Star Trek_ A Choice of Catastrophes - Michael Schuster [24]
“On foot?” Scotty repeated, incredulous. “It’s worse than a gowk’s storm out there!”
“That is why we are equipped with ponchos, Mister Scott.” Lightning flashed through the shuttle’s viewports, momentarily casting the Vulcan’s severe features in a fierce, bright light. “Please locate an area of shelter near the signal. I wish to land immediately.”
Scotty looked down at the scans of the surface. The problem with the first officer wasn’t his unflappable logic, it was that his unflappable logic was always right.
McCoy and Leslie improvised a stretcher out of a table and lifted the comatose man—a transporter operator named Gaetano Petriello—onto it as quickly and carefully as they could. Soon they were waddling down the dark hallway, Leslie walking backward and taking the front, McCoy at back and directing. Progress was painfully slow when they needed speed. It didn’t help that McCoy had to use his teeth to hold the flashlight because he needed his hands to grip the table. The beam wavered wildly, giving them only a rough idea of what lay strewn about.
Once they got a few dozen meters down the corridor and turned the bend, they got to an area where emergency power was on. The dim, red lighting helped McCoy see, but at the same time worsened his mood. Seeing Petriello bathed in red from head to toe only seemed an omen of what was to come.
Thankfully, the rec room #3 was on the same deck as sickbay, and they soon made it. The doors slid open to reveal a madhouse. As they carried Petriello inside, McCoy had a hard time processing just how full sickbay had become. All the biobeds were occupied, even those generally reserved for routine physicals. In fact, there were more beds here than usual; McCoy was pleased to see his staff had reacted quickly and put up additional beds in between the others. And yet, despite all that, people sat on chairs or leaned against walls, waiting to be treated.
Working unaffected in the middle of all was Nurse Chapel. She was standing next to a female patient, sealing up a gaping wound in the woman’s stomach. McCoy spotted a number of other medical staff buzzing around from patient to patient. Chapel didn’t even look up, just kept on running the device over the patient to help stem the bleeding and bridge the gap. Her arms were covered in blood, and her hair had fallen into disarray.
They stood on the threshold for only a moment before McCoy gave the table a shove, sending Leslie toward the center of the room. If these distortions went on for much longer, they’d quickly run out of space if they were unable to discharge any patients—but then McCoy spotted Nurse Odhiambo helping a man off bed 5, and he ordered Leslie to move Petriello over to it. “One more heave, son, then we’re done.” Together, they lifted Petriello off the table onto the bed.
The monitors flicked on immediately, showing what McCoy had feared—the man was going the way of Bouchard, all his vital signs slowly sinking. McCoy quickly went to the supply cabinet and loaded a hypospray with dalaphaline. He turned to Leslie. “If you still remember your turn in sickbay, get me a neural stimulator. Or ask somebody to give it to you.” As Leslie went to get one, McCoy injected the drug straight into Petriello’s skull. After a few moments, the crewman’s vitals weren’t falling quite as fast, but they were still sinking.
His brain was giving up. Why? McCoy pulled up Petriello’s medical records, which included this interesting morsel of information:
ESPER RATING: 085
APERCEPTION QUOTIENT: 20/97
DUKE-HEIDELBURG QUOTIENT: 255
He was not very surprised. Two similar cases of sudden coma had to be linked somehow. Granted, Petriello wasn’t quite as powerful mentally as Bouchard, but he was still an esper. They both had to be suffering from the same kind of cerebral problem.
And if the two cases were related, that meant more data. Maybe he could get somewhere.
Grateful that you have an extra patient? Some doctor you are.
Leslie returned, handing McCoy