Cross-Contamination Part II ofII

Posted on Wed Jun 3, 2020 @ 2:54pm by Captain Maritza Soran & Commander Caleb Ryan & Commander Amia Telamon M.D.

2,137 words; about a 11 minute read

Mission: Et In Arcadia Ego
Location: Sickbay
Timeline: MD04 1430

Previously in
Amia was happy to see the pressure on the inside of the patient's skull was reducing as they carefully drained away as much of the silicon they could get.

"I'm watching to see if any frontal lobe activity returns as our drain helps the pressure subside," Amia explained what she was doing to the other two who were carrying out their jobs in silence and with deep frowns. Both ladies lightened a little hearing what was happening and that it was seeming to be positive at this stage.

"I never did find out about his family." Amia had another expressed verbally thought, but this one didn't seem to be one that anyone else could answer. "I wonder where that security officer has got with his enquiries," she added, thinking aloud.

And now the conclusion

---

Amia did a visual examination of her own, as a normal protocol backup, and she asked Opal if she'd noticed there were signs of a faint trail down the main nerve of his right arm and thick brown grains of a strange substance on the skin of his fingers. Amia frowned and Opal looked worried.

Amia stayed calm as always and said gently to Opal, "Shall we get a couple of porters in HAZMAT clothing and transfer him to quarantine?" It was a rhetorical question, and was instantly responded to and put into action.

"Once we have him secure we're going to have to be in here until we can get out long enough for a deep clean. Why don't you go on and get yours while I watch HAZMATs, and I can go for my clean up next.”

Opal did exactly as she was asked. She was a little worried that perhaps somehow she should have noticed that sooner, or if she should have gone for quarantine faster, but as Amia reassured her later, it wasn't possible to throw every patient, especially those who have been on board for sometime, into isolation before a reason is shown, or the quarantine suites would overflow, preventing genuine needs cases being put in. It was a high level decision, and Opal wasn't to worry that she hadn't called it.

By the time this had all been undertaken the security officer had returned, as if on cue. "Perfect timing!" Amia told him through the two-way intercom on the Q-suite window.

"I've traced the signal to a ship docked for maintenance that came in a week ago. The Starlight Bounty. It’s a cargo hauler out of Bolia. I've tried to raise the ship, but getting no response. I'm going to go check it out."

"Excellent, thank you, that really would help." Amia agreed with his plans of seeking out more information on the mystery Ktarian.

Once the hazmat field was up and they began to extract the strange silicon, however, a sudden change took over the Ktarian; even sedated, he became agitated and started to shake and jerk. As the medics tried to sedate him, a strange pale yellow crystal could be seen growing rapidly from his ears and nose and out of his mouth, moving far faster than any crystal Amia had ever seen, expanding and growing together over his face. It was no wonder he was getting agitated, it must have been very frightening for him.

Unwilling to just try to remove it forcefully, and having no idea what to use to prevent it growing more, Amia tried to get more samples, but this had yielded little before, so she was really a bit in the dark here, searching all her databases and testing, observing and sampling where she could. On repeating the examination of his arms, she noticed a faint trail left by the silicon down the main nerve of his right arm and thick brown grains of a strange substance on his fingers. Adding this to the sampling, another petri dish was sent to the lab with a CRITICAL sticker on it, which demanded as immediate a turn around as could be achieved.

Turning back from her side board where she had put the sample, Amia saw the growth had swollen, and was trembling. The tremble ran all the way down the growth and into the body of the poor Ktarian, whose square pupiled eyes had rolled up into his head. All his muscles had gone tense, his back bowing on the biobed, despite the sedatives.

"It's a growth of some kind of alien infestation," Amia told Opal. "Contact Security again please and ask them to see if they can find out anyone who has been in close contact with this patient, and then open all the quarantine beds in the emergency secondary sickbay down one deck."

Opal knew the secondary emergency sickbay, and on her way out to drop a floor and activate the beds as instructed, she stopped at Reception and left a very clear instruction for Security to be contacted and with all the requirements of the CMO undertaken URGENTLY.

In the meantime, Amia did all she could to try to ease the poor patient's situation. She thought of offering a stimulant to make him wake up and fight back, but with such profound and awful symptoms, she wasn't even sure she could save his life, let alone any of his suffering. She decided on more analgesics and an escalation to the XO.

“Sickbay to Commander Ryan.” Amia opened a channel to start to explain her situation and problem to him, carefully considering that if there were about to be contaminated patients coming in shortly, it wasn't wise to expose the XO to them or their contamination. She resolved to warn him first.

As Amia spoke, the growth burst with a sound like shattering glass. Flechettes of crystal scattered across her face visor and dug into the tough material of the hazmat suit.

“Ryan here. What’s up, Doc?” came Caleb’s voice over the comm as he poured himself a fresh cup of coffee from the pot he kept on the sideboard in his office. No replicated coffee for him if he could help it.

