#15 A Double Loss

Posted on Tue Nov 15th, 2022 @ 1:39pm by

Mission: BUGS OH NO!!
Location: USS Amandora
Timeline: current/somewhere in between

ON:

As she had stated Lt.(jg) Zenni Kahn left the Bridge just before the shooting really started. Arriving on deck 24, the fusion reaction systems, she stepped from the lift just as the ship was rocked by an impact. The deck bucked under her feet and threw Kahn to the right into the wall. Not a terribly violent toss but one that caused the Trill to go to a knee and lean on the wall until the rodeo ride settled. No further impacts came so Zenni got to her feet and hauled jets for the fusion chambers and the antimatter pods housed there. The door slid open, albeit slowly, causing Kahn to use her hands to grab a side of the door each and push them open faster. Several consoles in the chamber were sparking and flickering with small fires all over the area due to ruptured EPS conduits. Going to an emergency Damage Control locker Zenni donned an engineer's vest and filled the multiple pockets with every device and instrument she could, as well as a rebreather mask and safety goggles.

Ready for action she then spun to see better with her protected lungs and eyes. Several crew were crying out in pain and others not moving at all as they lay on the deck, scattered about, with burns, cuts and abrasions. Priority one. One at a time Kahn began to haul the conscious but wounded out of the area in the fireman's carry. By the time the four were removed from the immediate internal danger from the chamber Kahn was huffing like a badly tuned shuttle engine. Calling on the Core for her own bodily Control, she reduced the amount of exhaustion her body would be taking due to physical activity alone. Her breathing normalized and her muscles began to ease back from strain. Satisfied she had done enough she looked over at one of the ensigns, a younger man. His only injury was a bloody shin with abrasions, a bit of plasma burn, but nothing broken. He winced here and there but seemed determined not to squawk out loud over it, even as he got back to his feet and leaned back on the wall. "You stable?" Asked Kahn.

"Aye, Sir," responded the Ensign. "I'll be gimping but I can function."

A secondary explosion went off behind them, behind the doors to the fusions systems chamber. "We've got our work cut out for us. Engineering is lit up like a Christmas tree, I'm sure, Ensign...?"

"Ensign Marcus Aurelius Resch, Lieutenant Kahn."

"Alright, Resch, see to your wounds and then aid these others and get them to Sickbay."

"What are you going to do?" Asked Resch.

Zenni thumbed back over her shoulder. "See to damage control. Move, Ensign, that's an order!"

Resch gave her a look of mild surprise but once she made it an order his surprise left his face and he stood up tall, as best he could. "Aye, Sir. It'll get done." He limped over to a medkit cache, taking one out to begin ministrating to himself and the other three.

Kahn, seeing her orders were being obeyed spun on a heel and faced the door. Taking in several breaths to build her courage she then stepped forward, once again having to aid the doors in opening. Once she slipped inside they closed behind her.

Quick as could be, once the Lieutenant was out of view, Resch knelt and pulled his tattered pants leg up, seeing the horrible burn on his leg that was bad, but not bad enough to deter movement. Opening a canister of dermagel gel he slathered the balm over his injury then wrapped it in a dermagel bandage, making sure it was snug but not too tight. His leg immediately began to feel better as the gel did its job by beginning healing and reducing chemical and radioactive intensity. Not a cure-all, but it worked for what it was. Once he was done with himself Marcus began to assist the others as he recalled all his field medicine training from the Academy. Not his best field, but he was no slouch.

Inside the chamber Zenni was glad she had the goggles and breather on, the room now full of smoke that was also a chemical mixture of suffocating death. "Computer, blowers on!"

"Unable to comply."

"Computer, analysis!"

"Hardware and power supply have been interrupted for atmospheric cleansing in this sector. Secondary system not responding."

Several colorful expletives and metaphors were grumbled forth from Kahn's mouth. Moving to a console that seemed to still be working better than the others she began to tap away, looking for damaged mechanics between the atmospheric systems for this section. Several schematics came up showing a damaged section that was powered by an EPS manifold. The hardware for outgoing power in the main system was had been cooked and fried when the plasma conduit ruptured. The suppression system neutralized it but that left that system unrepairable until they could clean up the suppression mess. So, she angled her search to the Secondary. One thing she loved about Starfleet, there was usually a back to the back up. But, again, the back up to the Secondary power allocation system had also been damaged beyond immediate repair. But, according to the readings the Secondary was slightly damaged and could be re-routed manually. ~Time to crawl in a hole~ she thought.

(this portion is happening during our fight with the pirates)

The ship began to rattle, vibrate and buck as Kahn made her way through a jeffries tube as she was trying to get to the Secondary for this section. By the sheer volume of reverberations the battle seemed to have been joined. Reaching the manifold, seeing it lit up with warning lights, some of them flashing depicting power interruption and overload. Moving as quickly as she could, relying on the memories from her previous hosts, Zenni found the damaged isolinear cache and the ruptured plasma conduit which was now dark and shut down. Pulling the cover off of the cache she began to scan the chips, seeing with her eyes that some had gone dark from damage and power spikes. Opening the storage box next to the cache she began to change out the chips as quick as her hands would allow. That's when a rather strong impact hit the Amandora, hard enough to send Zenni onto her back as it tossed her around. Wincing at the pain in her left shoulder blade Kahn began to sit up and that was when she heard it. The most dangerous sound an engineer could ever hear when this close. A low-yield whine began to be heard, almost imperceptible with what was going on. But, it began to get stronger. Turning her head around and looking back at the plasma manifold Kahn knew exactly where it was coming from and why. The manifold was now at critical due to further damage and system shunts for power from elsewhere as other systems began to react to damage. That meant the computer was shunting power this way and the damaged manifold could not handle it. Without hesitation Zenni began to squat walk her way hurriedly from the area. She tapped her combadge. "Resch, Kahn. We have a manifold going critical. Are the others safe?"

