Old Friends Part. 2 (Fox/Steele)

[Destry Steele 0]

This log takes place 8 months after the end of the log 'Old Friends Part. 1' and is located on Star Base 17.

 

The ceiling lights of the station flashed intermittently over her head as the medical gurney rattled along the station corridor; Ellen watched them with a sort of vague distracted interest through a haze of pain which in the seemingly endless journey from Chin'toka had become almost routine. Her body felt like it was on fire, an ache set deep in her bones; her mind whirled with images of the Athens splitting itself apart around her. Shouts still rang in her ears, echoing, and god, everything hurt; tears squeezed out at the corners of her eyes, mixing with the burned skin and stinging like another wave of plasma flame. "Where...?" She tried to speak, her breath catching in her throat with a painful tug. "Where am I...?"

 

"Starbase 17, Lieutenant," came an unknown voice from above her. "Lie still...you're gonna be OK..."

 

Like hell... Ellen tried to say, but the words were lost somewhere in her throat in a half-sob.

 

The first wave of injured had reached them around six hours ago and they were still arriving as life pods were picked up and shuttles made their way in. SB 17 turned out to be the closest outpost to the Chin'toka system where the Federation had engaged the Breen. Even though the number of injured seemed great—it wasn't. Far more hadn't made it—the current estimate was more than 70,000. One of them had been the Constantinople; her previous posting—all hands lost.

 

Destry hadn't had a chance to hear the full list—the station XO, Jeffrey Avondale had come to Medbay to see how they were progressing with treatment and to discuss storage options for the dead. So many of the injured had been too far gone by the time they arrived for treatment and were currently being kept in two cargo bays. She'd heard Avondale mention the Connie and Yorktown specifically to the CMO, Dr. Clarice Yamamoto. She'd caught the concerned look Clarice had flashed her but had turned away. The day's horror was already too overwhelming—she had to do her best to think only of the next patient. If she stopped for even a second to try and grasp what had been lost...she would be overwhelmed. They were too short staffed as it was—there would be time to grieve, to try and come to terms with the enormity of what the encounter had cost Starfleet as a whole and herself, personally, when she ran out of wounded.

 

"Dr. Steele—this one just came in—picked up in a pod and is breathing on her own but has extensive plasma burns and slight lung searing."

 

Destry nodded as Corpsman Peter Reynolds broke the next case down for her, reaching to take the PADD from him as she approached the bed. She had this down to a science now. Check the scans and notes passed along with the patient from triage, come to a consensus on treatment options and then either perform the necessary surgery or direct to step down where the patient would have to wait if their need wasn't life threatening. This one had the gold of engineering still visible on part of a sleeve that hadn't burned and melted into the skin. Triage wasn't attempting to remove the uniforms of any of the bad burn cases. That would be part of the debrieding process because there was just too much risk of infection in trying to separate what was left of the uniform from the damaged area. She finally glanced at the patient's face; already assessing how deep the destruction went, mentally calculating how many treatments would be required to rebuild the destroyed nerve endings and muscle tissue, not even noticing the sweetish smell of burnt flesh anymore.

 

"Fox."

 

For a second, her hands faltered from their smoothly practiced routine of biofunction programming and checking fluid transfer leads. It had crossed her mind with sudden fear earlier that the Athens might be among the ships that had massed to fight the Breen but then she'd remembered that Ellen had mentioned in a subspace transmission from some weeks back that they were being sent pretty far out to deliver a diplomatic contingent someplace. Destry had reassured herself that the Athens was not in danger—had no reason to be in the area. She took a deep breath and savagely beat back the emotions that had been threatening to swamp her all day, fiercely reminding herself that Ellen was alive—she was going to be ok. She would make her be ok.

 

"Well, Fox," she tried to say breezily but only managed to sound strangled. "What the hell are you doing here? I'm pretty sure that the last time I saw you, I ordered you to take care of yourself."

