness as he went about re-attaching vessels where he could and sealing off those that wouldn't pair up again. All in all it was very similar to the damage he was repairing on her shoulder before, but with location and content of the leak he could not afford to have it open up again and have to go back in.

Virginia watched Lyra’s numbers as Daniel worked and after a few tense moments she frowned deeply. Without hesitation she reached out and snapped up the oxygen concentrator mask, activating it and placing it over Lyra’s nose and mouth. She moved with the confidence of a doctor, not a nurse. “Her numbers are trending toward shock.”

The implication of “work faster” was left unsaid.

Daniel absorbed the information on a nearly subconscious level as he continued to work. Some level of him also profoundly thankful that the technology in his hands was at the level it was, had he been attempting this repair with needle and thread it would have been hopeless. Still, somehow he found the ability to quicken his pace and though it felt much longer, within thirty seconds the damage was patched and Lyra's numbers stabilized above shock.

Retrieving the tools from her abdomen, Daniel looked over at the numbers as he passed a dermal regenerator over the hole he had just used to repair her spleen. It took close to a minute at stabilization before the numbers started to recover back to standard. Daniel allowed himself a long blink to let his eyes rest and gave the numbers another minute to continue this trend before looking over at the Banean. "How much longer?"

The Banean man didn't answer immediately, but about ten seconds later he finally pulled his hands back with his tools and gave a satisfied smile. "Done. The damage should not be hard to repair though she may not be quite herself for some time, though as I said your brains are quite resilient, perhaps it will be quicker than I anticipate."

"Fine. Private?" Daniel looked over to Cedrik and then nodded at the feathered doctor firmly. "Don't let him touch anything else."

He turned back to Lyra quickly without waiting for their response to the order and assessed the situation. Lyra was going to be weak for a while, that was for certain. The synaptic damage combined with all the drugs in her system when she was found alone would take some recovery time, but the rollercoaster her biometrics went through would have done a number on her body as well.

"Alright. Lets finish the patch up job, then I want her kept under sedation for the next thirty six hours. Full monitoring." Daniel caught Virginia and the nurses' eyes before he went back to work. She may be stable at this point and out of the woods as it were, but there was still quite a bit of work to do before he was done.

END