The End (Part 2)

Posted on Tue Aug 23rd, 2022 @ 6:04pm by Ensign Duncan McManus & Commander William Gerhard & Lieutenant Avira zh'Kenarh M.D. & Lieutenant JG Ethal Reade & Ensign Michael Sloan & Ensign Isaac 'Zac' Hughes

Mission: Mission 6 - Memory
Location: Deck E - Mess Hall
Timeline: Day 301 13:00
2594 words - 5.2 OF Standard Post Measure

“Two more moments and we can get the door open.” The engineer told Sloan as he worked away at the door despite the feeling of desperation around them. McManus could hear voices inside which he kept repeating. “Still voices inside from more than one person. Can hear someone female and several male voices.” He said as a strange sensation came over him, not quite a dizziness but a feeling of chills hitting the man fiddling with the controllers of the mess hall doors. Smith might have done something to the mechanism but McManus knew he was better than that him.

Petty Officer Freidholm checked the charge on his phase pistol as he watched the engineer work. He could feel the adrenaline pulsing through him, but there was something else that made him feel off. His head was pounding but he knew they had to get inside the room quickly. Freidholm was the team leader since Lieutenant Gerhard was still in sickbay, and he looked towards the engineer, "Can you tell who the voices are?"

“Nope can you Sir?” Duncan asked turning to Sloan.

Shaking his head, Sloan replied, "No. It could be real or not."

“Still voices,” McManus assured glancing back at the armoury team.

Freidholm looked towards McManus and motioned him to continue. He willed the man to work faster, time was precious now.

“Got it….” McManus assured as he stood from the controls and stopped dead as the chilled feeling came back over him and sent him spinning. “I… I do not feel so good.” He said as pain ripped through him and then hit everyone else sending him sliding to the floor. Was this how Leyton felt at the end? He thought to himself as his eyes closed and the chilled feeling overran him.

Freidholm motioned for the man to step aside as he signaled his team to stand ready. All at once, he felt a wave of dizziness and pain as everyone around him winced. He felt his legs getting weak and he reached out to steady himself before he was pushed hard to the deck by some force. He landed heavy and for a moment saw stars in a black void.

What he was experiencing was different that anything else Sloan had ever felt in his life. It was a presence that seemed to be crushing everything that he was. Michael's eyes tried to focus on those around, but then he was thrown to the deck. All that he felt was white pain before everything went black.

As McManus came to his senses, he could hear the red alert going off as well as the Captain’s voice through several communications telling someone to report. He rolled over looking at the partly opened door to everyone else still on the floor and got to his knees. “Bridge to security party? Come in security party.” The Captain demanded as McManus reached someone in crawl and took their communicator.

“We are here I think.” The Scottish engineer said in his thick accent.

“What is the status there?” Beth demanded relieved to hear someone even as she knew that others were on their way.

“I… I do not know Ma’am… I have just woken up.” The man said suddenly aware that he had not been alone when he had passed out from whatever had happened but also that he did not know the status of those inside the mess hall.

Freidholm sat up with a groan as he struggled to get to his feet. He felt a wave of nausea starting to overcome him, but he forced it back down as he took stock of his team. He pulled his own communicator and flipped it open as his voice came out in a croak, "Standing by to make entry captain, but something just happened down here that made us all black out. Stand by." He then looked towards McManus and offered his hand to help the man up. He then listened for a moment, trying to make out any voices that might be coming from within, "I don't hear anyone saying anything in there."

“Me either. Can we get medical down here.” Duncan requested and whatever had been said on the bridge created an medical party to the mess hall.

“It happened to everyone around that compartment.” Beth informed. “Have you breached the room?” Duncan took the offered hand and stood up looking confused and unsure what had happened but determined to get inside.

“Negative ma'am. We need to set the charges off.” He admitted as more people started to wake up around them.

Feeling as though his head had been split open, Sloan moved a hand to his forehead to reveal blood.

Avira had requested Zac to join her. He had dealt with this kind of thing before and despite the fact that it would probably bring back unpleasant memories she needed his expertise in the matter.