 

The doctor's voice cut through the surrounding noise like a knife, and Ellen's half-shut eyes snapped painfully open, tugging the burned skin of her face. She knew that voice; no one else called her "Fox" with that direct snap, no one else could be so familiar in such circumstances, no one else for a long time had told her to take care of herself... "Des..." she rasped, the words seeming to pull somewhere inside her with every breath. She didn't know what was going on anymore but the familiar voice and face staring down at her was like an oasis in the midst of a desert of chaos. "Yeah...I...I tried...but...things were busted...I had to fix 'em..." An attempt at a self-deprecating grin tried hard to fight its way past the fear into her expression, giving the burned flesh a lopsided aspect, then retreated as she groaned with sharp pain. "The Athens...was coming apart...had to try to...hold her together, get the crew out..."

 

"Of course you did," Destry answered soothingly, thinking that was so very Ellen. Always fixing things, always looking to find a better way to do things. "You did a great job, Fox," she said reassuringly, the ruined sound of her friend's voice ripping her heart out. She had no idea what had happened aboard the Athens, but she had no doubt whatsoever that Ellen had saved lives. She smiled gently, releasing a complicated cocktail of painkiller, antibiotic and bionutrients into Ellen's bloodstream. "You're going to fall asleep now, Fox. Your current race is over and now you can leave everything in my hands. Don't fight it...just let yourself go. It's safe to do that now."

 

Ellen felt the numbness of the drug spreading through her body almost as soon as the low hiss of the hypospray reached her ears, and her head sagged heavily back against the gurney. For a moment, she struggled to keep her eyes open, looking up at Destry, and made a noise that was half-cough, half-laugh. "First time I see you 'n eight months...and the first thing y' do...is put me to sleep..." The joke trailed itself off into an abrupt and wonderful fuzziness that seemed to saturate her brain. It's safe to do that now... She felt herself secure for now, for the first time since the Breen ships had appeared on the Athens' viewscreens. "Thank you..." she forced out, her eyes drifting closed and the cacophony of her nerves receding slowly into welcoming silence.

 

"Anytime, Fox," Destry murmured, knowing Ellen was beyond hearing her. Then, she got to work.

 

* * *

 

2.5 years later at The Stars End Bar, McKay Colony on Mars' Southern Hemisphere.

 

Destry paused just inside doors that hadn't quite slid closed all the way. Smoke wreathed around the dim lights and made the ceiling feel even lower than it was. The music wasn't playing so loud she couldn't hear the murmur of conversation and the stares that came her way were appreciative without being predatory. It was a civilian bar and she was dressed for it, and mighty glad she wasn't wearing a pair of spit and polish dress shoes since something distinctly sticky was now clinging to the bottom of the sole of her left boot. She took a slow look around and then spotted her quarry on a stool near the right end of the bar. Always a creature of habit, she thought with a smile.

 

"I sure am happy to see you still gravitate to a dive when you get a chance," Destry drawled, sliding onto the stool next to Ellen Fox. "I was afraid you might have raised your standards since making Lieutenant Commander."

 

Ellen's hand froze on the rim of the glass the bartender had slid to her, and her eyebrows went up in recognition of the voice to her side. "I would never make such an error," she deadpanned laconically without turning, lifting the glass slowly and downing a gulp of the slightly fizzing liquid, then added thoughtfully, "Though you can't deny that with three pips I now lend an air of class to the place...if you disregard the company I'm keeping."

 

She let her glass back to the countertop with a low thunk, and spun abruptly on her seat to face the woman who had sat down beside her; a wide grin flashed across her face, lighting her steel-blue eyes, and she slapped Destry in the shoulder playfully, looked the other woman up and down. "Jeee-zus, what the hell are you doing here, Des? Last I heard you were out at Starbase...Whatsit. Playing hooky, are you?"

 

Before Destry could answer, Ellen had spun back to look in the direction of her unkempt server. "Barkeep! Aldebaran whiskey for my friend here, straight, no ice!" The man offered a nod in Ellen's direction and, satisfied, she swiveled her barstool around and lounged back against the edge of the bar. "I figure it's a safe assumption you haven't become a teetotaler in my absence," she added in a lower tone with a laugh.

