Aboard the Bethesda

Posted on Fri Mar 6, 2015 @ 3:34pm by Lieutenant Nicole Anderson & Fleet Captain Rhea Kennit & Lieutenant Commander Miguel Torres & Lieutenant Penelope Naroot & Lieutenant AJ Taggart & Lieutenant Cassandra Kennings & Lieutenant AJ Taggart

3,578 words; about a 18 minute read

Mission: All this has happened before...
Location: U.S.S. Bethesda
Timeline: 63296.347 [Sat, 07 Sep 2385 16:02:10 GMT}

[Bridge]

Aidan, who had not been having much luck accessing something useful from the console, looked up as Penny shouted, then he moved towards the opening door.

Penny moved quickly to the bodies, flicking out her wand. The Captain was slumped over her desk and two security officers were lying on the deck. She ran her wand over each of them. "Mummified," she said to herself. It was the most apt description she could come up with. She tapped her combadge. "Naroot to Hunter and Anderson, three bodies found. Captain and two security officers. Bodies appear unnaturally dehydrated, but not decayed."

"What the hell happened to them?" Aidan asked.

"They died," Penny said, continuing to scan the bodies. "I'd say something leached out most of the moisture from them. They're husks. Can't quite tell what though." She looked at the blinking lights on her wand again, then shook her head.

"Yeah," Aidan replied dryly, "I can see that they're dead. but how is the question. And I don't think that anybody else ought to expose themselves. Suits or not, I don't think anyone else should on the Bridge, but those already here."

Penny was about to let out a long, drawn-out "duh," when their comm system came to life with AJ's warning. *No wonder it feels warm in here,* she thought, standing up quickly and raising her wand and waiving it through the air while she kicked herself for being stupid. She looked at the blinking lights quickly and sighed. "Aw, crap," she said, rushing towards Aidan and grabbing him by the arm, dragging him out of the ready room.

Aidan wasn't feeling ill yet, but that didn't mean anything. He knew radiation sickness could be a nasty way to die. His heart rate went up and troubling thoughts came to his mind, but he kept his face impassive, or at least tried to.

"Unless I get you something for radiation sickness you're going to be puking in that helmet," she said. She scanned the bridge and was relieved to see mostly normal levels. Evidently it was only the bodies that were radioactive. She rushed across the bridge, darting past the others and pulled open a storage cabinet: empty. So was the next one, and the next. No medkits on a hospital ship was unlikely, which meant they were either all used, or taken. "Commander," she said, turning to Alec, "permission to take Mister Mejia to this ship's Sickbay to be treated for radiation poisoning."

Aidan wasn't feeling sick, not yet anyway, but he knew how bad radiation poisoning could be and realized by the time he felt sick it would be too late. So he just nodded.

Alec had been going through the ship logs and had found nothing out of the ordinary. The Captain had made no mention of anything amiss when Penny spoke, turning to look at her he nodded. "Permission granted Lieutenant. Get yourself checked while you're there as well."


[Victory Bridge]

Cassandra turned from the XO's station, a hand on her earpiece. "Captain, I'm picking up some discussion. They've found a corpse. Do we recall the teams?"

"A corpse?" Kennit echoed. Concerned, she toggled the comm system and said "Kennit to Away team.. what's your status?"


[Bethesda Bridge]

"Yes Captain; we've found bodies, several actually. According to reports they appear to be severely dehydrated." Alec answered. "Lt. Naroot is going to take Mr. Mejia to the Bethesda's Sickbay; he may be suffering from radiation sickness."

On the Victory's bridge, the Captain scowled sharply. "Radiation sickness?" she echoed, her voice conveying her displeasure at that bit of news. "How did that happen? Was anyone else exposed?"

"Captain," Penny said, tapping her combadge, "so far only rooms with bodies are posing any danger. The bridge scans as safe. So long as away team members are exposed for no more than a moment or so, they should be fine." She grabbed Aidan by the arm again and pulled him towards a turbolift, tapping her combadge again. "Naroot to Anderson, I'm heading to the Bethesda Sickbay. Mr. Mejia was exposed to some radioactive corpses," she said as the doors opened.

"Rather stupidly exposed, "Aidan said, "Sorry about that Penny. It wasn't my best moment."

"Do you need an escort?" Blackburn asked from her place at a rear console. The computer core had been damaged and she would need a computer specialist to recover information.

"Nah. If he gets fresh, I'll give him a smack," Penny said, grinning as the turbolift doors closed.

"I'm unlikely to get fresh, " Aidan in an attempt at humor. He tried to smile but was starting to feel a little nauseous. "I'm not feeling so hot and besides I'm taken, well sort of I've started dating and... and I'm rambling now aren't I?"