"Holy Spirits!" Amia exclaimed as the crystal shards struck her visor and hung partially embedded in her HAZMAT suit. She hadn't even had time to wonder if any had penetrated yet. "Sorry, Commander. I was about to report to you about a crystalline infestation of a patient in Sickbay. Fortunately we had already transferred the poor soul to quarantine and I think my HAZMAT suit just saved me from getting blinded when the thing just burst from him and out all over me.

"I have yet to ascertain if the crystals have penetrated my suit completely or just attached themselves, but I don't fancy taking it off yet in case this crystalline thing decides to make me its target practice a second time,” she explained.

Pausing, Amia looked closely at the patient, searching around quickly for a medcorder to see if the poor man was able to breathe or if he had suffocated from all the growth inside his mouth and nose.

"The patient has passed," she was able to confirm.

"I imagine these crystals will need a new host now, and I don't know whether to be flattered or offended that it seems to have chosen me as its candidate."

Amia spoke much more lightly than she actually felt, but there was no point in panicking. If the crystals had been repelled or contained by the HAZMAT suit then she owed it her life. If, on the other hand, their sharp points had managed to get through then perhaps her clothes underneath may have given her an extra layer and chance. She could only wait right now. She couldn't possibly exit the quarantine area if there was any possibility that she might be infected, so she would need to...

Her thoughts were interrupted by Caleb's reply.

Caleb cursed. “Stay there, Amia,” he said. “Ah’m on mah way down.” He put down his coffee and hurried out of his office, tapping his badge as he went. “Ryan ta Soren. We may have a situation in Sickbay. Seems those crystals might not be as contained as we thought,” he reported to the Commander. “Ah’m on mah way down.”

Caleb tapped his combadge again. “Ryan ta Engineering. Have someone meet me in Sickbay with an Engineering tricorder,” he ordered.

Several minutes later, Caleb finally strode into Sickbay. The engineer was waiting for him at Reception. Caleb snatched the tricorder from him and followed the directions to Quarantine, stopping outside where Amia was locked in with the body.

“Doctor Telamon,” Caleb said. “Any changes?” He looked at her, his dark eyes filled with concern, especially after they got a look at the Ktarian on the table and the growths of crystals out of his body. “Ah’ve got an engineering tricorder here. It’ll have a materials scanner an’ should be able t’evaluate th’integrity of yer suit ta see if any of the crystals got through it.” Caleb dumped the tricorder in the drawer and pushed it through into the quarantine chamber. “Give yerself a scan.”

Amia took the scanner gratefully and began to scan her whole HAZMAT gear, including the visor, which was the first suspect.

"Thanks, Commander, for getting here so quickly, and also for this little tell-all device. So far so good. The visor is dented to show it was struck, but it's okay. I'm going down my suit front next. Not so sure how I'll do the back up to the shoulders, but I'll cross that contortion when i get there," she explained as she carried on with the scan all over her outer, protective clothing, secretly praying it would be clear.

No one who had seen that Ktarian die in that horrific way could be calm in Amia's circumstances, but she was trained to keep outwardly unreadable, and somehow she was putting that into practice. She couldn't have promised how calm she would remain if the crystals actually have got to her skin. She wasn't Ktarian, obviously, but that didn't mean she was in the clear if it had made contact. This would be a very interesting case to report to the Medical Boards once it was over. It would make a nice thesis for one of the upcoming juniors to present when she was gone.

Stop thinking like that! Amia told herself firmly. It's all going well, there's no reason it won't continue that way. She began to hum a jaunty little song, which always distracted her if she got too close to panicking. "Always look on the bright side of life," the little song went, if anyone were actually singing the words. The CMO was just humming it quietly, but it lifted her spirits as she continued to scan to see if she was contaminated or not.

Finally completed, the scan showed that the suit had remained intact and protective, and Amia was so relieved she had to sit down and take deep breaths, realising that she had only been breathing very shallowly whilst the test and her humming were going on.

"Thank the Spirits!" she said. "I was dreading making my daughter an orphan," she said, trying to recover the appearance of lightness, but not really carrying it off this time. She looked up and through the glass at Caleb.

"Thank you so much," she said, clearly quite shocked, but deeply grateful for his brilliant idea to break the deadlock she had thought herself to be in.

The tension washed out of Caleb’s stance as the scan results came up negative. “Not a problem, Doctor,” he said. “Now why don’t ya get outta there an’ outta that suit.” He looked at the Ktarian. “An’ we need ta do some contact tracin’ or somethin’, find out where this man’s been an’ where he might have picked up that crystal. We might have a much bigger problem on our hands.”

"We had a Security Officer who brought the former patient in. He went off to make enquiries and came back saying he'd traced the signal to a ship docked for maintenance that came in a week ago. I can't remember......... the name..... wait... that's it... it was called the Starlight Bounty. a cargo hauler out of er, Bolia I think. He said he'd tried to raise the ship, but was getting no response. He went off to check it out but hasn't come back" Amia told the XO what had happened so far with their inquiries.

[OFF]


Commander Caleb Ryan
Executive Officer

Commander Amia Telamon
Chief Medical Officer - DS5

Opal Oliver MD,
Civilian Doctor - DS5
(NPC - Telamon)

Other NPCs by Soran

 

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