 

"Starbase 17--transfer to SB 4 fell through and I had no complaints since it wasn't a ship," Destry replied , amusement causing her pale violet eyes to gleam. Ellen Fox always seemed to be in motion; she had a certain level of energy that never seemed to be completely contained. She'd missed her. "And not hardly, although," she added thoughtfully, nodding her thanks to the tender as he set a glass in front of her, "it is odd how much more I seem to drink when around you."

 

She raised the glass of whiskey in a silent toast and took a sip, feeling the green liquor burn its way down her throat and blossom into a warm presence in her stomach before answering Ellen's first question. "I decided I had to get a look at this ship of yours, Fox. I just couldn't take all the long-distance bragging anymore." Destry turned the stool so she could cross one long leg over the other while still keeping her gaze fixed to Ellen's, biting back a grin. "Is she really all that?"

 

"All that?!" Ellen responded with mock-indignation, her eyes crinkling at the corners. "Of course she is. Would I put my seal on anything but?" With the craziness of work and transfers, she and Des had rarely seen each other by anything but subspace for a while now, but they might as well still have been in their Academy days for all the change the time had made to Destry's wry, easy confidence. Ellen suddenly realized in how short supply that had been among the workaholic teams of engineers with whom she usually consorted these days and felt abruptly very glad to see her friend -- even if she doubted that Des had in fact come all this way just to have a look at Ellen's current project. Then again, station life had to be pretty slow sometimes.

 

"She's a beautiful ship," she continued with an air of authority, picking up her own glass again and sipping from it. "The USS Tiresius, good clean lines, solid engines -- perfect balance. Seven hundred meters of awesome in a six-hundred-forty-two-meter frame. Already got a temper on her, though; spent today with an EPS juncture that refused to settle in proper." Her smile took on an air of honest pride and she caught Destry's eyes and raised her eyebrows. "Can take you up to see her easy enough, if you like."

 

"I would like. Very much." Destry waited a beat, raising her glass to take another sip before adding, "Seeing as how she's going to be 'home' for the foreseeable future."

 

"Home?" Ellen cocked her head in surprise and mild confusion for a moment, and then her smile grew even wider, if that was possible, and she slapped a hand lightly on the bar. "Ah, you sneak! I knew you wouldn't come all this way just to see a drydock party! When'd you find out?" As far as she had known, Des had been well ensconced in her station-side work lately; it hadn't even occurred to Ellen that the two of them might end up serving together, but the idea was an added bonus to an assignment that had already kept her up nights with excitement as much as work.

 

"Just found out last week and decided to surprise you," Destry answered, her own smile competing with Ellen's for sheer brightness. They'd never served together and though the vagaries of Fleet life didn't preclude it, the odds were against it. "You know I've been wanting to get back on a ship but I didn't expect that the next time I did, it would be as a chief. That's just a little more admin work than I was looking forward to."

 

"Hell of a nice surprise!" Ellen answered cheerfully, before whistling at the latter announcement. "Well, now, someone's come up in the world, hasn't she? CMO and all?! Who'd you have to bribe?" she asked, punching Destry's shoulder lightly and looking pleased. "Let me tell you, you're getting quite an office -- wired it for sound and light last night." Downing the rest of her drink, she reached into her pocket and tossed a few slips of latinum on the bartop, enough to cover her drink and Destry's. "Come on...can give you the grand tour!"

 

"Office, huh? You know sitting behind a desk isn't my favorite thing in the world," Destry replied wryly, although she slid off the stool with alacrity. "Let's take a look at Medbay to satisfy my curiosity and then I promise I'll go quietly to Main Engineering so you can really strut your stuff. I promise I won't roll my eyes even once."

 

"Don't make promises you can't keep," Ellen answered with a smirk, pushing herself off her barstool as well and heading for the door. Once outside, she reached into her pocket, pulling out her commbadge and squeezing it between finger and thumb to open a channel back to Planetia. "Fox to Matthews. Two to beam up."

 

* * *

 

3 years later, Starfleet JAG offices, San Francisco.