[Engineering]

Nicole had been scanning the area for radiation signatures. She'd already scanned AJ for radiation poisoning, and thankfully he hadn't been close enough to the body to be affected to any great degree. Her own ability to heal sufficient for the moment, she made sure the rest of the team in Engineering was safe.

An idea struck her and she closed her tricorder. If they could scan for radiation pockets, that would tell them where the crew was. She'd just sat down in front of a diagnostic station to see about accessing the ship's sensors when her comm unit went off.

"Naroot to Anderson, I'm heading to the Bethesda Sickbay. Mr. Mejia was exposed to some radioactive corpses," Penny said.

"Acknowledged," Nicole said. She stood up and wished she had her little black bag and walking over to AJ quickly. "Lieutenant," she said, "I need to get to the Bethesda Sickbay. One of the bridge team was exposed to the corpses' radiation. I'll check the ship's medical logs while I'm there."

AJ acknowledged this. "Very well. Keep me updated."


[Bethesda Sickbay]

Penny and Nicole managed to arrive by Sickbay at almost the same moment. Nicole took note of Aidan's distinctive shade of green and nodded to Penny. "Let me see him," Nicole said, taking Aidan by the shoulders and looking him over as Penny moved to the Sickbay doors.

As Penny approached, the door sensors responded and the doors slid apart, giving her a brief view of the interior before she suddenly leaped backwards, shouting, "WOAH! Get back!"

Nicole immediately threw herself in front of Aidan and forced him away from the doors. "What is it?"

"Bodies," Penny said, slowly. "Lots of them." She held up her wand and ran it over the door slowly. "The room is off the scale."

Nicole growled. "Fine, if we can't get him to Sickbay, we bring Sickbay to him." She tapped her combadge. "Anderson to Victory. Tell Sickbay I need my bag beamed over immediately. Anderson out."


[Victory Transporter Room]

Less than a minute after the request came through, a medic stepped into the Transporter Room with Doctor Anderson's bag. Tom gestured for her to put the bag on the pad. He quickly scanned the bag before initiating the transport. While the bag was still in the pattern buffer, Tom was quick to make sure a copy of the pattern was saved in the event it had to be compared to a point before being exposed to the radiation.


[Bethesda Sickbay]

Penny helped Aidan lie down in the corridor as the transporter sounded and Nicole's little black bag appeared next to them. She opened it quickly, reaching in and pulling out a tricorder and handing it to Nicole. "Like old times," she said.

Nicole took the tricorder and flipped it open, pulling her bag over. "Hypospray," she said, almost to herself, then reached into her bag and pulled out a hypo, handing Penny the tricorder after looking over the readings. She quickly programmed the hypo and pressed it against Aidan's neck. "Fortunately for you, you're feeling worse than you are," Nicole said. "Dose of hyronalin and you'll feel better shortly. Just lie still."

"Thank you and I am glad I am feeling worse than I am, because I am feeling pretty crappy." Aida replied, looking up at her.

Penny took the hypo from Nicole, placing it and the tricorder back in Nicole's bag and snapping it shut. She sat down with her back to the bulkhead opposite Sickbay. "What caused it?" she said.

"No idea," Nicole said, sitting down as well. "I'd like to get in and examine one of the bodies."

Penny wrinkled her nose in distaste. "So long as we don't have everyone suddenly vomiting from radiation poisoning."

Nicole's eyebrows bobbed in agreement and she tapped her combadge again. "Anderson to away team leaders: Mister Mejia is fine and resting, however Sickbay is inaccessible. There are several bodies in there and the room is showing high levels."

"This is Taggart. I read you loud and clear." Thinking for a moment, AJ opened a separate channel to the ship. "Away Team To Victory."

After a moment, the Captain answered "Kennit here. Go ahead Mr. Taggart."

"Captain, I'm requesting permission to initiate emergency radiation protocols immediately. We'll need anti-radiation kits as soon as you can muster them and we might need decontamination suites at the ready upon our return."

"We'll get anti-radiation kits transported over there immediately," the Captain answered. "And sickbay will be standing ready."

Nicole tapped her combadge, cutting off the channel from her end, then reopened a channel to the ship. "Anderson to Sickbay, prepare decon chambers for away team return. I want two ready to go in ten minutes." She tapped her badge again, closing the channel before they could respond and stood up slowly. She was beginning to feel warm. "We need to get back to the ship," she said, reaching down to haul Aidan to his feet. "Penny, get what readings you can. Inform me when you're done."

"You got it," she said, pulling her wand out of her glove.

Nicole guided Aidan down the corridor a bit. "Anderson to Taggert, I'm returning Aidan to the Victory for decontamination. I'll update you on his status once I've got him stabilized."

