War Stories (Book 1) - Keith R.A. DeCandido [7]
As the biobed readings came through—broken arm, a combination of electrical and plasma burns on both legs, several cuts and contusions, and a concussion—Lense thought, Of course, we didn’t know about the Dominion when they built the Lexington. She’d heard stories about how the Jem’Hadar could walk through force fields and had technology far beyond anything the Federation had ever seen.
If we can’t protect sickbay, how the hell are we going to protect the rest of the ship?
She managed to stabilize the ensign and apply a dermal regenerator and a sedative. As long as she lay still and remained sedated, her body would eventually heal.
“I’ve completed the triage,” the EMH said. “One requires immediate surgery. Two will require surgery within the next three hours. Three are stable and sedated. The remaining eight are deceased.”
Lense closed her eyes. She had sent four medtechs to various parts of the ship to facilitate the transportation of wounded. She had been on the bridge.
The EMH had just listed the remainder of the Lexington medical staff.
“Get started on the surgeries.”
“Excuse me?” the EMH said archly.
“We’re about to get inundated with wounded, and we’re a sickbay of two. One of us needs to be able to diagnose in an instant and make judgment calls as to what treatment to perform; the other needs to perform those treatments. I think we know how that division of labor should go, yes?”
“A logical course of action, I suppose.” The EMH sounded almost grudging.
Who the hell programmed this monstrosity, anyhow? “ So why are you standing around? Get to work on that patient who needs immediate surgery!”
“There’s no need to yell, Doctor,” the EMH said as he went over to prepare for surgery. “Of course, without a nurse, this will be most difficult.”
“My heart bleeds for you,” Lense muttered.
“Doctor?”
Lense turned to see that her metaphorical words applied to someone else in reality—a patient was being brought in on an antigrav gurney, blood pouring from a chest wound. With a start, she recognized the patient as Jenson, one of the three medtechs she’d sent out—and she had no idea who it was navigating the gurney.
“What happened?” she asked as she ran the scanner over the wound. Eyes widening as the tricorder told her that there was a massive arterial tear, she said, “Never mind.” Jenson had seconds at the most.
She took a quick look around, but the only instruments nearby were fried by the plasma fire. The spares were across the room in a drawer—they may as well have been in the Gamma Quadrant, for all the good they did her right now.
The hell with it. She shoved her decidedly nonsterile hand into Jenson’s chest cavity and tried to close the arterial tear with her fingers. If she could just hold it shut, the blood would keep pumping.
It was a ridiculous gesture. It had no chance of actually working. She could barely get a grip on the artery with the blood pouring out of Jenson’s body. But she had to try.
She looked up at the person who’d brought Jenson in, and saw that he had one pip on his uniform. “Ensign, get over to the set of drawers on the far wall. In the second from the top is a tray. Bring the whole thing over here, now!”
“Yessir,” the ensign said, sounding almost relieved to be given an order.
It took the rest of Garth Jenson’s life for the ensign to make it back with the tray. By then, he had lost too much blood—no amount of infusion would do the trick, especially given how much more he’d lose in the time it would take to repair the artery.
Lense closed her eyes, counted to five, then opened them.
The smell got worse.
Again, she asked, “What happened?”
“It all happened so fast. We were just standing there down on deck twelve, talking about—something.” The ensign almost giggled. “I don’t even remember, but we were having one of those stupid arguments that’s about nothing at all, but neither side will ever back down for anything, no matter what the other one says?”
Lense bit her tongue. She had plenty of arguments like that on Starbase 314