Welcome to Star Trek Simulation Forum

Register now to gain access to all of our features. Once registered and logged in, you will be able to contribute to this site by submitting your own content or replying to existing content. You'll be able to customize your profile, receive reputation points as a reward for submitting content, while also communicating with other members via your own private inbox, plus much more! This message will be removed once you have signed in.

Sign in to follow this  
Followers 0
Destry Steele

Fluid Operations

Shorted out fluid cables and some kind of broken line to the IV supply, Ellen thought vaguely, wiping off the blue-grey slime which had coated her arm up to the elbow after her first tentative exploratory trip inside sickbay's primary SSF. Guess you don't like being tossed around any more than we do, do you?

 

It wasn't a hard fix, but given the amount of liquid floating around, it had the potential to be a rather annoying one; if it hadn't been for Destry doing the asking and for the potential for cascading failures that could shut down the rest of the surgical suite, Ellen might potentially have dropped it low on the to-do list. But they couldn't really afford to have a sickbay failure when they were out in the middle of nowhere and blind as a bat. So she lay on her back on the floor of sickbay under the bed, staring up at the damaged coils with a pensive expression, listening as Destry leaned on the biobed above her and chatted almost as if the situation around them weren't dire and potentially dangerous. Ellen smiled faintly to herself. It was times like this that she appreciated her friend's easy confidence. It was a focusing agent.

 

"May need a bucket to drain this out," she said conversationally, as much to change the subject from Destry's inquiry into an old boyfriend as anything else. "And have one of your people shut off the fluid supply to this suite. I don't fancy going for a swim while trying to do electrical work."

 

“After our recent collection efforts on behalf of the unfortunately departed Palto and Lawnostug, we may be running short on buckets, but I’ll see what I can do,” Destry replied dryly, her tone deliberately belying the officers’ horrific fates. The only thing to be grateful for was that there hadn’t been more victims. “I’ll hit the off switch on my way back,” she added, turning away from Ellen to head out into the main bay. After logging into a console, it took only a moment to deactivate the biobed’s fluid retrieval/dispersal systems. It took longer for Watanabe to find something that wasn’t a bedpan and Destry was chuckling to herself as she reentered the surgisuite.

 

Ellen slid herself out from under the bed as she heard Destry re-enter the room, trying in vain to wipe off the dusty, sticky feeling on her hands against her pants leg. It was hard not to get a little fidgety at the mention of the two imploded officers -- the latter of them had died in Engineering, and the same fate could easily have befallen much of her department, including Ellen herself. But Destry's laconic tone told its own story. There was nothing else they could have done, and so they focused on the tasks at hand.

 

"Thanks," she said, accepting the bucket and settling it into an appropriate position before sliding a panel aside on the bed's underbelly. There was a low splurting noise and the mechanism evacuated itself with gusto, filling the bucket about a quarter full with blue goo. "Excellent," Ellen said with some satisfaction. "Better out than in."

 

“You’re such a philosopher, Fox,” Destry grinned as she perched herself on a stool to watch her friend practice her own form of medicine.

 

Ellen laughed, scooting the bucket out of the way and wiping the edge of the opened panel with the palm of her hand. "Only with machines, Des. They're simpler than people are, even when they're making all kinds of weird noises." Kicking one leg against the ground, she scooted on her rear to the other side of the bed and repeated the process, then popped to her feet to set the bucket on top out of the way.

 

"Oftentimes, it's the weird noises my patients make that help make a diagnosis easier," Destry teased lightly. They were each well aware of the other's views. Ellen had never met a machine, even a bioengineered one that she couldn't take the measure of in quick fashion, and Destry knew that in Ellen's opinion, the smallest piece of equipment had a 'life' of its own and was treated accordingly and often affectionately. To Destry, the equipment she used were tools, mostly taken for granted until they failed, at which point, they became easily discarded. She loved the ships they were posted to because they became home; they were a means to an end and allowed her to do the work she loved. Ellen felt a real pang every time a plasma conduit sprang a leak. She knew it was what made Fox an exceptional engineer.

 

"Suppose you've got a point there. Though I count it a blessing that I don't need a bedside manner for my side of the equation. Engines tend to be more patient…patients." She knew Destry well enough to know that under the light bantering tone, she took her work just as seriously as Ellen took hers. Laconic though she might be when things were calm, she could react at a moment's notice to emergencies calculated to fray the nerves and turn the stomach, and she treated her patients with tremendous compassion, no matter their situation. She'd saved Ellen's life more than once.

 

"Oh, I don't know," Destry chuckled, "There've been many times that I've been tempted to swear at my patients the way you do when faced with a reluctant watchyamacallit."

 

Ellen snorted, ducking back down under the SSF and sticking her hand up into the evacuated casing. "What can I say? It's a time-honored engineering tradition. I think they teach a course in it at the academy." Her fingers touched the broken end of the fluid supply cable and she grinned, pulling it towards her slightly and fumbling in her equipment case for a replacement with her other hand. "Gotcha."

 

"Another clamshell tamed and you didn't even have to resort to a whip and a chair. I am impressed as always, Fox. It's much easier to perform surgery when all the feeds stay attached." Destry crossed one leg over the other and leaned back against the wall separating the surgiunit from Main Bay. "I haven't brought it up, but I have to admit my curiosity is getting the better of me, and though it goes against my generally optimistic viewpoint fueled by the 'Ignorance is Bliss' credo I've recently adopted, is it your expert opinion that this ship is gonna fly again?"

 

"Yes," Ellen said promptly, pressing her face up to the small opening in the biobed panels, sliding the replacement cable connection into place. There was a short silence and then she added a little ruefully, "At some point. Right now our priorities are getting the hole in the hull fixed and getting power restored to all decks. I'm not sure we've even looked at the engines yet, though Lt. Cmdr. Black is definitely on top of things." She paused again, then withdrew her arm from the bed and stuck her head out to catch Destry's gaze. "We'll get her moving."

 

Destry locked onto Ellen's cool blue gaze for a moment, accepting the confident statement as fact without even thinking about it. Her own eyes narrowed thoughtfully, as she replied, "Ok, since we don't have to worry about what the real estate market is like on this ball of dust, I guess it just remains to find out where we are."

 

Ellen chuckled. "Yep — comparatively simple, at least once the EPS feeds to the sensor pallet are back up. Which I suppose is my cue to leave." Snapping her engineering case shut, she pushed herself to her feet, moving towards the Jeffries Tube by which she'd entered, giving Destry a light slap on the shoulder as she went past. "I'll let you know if I hear anything."

 

Destry sat up and slid off the stool in one fluid motion, following Ellen out of the room. "My next plan is to get an update from the Bridge. Rumor has it that an away team was dispatched. Would be nice to know about these things as they occur, but hopefully, no news is good news."

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!


Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.


Sign In Now
Sign in to follow this  
Followers 0