Star Trek_ A Choice of Catastrophes - Michael Schuster [22]
“Hey, Doctor,” the man said. McCoy recognized him as the voice of Two. “Watch where you point that.”
“Sorry.” McCoy dipped the light to illuminate the man’s body, not his face. “Who is that?”
“Lieutenant Leslie, sir.”
That’s who he was! Ryan Leslie had done a rotation in sickbay as an emergency med tech, though McCoy had repeatedly mixed him up with a navigator named Connors. Judging by his red shirt, he was now in security, or maybe engineering.
“Okay, Leslie, I hope you remember your medical training, because we’ve got a lot of work to do here.”
Leslie swallowed visibly, but gave a confident nod. “I think so, sir.”
“Doctor!” called out another voice, a woman’s. Four, McCoy thought. “Over here.” McCoy swung his light across the room to find a woman with her legs stuck beneath a collapsed table. “I think my legs are broken.”
“Don’t move and stay quiet. You’ll be fine soon enough.” McCoy turned around and found another flashlight in the emergency compartment.
Leslie held tight until McCoy made it to him and handed him the second flashlight. “How are you doing, son?” He kept his voice quiet, so that no one else could hear him.
“I’m fine,” said Leslie, but he still seemed nervous.
McCoy narrowed his eyes. “You don’t sound it. Really, how are you?”
“I hit something when I fell. Hurt my arm.”
“Show me,” McCoy said.
Leslie held up his left arm, which even in the unsatisfying light was visibly bloodied. The sleeve’s fabric had torn above the elbow, and the skin showed a gash halfway down the forearm. It looked bad, but that was due to the amount of blood. All McCoy needed was an autosuture, and thankfully there was one in the medical kit. Working quickly, he rolled up the torn sleeve to be able to use the device. As he moved its beam slowly over the wound, the affected tissue was stimulated into healing quickly. Within a couple of minutes, there was no trace of any damage except for the drying blood.
“Now you’re fine,” McCoy said. “Right now I need your help, son. There were about a dozen of us in here. We need to find the seven who didn’t count off before we do anything else. We can’t afford the chance that one of them is bleeding to death while we help someone else. Got it?”
Pale and visibly shaken, Leslie said nothing; he merely nodded.
“Then let’s get to it.”
They fanned out, taking opposite sides of the room. McCoy’s search was aided by his tricorder, which led him to a man slumped underneath a table. He recognized him as Ensign Rix, from the communications center. A quick inspection, coupled with tricorder readings, showed that he had a concussion, but there would be no lasting damage.
Leslie called him over to look at a noncom who’d been flung into a bulkhead with extreme force. Externally, she looked fine, but McCoy’s tricorder showed massive internal bleeding. He injected her with a drug to slow it, but she needed to be taken to sickbay, and soon.
In a back corner, they found the patient McCoy had been dreading. A tall Saurian with numerous injuries. He didn’t say anything, even when the flashlight’s beam hit his face, but he wasn’t unconscious. A large shard of something had gotten lodged in his gigantic left eye. It was probably taking all the fellow’s willpower to keep from blinking.
McCoy handed Leslie his flashlight while he went to work on dealing with the eye. He might not be able to save it, but if he waited until they got to sickbay, it was a loss for sure.
The odd thing was, despite everything, McCoy felt better than he had all day. Oh, he was sore and hungry and rapidly getting tired, but he was doing something. He was solving problems.
“Hey!” came the voice of Four once more. “What about me?”
“Are your injuries life-threatening?” McCoy shouted.
There was no answer.
“Then let us do our job. I promise we’ll get to you as soon as we can.”
Leslie looked up from his work. “Shouldn’t we see if she needs help?” he asked.
“We’ll get to her, don’t you worry,” replied McCoy. “There’s only the two of us. We can’t heal everybody at once.”
“Yes, but