[BACKSIM] Lt JG Quentin Beck - See You On The Other Side [Redux]

[Quentin Beck]

((OOC: I rewrote the last section of this as I hadn't yet read the Captain's post starting off Act 3 that stated things went a little differently. Just a repost with the corrected ending!))

((Bridge, Deck 3, U.S.S. Ronin))

Beck: First degree burns on your hands, second degree on your torso. I can give you something for the pain now but I'll need to apply a dressing to the wound; normally I'd buy you a drink before I ask you to take your top off, but I'm afraid we don't have the time for it right now.

Kirsty snorted, his first indication the joke had landed as he'd hoped; he didn't make a habit of actually hitting on senior officers on the Bridge, but he also knew his brand of humor didn't impress everyone. He could tell she was still in heavy pain, though, as she simply took the taunt in stride, what little humor remained draining from her face as it instead pulled into a grimace. 

He pulled out a package containing sterile gauze and a fresh and tightly wound bandage. Then his voice dropped a little lower as he allowed a little more concern to bleed through.

Beck: We can step into the break room if you'd like. Won't take more than a few minutes to get you up and running again. And before you argue, I'm going to have to insist - the more your jacket and shirt rub against the burns, the worst the blisters and pain will be and the more likely you'll get an infection before we're through.

Niac:  The Commander was a Marine, Doctor, they make ignoring injuries a form of high art.  Get her functional, fast.  Mr. O'Connor, get us back to the station and signal the Khitomer to fall into position off our starboard side.

Carpenter: Cap's not wrong. But-

Quentin bit his tongue to keep himself from talking back; now was not the time to get into a shouting match with the Captain. Yes, Marines were known to ignore injuries, and that was often why so many lost their lives or their limbs far too soon by his estimation, but he was not so stubborn as to fail to recognize how important the SecTac Chief would be in the coming minutes. He was glad, at least, that she was willing to accept his care on the Bridge; he started to help her remove her jacket as she braced herself on the weapons' terminal, but O'Connor was pulling some deft maneuvers trying to keep them in one piece.

His arm rose to brace against her, and her against him, as the ship bobbed and nearly threw him to the deck; he was thankful for her support, else he might have hit the floor and started rolling around like he was in the world's worst pinball machine. 

O’Connor: Aye, sir. Hold onto your lunch everyone.

Beck: ::muttering:: Thanks for the warning this time.

The ship lurched again before leveling out temporarily as the inertial dampeners finally caught up with them, incoming fire raining down on them from a group of fighters that looked to take advantage of what they saw as an opportunity with the Ronin's weapons no longer firing. Quentin's jaw grew taut as the ship rocked from a hard hit, grimacing as panels fell from the ceiling and shattered against consoles, EPS conduits spraying sparks every direction, and for a moment he felt like they had caught themselves in the middle of a horrific fireworks display gone wrong. His grip on Kirsty tightened, less to keep her upright and more because of the tension of the moment and needing to ground himself.

Tucker: ::grimacing:: I’ve got so much damage that my alarms have alarms. Shields down to thirty-five percent and falling rapidly. We’ve lost containment of the hull breach on deck seven, we’re evac-ing now.

The Doctor swore under his breath, though thankfully the ship leveled out again and stayed that way. If there was any doubt about pulling her from the Bridge for even a moment, there wasn't any longer; Quentin would have been consigning them all to a fiery end, and all to treat burns that were only likely to grow worse and get infected if left untreated.

oO What was that Vulcan saying…? 'The needs of the many…'? Oo

He ignored the Main Viewer, not caring much about the fighters breaking off to attack the station again, significantly more concerned about the big cannon bearing down on them but knowing there wasn't much he himself could do about it, even if he'd wanted to; instead, he did his job. He pressed the hypo to the back of her neck to apply the painkiller, then stepped away and tossed it back into the medkit, still clutching the bandages to his chest.

He continued to grimace all the while, anyway. And looking at her, he could tell she had something she wanted to say, but there was no time to say it. So he just shook his head, indicating she didn't need to say it.

O'Connor: We’ve still got some maneuverability left. Although I don’t want to be putting too much stress, well pretty much on anything.

Despite his reassurance, she looked at him pleadingly; it was a very vulnerable, sincere moment, one he wasn't so sure he'd have seen outside of a moment of danger like this; certainly not in public, anyway.

Carpenter: Can't y'all just wrap me up or something?

Quentin braced himself as best he could for O'Connor's wild maneuver, stomach lurching in the process, but he managed to keep his nausea in check. He didn't really want to taste that powdered donut and coffee again. Looking to Kirsty, his jaw grew taut before he glanced at the break room door; as much as he preferred she have a modicum of privacy for something like this, even amidst all the chaos, he expected the protest and was unsurprised when it came. 

