From: naomi_lara_at_optusnet.com.au
Date: Thu Jan 10 2008 - 19:51:49 PST
('binary' encoding is not supported, stored as-is) "Aftermath." Con't from Jamie's and Ran's "Love Across Distances") =/\= Location: GATEWAY Scene: Deck Three Corridor =/\= Jake was shaking his head as he caressed the battle scarred wall. "Oh my beautiful station." So much pride, blood, sweat and tears went into Gateway, it broke his heart to see her so badly hurt. "Take it easy kid, at least it can be rebuilt." Maverick rumbled from behind him as they continued their inspection. "It's only metal and iso rods and wiring." The marine was twitchy, his fingers constantly playing with the phaser rifle, but external he was as calm as serene as a Vulcan. The engineer looked at the marine and snorted in disgust. "Metal and iso rods? Are you kidding me! She's as alive as you are." He cried out incredulous. "All you marines care about is blowing stuff up!" He added a cheap shot a moment later. Maverick hid a grin. He actually quite liked the kid, Critchton reminded him of Kyle a little. "You've been inhaling too much plasma." He replied, not rising to the bait. The kid had a point though - he was more interested in destruction and not so much in the rebuilding afterwards. "Colonel!" An insistent voice thundered down the empty corridor, prompting Crichton to turn around and locate the speaker. "Ah jeeze." Maverick muttered under his breath before turning around and giving Tanith his attention. "What is it?" He asked, trying very hard to be civil and calm, the last thing he needed or wanted was Tanith going...Tanith on him. "Your marine monkeys nearly shot me when I disembarked from the fighter!" The woman wasn't looking too happy, she folded her arms across her torso. The pilot was so infuriated, she was still wearing her flight suit. "But they didn't." Maverick pointed out, a part of him wishing that maybe they had shot her. "Only due to the fact that I threatened to castrate them!" She retorted. Maverick smiled calmly. "See, a Founder wouldn't have done that." He pointed out gently. "You..." Tanith began, and seeing the marine calm and collected, stopped and growled. "...arrragh." She spun around and stormed off. No point in having an argument with someone who wasn't fighting back. Jake watched her leave with the same energy she had approached, and softly whistled. "Wow. She's a handful." He muttered under his breath. Maverick smacked the ensign on the back of the head. "Get back to work." He said with a smile, instinctively protecting his people. Jake grumbled but wordlessly continued with his inspection of the station. Several minutes passed before Kyle stumbled across the duo. This time Maverick was quite pleased to have a visitor. "What's the status?" The young marine held his sniper rifle across his chest. "We've cleaned out the remaining Jem'Hadar and Vorta, or located the last remaining few. Marines are mopping up. We've got massive casualties though, marine, fleet and civilian." He reported to his foster father. "We're lucky we weren't obliterated." Maverick sighed softly. "There's another problem." Kyle began and Maverick gestured for him to continue. "Rixx escaped from the brig. The power went down to that section and he just walked out. We can't find him anywhere." He added. "With any luck, he got sucked out into space." Kyle didn't agree or disagree. Rixx probably found a corner and hid for the duration of the assault. He was nice and safe while everyone else was dying. "We'll keep looking." He promised. "In the meantime, get Clarkson to organise a watch on Commander Davidson. Now's the perfect time for Rixx." The Colonel said. "And let station security know." "Yes, sir." Kyle nodded and went to follow through. =/\= Scene: Gymnasium =/\= Unlike the super heroes in the movies and books, Catherine couldn't spontaneously regenerate severed tissue or avulsed flesh, and she still needed medical care, but unlike the people around her who were bleeding to death, or had serious internal injuries, she would survive. She could heal broken skin and tissue quickly enough, the cuts and scorch marks had been sealed over with a new layer of skin in a matter of hours, but still were red and angry, throbbing with pain. Infection wasn't a concern as her immune system was literally out of this world. The doctors triaged her and sent her out of sickbay, and out of their way, with instructions that she would be called when they were able to better treat her. Her arm with its broken clavicle was strapped to her torso, and her hands tightly bound to protect the fragile skin. As quickly as she could, the woman fled from the mass of dying humanity. She didn't even get a chance to see Daniel before leaving. It was utter chaos. She could catch glimpses of Kathryn and Gorman among the throngs of wounded. Commander Davidson too was looking tense and impatient, worried about something. Commander Kenta perhaps? Although Catherine couldn't understand why Davidson was so worked up over it, it almost seemed that the concern was personal. She breathed a sigh of relief as she left the place. The first thing she did was get under a shower in the gymnasium. The water was cold, but it didn't bother her. Sterling just didn't like the feeling of being covered in blood. It had started to stink anyway, and it clung to her clothes and hair. She couldn't abide by the smell of copper and iron. Bruises had already started to turn an ugly purple-green across most of her body. So she stood under the beating water and washed the multitude of coloured blood from her hair. Red, purple, green, brown, it was all washed away. She moved slowly, painfully. This was the downside to every fight. She was sore, hurt and starving for food, and coming off an adrenaline high. But at least she was alive. She stepped out and towelled herself down and stepped into a clean uniform. Sterling wasn't quite sure what to do now. There was really nothing more for her to do. The fight was over. Perhaps forever, perhaps for