When they approached the mess hall and saw how everyone and everything was in disarray it made Avira instinctively reach for a sidearm that wasn't there. "Doctor Hughes, can you do triage?" There were a lot of people there and only a limited number of medical personnel, they needed to be sure that the limited resources were allocated effectively.

To say Hughes hadn't hesitated before offering to assist would have been slightly inaccurate. He'd certainly paused for a moment to question whether he was ready for a potential case of brutal déjà vu but the ultimate conclusion, which took very little time to arrive at, was that it was too bad if he wasn't. He certainly wasn't going to improve his mental and emotional outlook by failing to render aid where it was needed. Casting an eye over the room, with its scattered casualties, the doctor did his best to suppress any attempt by his memory to provide a comparative overlay and simply focused on what was directly in front of him; the sprawled forms of two unconscious marines.

"Prioritise based on glutamate levels in the brain," he advised, "We lost a few early on because we didn't stabilise the cell damage in time."

McManus turned around as medical appeared with a sense of relief before turning back to the armoury petty officer. “We need to get the mess door open.” He said despite his staggering to where the charge mechanism had been started.

Shaking off some of the brain fog, Sloan quickly looked at the door. He pointed out a weak point in the structure and said, "Breaching charge there, the door will blow inward and give the largest open space."

Freidholm nodded and made sure for everyone to stand clear as he primed the breaching charge. When everyone was clear, he activated the detonator and with a loud bang, the charge blew and the door slid open. He then motioned his men to follow him as he stepped through the opening with his phase pistol at the ready. He moved to the right and scanned the room as the other members of his team fanned out. Freidholm slowly lowered his pistol as he took in the scene before him. "Oh my god," he said as he saw the bodies of his fellow crew members.

Without hesitation, Isaac moved past the shocked officer and stooped briefly over the body closest to the door. Fingers searched for a pulse as he bent low over the man's face, immediately moving to roll the man into recovery. "Green." Those breathing independently were not guaranteed out of the woods but his first priority was to find any that Kowalski had compromised drastically. Methodically, relying on the reappearance of the same numbness that had allowed him to perform his duties stuck in an emergency pod with a mute commanding officer, Isaac moved on. Recognition pinged tiny little icicles, his fingers searching the warmth of Kiyara's neck for signs of life. Carefully, having felt the tickle of their breath against his cheek, he eased them onto their side. "Another green."

Already, the signs of life were more promising than he recalled. The next closest caused a moment's pause but he lingered only a moment over the fallen linguist before calling back to those equipped to delve further. "Green but her pulse is erratic."

With Hughes going around and stabilising everyone Avira could take some more time to check up on the people he had cleared. The small medical scanner in her hand was able to easily measure glutamate levels and since they already knew this was going to be affected they had taken appropriate medication with them to quickly counter any negative effects from that. When he mentioned someone had an erratic pulse, she skipped over one he had cleared earlier and knelt down beside the victim.

The scanner immediately confirmed the initial assessment and Avira reached into her medpack to attach a heart rate monitor to her finger. It wasn't something they could fix here on the floor of the mess hall and at least now they would get a warning if it fell outside of safe limits.

McManus moved through checking people and putting them into recovering positions remembering basic medical training but he knew he was vastly out of his depth as he watched medical.

Without lingering unnecessarily, Isaac shifted his attention along the line of strewn bodies, moving in and out between the tables and pushing aside chairs to gain better access. With each assessment, the knot in his stomach eased; most had survived, which was a completely opposite result to the first time he had witnessed this particular scene. Crouched beside a crumpled figure half-curled around a table leg, Hughes sought a pulse and then very quickly diverted attention to a more visible priority.

"We've got a significant facial contusion here." Carefully, he eased the officer onto her back and took a brief second to realise it was Reade. A gentle hand probed the injury site, fingertips moving around the contours of the woman's jaw and cheekbone. "Potential malar fracture, this needs stabilising before we move her." Any misalignment risked complications, particularly to the sinuses and subsequent associated functions. Like breathing.

