Bump In The Night

Posted on Thu Jun 25th, 2020 @ 9:01pm by Ensign Alexandra 'Lexi' O'Connery & Crewman Timothy Richardson & Lieutenant Aurelius Davis & Lieutenant Samantha Leyton & Lieutenant JG Mattias Constantine & Lieutenant Avira zh'Kenarh M.D. & Ensign Victoria Jemison

Mission: Mission 3 - 100
Location: Deck E - Officers Quarters
Timeline: Day 35, Month 2, Year 0 03:00
2611 words - 5.2 OF Standard Post Measure

It was not often that Lexi was in the halls as zero three hundred or that she was smirking like an idiot but one second she was and the next she felt all blood drain out of her face as she saw the shadows creeping along the halls. The Vrav onboard? How did they get on board? Did they have transporter technology after all? She slipped into an alcove and pressed an alarm to alert anyone and everyone or at least she hoped so. Nothing changed, no alert sounded.

“A thief awake…” The voices in her head that normally contradicted each other in different languages now screamed in unison and told her to stop what she was were doing and find a way out of their path but it was too much as the projectile hit her in the shoulder sending her to the floor with a thud, blood pooling around her. It was all too much to handle and for a moment she considered giving in to the pain and giving up as the Vrav passed her by as the alarm finally sounded.

Dressed in a vintage black t-shirt with the word "Voltron" in red, yellow, blue lettering on the front and dark grey pajama shorts, Samantha nearly fell out of bed as she got to her feet bare feet at the sound of the alarm. It took her a moment to realize that the alarm was the intruder alert alarm. "Wh--what's happening?" she asked no one as she made her way to the door and peaked out.

Aurelius had just been drifting off to sleep when an alarm began blaring across the ship. He jumped up, threw on a sweatshirt and headed out of his quarters, nearly running into Samantha's head when she poked it out of the door of her quarters. "Sorry," he said, darting around her and checking to make sure she was okay. "Vrav again?"

She let out a sigh. "Great," she replied, stepping out of her quarters--the deck was cold to her feet as she looked down the corridor. "Where are you going?"

"To check it out. You can come with. But put some shoes on," he chuckled as he saw her bare feet.

As Samantha asked her question, Constantine rounded the corner and came into view with a bewildered look on his face. It was clear from his unkempt appearance that he had been asleep until very recently. He rubbed his eyes in an attempt to bring Aurelius and Samantha into focus, but an irregular shape lying on the floor in the dim, early morning lighting diverted his attention away from them. He took a few steps and recoiled in horror as he recognized who and what he was looking at.

"Lexi! Holy shit!" Matt fell to the ground beside her. "Guys, I need help," he called towards the others in the corridor.

Blood kept dripping to the floor beneath her, hundreds of drops like a crimson rain of death. And all the woman could keep thinking Yes, this is it, this is the end. Lexi smiled as she heard Mattias and the man appeared next to her. “I feel drowsy and dizzy, everything is spinning around me.” She whispered before shaking her head. She had only left his quarters as he had fallen asleep on her after they had been talking and she did not want people to assumed but now she was bleeding out from being in the wrong place at the wrong time. “I should have stayed.”

"Hey, it's okay, I'm here now. We're going to get you some help," Matt tried to keep some semblance of calm in his voice, but he was fighting to keep himself from panicking. All he knew were the basics, and that wasn't going to be enough. "Keep talking to me, I need you to focus on my voice and stick with me, okay? I'm going to reposition you so we can get medical to assess the situation. Hold this, keep pressure on it. Keep fighting Lexi, you're doing a great job." He gently pivoted her around so she was lying on her back, searching for something to elevate her legs above the level of her heart.

"Crap," Aurelius grabbed the closest med kit and ran to where Lexi was, he handed it to Matt to open because he was afraid with his hands it would take so much longer. "What happened." He whispered down at Lexi, rubbing her arm to let her know someone was there still. He wasn't even sure she was in a position to answer him.

Samantha closed with the others slowly, foregoing the shoes, as she was shocked at seeing Lexi injured. Her feet began to adapt to the coolness of the deck. She stayed standing, allowing Aurelius and Constantine to work on her while she kept watch. "We should move to a safer place," she called in soft voice.

