War Stories (Book 1) - Keith R.A. DeCandido [9]
Too many of them died.
Somehow, Galloway kept coming in with more wounded, even though the red stain on her uniform jacket kept getting bigger each time. At least five people survived who wouldn’t have without Galloway playing medtech.
If I’d had the entire staff, if half my equipment hadn’t been fried, if I’d been here the past month and not let discipline and training slip with my absence…
It would still be a nightmare. People would still be dying, there’d just be more of us watching.
The smell of blood never left her nostrils, and she was sure that it never would.
Another hour, and the not-especially-reassuring voice of Heather Anderson sounded over the intercom. “Attention all hands, this is the captain. We have destroyed the Dominion forces that tried to take Setlik. With the arrival of replacements from the Third Fleet, we’re standing down from red alert. Once warp drive is repaired, we will be setting course for Starbase 375 for repairs.”
When the captain signed off, the EMH approached. Lense wondered where Galloway was—she hadn’t seen the first officer in quite some time.
“All the patients are stable, Doctor. And—oh, dear.”
“What is it?” Lense followed the EMH’s glance—it was peering at the floor.
She saw a figure sitting there, next to the corpse of Dr. Cox, staring lifelessly ahead, seated as if she’d plunked herself down there for a quick rest.
Fiona Galloway.
“Dammit, why didn’t she let me help her?”
With surprising gentleness, the EMH said, “Because she thought it was more important to help others.”
Lense let out a very long breath. Maybe I should have resigned, she thought—not due to outrage at the way Starfleet treated her, but so she wouldn’t have had to face this nightmare ever again.
Anything to never smell the blood.
“Yeah.” She shook her head. “C’mon, let’s check on our living patients.”
Androssi Vessel Overseen by Biron
STARDATE 53678.4
Overseer Biron read through the logs from the U.S.S. Lexington with a mixture of admiration and confusion.
The former came from Elizabeth Lense’s ingenuity in accomplishing her appointed task with no staff and limited equipment.
The latter came from that appointed task. In particular, the actions of Fiona Galloway filled him with utter confusion. Why would the Starfleet equivalent of a sub-overseer waste time and energy, and sacrifice her own life, just to preserve the lives of inferiors? It was an appalling misuse of resources. What did a mere engineer matter? Such people were easily replaceable. Someone who can perform the task of second-in-command of a ship—especially one as large as the U.S.S. Lexington— was a person for whom the preservation of life should have been a far greater priority.
Biron was unable to determine why Dr. Lense had been temporarily reassigned to the Federation starbase designated number 314 for a month’s time. He did, however, know that she specifically requested a transfer to the Starfleet Corps of Engineers after the war’s end.
Furthermore, he noted that she was the only doctor assigned to the U.S.S. da Vinci, aside from an upgraded version of the Emergency Medical Hologram that assisted her during the combat in the Setlik star system. The U.S.S. da Vinci was, after all, a much smaller ship than the U.S.S. Lexington, and did not require as extensive a medical staff.
He mentally stored these pieces of information along with the others he’d gleaned from his reading. Dr. Lense was a critical asset to the functioning of the vessel, given the obscene importance Starfleet placed on the lives of irrelevant life-forms. That was something Biron knew he could exploit.
Biron noted that several log entries were from the Federation starbase designated number 92. He soon realized that Bartholomew Faulwell, the language and cryptographic specialist assigned to the U.S.S. da Vinci’s Starfleet Corps of Engineers team, had been assigned there during the time period of the war. Confusingly, Faulwell appeared to be of Starfleet’s worker class, even though he obviously had the skills