Lieutenant (J.G.) Sierin Ikaixar - Treatment
Ryan Fender
((Underground facility, Kurtûl III)) .
The phaser’s beam shone brilliant orange like a brilliant streak of firelight. It hissed and spattered as molten metal fell away in chunks, striking the ground, the reddened glow resembling coal embers. A haze of steam filled the air between the Betazoid and the door, eating away at the gathering frost like it were the depths of summer.
Storm: ::To Ikaixar:: Stop! You’re through!
The beam sputtered and receded as quickly as it had begun. The nuzzle crackled as she did, the phaser’s casing burning hotly against her hand. Her mind was awash with paralyzed thoughts as a silence fell for barely a moment. Sierin let out a shaky breath to catch herself, even if for a moment. She could recognise shock when she felt it, and the drumming beat of her chest felt like a deathmarch in her mind. Her mouth worked soundlessly as waves of thought suffocated any words that sat on her tongue. For a moment, she forgot what feelings were hers and what wasn’t.
But the moment washed away, and she breathed. She was fine, for now, she wasn’t dead. With a deep rise and fall to her chest, she followed the others in, eyes wide and feet unsteady against the ground. Sierin’s legs felt like they were trudging through chest deep swamp.
((Nascaik Genetic Research Lab - Underground facility, Kurtûl III))
Jovenan: Starfleet! Hands up!
What came before them was but a man with no weapons, and a woman lying on a biobed. The design was unfamiliar to her. The room chittered with devices and instruments, as well as trays of medical machines that looked not entirely unfamiliar. On sight she could recognize the basics of what was here, much of it seemed genetic in nature. It reminded her, rather coldly, of her time with the Followers on Betazed.
Havun: Start the treatment. ::raises the glass hammer to the chamber’s window and looks at
Starfleet:: Step any closer, I’ll break the glass and release the radiation to the rest of the laboratory.
Sierin followed Storm’s lead of putting her phaser away, and instead reached for her medical tricorder. She desperately tried to hide the shake in her hands, but seeing his wind up to shatter the glass between him and the woman terrified her. Sierin’s face remained cool ice, but worry wrinkled her forehead as she looked up.
Storm: If you do that, you’ll kill yourself, too.
Jovenan: ::to her team, gently:: No sudden movements.
Eyes flitting back and forth from the shape behind the glass, she sucked a sharp breath between her lips. Sierin tried and tried to keep her breathing steady, but with every shaky breath she could feel her nerves begin to boil.
Breys: Is she sick? We have a doctor with us. Sworn to do no harm, right? ::she looks nervously at Ikaixar:: If you put that down, could she look at the medical treatment?
Havun: Please understand, the treatment must continue. She- Falon will die without it!
Ikaixar: ::nodding to Breys:: We have the expertise to help her— if you let us. No one has to die here.
Jovenan: Falon. That’s your wife, isn’t she?
What in the Four was he hoping to accomplish with this? Sierin had a hard time believing this wasn’t simply hubris, but this seemed a man driven mad by grief, broken by the weight of his suffering. She could practically feel it on the air, the man was a boiling mixture of fear and grief, and it felt like heat on the wind as she stared it in the face.
Ikaixar: How are you intending to help her? There might be a way to do so without the radiation.
Havun: Response
Storm: Havun, do you realize that you have several Nascaik teams on the ground ready to take you out? We just stopped one of them. But there are more.
She watched the readings pour through on her tricorder, the treatments were underway but she couldn’t make sense of what was happening. In real time, the woman was being bombarded with small targeted exposures of thalaron radiation and it was like she was coming apart. Sierin watched on, with a brief fascination as strands of DNA pulled themselves apart, on the verge of unmaking themselves. If this was a hair more potent of a dose it, the damage to her cells would’ve been irreparable.
Jovenan: But it doesn’t have to be that way. We can talk this through.
Breys: This doesn’t have to end badly. ::she looks to Falon:: For anyone.
Ikaixar: At the very least. Let us help you. We have a ship of state of the art facilities, we can give you what you need to save Falon.
Havun: Response
Storm: And do you realize that they have threatened to execute Secretary Jetripar if we don’t bring you in? I can’t imagine you want that.
Jovenan: With us, that wouldn’t be the danger for him, or for you and your friends. And we might be able to help you. Do you know Starfleet colours? Look at us. Most of us are scientists and medicals. Surely we can come up with something.
Breys: We can fix this, we can go home safe.
Sierin took a very slow and anticipated step, her eyes glancing with reluctant freedom from her tricorder. Truly the man had to have the weight of a planet on his shoulders, if he was willing to go to this length, Falon obviously was his whole world. One he was willing to save at any costs.
Ikaixar: You must be terrified, Havun. Let us ease the burden.
Havun: Response
Then, Storm lunged at Havun, attempting to wrestle the tool out of his hand.
Storm: I don’t want to hurt you!