AJ leaned against a nearby bulkhead as a sensation of nausea hit him like a flurry of punches. Taking a moment to fight through it, he spoke into his mic. "Understood." AJ could literally feel his thoughts becoming foggy and his skin becoming slick with sweat. 'Well that's not good...' he thought to himself. Opening a channel to Hunter, AJ tried to keep himself together. "Sir, I think we need to go" was all that he could make out before he collapsed.

On the Bethesda's bridge, Hunter heard Taggert's call, "Say again Lieutenant. What's happening? Lt. Taggert?" Hunter tapped his com again. "Hunter to Anderson. I think something may have happened to Lt. Taggert. Find him and let me know."


[Victory Bridge]

"Mr. Barnes." Kennit ordered quickly. "Scan that ship, identify all sources of unidentified radiation and run a full spectrum analysis.. find out what the hell is happening over there."

"Aye, aye," Tom replied over the comm.

Not finished, she turned towards the comm station and said, "Contact Starfleet; send a priority encrypted transmission and report our preliminary findings. Advise that no other ships should approach at this time."

"Aye Captain," Cassandra said, a hand on her earpiece as she turned back to the console. Her fingers danced over her boards for a moment, then she turned back to the captain. "Message sent."

"Thank you, Lieutenant." the Captain answered. "We're so far out it will be a while before we get a reply but as soon as they respond I want to know it."

"Understood," Cassandra said, turning back to her station.

The scan took several minutes for the Transporter Chief to complete as the sensors had to switch between different palates. Tom delegated monitoring of the Away Team during this process, and he carefully studied the scan results as they came through. "Interesting," he commented over the comm. "I'm not sure what kind of radiation this is, Captain, but the concentration levels are uneven throughout the entire ship."

She frowned, liking this less and less with each new bit of information she heard. "Where are the highest levels located?" she asked.

"I'm picking up high concentrations on the bridge, ready room, engineering, arboretum and sickbay... Hang on." Tom ordered another scan of the Bethesda, this time looking for combadges. "Captain, the radiation... it's emanating from the Bethesda's crew and other forms of organic matter. It's almost like their life essence has been converted to a form of energy. It's dissipating for sure, probably will be fully gone in a matter of days. Looks like it even hit the bio-neural gel packs."

Shaking her head slightly, she said, "I've never heard of anything like this. Run a search through the ship's library computer and see if there's been any other reports of similar discoveries made."

Miguel heard what the Chief had ordered and like the Captain he had never heard of any such thing. He moved over to the engineering console so he could get a better look at the readouts. "What the hell? I didn't even think that was possible." he said.


[Bethesda Bridge]

Alec had been listening to the com traffic between Victory and Taggart and even the CMO. =^= Blackburn stop what your doing and get off the bridge. =^= He told the Intel officer has he stepped in the Captain's Ready room and a sight straight from hell. The Captain was behind her desk leaning back in her chair, looking like a dried up husk of a hundred year old woman. Another officer was sprawled at the foot of her desk. While two more were lying haphazardly across the couch. There was no blood, just dried up husks and whatever had happened must have been painful. It looked like their faces were frozen in screams.

=Hunter to Victory. Captain, whatever caused this must have been exceedingly painful. The Bethesda crew died hard.=^=

After a moment, the Captain answered. "See if you can access the Captain's log files, perhaps there will be more information there."

Alec rolled his eyes at Rhea's suggestion to try an access the Captain's logs. Muttering under his breath, =^=Working on that now Captain.=^= He answered as he moved behind the desk and carefully avoiding both looking at or touching the Captain. After a few moments he was able to gain access to the logs. =^= Captain's name was Paige Albright.=^= He commented to no one in particular as he began to read.


[Victory Bridge]

It had been several minutes since they'd heard word from the Bethesda. Record searching was a slow process, and the Captain had the unfortunate job that every person in command hated: waiting. Cassandra could see her frustration in the Captain's drumming fingers, not to mention practically feel it coming off her in waves. With Starfleet's reply still not having been received yet, she decided to return to her primary duties.

She stood up and walked over to the replicator and quietly keyed in her order. Reaching into the receptacle she pulled out a steaming mug and carried it carefully to the center chair.

"Warm, Betazoid honey tea," she said quietly, handing the captain the mug.

Looking up, the Captain smiled as she accepted the mug. "You must have read my mind..." Kennit said. "Thank you."

Cassandra smiled and nodded. "You're very welcome, Captain," she said. "I'll stop by with something to nibble on shortly."

Tom saw an instant change in his transporter locks, especially with Lieutenant Taggart. "Captain!" he called out, having tapped the comm button on his panel, "Away Team life signs are fluctuating. Recommend immediate recall."

Setting the tea down so fast she spilled some on her hand without noticing, the Captain immediately snapped out several orders. "Lock onto their signals at once! Beam them directly into the quarantine zone set up in sickbay!"