"I walked out.... the Vrav." Was all Lexi could get out as she tried to focus on staying awake. "This isn't going...to end well, is it?" She knew none of them were medically trained at all. Suddenly the pain from HER wound flared up with an intensity unlike ever before. Something WAS wrong, something frighteningly wrong.

Her bare blue feet barely touched the ground as she rushed around the corner. The deck was teeming with Vrav, and there was something about their tech that made her antennae itch, something to look into later perhaps. She was rarely seen in the outfit she was wearing, a tight black hoodie, half-zipped over a grey tank top, with black sweatpants underneath. Avira wanted to rush past the people in the corridor to get to sickbay when she smelt the blood in the air and her head snapped to face the woman on the floor, reaching behind her and grabbing a scanned from a pouch she had wrapped around her waist, a very helpful habit she had picked up in the imperial guard. She put three fingers over her mouth, the Andorian equivalent of shushing. She ran the scan over Lexi's body, when she saw the eyes of the woman roll in to the back of her head she snapped her fingers to get her attention, "Hey, stay with me, what's your name?" She looked at the others, "what's her name?"

"Her name is Lexi," Constantine replied quietly, backing away to give Avira more room. The best thing he could do now was get out of the way and trust in the Andorian's expertise. His mind was racing, he wasn't rising to the occasion so much as he was sinking to his training. Luckily, his instructors at the Academy had been good. "We need to get to sickbay, don't we," he realized, turning to the others. "Is everybody armed? We might have to forge a path to the other end of the deck."

Lexi felt pain in her chest, she felt pain in her arms and now she felt pain in her mind as she saw everyone around her making a fuss. Her mind raced, half panicked half determined as she tried to listen to the words they were saying but her mind just could not translate it quickly enough.

An engineering crewman stopped as he saw the group and glanced back the way that he had come from. "No one is armed Sir but they are coming this way." He added holding up a Vrav weapon that he had liberated. "She doesn't look so good."

"Then we need to get her to Sickbay as quickly as possible," Samantha said with renewed determination. She didn't want the woman to die--especially since the ship needed every crewmember they could get until they hopefully found a way back home. "Crewman, you need to come with us since you're armed. If you don't want to come then leave the weapon with us as getting to Sickbay takes priority."

"Lexi, listen to me, you're going to be fine, but only if you fight. I need you to stay awake. Focus on the sound of my voice Lexi, and stay with me, alright? Blink if you understand." Avira looked closely at the woman, the scan she had done was showing significant internal damage and there was no doubt in her mind that surgery was going to be needed to stabilise her.

Lexi blinked hard relieved that she was able to understand the woman. She was using short sentence allowing her to think, allowing her to process which made all the difference.

The Crewman looked at the group and shrugged. "I am coming with you." He said simply looking at the woman who he knew from fixing her quarters lying in a pool of blood. "How are we getting her there?"

"We need to prepare a stretcher," Samantha replied as her mind raced, recalling what she learned from basic first aid at the Academy. They were still near her quarters. "I should have something in my quarters that will do," she said, turning and sprinting down the corridor back to her quarters. Entering, her eyes frantically scanned the room. She pulled the sheets off her bed and pushed her desk over, unscrewing the legs. "Better than nothing," she muttered before standing and rushing back out. "We should be able to make a stretcher out of this," she said, tossing the things to the deck before dropping down next to Lexi. "Just roll the sheets around the two table legs tightly."

"Alright, Lexi, we're going to put you on a stretcher," Avira took Lexi's hand and put it on her wound, "hold on tight. Blink if you understand." She waited for the confirmation before raising her leg, grabbing her knee and putting the other hand on her shoulder, "I will roll you onto my lap. They'll put the stretcher under you," she carefully rolled Lexi towards herself, giving the others an opportunity to push the makeshift stretcher in place, "Here we go, Lexi. You're doing great." With the stretcher in place she rolled Lexi back.

A flash of sparks illuminated the scene as another projectile narrowly missed its intended target. Mattias reacted in time to turn around, only to see the Vrav intruder lining up his next shot. Time seemed to elasticize and stretch out; there was no doubt in Constantine's mind that he was the one being targeted and in a narrow corridor, he was hard to miss. Before Matt could yell for the others to get down, the engineering crewman took aim and fired first.

