Eps 3 Act 1: A Break In Routine

[Aoife]

"I'm a science officer, we all have backgrounds in chemical fabrication. It's part of our job," Emerald commented dryly. Her own personal history with chemicals was her own business. She hadn't taken anything for a few hours now, and was beginning to feel the drag of withdrawal aching along her nerves. But, just like before, she'd get through this and start counting the days again. She had worked too damn hard to fail now.

"I'll take the compound apart and see if I can find out who made it. I've got some contacts who might be able to help, if there's enough power for me to call them." Emerald nodded towards Zuub, "But medical will be better suited for being able to figure out what he's taken."

TAGs

[Sjet]

"Well then, it's decided." the old Bajoran said, adding a liberal dash of pepper to his meal and again using his spoon as a pointing instrument. "Dr Zuub and Emerald will work on unravelling the secrets of the compounding affecting our would be cast away with an eye towards countering it and-"

Santra was interrupted as his combadge began to chirp. He began to reach for it, but paused when Zuub's also began to twitter incessantly. Then Ensign Ryler's began its calling bleat, not that anyone could hear over the sudden blaring alarm klaxon of the stations red alert call. Santra was up, and for a old man rather quick on his feet. He got to the conference rooms intercom panel and got connected immediately to Station Operations. The harried, clearly inexperienced garble from the duty officer allowed only one word to escape the exchange for the others to hear.

'Sickbay'.

+++

The Warden Class Starbase had been designed for two reasons: portable force projection, and frontline supply and refitting. They were not pretty things that were pictured in recruitment posters, inspiring to the grand dream of empire. They were modular things that could be configured quickly to fit suitable needs: weapons depots, command and control centres, and forward operating bases were but a few of their designed roles. It was the latter function that Starbase 42 had been created, offering it a Jack Of All Trade's usefulness but lacking the refinement of focus. This made its Sickbay larger than necessary for the personal on board, with an eye towards treating hundreds of Fleet personnel back from the front lines. It was in every logical way a small hospital, with only a small admitting ward currently powered and warm for the crews use.

Well...two less now.

From just stepping through the main doors to Dr Zuub's fiefdom the tragic train of events was clear to see. One bio bed bleating its loss of life signs to the world, the tray of medical instruments scattered across the floor, and the two medical corpsmen dead on the floor. The first was just by the bed, laying in a almost dazed repose of confusion on his pale face as the clay coloured handle of a laser scalpel had been buried into the side of his neck with tremendous force. The second corpsmen was slumped against the wall nearest the door, sat in a blood of congealing blood that was dribbling from the wall. Judging by the ruin of a skull atop his head someone had taken to beating it against the wall long after the man had died.

On the floor bare bloodied foot prints of their guest, the Chief Engineer of the USS Pegasus, could be seen milling around the room. They circled and back tracked, standing over both bodies, smearing into long shuffling lines as though confusion had gripped the man's mind. But then the foot steps trailed off, not out into the station proper through securely locked doors, but into the Sickbay level at large and its dark and haunting corridors. It had been breaking open that seal that had alerted Ops to a problem, and had led to a Engineer and not a Security rating coming down to find out what the problem was.

That poor wretch was knelt outside, the leavings of his own dinner pooling on the floor.

"Not bad given he's a nearly starved cadaver himself." Santra muttered, walked to the door which the drug crazed Engineer had taken and closed it with a pressurized hiss. Looking over his shoulder at the others. "If any of you have weapons experience now is the time to speak up about it. Or any ideas, come to think of it."

TAG-All. I assume everyone is going to follow Santra to sickbay, but if you have a better thought or plan run with it by all means.

Captain Santra Arron
CO SB42

[Ciara Mei]

[Amanda Rose]

[Aoife]

Emerald regarded the bodies with an almost detached air. She shook her head slightly.

"Not a narcotic," she said quietly. "This is stimulant behaviour. Narcotics, opioids, they knock you out. Calm you down. Stimulants cause restlessness and supernatural clarity of purpose. He's going to be hyperaware, so we have to be careful. This has some characteristics with an old compound actually. The violence? He's reacting to some hallucination or another most likely."

She shrugged, ducking back to her more normal demeanor. "I think, at least."