Jovenan: ::fuming:: Lieutenant, what is— Doctor, go help her!
Without a word, Sierin followed Storm and tried to help wrestle the weapon. Holstering her tricorder, she didn’t want to risk losing it in the scuffle. Storm had tried to pin his arm before he could strike the glass and Sierin followed suit. But with the force of two against one, at first he was surely caught off guard.
Havun/Storm: Response
Jovenan: Ensign, be ready to—
Sierin grunted, fighting with her full weight against the man’s grip of the hammer as she tried to help pin his arm away from the glass— but in a flicker of motion—
Crash
In the space of a moment, it was as if the pit in her stomach had swallowed her heart.
Klaxons roared through the entire section of the compound, screaming alarms signalled glaring red lights to fill the room. The entire area was engulfed with the hues of warning as the computer called on and on about critical levels of radiation. Forcefields flashed in place as speckles of static struck at their borders. In an instant, her tricorder seemed to scream in warning.
Jovenan: Lieutenant! Doctor!
As the klaxons roared, she felt like she was going to be sick. Sierin laid her medkit on the ground, body riddled with uncontrolled trembling, she fumbled with shaking hands.
oO I’m not dying here— I’m not dying here— Not by your hands— Oo
The words repeated over and over and over as she reached for vial upon vial in her hands and a hypospray. She injected herself first, a hefty dose of potassium iodide and moved to administer the next doses, only to walk nose-first into a forcefield.
oO No no no! Oo
Eyes wide in shock, she grabbed for her tricorder to monitor what she could.
Breys: I’ll try to find out which pockets the thalaron particles are isolated in.
Ikaixar: Lieutenant, how do you feel?
Havun/Storm: Response
Sierin held the medication in her hand, vial loaded into the hypo, anticipating something would give.
Jovenan: It’s not fully potent thalaron radiation, otherwise you would be dead already. Are you alright? Havun, what is this?
Breys: I’m seeing the same thing, how would you even cut it down like this?
Havun/Storm: Response
Breys: It seems like Doctor Ikaixar is safe for now, the other two are right next to the breach, even with the forcefield sealing it, they’re exposed with it already trapped in their field. ::To Havun:: Why would you do this?
With some relief, the Betazoid slid her open medkit closer to her with her foot.
Ikaixar: How did you do this? My readings show the radiation was dangerously close to ripping her cells apart, how did you even get it so precise?
Jovenan/Havun/Storm: Response
Breys: What are you talking about? What does this have to do with The Great Impact? ::gestures to Falon:: What’s wrong with her?
Jovenan/Havun/Storm: Response
It was a sickening story to hear, but unfortunately it didn’t change their need to save as many lives as possible.
Breys: We still need to get you all out, there has to be a way to mitigate the radiation.
She was particularly worried about Havun— even with a minute exposure to this radiation, the long term effects would almost certainly be life altering.
Jovenan/Havun/Storm: Response
Breys: The other team! They were exposed to larger amounts of radiation, maybe they had an inoculant on them. If we can enter safely, we can disable the forcefields and inoculate Havun and Storm as well.
Ikaixar: I inoculated Lieutenant Storm when I beamed down, along with the rest of you. But you ::glancing to Havun:: please tell me you have extras for yourself in the lab.
Not so much a question, but a very pointed statement. And it was looking more and more like she was about to have a dying patient on her hand.
Jovenan/Havun/Storm: Response
She needed to think. She began rifling through the medkit and taking inventory of what they had. The most she could do from here was supportive care, which meant caring for burns. Sierin reached for the wads of regenerative mesh, knowing how deeply thalaron radiation would penetrate, she needed to act quickly.
Ikaixar: I can help him with what I have, but the radiation needs to be shut off if he, or we, even have a chance at survival. Inoculations won’t stave off the sicknesses for long, especially with how disruptive the doses of radiation can be.
Breys/Jovenan/Havun/Storm: Response
Ikaixar: ::pointing to Falon:: There’s still a chance she can be saved, but everyone here, including you, are my priority. I need you to tell me exactly how you’ve been treating her.
Breys/Jovenan/Havun/Storm: Response
The forcefield, eventually, fell and Sierin moved like a spring pulled taught. Medical tricorder in one hand, she raced to Storm first with a hefty dose of potassium iodide and quickly moved back and forth between her and Havun. Sierin moved as if her life depended on it. She produced a small, forked device from the medkit, it seemed to almost resemble a Vidiian device, without the sharp prongs at the ends, and handed it to Lieutenant Storm.
Ikaixar: It’s calibrated to slow down cell death, keep the prongs pointed at Havun and hold down the button on the top.
With each movement she could feel her heart thud against her ribs.
Breys/Jovenan/Havun/Storm: Response
—
Lieutenant JG Sierin Ikaixar
Medical Officer
U.S.S. Artemis-A
G239409EK0