Beck: We can do it here, or I can let you stay at your station under protest. The wounds aren't severe enough I'll relieve you, but I am concerned about getting them treated as quickly as possible.

Of course, his concerns didn't really matter, with the Alliance bearing down on them, with the thing out there threatening to fire soon. The other officers on the Bridge remained focused on their jobs, and as much as it pained him to admit it, their jobs were far more important than his at the moment; there wouldn't be much of a crew left for him to treat if things went south.

Niac:  Chief Tucker, pull power from the phasers and route it to the deflector.  If our pulse isn't strong enough none of this is going to matter.  

Tucker: Juicing the deflector, aye sir.

Quentin glanced over his shoulder, watching Tucker work to protect them, glanced over at O'Connor flying his best, at the Captain trying to remain a rock in a storm; then his eyes fell on Carpenter again, and he could see how useless she felt in the moment, simply because her weapons were offline. Marty's team was good - they'd get things back up and running any minute now, which meant she needed to stay at her station.

O'Connor: Take as much as you need from propulsion, we’ll need to hold steady to pull this off anyway. I just want it back if we survive this.

She stepped closer to him, her voice dropping down low, almost pleading; it wasn't really the privacy he'd had in mind, but it was enough to confirm what he'd already been thinking. Lips pulling into a thin line, chocobrown eyes studied her intently beneath his creased brow.

Carpenter: I can't leave, Quentin. Not now.

Jaw tightening a little, he did his best not to look annoyed - or at least, not too annoyed - before raising the hypo and reprogramming it quickly. He gave her another dose of the painkiller, then dropped everything back into the medkit and picked it up so he could file back to the environmental controls.

Beck: ::muttering:: Should I just keep my mouth shut until one of you is bleeding out?

Before he could get far, he was surprised to feel surprisingly soft fingers against the back of his neck, stopping him in his tracks. For a brief moment, the world stopped around them, and he turned to look at her quizzically. She moved closer by a fraction, putting a small amount of pressure on the back of his neck, too, just enough to draw him closer so their foreheads came into gentle contact. He was surprised at the intimacy and suddenness of the moment, especially draped in chaos as they were; color rose slowly from beneath his collar but he didn't pull away. He studied her intently, curiously, not entirely sure exactly what the moment was passing between them, but glad for it anyway; it centered him, weirdly, and he felt closer to her than he did anyone else on the ship.

Then again, Grus Beta Three had mostly been just the two of them for a short while, too. It made sense, thinking about it - they had bonded together in trauma, and being a neurospecialist, he understood what kind of closeness that could foster between two people. It was a kinship of sorts, not quite siblings, but it also didn't require any kind of romantic feelings. And while he still felt like the whole ship was his family by now, this was deeply more personal. She could feel it too, he thought.

Then she suddenly let go and stepped back, turning her injured side to him and nodding at the medkit.

Carpenter: Just do it, Q. I'll be good. For now.

His mouth fell open a little as he exhaled, a smile beginning to tug at one corner of his mouth; nodding shortly, he opened the kit again on the edge of the console and helped her shrug fully out of her uniform jacket, tossing it to the side for now. Knowing everyone was too focused on their jobs, he went ahead and removed her undershirt, too, careful to respect her as best he could in  the moment. He sprayed a salve over her burns, which were mostly along her trunk and tricep, then opened up the bandage and started to uncoil it around her. He checked with her occasionally as he did so, making sure it wasn't too snug.

Once he was done, he helped her put the jacket back on, which would still likely irritate her wounds but would no longer be rubbing against them directly. He patted her shoulder and nodded gently, indicating she could go back to her station, then started putting his kit back together again. He happened to notice then the scan he'd been taking blinking rapidly and chiming to get his attention. His brows lifted as he looked it over.

Beck: Uh, the energy level looks like its starting to level out… I think it's going to fire soon. Like eminently. And I don't think you wanna know what the s-wave levels are showing.

Everyone looked to the Captain for his orders; they all knew what needed to be done. All he had to do was voice it.

Niac:  Standby on deflector pulse.  Emergency power to forward shields.  Keep us close, helm.  

Tucker: At your command Captain.

O'Connor: No where else to go. We are angled lined up with Kitty correctly:: a blip appeared on his screen:: Another ship has just dropped in between us and Kitty. Small Caitian vessel. I’m signaling it away now.

Carpenter: Do we have enough juice to pull it in? Or at least get it out of field?

O’Connor: It’s small, It won’t take much. Engaging tractor.

Carpenter: This day just gets better and better, don't it?

