The Rescue

Posted on Tuesday 29 May 2018 @ 14:08 by Lieutenant Michael Ki MD & Commander Cale Llewellyn DSci & Commander Save'ena (Sav) Tillatix & Captain John "Apollo" Barstow, M.D.
Edited on on Thursday 21 March 2019 @ 05:13

Mission: Lost Souls
Location: USS Merlin - Sickbay
Timeline: 1325 Hours, January 7th, 2395 SD70254.97
2783 words - 5.6 OF Standard Post Measure

ON:

Even in the suit, Cara felt the pressure difference but she figured it was more than likely just in her head. She had never been scuba diving so she had only her imagination to go by as to how it would feel to be under deep water. Holding her tricorder out in front of her she stopped at the Sickbay doors when they wouldn't open. She went to the control panel on the wall next to the doors and tried to open them manually but a security warning popped up on the screen.

=^=Security bypass code required for entry.=^=

Cara tapped in her security code.

=^=Security code denied.=^=

Cara looked back at Dr. Ki. "Now what?" she asked.

"I think that we need to tell it that it has a new master." Ki tapped into the console a series of commands which informed the Merlin's computer that he was the new Chief Medical Officer by order of Starfleet. Within moments the Sick Bay systems began to light up. "There just needed to show it who was boss." Michael said with a chuckle.

Now that the Main Medical Access Control Panel had been accessed, a DCS monitoring status section on it lit up. Information on the Status of Medical and Quarantine Zone 2 showed. (See previous mission post)

With that Status Query now shown, a status of the Main Medical bay was shown on the Status Map for Main Medical. The Auxiliary Fusion Power Generator was active and maintaining the Medical Systems within. This Power system was being maintained by Damage Control Systems sub units, out and away from active control of the computer systems. Inside of Main Medical, it was not flooded, and now had active life support working on getting the air breathable. Quarantine Zone 2 showed active, with active locks upon the Airlock doors, access and ingress. Inside, it was flooded with sea water, but had pumps on active standby locked down with a command code to drain that area. Zone 2 Cyrostatic Chamber 1 was showing active. That status of that chamber was now upon the Control Panel outside of Medical.

Kachiko had been tasked with accompanying the Physicians Two, for protection and for incidents just like this. The unassumingly small Marine could access any Federation computer system and bypass lockouts. As all such systems were designed with built-in hardwired bypass codes that very few people ever had access to. As a Marine Special Operations Infiltrator, specialized in Capital Asset Recovery, Kachiko was one of the few.

"Pardon me, Doctors," Kachiko said over the line of sight comms. Stepping up to the panel, she began to input her long bypass code, the two hundred and fifty six character code taking her several minutes to input wearing the suit along with their current environment slowing everything down.

As the long code was put in, the life support systems internal to sickbay only analyzed the environment outside of Sickbay, and internal to Sickbay. As the medical facilities had air inside of them, and there was power for all emergency procedures from the Medical Facilities isolated fusion core, a reinforced integrity shield came up behind those doors to create an airlock environment.

When she was finally finished, she touched the door panel, a hiss still audible even through the water and their helmets. Turning back to the other two, she shrugged, "Let's not discuss what I just did with others, yeah?"

"My lips are sealed, besides these people in stasis are more important. What is this?" Ki had not been fully briefed and was a little in the dark about what was going on. "We need to make sure that these people are okay and speak with the Commander about getting them out of stasis." Michael said as he made a bee line to the stasis tubes.

"Did you do something?" Cara asked with a mischievous grin.

The group came through the doors and stopped at the Integrity field before them. The doors shut behind them and water began draining out of where the group stood. While this temporary airlock had been put into place for finding vacuum on the other side of the Sickbay doors, with the field reinforced, it held the water at bay while the air pumps easily doubled as water pumps. After the water was gone, the field released. The group was now in an air filled sickbay, and the status monitors showed it was optimal for life support.

Cara followed on Ki's heels, digging out the extra respirator she carried in her kit.

The Trio made their way to Quarantine Zone 2. At the Airlock ingress, the command codes were entered and the Quarantine Zone Living Quarters began draining the water out as the Access door to the Decontamination Zone opened. The three entered, the door shut, and the radiations and misting began. Once that was done, the inner airlock door opened onto now drained living quarters. The trio went to the back right door marked 'Stasis' and entered. There were four chambers here, three empty and one having two occupants.

The Cyrostasis control panel was locked out, needing a command code with addendums to unlock.