“Hit her head as she fell,” McManus commented. He came over to offer assistance if needed now that everyone else was in a recovery position and scanned and provided what they needed to keep them alive in glutamate.

Ethal could hear talking around her although what they were saying was not clear. She was regaining consciousness. Her body felt heavy, she could barely move. “I.. Is it over, a.. are we safe?” Reade wasn’t sure who she was asking.

"I think so, Ma'am," Duncan said simply. There was no reason that they weren't now when the man or being or whatever he was had not been seen since and there was no way for him to escape from there.

That was good news as Reade did not remember what exactly happened. As Ethal was on the floor, she assumed she must have passed out. She regretted asking about what their situation was, as pain radiated across her face. She winced at the unexpected sensation.

"Just try to stay still, we'll get you to Sickbay as soon as we can. You're doing just fine," Isaac reassured, eyeing McManus. "But probably best not to move or talk too much until we can get some scans done, just to be sure. Stay with her until the doctor's finished with Cal," he added to Duncan and then moved on to another assessment.

Having recovered from his momentary shock, Freidholm had directed his team to secure the mess hall. He then made his way over to the nearest comm panel and pressed the button. "Security to bridge, mess hall is secured. There is no sign of Smith, and we have multiple people down here. Medical is currently assessing," he said.

“I will be down in a moment.” Beth said cutting the connection instantly. She was going down to see what was happening herself. Her marine escort could come with or stay where she was.

Waving off medical to prioritize those with more injuries, Sloan sat on the ground and propped himself up on the wall. His head was pounding and his eyes occasionally saw double, but he had the sense of mind to pull out his scanner. If he could capture some residual energy, maybe just maybe they could prevent this in the future.

Christian started to come to as he heard voices around him. He opened his eyes and blinked a few times as he realized he was lying on his back. He moaned slightly as he felt intense pressure in his head. He tried to sit up before he was forced back down by a member of the medical team. "Wha, where is he," he asked as the medic ran a scanner over him.

“Gone.” McManus called from where he was crouched. “Do you remember what happened?” He asked hoping someone could give something to explain the situation a bit better.

"It's all alittle," Christian said before trailing off. He brought a hand up to rub his forehead. "Smith came in. He did something to the door, locked it. Then the call came, and Ensign Diaz tried to confront him. I though i could get behind him, but he saw me. People started dropping, the headache," he said again before trailing off. He looked around again and noticed two individuals were not where he'd last seen them.

"Where are Jeffers and McGinnis," he asked looking at McManus, "There were two MACOs in here, they were trying to subdue Smith before he....did something to them."

Duncan offered a sad smile as he looked at the man and shook his head. “Sone people have disappeared.” He admitted sharing a few looks as he revealed what had happened.

Beth wandered in and took in the scene shaking her head as she saw mostly a cuts and scrapes but no one beyond saving even if they all looked like hell. She spotted Michael rejecting assistance and picked up a first aid box. “It looks like Ensign Reade is the worst one visually?” Beth asked having a conversation back and forth with medical. “And the ones unconscious?” She asked over her shoulder as she crouched by Sloan taking the scanner from him placing it on the floor. “Hold that!” She instructed holding some gauze against his head.

"There's some worse off than me," Michael tried to reply. Not having the energy to argue, the Chief Engineer was saved by his scanner beeping that it had completed its scans. "I'll have to go over that when I can read it," he stated as he held the indicated gauze against his head.

“But they are not as stubborn and can read their scanner.” Beth said quietly not giving him room to argue about it as she pressed harder to stem the blood and looked at putting in some temporary stitches as people talked around them about the situation.

“And you’re giving advice on being stubborn,” Sloan replied. It was meant to be lighthearted, but it hurt to laugh.

Beth smiled but said nothing as she moved from a crouched position to kneeling to get a bit more comfortable to put the final couple in. It would do until he could be patched up and checked properly. “Why we work.” She commented not sure if she meant her and Michael or the crew as a whole moving, accessing and helping crew.

They would come back from this.