[Sjet]

Two security officers arrived on the scene well after anything could have been done, but between them they carried a crate of phaser rifles. But not a full one, because arming everyone with a beam weapon would have given them good odds. Instead they had three fully charged rifle, with both security officers getting one and Ryler getting the third. There were more, but of the remaining only two of them powered up on half a charge with the third being more flash light than flash fry.

Santra took the broken rifle, flipping it around and giving a few well practised swings and thrusts that suggested this was not the first time he had had to bludgeon an experiment escaped from the lab.

“MIss Jones is correct in saying our narcotic has some very interesting properties, and I have a theory in my mind as what it might be. But what we must focus on now, Dr Zuub, is either securing our patient, or removing him from the equation. Before he removes anyone else.” he nodded to the now shrouded bodies.

He then pointed towards the locked pressure hatch that lead into the dark, under powered hospital wing of Starbase 42.

“Beyond that point is a warren of wards, treatment rooms and surgical suites. A hundred places he could hide, and with the stations primary systems just barely back on line with mains power, internal sensors can tell us that there are life signs on this station. Just not exactly where they all are.” he smiled a little. “Dr Zuub make your hypo’s, supply them to Ryler and her goons. They’ll be more likely to make physical contact with our guest, whilst yourself, Miss Jones and I will play the part of beaters in the hunt.”

He looked to Ryler.

“We’ll push him towards you and your team. But I want to be very clear…” he said sternly, looking at the three armed people. “I do not enjoy writing letters to sniffling parents and guilt-ridden partners. If any of you die during this event, I will be quite brusk with your next of kin and go on at length concerning your many short comings.”

It was, almost, touching.

TAG-All

Captain Santra Arron
SB42

[Ciara Mei]

[Amanda Rose]

[Sjet]

Armed with a collection of phaser rifles, half of which were not charged, the hunters stepped into the darkened heart of Starbase 42’s medical level. A trio of corridors spread out from their entry point, leading to treatment, surgical and research suites. Or at least that's what the painted directions on the walls said when a light beam washed across them.

One of the security officers was left at the entrance to the emergency room where Zuub and Jones remained. That left Ryler, Santra, and Hapless Security Guard No2 to begin the hunt for the deranged engineer.

“We’ll start with the treatment suites,” Santra instructed, pointing with his barely functioning rifle down the nearest corridor. “Keep your eyes open for any emergency hatch levers. We can use them to seal off sections once they’ve been cleared.”

The treatment suites are large, almost cavernous in their gutted states. Ryler and the security guard can see where cots and medical equipment had been bolted to the floor, only to be torn out in haste during the evacuation. The engineers of 2nd Fleet had not left anything behind of worth for the Dominion, or squatters, to salvage. After a few minutes the area, lacking much in the way of crawl spaces and the like, is deemed empty. The icy frost on the floor is undisturbed save for their own footsteps.

At the connecting point between the Treatment and Surgical wings is a large pressure hatch, the sort of thing the main engine room of a starship would have in place to seal off a warp core breach. Simple physical controls, that do not rely on mains power or a computer to operate, stand out in bright orange on either side of the door. Once all three are safety across into the surgical wing Santra works the release.

With a loud, almost deafening thud of falling metal the hatch closes, a brilliant white rime of frost billowing up from where nitrogen canisters have frozen the mechanism in place. No way, no how, will that door open without the work of a dozen engineers with cutting torches.

“One down,” Santra grumbled, patting his hands together to keep the cold from numbing his fingers too much.

The surgical wing is much different than the wing that had just left. Gone was the wide open space designed to allow hundreds to be treated at a time: instead there were branching corridors centred around large claw like machines. A beam of light washes over the machines and Santra nods in recognition of an AutoDoc. A dozen arms all ending in a different surgical instrument or diagnostic device: these were the cruder automata for which the EMH program had been designed to supplant. But AutoDoc’s were quicker to make, easier to repair, and ran on their own internal computers and power supplies: for a field hospital they made for good nurses that could stabilise and in some cases perform minor surgery unassisted.

“Now why did they leave these behind, but not the cots and aid station?” Santra mused allowed, his train of thought rattling off its rails as a sudden clatter of disturbed metal arose from ahead of them.

TAG-All

Captain Santra Arron
SB 42

[Ciara Mei]