"Do you need me to break in?" Kachiko asked. She didn't want to potentially break something in the programming.

Cara looked at the readings on her tricorder. "The child's vitals are dropping and her core temp is rising," she said.

"No time, then," Kachiko sighed. Linking her suit computer to the isolated Sickbay unit, "Computer, disable all nonstandard system lockouts, Override Code November Zero Zero Bravo One Three Five Seven November Three Romeo Delta. Enable."

The computer audibly chimed and the computer on the cryostasis pod lit up, showing it was unlocked.

The Marine's eyes glanced over the display, "The pod has 82% internal battery. It can be disconnected from main power and beamed aboard the Grissom for defrosting. We don't want to bring them out here. We don't have the extra cold weather equipment nor rebreathers."

Cara wasn't familiar with this generation stasis pod so she looked to the Colonel and nodded in agreement, then looked at Dr. Ki. "I'll take them back," she said and posed her fingers over her combadge, ready to give the order to transport.

Michael was not ready for this, to see officers and civilian personnel in stasis with no reasons given. However that conversation would be for a later time and for the Captain. Right now there were patients to care for. "Quite so Lieutenant..." he said turning to Cara. "Only one change do not defrost anyone. Get these pods aboard the Grissom, I want them linked directly into the Grissom's main power. They are not to be defrosted until I can speak with Commander Barstow and find out why they were put in stasis to begin with. I will not put anyone at any undue risk. After I speak with the Commander we will defrost them one at a time together." He tapped his comm badge "Dr Ki to Commander Barstow we need to talk."

Kachiko placed a transporter beacon on the side of the pod, the device suddenly adhering magnetically with an audible 'thunk'.

"Good luck up there, Cara," Kachiko smiled before turning back to return to the main Sickbay and let the Doctor have his discussion with the Commander.

Cara tapped her combadge and said, "O'Reilly to Grissom....lock on my and the beacon's signal and transport directly to the Isolation Chamber in Sickbay." A few seconds later she and the pod disappeared.

Apollo was just getting the the lower decks and thanked the gods for the call as he panted and stepped off into a junction to sit down, "what's up doc?" he asked, having started saying it to annoy ahis classmates during his initial med school training and ended up saying now just out of habit.

Michael tapped his comm badge as he realized that this could not wait, if the conversation needed to happen of comm then so be it. "Dr. Ki to Commander Barstow. Commander what is going on here? I have a number of both Starfleet and civilian personnel in stasis. Normally this would not be an issue. However, there are no reasons given... I cannot in good conscience remove these people from stasis, they may infect the entire ship. What is this??? It simply astounds me that people would be left in a derelict ship with no reasons given for the stasis and no one or nothing monitoring them. It makes no sense..." To anyone in the room with Michael they would see his anger, however the composed Japanese man knew how to modulate his voice so it did not betray his anger of the comm channel.

John leaned against the ladder in the jefferies tube and sighed, "if I had an answer we wouldn't be trying to figure out what happened, you do remember the briefing," he more stated than asked, "Use the stasis pod to run a bio-scan, if you can't get a hit then get them back to Grissom and bring them out. You should be able to thaw them without opening the pods, which will keep them quarantined and allow you to do a work up."

"Sir that is not the issue, the issue is why in the first place. I am requesting permission to leave all of the stasis pods as is until I can access the Merlin's medical logs. That will give me a better deal of what we are up against." Michael said in response to the Commander however he thought that these questions should have had an answer before anyone beamed into the Merlin to begin with. Why most officers had a shoot first ask questions later attitude always alluded Michael.

"Doc, do what you need to do. I'm near engineering and will have power back shortly," Barstow replied, "in the mean time the EMH should have its own power source....Colonel?" the CO caaled over the comm.

"Yeah boss?" Kachiko replied as she stepped into the cavernous main shuttlebay.

"Colonel, use any and all means to get that EMH on line, if you need to go to the TIC and try to access medical logs there, it's designated a life boat area and should have it's own emergency power," Apollo said and rubbed his face as he thought, "Cale, reroute to the TIC, I'll cover engineering, all copy?"

Looking around at the mostly empty bay where a number of shuttles should be, Kachiko sighed, "I got you, Captain. I was to come secure the shuttlebay, and I'm here. I'm only seeing two vessels, where there should be quite a few more."

"Copy, Colonel," Barstow replied simply, honestly at a loss with more questions than answers piling up, "get to the TIC and keep me updated," he added then slapped his comm badge to close the link.

