Trapped in the Asylum | Part II-B

Posted on Sunday, 15 August 2021 - 9:03pm by Captain Barret Stillwater & Crewman Leopold Eberhardt & Lieutenant T'Lanna Vali & Lieutenant Ryan Rose MD

Mission: Operation: Lazarus
Location: USS Standing Bear | Deck 05 | Auxiliary Laboratory

{ON}

T’Lanna sat with her back against a wall, she’d always wondered how it would feel to face the Kobiashimaru test for real. Now she sat trapped in with the Trellium D along with the other team members. So far she wasn’t feeling any different but she knew the longer she had exposure the more chance there would be that she’d start losing her mental faculties.

Petty Officer William Dillard, 'Pickles' to his shipmates was young and inexperienced. The USS Standing Bear was one of his first exciting postings, but this was not the level of excitement that he joined Starfleet for. He was in the Engineering department, and engineer's mate. He just did odds and ends, minor maintenance work here and there, but he had volunteered to be in the lab with the Trellium D which he and the others were now exposed to. They were stuck in there together liked sardines, bulkheads had buckled and power was mostly offline. The pannel at the doorway was sparking and kept making several popping noises. They tried to get it to open, the doors would not budge.

The room had filled with smoke from a brief fire that had been lit, fire suppression systems had been knocked offline, but some quick thinking from another crew member had extinguished the flames before they could spread. Had the flames gotten to the Trellium, everything would have exploded. Still, they were all at risk. Life support was clearly down, oxygen would eventually get thin and they were all exposed to the radiation from the Trellium. It would only be a matter of time.

Pickles had made his way through the smoke and found T'Lanna. "Are you alright ma'am?" he asked, checking her over for injuries "I think you are the ranking officer here, Lieutenant. That makes you in charge..." he rambled off and looked worried. She was the Ship's Psychologist not too long ago. Is she even ready for this?

T’Lanna ran her hand through her hair tidying up where her hair had fallen out of place. “You’re right Petty Officer, I shouldn’t be just sitting here feeling sorry for myself.” She looked around as she got to her feet. “There’s not much we can do that won’t waste what oxygen we’ve got. How are you doing?”

Pickles brushed off his uniform symbolically. "Nothing an hour in Sickbay won't fix. Sprains and strains, the normal wear and tear ma'am" he replied not daring to mention the radiation exposure.

"The fire was snuffed," reported Pickles. "I think the deck took a beating though. Power seems offline for the most part, the doors won't budge. We have tried to contact Sickbay, the bridge, anyone but either comms are down or the radiation from the Trellium is interfering with the signal."

“I think that’s our main worry right now, we’ve all been exposed to the Trellium D.” She paused as she had a thought running her fingers over her inhibitor. “We might not be able to use the comms but I don’t need comms.” She tapped her head as she removed her inhibitor. It took a few agonising moments to adjust to the input of her senses again but she focussed hard on sending a message she hoped would be heard. Captain... it’s T’Lanna we’re alive... we need help!

The Captain was not receptive to T’Lanna’s attempts. Though he could be read, he was not inclined to communicate in such a manner. His thoughts though were with the crew trapped on the radiation plagued deck, and his hope was to get rescue teams down to them fast.

T’Lanna sighed impatiently, “I can’t get through to the Captain” she closed her eyes putting her focus to controlling herself now her inhibitor was off. She’d been without her abilities so long she was already starting to get a headache, hopefully it was just from the mental input and not the radiation. She could only hope Raith was sensing that she was alive through their bond. She looked at Pickles “Any err... radiation sickness or burns?”

He nodded. "Two of the others were close to the Trellium. They are not doing so well," Pickles replied. "They need medical attention soon. I hope they are coming to look for us."

“They will” T’Lanna nodded. “Let’s go and see if we can help make the others comfortable. Find me an emergency med kit if you can.” She headed over moving between the mess that was strewn all around. It was when she reached to move some debris that she noticed small burns on her skin, it seemed the radiation exposure was worse than she thought.

The young man nodded. "Of course Lieutenant. I'll see if there's one around. There should be," he added knowing these labs often had medkits for situations such as the one they were in...at least similarly.


=======Sickbay=======

Ryan stood in the middle of sickbay. So far only a couple had trickled in with minor injuries. But the fact that the ship had been hit, and there was no word from T'Lanna had Ryan worried. "Engineering, status please."

"I would say fifty shades of fucked, Doctor," came the immediate response from Crewman Eberhardt who was not usually in Engineering, but it was sort of an all hands on deck situation. "Ensign Hamura took some engineers out to assess structural integrity and damage to crucial areas. I'm holding down the fort here, warpcore is currently offline."

Ryan was interrupted by the Captain. The report from Eberhardt had been a bit garbled. Once he was finished talking to Stillwater, he thanked Eberhardt, then made sure Security was doing their sweep. One advantage of such a small ship was that Security was trained in a bit more than just basic first aid. It wasn't quite like having a ship full of medics, but it was more than most security departments were able to offer.

{TO BE CONTINUED}