Little One Has a Secret

Posted on Tue Dec 5th, 2023 @ 9:35pm by Lieutenant JG Toareth Rouen (née Darqa)
Edited on on Tue Dec 5th, 2023 @ 10:42pm

918 words; about a 5 minute read

Mission: Mission 1: To Catch a Thief
Location: Sick Bay / Engineering
Timeline: Immediately Following "Findings Report"

“Mama!” said the little voice.

Toareth got up from the floor and looked around. Others would collecting themselves thus. All the lights were out but emergency illumination came on. It provided little light but enough.

“Mama!” came the little voice again. On some days she brought Gabby to work with her. This was one of those days. Gabby stayed in the main office like a good little girl and was always happy to help someone, not feeling well, to feel well.

On this day however, the captain’s voice washed over the ship telling everyone to brace for impact, and then an impact came, and then the ship rocked knocking everyone over and everything down that was not properly secured and the lights went out.

Toareth looked around at the personnel spread about in the darkness. “I’m here Gabby. Just stay there.” She went to check on the others, patients first. For the moment, there was only two patients. Nothing major. Given the circumstance, ship rocking and lights going out, there were going to be more.

“Mama!”

“I’m coming,” said Toareth after ensuring the others were all in good shape. She got into the office and saw Gabby already got herself into the special carrying harness Toareth had made. “Good girl, Gabby.”

“Mama, what happened?”

“I don’t know Dearheart but I think we are going to have to make a few housecalls.” She went to Gabrielle and lifted her up in the harness. She worked to put the harness on like a backpack with Gabby secured to her back and looking just over her head like something of a piggyback ride. “This is going to be like the walks we do on the holodeck, just a bit darker, and maybe some sick people. Ready?”

“No,” Gabby said as she put her arms around Toar’s head and hugged from behind.

“It’s going to be fine. Mama’s here.”

“Is Uncle Lynch here?”

“No, Gabby. Uncle Lynch is not here.”

“Is Dada here?”

“Dada is on the bridge dear. If anyone knows what is going on, he does. We need to worry about the sick and injured. I need you to be brave, yes?”

“Mama bwave. Gabwielwe bwave.”

“That’s a good girl.”

With Gabrielle secured on her back, Toareth left the office. She checked once more on her personnel, they were masterfully getting Sick Bay situated and getting ready for the sick and injured. At that second, a lower deck ran in frantically screaming about someone stuck under a pile of stabilizers in Engineering. Toareth spared not a second, grabbed her bag and was off.

She did not need to be pointed in the right direction as she entered Engineering; she just followed the screams.

“That way Mama,” and Gabrielle pointed over Toar’s head. She was already headed in that direction anyway. The lights were still out but these were engineers, they had their own mobile light sources in addition to emergency illumination. It was about only half the lumens of normal, but it sufficed.

Toareth got to the pile of stabilizers, Engineers were already carefully removing them, one at a time so as to not cause others to shift and collapse like a pile of matchsticks on top of the pinned personnel.

The man was screaming in pain. His words, if they could have been called that, were, “Idonwannadie! Oh,Icantfeelmylegs! I donwannadie!” And then there were the usual screams of pain and agony.

Gabrielle covered her ears while Toareth ran the wand attached to her medical tricorder. There was still a few feet between her and her patient, with many stabilizers taking up the rest of the space, but that was quickly removed by the other engineers. During those few seconds, Toareth got a good scan and looked over the report on the tricorder. Broken back. Broken arms, one compound. Broken legs, both compound, concussion, dislocated shoulder, ruptured spleen. The man had essentially become a jigsaw puzzle. Pieces all tethered together but a puzzle nonetheless.

Toareth bent down to him, shining a light in his eyes. The man’s screams continued, but, as Toareth was reaching for her anesthetic hypospray, she realized his screams were mitigating. Though he lied there, with his limbs bent in inhuman directions as though he was double jointed all over, his demeanor softened and he calmed a great deal. Toareth looked into his eyes fearing he had entered a severe stage of shock but saw his eyes calmly looking passed her and over her shoulder. Toareth did her best to look as well but realized it was Gabby, the man was looking at. Gabby looked upon him as one would wishing the injured to get well soon.

Understanding time was of the essence, Toareth hit him in the neck with her hypospray and he immediately went unconscious. A medic team arrived with a hovergurney and started getting him aboard for transport back to Sick Bay.

As Toareth did a quick scan of Engineering to see if she was needed again, “Gabby, what was that?” she asked over her shoulder.

“I want him to feel better Mama,” was all she got in response.

A 3 year old could not possibly fully, or even partially, understand what was going on, much less explain, but Toareth could only guess, for the moment, that some kind of reverse empathic transference had just happened.

As there was no time to dwell on that, she followed the medic team back toward Sick Bay.

 

RSS Feed