Quentin let out a snort at that, glancing at the readout curiously; the life signs on the shuttle were weak, though he couldn't tell if that was because they were injured or because there was a problem with the sensors. Either way, now wasn't the time to worry; O'Connor flung them away towards the station with a tractor beam like a kid flicking a paper football.

Then he voiced what they were all thinking.

Beck: If we're going to get the Kitty to work with us, we'd better do it now.

Silence settled over them, save of course for the occasional chime of warnings or the sound of plasma fires being extinguished by the ship's fire suppression system. According to the readout from the Khitomer, the waveform process was ready to go; they just needed word.

Niac:  Signal the Khitomer to synch their deflector with ours and prepare to fire.

As the… beam… emitter… thing, whatever it was, started glowing brighter and brighter in preparation to fire, the Captain spoke plainly and clearly, his voice confident and soothing.

Niac: It has been the honor of my life to serve with each of you.  

Tucker: ::grimly::It may have been short, Captain, but it’s been sweet. It’s been an honor.

O'Connor: One helluva ride, Cap.

His first instinct was snark. Part of him wanted to say 'I told you so', as if that kind of validation meant a damn thing when they were staring Death in the face. It was the gut-level response of a teenager, someone who was green as hell and thought they knew everything and would rub it in your face when you figured out they'd been right the whole time. It was the kind of thing he'd have said to his dad, Elmore, when the elder Beck had made a mistake during job negotiations or planning things out for a job.

Niac and the others deserved a helluva lot more than Elmore ever would.

Beck: See ya on the other side. Nice working with you all.

Carpenter:  Thank you all. For everything.

For a moment, as the weapon fired, they all held a collective breath; there was simply no way of knowing if this was going to work, despite the computer simulations running just behind him. It was a gamble, a big one, and although Quentin felt like he had a pretty good poker face, it always felt like his testicles had drawn up into his throat when he went all in like this.

The tendrils flickering around the ball of destruction seemed almost to reach out towards them as it approached, ready to ensnare them and draw them along with it towards the station's inevitable doom; the Khitomer and Ronin launched their response in perfect synchronization, the color of their combined effort seemingly the exact opposite of that utilized by the Alliance. A short count of one, two, three, and the points converged, lighting up the universe with as bright a light as he thought might have ever existed.

Gritting his teeth and clenching his jaw, Quentin slipped his hook through the handle in the wall that had saved him earlier and gripped the opposite corner of the environmental controls with his good hand, digging his heels into the carpet at his feet. The Captain's fist descended on the comm built into his chair as the shockwave hurtled toward them with incredible speed.

Niac: =/\= All hands brace for i...=/\=  

Suddenly, there was blackness. Not silence this time exactly, as the Doctor couldn't so much hear as he felt the buzzing in his ears, but he definitely couldn't see.

He felt like he was floating, at least for a moment, and in a way he was; as the ship bucked and swirled around him, his feet rose from the carpet, the hook was yanked unceremoniously from his arm, and his grip on the console had faltered.

And just as suddenly, Quentin felt everything at once.

His face had collided with the environmental controls when he'd stopped hovering, blood pouring from a gash in his scalp that wasn't as bad as it looked. He realized that was why he couldn't see, but only after the coppery taste had spilled over his lips and tongue. He was able to wipe away enough to squint one eye open, though his vision was still blurry. The kit he'd been using before was scattered across the Bridge now, but he was blessed to see another emergency kit just under the Engineering console and right above the broken and battered form of one Karrod Niac.

The Captain dragged himself away from the station and back towards the center of the Bridge and Main Viewer, looking rather worse for wear. He would definitely need some attention, though Quentin also needed to see what other damage had been wrought. Crawling to pull down the kit with his good hand, he pried it open with his fingers and used a stack of bandages to wipe at the blood on his face, finally managing to clear his vision and get a proper look.

Tucker and Carpenter were both up on their feet and once again at their stations. They were injured, but obviously still functional.

Picking up the dermal regenerator, he applied it to his own forehead to stop the damnable bleeding that continued to fill his vision. Swiping at his face with now sopping bandages, he dropped them to the side and dragged himself slowly to his feet, wibbling and wobbling but managing not to fall down. Paying no attention to the results of the battle, he instead applied a hypo to the inside of his arm, which forced the throbbing behind his eyes to lessen significantly.

Niac:  Sound...::he coughed painfully, a red stain on his hand where he covered his mouth::...sound off.  Damage...report.  

Tucker: Reports are still flooding in, sir. I should be able to make heads or tails of it; just give me a second. Every deck is reporting damage, some of it structural. We’ve lost containment on deck eleven; it, too, is being evacuated. Shields are offline, shields are at two percent, it’s amazing they held that well. I’ve got major burnouts on the ship’s power grid.

