Ensign Roy Bancroft - Hazard Suite Confidential
Carter Schimpff
(( Primary Sickbay - Deck 7, USS Artemis-A ))
The hazard suite was quiet. Secluded. Just the low hum of sterilization fields and the soft, rhythmic beeps of environmental monitors – an artificial heartbeat for a room designed to hold danger at bay.
Roy stood alone at a console, sleeves pushed halfway up his forearms, a sterile field generator idling beside him. The blue glow of the LCARS interface painted his face in flickers, reflecting off the gloss of other panels arrayed around the perimeter of the room.
He was deep into recalibrating the quarantine parameters – a delicate balancing act.
This was the kind of task that let you vanish a little. No patients. No small talk. Just precision. Ratios. Thresholds.
He adjusted a vector array, double-checked the failsafe redundancy, and moved to input new atmospheric integrity field parameters–
Sadar: E-E-E- ::clears throat:: Doctor Bancroft?
Roy flinched – not visibly, not enough for anyone to notice – but it was there. A flicker in the shoulders. A tightening of the jaw.
He hadn’t heard her come in.
He didn’t turn around right away. Didn’t stiffen like someone caught mid-transgression. Just kept his eyes on the console, hands steady over the calibration grid.
Bancroft: ::evenly:: Dr. Sadar. May I have just a moment to finish this calibration, please?
Sadar nodded – a small, slow motion he caught in the reflection of the console screen – and waited wordlessly.
Roy tapped a final sequence into the panel, then set the diagnostic tools down with a quiet, final clink.
He straightened slowly. Not with reluctance, but with intent – like the movement itself was a formality. A ritual, even.
He didn’t know exactly what she was here for. A schedule change, perhaps.
But he doubted it.
No – this felt heavier. This felt like the moment.
Turning to face her, he folded his hands in front of him, shoulders drawn back, expression composed – the picture of a junior officer awaiting judgement, not with panic… but with calm resignation.
Sadar: I-I, uhh... I-I wanted to address something with you.
There it was. The first pin pulled.
Though her words could have meant anything, her tone left no room for doubt as to the topic at hand: The Battle of Breetia. The little girl and her mother. Promise me.
He didn’t dread this. Not really. But nor had he longed for it.
It was more like the quiet, desperate wish of someone on the edge of nausea – not hoping to be sick, exactly, but hoping for something, anything, to break the internal discomfort.
This purging, at least, would bring clarity.
((( Flashback: Battle of Breetia )))
(( Underground - Breetia, Galaris IV ))
Cole: That wasn’t a graceful dive. You okay?
Bancroft: I’m alive, the civilians are alive, and I only mildly regret every life choice that brought me to this exact moment. So… above average for the day, really.
He looked back toward the Grunden woman – unconscious, pale, but breathing steadily. Her daughter sat curled beside her, head bowed, fingers knotted in the hem of her mother’s tunic like it was the only thing anchoring her to the world.
A knot caught in his chest – a sudden collision of pride, guilt, and the creeping fear that he'd crossed a line he couldn’t uncross. He had done a good thing, of that he was sure. In the moment, alone, still stunned himself from the fall, it hadn't felt like there was any other choice. But had he done the right thing?
Time would tell, he supposed. The road to hell was paved with good intentions – and he’d just poured some fresh concrete.
Sadar: H-How are your injuries, Ensign? And the Grunden civilians?
Her words caught him by surprise and, when he looked up, he found Lieutenant Sadar watching him.
Not scanning. Not studying the door. Watching him.
Their eyes locked across the dim cellar, and in that stillness, something passed between them — not accusation, not quite. Curiosity? No. Concern. Calculation. Quiet dismay, maybe, or just the reluctant confirmation of a suspicion.
She glanced toward the woman, then back to him. Her expression didn’t change. No words. Just a long moment that stretched taut like a suture.
Roy reached down and brushed dust from his uniform, slow and deliberate – a gesture that said, I did what I had to. He met her eyes again. Held them. And then, finally, he turned to look at the door.
Bancroft: ::offhandedly, with a smile that didn’t reach his eyes:: I’ve got a shoulder that’s registering a formal complaint and some new ventilation in my uniform, but nothing worth a chart entry. ::nods toward the civilians:: They’re shaken, but not stirred. The little one’s a trooper. Cole would like her.
((( END FLASHBACK )))
Sadar: I-It’s... A-About your conduct with the injured Grunden beneath the shelter. Th-The injured mother and child.
Bancroft: ::quietly, without hesitation:: Yes, Doctor Sadar. I remember the incident… distinctly.
Sadar didn’t speak right away. Just twisted her anxiety band – again and again – eyes fixed somewhere just past him, it seemed. Roy didn’t interrupt. Though he had suspected already, he now knew with certainty what this was.
A reckoning. And he intended to take full accountability.
Sadar: Y-You admit that, initially, they were injured?
Bancroft: ::nods, steady:: Yes ma’am. They were injured. The mother sustained a deep shrapnel laceration along the left flank, extending from the lower ribs to the iliac crest. Hemorrhaging was significant, respiration was considerably labored, and signs of impending hypovolemic shock were evident. The child was… physically unharmed.
No anger. No edge. No defensiveness. Just the cold clarity of a report he’d been rehearsing in his head for days.
Sadar: Response
Roy lifted his chin slightly – not in defiance, but in quiet resolve. A gesture that said: I’m not proud of it. I’m not ashamed of it. But I won’t hide from it.
Bancroft: Correct. I treated the wound; stabilized the mother. And before you and Ensign Cole came down into the cellar, I told the girl not to speak of what she saw. ::Slow, deliberate breath:: Not to cover my tracks. Not to protect me. I told her that because she’d been through more than any child should have to – and I wasn’t going to make her carry the weight of my decision on top of everything else.
Sadar: Response
TAG/TBC!
===
Ensign Roy Bancroft
Medical Officer
USS Artemis-A
A240205RB1