He fired true.

"Strewth! Thank goodness you're here," Constantine nodded. The rest of his praise was more effusive and profanity-laced. "I'll take one end of the stretcher. Can someone get the other?"

"How the hell did they get on the ship?" Aurelius asked, completely stunned about all that had just happened. He couldn't help Lexi, not really. He wouldn't be able to grip the sheets to carry her. "The commander," Aurelius suddenly said. "Do you think she know's what's happened?" He didn't want to leave them but he felt useless in this situation.

"It was just a lucky shot." The Engineer assured as he held out the weapon to Samantha. "Take it and grab the weapon the other one carried. I will take the other end." The Engineer looked at Aurelius. Nothing had been damaged as the ship would have gone straight to tactical alert, it made him think it was my transporter. "What is the procedure for security in this situation?" He wondered as he glanced down at the Lexi trying to encourage someone to just keep talking.

"Well, they boarded the ship and are using deadly force against us, so we use the same force against them. "Let's move out," Samantha said, returning with the other weapon. "Can you use this weapon?" she asked, holding out the weapon for Davis to inspect

"Yeah, I think so." Aurelius replied feeling a bit hot that the conversation had slipped to his abilities. He could still bend his fingers some though, just enough. He took it from her.

"Alright, on the count of three, ready? One. Two. Three!" With their combined effort, Constantine and the unnamed engineer lifted Ensign O'Connery off of the ground on the makeshift stretcher and the entire unit began to move down the corridor towards the entrance to sickbay. Weeks of constant hounding by the Vrav had taken their toll, but it made it easy for Matt to bury his emotions and hide behind the mantle of duty he had sworn an oath to fulfill. He hated having to do that, especially since he had made so much progress in feeling human again recently, but it was necessary. As a result, it barely registered to him when he had to step over the corpse of the lifeless Vrav in the corridor to get to their destination.

Soon enough, they reached and entered through the frosted glass doors leading into sickbay. Constantine's first instinct was to proceed directly to the operating table, only to realize that they would need to transfer Lexi off of the stretcher somehow. "Doctor, what can we do to help? There may be more casualties coming."

Avira looked around, expecting to spot the Chief Medical officer, but then realised that after the last of these attacks she was now the Chief Medical, "put her on the surgical," she pointed at the corner, "get me that equipment trolley," then she looked at the door and got an uneasy feeling, "and someone should probably stand guard, keep them away from the sickbay, allow for other casualties to make their way to safety." She saw the people still milling about her, "and if you would please give me some room to work." She waved them off rather dismissively. She would apologise for that but she was about to be elbow deep into trying to safe one of their colleagues' life, "Don't worry, Lexi, we're in the sickbay now, just a little longer and I'll have you back up and running."

Lexi let out a low moan as she was put on the surgical bed. Her head felt eerily light, everything seemed to spin around them in a blur of motion as she realised she was now in the sickbay. Maybe giving up was the right choice, "always listen to your body" they always said. Her entire body was trembling now. Weak and exhausted it was costing her all her remaining strength to keep fighting.

"I am going to head to the Bridge or Engineering anyone want to come with?" The Engineer wondered knowing that it would be the same direction that the Vrav would be heading but he needed to try and do something. He felt useless there with no medical training.

"I'll go, let's do it," Mattias nodded. He owed the crewman at least that, if not more, for saving his life. It came with the added bonus of being a distraction from the fact that his best friend was on the operating table, and that he was powerless to help. However, there was every chance that he could make a difference for his other seventy shipmates. He had to trust Doctor zh'Kenarh, there was no other option.

FINAL TAGS

Lieutenant JG Mattias Constantine
Chief Communications Officer
NX-05 Atlantis

Lieutenant JG Samantha Leyton
Chief Helm Officer
NX-05 Atlantis

Doctor Avira zh'Kenarh
Chief Medical Officer
NX-05 Atlantis

Ensign Alexandra 'Lexi' O'Connery
Comms Operator
NX Atlantis
(PNPC Leroux)

Crewman Timothy Richardson
Damage Control Specialist
NX Atlantis
(PNPC Leroux)

Lieutenant Aurelius Davis
Morale Officer
NX Atlantis