Cassandra moved swiftly and smoothly back to her station, pulling up Tom's readings. "They're feeling the effects of the radiation poisoning," she said, looking at the bio readings. "Captain I'm moving to Sickbay for support." She nodded to an engineer to take her station and walked quickly to the turbolift, pulling out a strand of pink hair and using it to tie the rest of her polychrome locks into a ponytail.


[Bethesda Bridge]

Alec was able to access Captain Albright's logs. As he read he contacted the Victory, =^= Hunter to Victory. Captain I have something. According to Captain Albright's logs, the Bethesda came across a radiation emitting singularity. Not only that but the singularity had quantum effects. They were investigating the singularity and the radiation it was putting out.=^=

"What is happening over here?" Kennit answered. "We're detecting fluctuating life signs from some away team members!"

"I'm on the Bethesda bridge alone Captain. "I'm downloading Captain Albright's logs, I sent Lt. Blackburn back to join Mr. Taggert's team." Alec replied "It's getting warm over here." He added as an afterthought.


[Bethesda Sickbay Corridor]

Nicole had helped Aidan towards the nearest turbolift when her combadge went off.

"Hunter to Anderson. I think something may have happened to Lt. Taggert. Find him and let me know."

Nicole's chest tightened and she pushed into the turbolift vestibule. "Slight detour," she said to Aidan as the doors to the lift opened.

Before they could step in, however, they saw the body of Lieutenant Blackburn slumped on the floor of the turbolift.

"Shit," Nicole said. She left Aidan standing against the bulkhead and dropped to her knees, grabbing her bag and pulling the hypospray back out. She gave Nina a quick dose of hyronalin and grabbed her by the shoulders, pulling her out of the turbolift. *It's in the gel packs,* she realized.

She tried to think of what to do next. They were all going to drop in a minute, except for... "Anderson to Yarin!" she shouted into her combadge.

"Yarin here Doctor."

"Get Taggert and Evans out of Engineering immediately! Taggert may be incapacitated. We have to get back to the Victory immediately."

"Acknowledged."

She closed the channel and tapped her badge again. "Anderson to Naroot. Get some distance between you and Sickbay, we're beaming out."

Penny didn't bother responding, but instead charged down the corridor at full speed away from Sickbay's doors. Once she'd gotten two sections away, she stopped, waiting for transport.

That set, Nicole tapped her combadge once more. "Anderson to Victory, medical emergency. Tell Sickbay to prep the entire isolation ward and ready for radiation decon. Have the transporter room beam us all directly to the ward once our people are out of Engineering."

Aidan's heart began beating faster and faster. Since he had been treated he was now only feeling slightly sick, but the thought of Chris, away from him and down in Engineering had him fighting down something close to panic. He didn't want to lose him. He didn't know that they had, or could have, but he knew he didn't want to find out. "Is everyone going to be okay?" he asked.

"Yes," Nicole said, her voice firm. She was beginning to sweat and she injected herself quickly. She stayed in a crouch, picking up Nina by the shoulders with a mild grunt and threw the other woman over her shoulder. "Was more fun kicking her ass," she grumbled. "Get away from the turbolift," she said to Aidan as she carried Nina to a corridor junction. It wasn't much, but it would give them the most space from the gel packs until they were beamed out.


[Bethesda Engineering]

Evans had started sweating and fell over with incredible pain. He couldn't even muster the strength to tap his combadge and call for help. The pain was so bad he only remembered things getting blurry and whispering "hel.." before he landed flat on his face.

Yarin turned a concerned shade of orange as he picked up the unconscious forms of Evans and Taggart and dragged them out of engineering into a nearby corridor. As he laid them down on the deck, the transporter beam plucked him away.


[Victory Transporter Room]

Tom was about to initiate the transport as the Captain had ordered, but he paused, noticing unwelcome fluctuations in the locks. Two of the locks in fact disappeared. Before any of the others were lost, Tom beamed over the three signals that were still unwavering. As soon as they were in the pattern buffer, Tom's fingers frantically flew across the panel, utilizing every sensor array he could to triangulate the remaining life signs. Within a couple seconds he was able to stabilize two more and bring them into the pattern buffer.

As for the last three life signs, Doctor Anderson, and Lieutenants Meija and Blackburn, Tom could tell they were on the move, but radiation was interfering with the signal locks. "C'mon..." Tom muttered, watching the signals as they moved. Finally they moved far enough away to establish a lock, and Tom immediately began the transport. With all eight members of the Away Team circulating beneath his feet, Tom ran a quick bio scan, but strangely found little out of the ordinary. He was sure Doctor Anderson would find more, and would want to see these readings as well. Undoubtedly, Tom would be studying them for the remainder of his shift.

Tom tied all eight patterns to the three sliders and pulled them down, rebuilding their forms within the confines of sickbay's quarantine zone.


[TBC]

 

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