War Stories (Book 1) - Keith R.A. DeCandido [6]
Silence greeted her request.
Damn newbies. The Lexington’s medical staff had almost doubled—from eleven to nineteen—in the month she was away. Lense’s staff now included two more doctors, twice as many nurses, and an additional medtech. Kumagai was one of those two doctors—an ensign, fresh out of Starfleet Medical, with a specialty in treating burn wounds (hence his assignment to a ship on the front lines).
“Lense to Kumagai,” she repeated.
Again, silence.
She tried her assistant, who had filled in as CMO while she was away. “Lense to Cox. Julianna, you there?”
More silence.
“Lense to Cavanaugh. Lense to Griscom.”
She sighed. With all those people, one of them should have replied.
“Lense to sickbay, someone report!”
The turbolift doors opened onto deck nine. Uniformed personnel ran back and forth, some carrying what looked to Lense’s untrained eye like equipment to be used in repairs. People shouted at each other, both across the hall and over intercoms and combadges.
As she walked closer to sickbay, she started to notice the burning smell. It had the distinct metallic odor of a plasma fire, but it was more of a lingering smell than an active one. Good, she thought, that means the fire-suppression systems are working. The computer could starve a fire with force fields, and it usually had a quick enough response time that damage was often minimal.
The moment the doors to sickbay started to part, she spoke. “Why the hell isn’t any—?”
Whatever she planned to say next caught in her throat.
Sickbay was full of bodies.
The smoky metallic smell from the plasma fire lingered, but it was mixed with the equally metallic odor of blood.
This wouldn’t be unusual in the midst of a large-scale battle, but for the fact that it was all medical personnel. The biobeds were empty, but members of her staff were sprawled about. Julianna lay on the floor, third-degree plasma burns all up and down the right side of her body. Next to her was Nurse Rodgers, like burns on her left side. They were both dead.
There was a giant hole where one of the bulkheads used to be, a force field over that hole, through which she could see dozens of badly burned pieces of whatever normally was inside starship bulkheads.
The fire-suppresion systems did work, she thought through the shock, just not fast enough.
She forced herself to look around. Triage. See who needs immediate attention. Half the equipment in sickbay was also burned. She heard moans, and one person screaming. Nobody seemed to be in any shape to help out.
“I need a doctor here!”
That voice came from the doors, which had just parted to reveal a lieutenant she didn’t recognize carrying in an ensign she also didn’t recognize. This was due in part to the blood obscuring both their faces.
Somewhere in the back of her head, she cursed Cox for not giving the crew adequate first-aid training— the lieutenant was carrying the ensign like he was bringing his bride across the threshold instead of in a proper “firefighter’s carry”—then remembered that Cox was lying dead at her feet.
“Computer, activate EMH.”
A short, male human figure appeared in the center of the room. “Please state the nature of the medical emergency,” the figure said in a haughty tone.
“There’s a war on,” Lense said dryly. “Examine the people on the floor. Do triage, and treat the most gravely injured first. There’s no support staff handy, so you’ll have to find everything yourself.”
The EMH looked around. “I’m a doctor, not an archaeologist.”
“Move!”
“Of course.” The EMH knelt down to start examining those on the floor.
Lense pointed to the lieutenant. “You—set her down there, then you sit here.”
“I’m fine, Doctor, it’s all her blood on me. I need to get back to engineering.”
She waved him off. “Fine, go.”
Sickbay’s supposed to be the best protected part of the damn ship, she thought as she ran a scanner over the ensign. The Jem’Hadar managed to penetrate it with one shot. That’s ridiculous. They’re supposed to