Clearing the Airways ((Trenral/Caine))

[C.T. Caine 0]

Caine came to a stumbling halt next to the wreckage of the Corianis conference building, her eyes streaming as her lungs strained to evacuate the burst of gas which Calestorm's skimmers had dropped. She (along with Mattingly and a few members of the Coyote squad) had been next to the growing mob of Corianis civilians when the gas dropped and had taken almost the full brunt of it themselves as well; all four of them had suddenly lost the ability to do almost anything but try to get the hell away from there, which had put something of a dent in her first-response security procedures, and Caine was mad as a hornet about it. However, for the moment, she didn't bother showing it, merely headed for the wall of the building with her team and slumped down against it, trying to catch her breath.

 

Dr. H'Rasha Trenral was spitting mad, which was something she'd usually been able to avoid working in a hospital. Her first stint down on the front lines had been going well enough, until that idiot Calestorm and her people had dropped gas from their skimmers. Besides the fact that the Agincourt security was right there and got blasted by it, it complicated the treatment of those injured that already had to wait. Ready to skin Calestorm over it (and it looked like her Caitian comrade JoNs was in the same boat), she nevertheless turned away to ensure that the medic teams got back out there to treat the wounded. Some of them she saw while she watched the medic teams proceed on were on their way in. Seeing Caine, Trenral moved over to her.

 

Caine, who had her head lowered between her knees trying to feed oxygen to her slightly lightheaded brain, heard the sound of padding footsteps approaching over the hardpacked dirt. She looked up, her grey eyes squinting a little bit to recognize the Caitian in Medical blue whom she had seen on the transporter pad standing over her. Must be the new CMO...good timing... "Afternoon, Doc..." she said raspily, leaning back against the wall behind her to look up at the other officer.

 

"Lieutenant. Lovely day, isn't it?" H'Rasha said, her voice a low growl despite the words. Bending down to quickly scan the woman, she saw the expected: the Vulcan/Human hybrid was experiencing the usual symptoms of being gassed. Opening her medkit, she extracted a hypo and two different medicine vials. Swapping them out one by one into the hypo, she dialed the correct amount of the medicines and then injected them into Caine's neck. "There, bit of antihistamine to help alleviate the severity of the symptoms, as well as a bit of expectorant to help get than nasty crap out of you more quickly. Don't hold back on the coughs when they come."

 

Caine raised one eyebrow at the growling tone of the chief medical officer's voice; apparently she wasn't the only one who felt this operation had been snafu'd considerably. "Lovely," she rasped, turning her head as the hypospray hissed next to her ear. Both eyebrows went up at the description of their contents and then her whole body convulsed as she began to cough violently, the medication taking temporary hold of her systems and forcing her lungs to expel their contents. Her stomach muscles complained at the sudden burst of work and she groaned, looking back up at the doctor. "That's a fun one..." she muttered dryly when she had caught her breath.

 

"Better than working for two hours to hack it up," H'Rasha replied, watching the medical tricorder readings. "You'd still feel the same at the end but the agony would be prolonged. There, that's looking better. You'll still probably have a couple left, but no so violent." At the word "violent" the Caitian sent over a very predatory glare back Calestorm's way, and the feline doctor's claws extended around the tricorder.

 

Caine chuckled throatily, spitting into the dirt next to her in an attempt to clear out her mouth, looking over to be sure that medics were attending to her other people as well. Hearing a change in the doctor's tone, however, she looked back and saw Trenral's gaze pointed at the Jackrabbit's captain, who was standing some distance away next to Harper and JoNs. Caine's eyes moved that way as well and she grimaced. "Good...I may want to keep a little violence stored up..." she quipped.

 

H'Rasha's reply to that was another low growl from the back of her throat. Turning back, she did her own quick gaze on the rest of her medics, verifying that the others were being treated. She then looked back to Caine. "I'd say 'get in line' but I think you get a free pass to the front after this. That is if there's anything left of that..." H'Rasha uttered some Caitian phrase to describe Calestorm that didn't quite translate but certainly wouldn't sound good even then. "...by the time the Colonel and Commander are done with her."

 

Caine smirked and shook her head slightly. She liked this doc; the Caitian energy brought a nice edge to the usual Medical "fix-em-up" attitude. "I don't know what she was thinking," she said after a short pause, a little more seriously. Her breath was starting to come more evenly now and with it came a desire to get a handle on just what had actually happened out there. "Did she try to make any explanation?"

