Burn Notice

Posted on Mon Oct 23rd, 2023 @ 9:54am by Lieutenant JG Anton Zakharov & Lieutenant Avira zh'Kenarh M.D.

Mission: Contagion
Location: Deck E, Sickbay
Timeline: Current
1518 words - 3 OF Standard Post Measure

Lieutenant Junior Grade Anton Zakhorav came stumbling into the sickbay. Anton had been re-calibrating the gravimetric field displacement manifold but in doing so had over loaded a capacitor which had promptly exploded in his face. Exploding was perhaps an exaggeration, more like sparked, it certainly had left a couple of small cuts on his forehead and he felt like his face had been in the sun for way too long. Anton had done what he could to his small cuts as best he could from the medic pack out of the nearby trauma locker but he reckoned he had done a pretty bad job on it. So he headed up to the sickbay. On his way, he felt himself getting a bit dizzy and he had to stop several times, as he walked into the sickbay Anton had another dizzy spell and had to hold onto the door frame frame as he crossed the threshold into the medical facility.

Every time the doors parted Avira felt a bit of a jump in her chest. She wanted her days to be dull and uneventful. There was still plenty to do without trauma, but somehow the Engineers especially felt like she needed the extra work. "Good morning." She stepped around her desk and approached, "Lieutenant Zakharov, right?" seeing him keeping himself upright at the threshold. The sickbay was a large open space without too much to cling onto. She took in the injuries to the man's face and the singed parts of his uniform. "Too close to a shorting manifold?" She'd become very familiar with this type of trauma. Almost as familiar as she had been with shot wounds. She half turned and offered an arm to support him on the way to the nearest biobed.

Anton had nodded in mute response, feeling somewhat sorry for himself. He took the offered arm gratefully and made his way with a bit of a fumble to the Bio-Bed. With a bit of a struggle he had managed to climb up on the bed "sorry doc" he said apologetically. He was trying to be polite and keep a level head. but the Doctor was still the only Andorian he had met in the flesh, and Anton's eyes kept drifting to her antennas on her head.

"It is what we are here for. No need to be sorry." Avira took out the medical scanner to be able to assess the internal damage. "Except for maybe botching the wound care." She frowned a bit at the quick and dirty attempt to heal the wounds. Self suturing was always a bad idea, but head wounds bled like a slaughtered bison so she could understand one's inclination to just quickly slap something on there to keep it shut. "I'm sure the intent was not to create interesting looking scars all across your face." She double checked the scan to make sure there was no internal haemorrhaging before placing it back down on the tray next to the bed. "Tell me, what happened." As she was asking she took out a scalpel and pincers.

"I was re-calibrating the gravimetric field displacement manifold. The compression coils between the subsidiary main flux chillers and the coolant matrix were out of synchronisation and causing a back loop through the manifold. What I had not accounted for was the drain it was also placing on the systems restoration feed.I think I caused some sort bypassed overload and the gravimetirc field displacements coupler in the manifold fused then sparked, causing a miniature cascade reaction and blowing up in my face."

The only thing that made any sense in that dissertation was the blowing up in the face part, and that much had been evident from the trauma he had sustained. Avira didn't really need to know what exactly had happened though, it was just a distraction from her cutting into his face again. The analgesic that the trauma pack had administered was enough for her to take the sharp scalpel and reopen the wound. With a pincer she went in, hand as steady as a mountain in winter, pulling a couple of tiny bits of shrapnel from the wound. the soft plastic barely made a sound as she dropped them in the tray. "Seems like a lot of heat was produced in the process." She wanted to keep him talking so she could continue her work.

"Yeaaaaahhhhhh" said Anton worriedly "I feel like i have given myself a fifty degree sunburn. Is there any chance I have radiation poisoning?" He was working out the schematics of the Atlantis in his head to see if he had been near any radiation at all. Off the top of his head it felt unlikely. But his sense of paranoia was kicking in.

The wounds visible on him didn't really indicate radiation poisoning, then again there was a lot of that which would only show up under a medical scan. "Were you working on a subsystem that's likely to be irradiated?" Another few bits and pieces came from the small cuts on his face. Once she was confident all of them were taken out properly she took out a dermal regenerative gel and applied it to his wounds. She didn't warn him about the stinging it would most likely cause. "I'll run a scan if that would ease your mind."

Anton winced a bit from the sting."Urmmmmm" he had to think a moment as he made a mental map of the sub system "The gravimetric field displacement manifold does not have a radioactive component."

"I'll do a scan in a moment." The Andorian doctor finished up on the cuts on his face and sat back for a moment to look at her handiwork. It was a very small procedure but it felt good to just be hyper-focused on a medical task for a bit. She handed him a small container with dermal gel. "Apply this in the morning when you get up and in the evening when you go to bed. You'll probably want to change your pillowcase every two days or so." She then rolled back on her stool to reach for a medical scanner, setting it to pick up radiation levels and putting it near the engineer. The bleeps and sweeps whirred to indicate it was gathering the required information.

As the Doctor began to scan the Russian Engineer Anton unscrewed the cap off the small container of dermal gel. The gel that had already applied on his face put him in mind of his teenage years stuck in front of a mirror trying to apply Acne cream to his spotty face. After unscrewing the lid to the small pot Anton put it to his nose and gave it a little sniff, before tentatively sticking the tip of his finger into the gel to see what the consistency was like then stretching the gel between thumb and fore finger. Yep definitely reminded him of his old Acne cream especially the changing of the pillow case. "So whats the verdict doc. have I got hours to live" he said jokingly.

Avira looked at the scanner and then up at the man to realise he was saying it in jest. "Hours. Days. Weeks. Perhaps even Years, depending on how well you do at avoiding exploding consoles." She closed the scanner, "there's no radiation. At least no more than the nominal amounts. You grew up somewhere on the Eurasia continent, correct?"

Anton nodded "Moscow Ma'am" he said guessing a little what the doctor would say next. During world war three Moscow had been nuked three times, and although the city had been rebuilt their was still background radiation, though non-lethal after the clear ups post first contact.

There was a nod in recognition of the fact that there was just a high base-level of radiation in his blood. "In that case all readings are nominal." Avira made sure to upload the findings to his medical file. Since she had done the scan anyway, it would be a pity to let it go to waste. "Keep applying the cream on a daily basis. Just a thin layer, twice a day, for the coming week. You should fully recover without scarring. Please report back to me if you have an adverse reaction to the cream."

"Thank you doc" replied Anton as he pulled himself of the sickbay bed. "Appreciate it" he got up to leave began to walk away, then walked back after remembering he had left the gel pot on the bed. He picked it up and said "better not forget this. Thank you again doctor."

"Twice a day. Apply it in thin layers." Avira knew there was plenty of cream in the pot for him to recover. She also knew it wouldn't probably be gone before then. People were really bad at dosing their creams, it just wasn't worth the hassle of having them come in twice a day so that a medical professional could apply it. "Take it slow tonight."

"Will do" said the engineer with a wave as he headed out of med bay