Beck: ::hoarsely:: Still alive, just wishing I was dead.

Carpenter: Still here, Sir. ::she smiles darkly::For my sins, I suppose…

Closing the kit and tucking it under his arm, he pulled himself towards the center of the Bridge, almost to Niac, and pulled out his tricorder so he could start scanning for the depth of the Captain's injuries. Unsurprisingly, Niac waved him off.

Niac:  Find someone else, Doctor, I'll manage for the moment.  Kirsty...tactical status...can we get any readings from the Khitomer or DS33?  Ian...can we move?  Chief...is there anything that does work?  It looks like there's still a significant Alliance force out there...even if they got their bell rung as badly as we did.  

Tucker: It’s a small list, Captain. We’re adrift, maneuvering thrusters only. The WARP core is off-line, and impulse drives are off-line. Life support is failing on deck five, and we’re in the process of evacuating that deck as well. My grease monkeys are working on the impulse drive as we speak. According to Lieutenant Morgan, the expectation of getting the WARP core back online is slim to none.

Ian didn't respond immediately. Frowning, Quentin turned to glance at the helm… and his eyes widened as they locked on O'Connor.

oO Oh, hell. Oo

Quentin didn't waste any time talking, instead flinging himself towards the helm and using the tricorder to ascertain exactly how much damage had been done to their helmsman.

Carpenter: Miraculously, shields still up and holding, just at a little over 30%. Torpedo tubes still operational but phasers still bingo.  Marty's people though should be fixin' that once they get up off the deck. But the enemy fighters have disengaged for now.

Everyone at once seemed to notice Ian as Beck started working him over, the kit opened again on the floor and the Doctor working frantically after just dropping the tricorder to the side. He pressed a hypo to O'Connor's neck, a sedative to knock him out (as if the pain hadn't probably already done that anyway), then he dropped to one knee so he could take a closer look at the piece of railing that had impaled Ian's torso. The scans from the tricorder had been positive - although the railing was doing a number on one of his kidneys and small intestine, the rest of O'Connor's organs appeared to be intact. There two major worries at the front of Quentin's mind - blood loss or sepsis. He still had time to deal with either, but it was going to be rough.

One thing about puncture wounds that was helpful; until he removed the piece of railing, Ian would hold together just fine. That didn't discount the urgency of getting him treated, but it meant Quentin did have time to take care of the others on the Bridge before dragging Ian's unconscious body to the turbolift to head down to Sickbay. It would have been much simpler if the transporters were still working, but frankly they were lucky to have air.

Collecting the tricorder from the deck near the helm, he puttered his way from person to person, isolating the worst of their injuries and doing what he could to treat them from the medkit; truth be told, it was almost as good as actually being in Sickbay, with the way the kits had been organized and equipped. Niac had suffered a minor concussion and Quentin had applied a hypo to help him keep his head clear; there were a few fractured bones, most notably in the Captain's left foot that would lead to an increasingly severe limp. While they didn't have time for him to properly set the injury, he did have time to set Niac up with a splint that would allow him to put weight on it and get around for the time being, against his better judgment.

The Captain had also developed an ulcer on his esophagus which had opened up; he'd be coughing up blood for the short term, but would probably need an antibiotic, assuming they survived the day.

Tucker, in the meantime, was leaning heavily on his console and a quick scan showed he'd pinched a nerve in his back when he'd collided with the console. How the Chief Engineer had managed not to break any bones in the process was astounding, but he'd gotten lucky; the pinched nerve could cause problems down the line, but for the time being, a painkiller would be enough to help him work.

Kirsty was, surprisingly, almost none the worse for wear; the burns she'd encountered just before the weapon fired remained the worst of her injuries. He gave her another painkiller, just in case.

Painkillers all around. He felt like a drug dealer.

Once he'd finished patching up the remaining Bridge crew as best he could, he shoved the spent hypo back into the medkit he'd been using before kicking it shut with his foot and out of the way. Then he started working on carefully lifting Ian away from the helm so the relief officer could take over.

Beck: ::slapping his combadge:: =/\= Sickbay, this is Doctor Beck. I need a medical team to meet me at the entrance to Turbolift 1 on Deck 10 with a gurney. We've got a pretty serious puncture wound and the patient is currently unconscious. Have BEC start prepping the isolation ward for surgery, stat. =/\=

He glanced over at the others, frowning heavily, then started dragging Ian's ass towards the Turbolift door that hadn't collapsed in on itself in the battle. It hissed open and as he turned to face the Bridge crew one last time, he met eyes with each of them before the doors closed.

End Act 2 for Beck! 

Lieutenant JG Quentin Beck

Acting Chief Medical Officer

USS Ronin NCC-34523

A238810SA0