 

"Not that I heard," the Caitian said, baring her fangs. "But she did say something about being pleased with how well it worked and why was everyone so upset since it did. I believe I responded with something about claws in her butt, but it's rather hazy."

 

Caine burst out laughing, which quickly morphed into another series of hacking coughs as the drug kicked in again. She leaned forward, letting them work themselves out, spat again, and looked back up at Trenral, a grin now spread across her Vulcan features. "I'm sure that went over well..."

 

H'Rasha watched as Caine went through another coughing fit, then widened her fanged grin in response to Caine's statement. "Something about me being mouthy for a doctor," she said with a grim chuckle. "Well, seeing as the Colonel and Commander were both looking like taking a piece out of her as well I think she was realizing that the numbers weren't stacking up in her favor. As much as I would've liked to continue that, I had you people to deal with, so I left it for the other scary women to deal with." With one last check of the tricorder readings, she nodded and flipped it closed. She rose, jogged over to a crate of supplies and grabbed a bottle of water. Returning, she handed it to Caine. "Drink it all, please."

 

"Scary women seems to be something the Agincourt does pretty well," Caine said, eliciting a chuckle from Mattingly who seemed to be dozing off beside her in between her own coughing fits. Reaching for the bottle Trenral handed her, Caine unscrewed the cap and took a large gulp, letting the water soothe her abused throat. When she had swallowed, she glanced back over in the direction of the Agincourt command team again. "I suppose I should be grateful for this interlude...gives me time to come up with a more professional report than, 'I don't know, sir, someone dropped gas on us.'" She rubbed a hand down her face tiredly. "This entire planet is a lesson in overreaction -- on all sides."

 

"Hmm. While the dilithium they're supposed to be mining here will eventually run out, the idiocy they're mining seems to be a renewable resource." She did a quick check on Mattingly, whom Vaughn had been working on before heading back out to see to the original injured from the blast and trampling. She watched Vaughn a moment, then snarled when she saw him mark one of the trampling victims as deceased. "One moment," H'Rasha said before she ran out to confer with Vaughn.

 

After about two minutes, the Caitian doctor returned, her face set in clear anger. "Lost one. Choked on his own damn spit thanks to the gas." Her paws flexed, the claws extended, as she glared over toward Calestorm. "I'm going to see that woman busted back to Ensign even if it gets me drummed out of the fleet."

 

Caine's eyes narrowed abruptly and any remaining amusement or casualness dropped out of her expression. "Frak..." she muttered. There had not been time to retrieve any of the wounded civilians before the gas drop had hit but now she wished she had spared more men to focus on them; the idea of lying injured and having that...stuff...piling into your lungs was not a pleasant idea. She squeezed her fingers around the bridge of her nose for a moment tiredly, smothering another coughing fit and trying to focus on her job now. She definitely wasn't the only person here having a bad day; they had work to do. "How many injured civvies have we got? Do you want any of my teams diverted to help you?"

 

"About thirty-five, altogether, from before the gas atack. About ten of that received injuries from the initial blast and the rest were injured during the resultant chaos. You can probably double that now adding those from the results of that idiocy." She looked up, seeing more medics coming out of the building. "I have more medics on the way out, those that were treating those inside the building. I'd appreciate if you can sprinkle some of your people out there in case anyone that's recovered enough from the gassing decides to show their displeasure. It's not going to pass the notice of even the civilians that Starfleet just did that to them, but they probably won't draw a distinction between our crew and the Jackrabbit's."

 

Caine nodded. "We'd already noticed a bit of that; we're not exactly popular here. I'll have my patrol squads -- the ones that didn't just get gassed -- move in to keep an eye on your people. Hopefully things won't come to a head too quickly though...we need time to figure out our next step." She cough-laughed dryly. "Whatever that might be..."

 

"Thank you," H'Rasha said with a nod, her voice grim. "We need to get the current wounded treated and the dead removed before someone decides to make more." She offered a paw to Caine to help the woman up.

 

Caine grabbed the offered paw and levered herself to her feet, taking a deep breath. "I guess that about sums it up," she said equally grimly, with a nod at Trenral. "Thanks, Doc. I'll have my boys start spreading out...meantime I guess it's time for me to go check in." She glanced towards Harper and JoNs again and then back at the Caitian doctor. "Good luck."