Ensign Roy Bancroft - Triage Roulette
Carter Schimpff
(( Cargo Bay 1 – Deck 11, USS Artemis-A ))
Bancroft: Chief – immediate! Third-degree plasma burns, cranial lobe. Pulse is weak and thready, no O2 response.
Morgan: He’s in shock. I’ll see what I can do – you keep moving.
Bancroft: ::not looking up from his next patient:: Lieutenant K’Wara, you’re doing exactly what we need right now. Keep talking to anyone uninjured – injury history, physiological quirks, anything that might help keep us from guessing.
K’Wara: Response
Boraxian Patient: ::weakly:: We tried… to stop… it. But… nobody knew how…
Bancroft: Chief, Lieutenant K’Wara… am I the only one getting the sense that nobody here knew what they were doing?
Morgan didn’t respond right away – not verbally, anyway. He was too busy with the Boraxian laid out in front of him, configuring a cardiostimulator with the kind of practiced efficiency that suggested this wasn’t his first time playing god under pressure.
Morgan: It certainly appears that way…
K’Wara: Response
Bancroft: ::thoughtfully:: Training exercise or cadet cruise gone sideways? ::beat:: But, then where are the instructors?
He caught a flicker of motion from the corner of his eye as he worked on his own patient – Morgan sliding the stim unit into place, fingers working the controls with practiced ease. There wasn’t any eye contact – just yet another disappointed shake of the head.
Morgan: Focus, Doctor Bancroft.
Roy resisted the urge to arch an eyebrow. Focus? He was running his side of triage like a Vulcan chrono – precise and efficient. Wondering aloud about the root cause of this day’s medical apocalypse wasn’t exactly unwarranted.
Still, he’d met more than a few doctors at the Academy who treated leadership like an elective they’d rather have skipped. No interest in mentoring, no time for collaboration – just a tunnel-vision devotion to their own work and a faint air of contempt for anyone who dared interrupt it.
Maybe Morgan was one of those. Maybe not. Time would tell.
Either way, sassing Lieutenants – especially the one who made your duty schedule – was a risk Roy knew better than to take. He made a mental note to keep his commentary in the dry and lightly toasted range until further notice.
Bancroft: ::evenly:: Focusing, Chief.
K’Wara: Response
Roy glanced sideways as the stim unit discharged with a jolt, the Boraxian’s body convulsing beneath the surge.
No response.
Morgan paused – not panicked, just waiting. Reassessing. Then he triggered the stim again. This time, the patient’s vitals shifted – erratic at first, then edging toward something that looked like a steady pulse. Roy heard the soft chirp of stabilization from the monitor.
Then, with a swipe of his forearm across a sweat-slicked face, Morgan turned and motioned for K’Wara to follow him off to the side.
Morgan: Lieutenant, I want you to see what you can learn from the patients who only have minor injuries. I have a feeling we’ve been deeply misled about what they were doing over there and I want to see if we can find out why. …but be discreet. (beat) Let me know when you’ve got something.
K’Wara: Response
The cargo bay doors peeled open with a hiss and a clatter, revealing two ops officers wrangling a hoversled – and on it, blessedly, a biobed. Roy caught the shift in Morgan’s posture before the man even spoke: an arm snapping out to direct them toward the clear zone beside the main triage cluster.
Morgan: It’s about damn time – we have people dying over here! Bancroft! We’ve got that biobed!
Bancroft: Roger that, Chief. Priority is your criticals – that cradle and its sensors should be theirs. The rest of us can make do with what we’ve got.
The biobed’s arrival was not a moment too soon. The sled hadn’t even come to a full stop when the comm chirped, its timing impeccable in the worst possible way.
Ops: =/\= Ops to Cargo Bay 1, we have another Boraxian casualty being beamed over. =/\=
Roy barely had time to glance up before a transporter beam began to coalesce in the center of the triage zone. A heartbeat later, the shimmering column resolved into the supine form of another Boraxian – conscious, but burned and bleeding.
He moved fast and beat Sif there by half a second.
Tricorder already open, Roy dropped to one knee, the device chirping steadily as it swept the new arrival.
Bancroft: ::to himself:: Moderate lacerations, light thermal burns… ::beat, warmer:: Hey there, friend. Can you tell me your name?
Vahljeahn: Response
Bancroft: Chief, Lieutenant, this Boraxian – Vahljeahn – says they’re one of the leaders of the damaged vessel.
Morgan/K’Wara: Responses
Roy stepped back towards Morgan, leaning in so he wouldn’t be overheard by the patient.
Bancroft: ::quietly:: He’s talking fine – right now – but there’s significant cranial swelling. I’m tagging him ‘immediate’ on that alone.
Without waiting for a reply, Roy rose and moved a few steps away, triangulating toward the next patient in need. His tricorder pinged as he moved, fingers dancing over the controls.
Bancroft: Everyone’s tagged and sorted, Lieutenant Morgan. I’m shifting focus to the ‘delayed’ category patients – see if we can get ahead of complications before they escalate.
Morgan/K’Wara: Responses
Vahljeahn: Response?
TAG / TBC!
===
Ensign Roy Bancroft
Medical Officer
USS Artemis-A
A240205RB1