 

"It could have been worse." 



 

Destry let the words drop like stones into the silence left as the door closed behind Lieutenant Peter Ellison and Lieutenant Commander Andrea Kenyon, the attorneys who'd represented them during their joint hearing.

 

"Oh, sure. The room could have blown up," Ellen answered wryly from where she was leaned against the wall next to the door, left leg drumming a ragged rhythm against the floorboards of the Frisco JAG office. "As it stands I wouldn't call it the best day of my life, especially given that we didn't do a damn thing that wasn't in the interests of the ship."

 

"Which is why we're not currently on the way to the brig," Destry answered, her tone equally wry.

 

"True. A rank drop and a transfer is better than bread and water," Ellen said, shaking her head slightly and pushing off from the wall to amble restlessly down the edge of the room. "But it's a hell of a thing, Des, when we didn't do anything wrong." Pausing, she turned and looked at her friend across the table and grinned faintly. "Least we're sticking together."

 

"Rank drop is rather understating it, Fox," Destry drawled, her eyes lazily tracking Ellen's progress. "There's quite a gap between ensign and lieutenant commander. And you're right, from our point of view, we didn't do anything wrong. Unfortunately, we hold the minority opinion." She shifted in her seat, crossing one long leg over the other, giving the free leg an idle swing. "I am surprised they're shipping us off together. I wonder if they consider it to be an infliction on the ship's CO?" Peering down at the PADD in her hand, Destry murmured, "Arphazad LoAmi? I wonder if someone up on high has it in for him." She mentally filed the thought under 'Things that make you go hmmmmm.'.

 

Ellen chuckled. "Hey - we do our job, we get things done. This, all…" She waved a hand to indicate their somewhat sterile surroundings. "Just a misunderstanding - we'll be back on the move and earn our stripes back before long." Dropping into one of the conference room chairs, she kicked her heel against the floor and rolled around the corner of the table to peer over Destry's shoulder, looking at their new orders with interest. "Hey, now…there's a silver lining - they put us on a Sovereign class?" Her tone perked up considerably and she slapped Destry lightly on the shoulder, clearly feeling much better about the situation in general.

 

"Another warp core to fall in love with, Fox?" Destry smiled, Ellen's buoyancy managing to make the heavy weight she felt at their current situation shift a bit so that it didn't feel quite so oppressive. "Go ahead; I know you're dying to tell me her stats."

 

Ellen grinned. "24 decks, 700 meters...makes Warp 8 steady without breaking a sweat? Gelpack computer systems, quantum torps...state of the art sickbay -- even you can get excited about that," she said, giving her friend a teasing sideways look. Destry didn't tend to share Ellen's exuberance for all things technological, but Ellen knew she did take stuff to do with her job very seriously. They both did. In light of recent events, it was even more important, really.

 

“I can see you’ve already fallen hard for her and all without having even been properly introduced,” Destry teased, though she was duly impressed by the description. Ellen’s enthusiasm was catching and she was so damn glad to not be heading back to a starbase.

 

"Hey. I know what I like. And I know a gift when I see it," Ellen answered, raising her hands in self-defense, laughing, feeling some of the humiliation and tension of the last few hours draining out of her. She never dwelled on the past for long, and here, while not easy, it was less difficult than she would have expected. She was still going shipboard, still going to work, still going to have a friend at her side and things to see. Yes, it could have been a lot worse.

 

“You’re right,” Destry agreed, an easy smile (the first one in a while) widening into a grin. “It’s not exactly what I’d call a clean slate but I’ll take the do over.” She rose to her feet and motioned to Ellen with the hand that held the PADD outlining the sketchy details of their immediate future. “Let’s go Fox. We don’t want to be caught hanging around if they decide to change their minds.”

 

"I dunno," Ellen said with a chuckle, moving to her feet as well and nudging the chair back into its place before falling into step with Destry out the door. "I'm not sure we've ever been much for just hanging around."

Edited January 28, 2011 by Destry Steele

[will_marx 0]

Hmm...Time to ferret around JAG's computers.

;)