an hour. They didn't know yet if the Dominion would try one last time. She wasn't involved in any of the commanding on the Patriot, so there was no use her being on the Bridge. The safest place to be was out of everyone's way. The safest place would have probably been in her office, but the Patriot was pretty off-bounds until the engineering and repair crews made sure she wasn't going to explode or anything. Sterling barely made it out of the women's locker room before Jaxsper found her. He was alone, and was walking with a decided limp, with a tendency to drag his right foot. Like everyone and everything else on Gateway, he was also looking quite battered and bruised. But he still with a weapon holstered at his hip, prompting Catherine to wonder if it was permentantly attached, or was it just situational. "Lieutenant Sterling." "Yes, sir?" Lawrence gestured for her to come with him. "When you're ready, we've got work to do." He stated grimly and limped out without a backward glance. He had already been in contact with Commodore Danara-Bennow, and they already have specific tasks that needed to be carried out. =/\= Scene: Command =/\= Eishnala never in her existence had a head that was pounding like it was now. "How many fingers?" Mowree was asking her with a pad in the air. "Don't you mean claws?" The woman groaned softly. The light hurt her eyes, and everything was a little hazy. The world was moving half a step faster then her mind could process it. The lag effect was quite curious and a little disconcerting. "She's fine." Mowree grinned and gave the medic a thumbs up. The medic nodded and left, he had a lot more patients to look after. "What happened?" Eishnala was helped onto her feet by the feline and they made their way over to the closest vacant chair. "You got a rifle butt to the back of the skull. Luckily you've got a hard head, you got off with a few scrapes and a concussion." The assistant counsellor reported, keeping a wary eye on the Lieutenant. "Status?" "Dominion are gone...again." Nurunyon replied. "They might well return, we don't know." "How?" Lieutenant sh'Kor frowned softly. The Dominion were winning decisively the last time she was aware of things. Why pack up and leave so suddenly. "The fleet arrived...again." Lt. JG Mowree Nurunyon smiled. "They have a habit of doing that." The Executive Officer commented, it was the second time in a week their collective hides had been saved in the nick of time. "The Commander?" She asked suddenly, her brain suddenly leaping into another gear. "Daisy is fine, she's helping out the medics. There's not much she can do here." Mowree gestured to the ravaged control room of Gateway station. Most of it had been burnt out during the sustained blasts from the Dominion, and the rest of it trashed by the Jem'Hadar. "No, I guess not." sh'Kor frowned and looked at the Counsellor, a part of her was not quite willing to believe. "They're really gone?" "Yes, Lieutenant, they're really gone." =/\= Scene: Medical area =/\= Tam's head was spinning with the noise, and the stench of sichbay. Blood had its own rank smell and it was permeating the air here. She was doing all that she could to soothe scared people and make sure the medical personnel were attending them if required. People were crying hysterically, or softly moaning, others were lashing out at anything they could. Niala was picking her way through the beds when a young man, just out of boyhood grabbed her arm with the desperation of someone drowning at sea. "Please please please! Make it stop! Oh my god, my leg!" He pleaded, his eyes full of fear and pain. "Shh, it'll be okay." Tam said softly, trying to soothe him. One quick look showed her it was a complicated open fracture of the lower leg. Painful, yes. Fatal, no. "It hurts." He moaned softly, his chest heaving as he hyperventaliated. Tam kept her voice pitched soft and low. "I know. Breathe for me, nice deep breaths." She encouraged him to slow down his respiratory rate, while at the same time wondering why no one had given him anything for the leg. "It hurts." He repeated pleadingly. "Tell me a story." Tam said as she sat down on the bed next to him. He turned his head away and the counsellor reached forward and tapped him on the chest and made him focus on her. "Look at me and tell me a story about you. What was the best vacation you had in your life?" She asked. Distraction was a powerful technique to helping the mind forget about pain, and she used it to her advantage. Slowly, haltingly he began to tell her tales about his childhood. Not just about the vacation, but about anything that came to his mind. Slowly, his breathing slowed down to normal and he began to relax. It took a while, but Niala finally managed to lull him to sleep. "Good work." Doctor MacNeil came up behind the counsellor as she briefly ran a vitals check on the young man and noted them on the padd. "He's young and afraid, you did him a lot of good." The Scotswoman said with a smile as they stepped away. "Why didn't you give him anything for the leg?" Tam asked, noting that no pain meds had been given at all, in the entire time she had spent with him. "Injury was stable, he wasn't going to bleed out, he had to wait." Kathryn replied and looked at Tam. "He can't feel pain anyway, severed spine at T4 junction. It was all in his mind." She said softly. She nodded in thanks again to the counsellor before quickly moving on ~~~~~~~~~~~~ NRPG: Okay...I think that post involves mostly everyone :) It's kind of nice to get back into the swing of things. I just hope I haven't butchered anyone's character too much. And yep, Rixx is somewhere out there. Beth: Come on lass, you're going to have to post some time ;) Ken: I'll NRPG you in regards to Maury, and see if we can get up to mischief. ;) Written by Naomi Lara Lt. J.G. Catherine Sterling-Jade ILO USS PATRIOT And Commodore Teneill Danara-Bennow Deputy Chief Starfleet Intelligence From HyperNews_at_youth.net
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