"Aye, Sir," responded Resch. "All have been beamed to Medical."

Arriving at a ladder well niche Zenni was able to stand up. Now, the decision: up or down. An alarm within the tube sounded and then the manifold erupted like a plasma volcano. All that pent up energy was suddenly free to expand, and expand it did, obliterating, shredding and destroying anything not strong enough to resist it. Zenni reacted like any rational person would. At the moment of the explosion she covered her face with her arms, all she could do in the seconds it took for the fire and debris to reach her and throw her backwards into the ladder well. Her back impacted the ladder itself as intense pain lanced from several areas of her body which tumbled haphazardly down to the next crawlspace. She was out cold as she landed, large chunks and smaller bits of debris jutting from her body where they had pierced her torso, legs, arms, and her face. Her body had landed in a basic fetal position, unconscious and oozing forth her life's blood, some of which was an off-color.

The channel had still been open when the manifold blew up, and Ensign Resch had heard Kahn scream in fear and pain and then the transmission was cut. Grabbing a mask and goggles, and a medkit, Marcus went down the corridor to an accessway for the crawlspaces. Despite the danger he entered the crawlway and went as fast as he could, the damage and smoke getting more intense as he went. At a junction there was a blaze going on so he had to grab an extinguisher and douse it himself before he could continue. Reaching the ladder well where Kahn had been he looked around. The entire interior had been carbon scored by the blast with bits and pieces of machinery buried into the walls in an outward crescent from the manifold's position. But, no Kahn. Then his eyes caught the crimson sludge on the twisted and damaged ladder. "Oh shit," he said, moving over to the ladder well and looking down. A few meters below was Kahn, on her side with multiple objects jutting from various parts of her body like a pin cushion. "No, no, no," he said, grasping the ladder and pulling on it. The ladder wobbled but seemed secure so he manipulated the rungs on the bent metal and descended. Power lines hung from the ceiling as they sparked and sputtered, showering the flooring with the lit up sparks. They were fairly close to Kahn but there was no way to move them.

Being careful Resch made his way to the Lieutenant, careful to avoid the swinging power couplings. Dropping to his knees he pulled forth the medkit and hoisted the upper half of Zenni's body leaning her back against him. Her head lolled and he kept it steady like a baby until he got it leaning back against his chest. "Don't do this, Lieutenant! Not right now!" She was breathing but there were small pinkish blood bubbles in the corners of her mouth meaning either internal injuries, or a lung had been punctured. "I can't stop this," Resch said to himself as he tapped his combadge. Nothing happened. He slapped it several more times. Great, comms were blocked by the damage and energy output from the damaged fusion system. Suddenly, scaring Marcus a bit, Zenni's eyes opened wide and full of fear and pain. She coughed a bit which brought forth more bloody saliva as she let it drool from her mouth. "Ship...?" She asked weakly.

Resch's eyes began to mist up and he did as best he could to control the sobs trying to come forth in his voice. Here she was, pierced like a gladiator and still her first concern was the ship. "We're good, Kahn. Ship is still in one piece."

Zenni gave a smile as he injected her with a pain killer equal in strength to old school morphine. With the pain subsiding but not gone, Kahn and Zenni could both think straight, since both were mortally wounded. All around them the ship thrummed and echoed in the battle and the two officers seemed to be caught up in some kind of protective bubble of chance. "Good. I would hate," a few coughs and more drool. "To have died for nothing."

"Hey! No one dies, okay? I gotta get you out of here." He went to move and it caused Kahn to wince so he stopped.

"Not...gonna happen, En..." Zenni swallowed a mouthful of her own blood infused saliva. "...sign. We have reached...the...end...of our path." Tears began to roll from Kahn's eyes.

Despite where they were Resch carefully situated them to where he leaned back against the edge of the ladder well, legs outstretched as he held Zenni in his arms, speaking directly into her face. "I'll never forget this, Kahn..."

"Zenni," she smiled as she interrupted.

"Zenni. I like that," he said. Bringing up the tricorder from the medkit he gave her a quick scan, and as he read it he pulled in all his willpower to remain stoic.

"Not good?" Asked Zenni. "Be...ahh...honest."

"No, it's not good." Resch could not hold it back anymore, his own tears streaming down his cheeks. "You have, maybe, 15 minutes."

Zenni consigned herself to her fate, relying on the Core to keep her calm and accepting. It could not aid her in this much healing, the trauma far too much for a wounded Meji to handle. "Then I...order you, Mister, to hold me until I pass. I don't want to die...Ehrr!" She hissed and grunted in pain before she got in the last word. "Alone."

"I'm not going anywhere." Marcus held Zenni in his arms, speaking to her softly as the time went by. It took roughly eight minutes and then he felt her body go completely lax, dead weight. At which point the young officer burst out in full sobs, mixed with angry growls and a pounding of his fist on the flooring. He gave a gentle kiss to her forehead once he had control of himself but he made no move to get free of her or this area. He sat with her body, and would do so until others arrived to see to it. At which point he better be involved in that or people were going to get a punch in the face.

END:

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