In Sick Bay Michael had another doctor work with Lieutenant O'Reilly on getting all of the stasis pods up to the Grissom. In the meantime he began to go over every medical record that he can get to, even going as far as hooking his tricorder up to the Chief Medical Officer's terminal. That seemed to do the trick as the terminal whirred to life using the tricorder for power. Michael sat down and began to review each of the files. He began to piece the puzzle together, albeit slowly but the picture formed in his head.

He came to the civilian records and his eyes widened and an eyebrow cocked. In fact for the first time in his life Michael Ki actually gasped out loud. He tapped his comm badge. "Ki to Barstow report to Sick Bay immediately. I understand you are busy but..." His normal business voice softened a lot and he sounded almost apologetic. "...This cannot wait."

It was at this moment that there was a flicker on the air in front of Doctor Ki. A half-second later, a balding man in Medical Teal appeared, asking in the typical droll tone, "Please state the nature of the Medical Emergency."

Then Ki heard the Lieutenant Colonel, "Did the EMH activate, Doc?"

"Yes, Colonel it did in fact." Michael addressed the hologram. "There is no emergency, however you were activated to shed some light on an investigation. My name is Dr Michael Ki and we have found a number of crew and civilians in stasis with no record as to why they were put there. Care to shed some light on that for me?"

The EMH opened it's mouth then started flashing in and out of existence, it's head moving like it was possesed, unable to answer the question.

John looked up the ladder to the medical deck six decks up from him and whimpered before slapping his commbadge, "copy, give me ten," he replied then hefted himself back onto the rungs. Within a few minutes he was crawling out onto the medical deck, without his gear bag, and braced against the bulkhead for stability as he walked into sickbay, "Kai, I hope your not just trying to run an endurance physical...." the CO said as he dropped into a chair in the CMO's office.

Michael chuckled "No sir this is not an endurance physical however, I am afraid it may effect you the same way. Please let's go to the CMO's office." He led the way into the office and sat down as he pointed to the other chair for the CO to take. "Sir, there is no way to say this other than to come right out and say it. We have identified the person in the first pod to be transported to the Grissom. Sir it is your daughter." Ki sat back to let that information sink in for a moment.

John just nodded and leaned on the chair armrest, putting his finger in front of his mouth like he was in thought. In truth that was something he'd learned at the diplomacy table after watching various Ambassadors for tells. It kept any twitches that would give away his thoughts hidden while his mind raced. He nodded again and stood up, turning to look out into the bay through the office window, "is she....' he started then stopped and took a breath, his fathers voice echoing through his head telling him not to ask questions he wasn't sure he wanted answers to, "are they okay? Any indication of pathogens or any kind of bioweapon attack?" he asked, trying to make it easier to hear the answer by generalizing the question, though he knew it wouldn't help much.

"Aye aye, Boss. I'm on my way," answered Cale.

Apollo wiped under his eye, trying to intercept the moisture getting ready to fall down his cheeks and cleared his throat to try and push the worry out, "Cale, I'm going to be held up for a second in sickbay, I'll be down in fifteen. Start engine and power restart procedures," he called into his commbadge.

"Aye aye Captain...err Commander. I'm sorry about that yet again. I will make a concerted effort to not do that again. But I'm all over the engines and power restart," Cale said.

The CO turned and looked back to the Doctor, "Doctor, I need you to keep the fact that one of the pods," he said quietly, "they don't need to worry about me right now...and then those who were here on my crew before helped with my daughter.....I don't want anyone distracted from raising the Merlin," he said then sat down, "who was in the other pod?" he asked.

"As it stands right now your daughter and the rest of the patients are alive and still in stasis. It is unknown why they were placed there. I am transporting them to the Grisson under the care of Dr O'Reilly. In the meantime I will be working with the Merlin's EMH to piece together what happened to them and then we will wake them up. At least that is the plan sir." Michael always knew that as a doctor he was stoic, but the Commander's response to the news about his daughter made Michael look like an empath.

John just nodded, eyes fixed on the bulkhead behind the Doctor. He kept nodding even after Ki had finished explaining. It took a second before Barstow blinked away the thousand yard stare and noticed Michael watching him, "I'm...sorry," he managed and ran his fingers under his eyes, the shadows until then keeping his eyes welling up hidden from view, "I...." he started but had no idea how to finish his thought so trailed off and sat back to try and hide his face in shadow again.

(TBC)