Post by Lorpius Prime on Dec 22, 2010 18:00:29 GMT -5
Xi Feng zoomed down the Uruguay's ladder tubes headfirst and probably faster than she should have. But she was curious, anxious, and glad to be out of her chair on the bridge.
The cruiser's medical section was just aft of the crew quarters and recreation area, near the center of the long span. The placement was intended to minimize the distance off-duty crew had to cross to their duty stations in the event of an emergency. The bridge, command areas, and main engineering were forward; gunnery, secondary engineering, and the shuttle bays were aft. The engineering crew needed to have access all down the length of the ship, of course, but most of their work areas were built around the critical fuel ports and exhaust nozzles of the engines.
Careful of her surroundings, Xi Feng flipped herself over and began to slow herself before reaching her deck. The hatchway was already opened, so she simply needed to hook the grab bar and pop out into the hall. Then she closed the hatch behind her and made a mental note to start getting the crew back into the habit keeping the ship at full military readiness while they moved about.
Medical was only a small portion of this deck—most of the rest was given over to storerooms. It was impractical to provide anything approaching comprehensive medical care aboard Earth Fleet ships. Instead, warships like the Uruguay usually had a single medic and a small stock of supplies for treating minor wound or ailments. Patients in need of anything more serious would be transferred out to better equipped hospitals on Earth, the Moon, or the Enyo in Mars orbit.
Ships sent on more remote deployments, such as Venus or the asteroid stations brought more equipment and a larger medical staff with them. But even they were never too far from hospital care in an emergency.
Task Force One, on the other hand, had brought two doctors, a surgeon, a dentist, and enough staff to run a small hospital of its own along to Uranus. They had set up shop in a compartment on the EFA Kilimanjaro—the task force's ammunition hauler—and had already treated one case of appendicitis, several broken bones, and a spacer from the Barn Swallow who somehow managed to set her head on fire. The Task Force was equipped to treat just about anything. Just about.
Spacers Black and Takenaka, the ones who'd found Lieutenant Muyskens, were floating nervously outside the medical compartment. They both stiffened and saluted at the sight of their commander. Xi Feng paused along the hand rails to return the salute.
"Are you two supposed to be on duty now?" she asked as she approached the hatch.
"Yes, sir," Black said, "in a few minutes, that is. The Master Chief said he might want us, though, sir."
Xi Feng nodded, "All right, comm your station chiefs and tell them I've had to borrow you for a bit. I'll release you back to your posts as soon as I can."
"Aye, sir."
Xi Feng maneuvered between the spacers to get at the medical station hatch. It was closed; Xi Feng didn't know if that meant anything except that Master Chief Ferreira was following procedure to the letter. She worked the latch.
"Coming in, Chief," she announced.
The compartment's small receiving area and office was empty. Xi Feng shut the hatch behind her and looked around. Chief Ferreira was standing in the adjoining examination room, his feet hooked under straps on the floor.
"Chief?"
The medic turned around.
"Commodore," he said, and saluted gravely. "You should probably come in here."
Xi Feng's curiosity was eager to obey, but her discipline resisted a moment longer.
"Do you need the two women outside, Chief?"
Ferreira blinked, "Oh, no I suppose not. Not now, anyway."
Xi Feng didn't want to think about what that might mean. She turned around to crack the hatch again. One of the spacers was speaking into a comm.
"The two of you are released," the Commodore said in a slightly raised voice, "report for duty."
She closed the hatch again, muffling their chorus of "Aye, sir."
"Right, Chief," she said, "I believe you have my flag lieutenant."
Ferreira nodded and beckoned her over to the exam room. Xi Feng pulled herself forward, curiosity and dread mingling in her brain. She squeezed past the medic into the small room.
From inside, Xi Feng could see Chief Ferreira's exam table. Lieutenant Colleen Muyskens was sitting on it, held down by a belt across her middle. She was naked from the waist up and held her head in her hands, sobbing.
"I'm sorry," she said between gasps, "I'm so sorry."
Xi Feng frowned, more out of discomfort than displeasure. Earth Fleet officers and spacers were generally entitled to the same high level of medical privacy enjoyed by the citizens of most OES countries. There were a range of exceptions, of course, but the circumstances in which they applied were rare, and usually implied something very bad had happened.
"Is she all right?" Xi Feng asked, knowing the answer.
"No," Chief Ferreira said.
"I'm sorry," Muyskens said again. Xi Feng wanted to put a comforting hand on the girl, but Chief Ferreira was standing in the way.
"The crewmen said they found her passed out in the head," Ferreira explained. "She was conscious again by the time I saw her, but in a great deal of pain."
Muyskens groaned.
"Anyway, when I was examining her, I found this," the medic used a hand to brush Muyskens' hair up over her head and gestured for Xi Feng to look at the back of her neck.
The first thing XI Feng noticed was that someone—probably Ferreira—had used a marker to draw on Muyskens back. A rough ellipse enclosed an area around the lieutenant's neck out to her shoulder blades. Chief Ferreira was pointing at something inside, a raised area.
It looked like a mole—a large one—to Xi Feng's inexpert eye. Mostly it was just a pinkish bump about two centimeters in diameter. But a crescent of what looked like dark fur covered the edge of one side. Something shifted in Xi Feng's stomach.
"I don’t' know what I’m looking at," she said.
"Actually, neither do I," Ferreira shook his head. "The Lieutenant said she hadn't known about it. But when I prodded it—"
"Please!" Muyskens yelled suddenly from between her palms.
"Don't worry," the medic said to her. He looked back at Xi Feng, "When I touched it, this whole area," he indicated the region he'd marked, "well, the skin started moving. Never seen anything like it. For a second, I thought the compartment was decompressing."
Xi Feng looked at the Master Chief's face, frowning. He sighed.
"The part that worries me most, though, is where she thinks she got it."
"It's—" Muyskens choked off a sob. She lowered her hands and looked teary-eyed into the Commodore's. "It's where I hurt myself on the Tadpole ship. I think I cut myself and—and…"
Fuck.
Xi Feng was back in the waiting room before she was fully conscious of what she was doing. She stabbed furiously at a comm panel, making an emergency call to the bridge. Then she slammed her fist into the wall for good measure.
"Lieutenant Cheyo," the tactical officer said. His eyes widened slightly when he saw Xi Feng's face. "Yes, sir?"
"Lieutenant, lock down the ship," she snapped. "Biohazard emergency. Do that, then have the rest of the task force do the same. I'll have to brief later, but we may have an alien infection aboard."
To his credit, the lieutenant hardly hesitated before saying "Aye, sir. Uh, do you want me to have the crew go into suits and masks?"
Xi Feng zapped the suggestion through her mind in less than a second.
"No, save the air. But compartmentalize the ventilation and seal the damn hatches."
"Aye, sir."
Xi Feng ended the connection. "Fuck." She said it out loud this time.
It was obvious now, of course, that Task Force One's biological security policy had been dangerously, criminally, lax. They were the same as Earth Fleet's overall policies, but that didn’t absolve Xi Feng of responsibility. She could and should have been stricter.
Humanity had been lucky. After first contact with the Bats, Earth had spent months running exhaustive tests before deciding to trust the Bats' own assurances that they posed no threat. Human biology and genetics were utterly incompatible with life on the Bat homeworld.
The Charterlings had been approved even more quickly. They lived in nearly sterile environments and had never caused any problems during their interactions with the Russians.
Over the years, Humans had even grown comfortable with the Kyhyex. No one had ever been in the same room as one of the creatures—the Bats had warned that they could be significant radiation hazards. Still, after decades of dealing with aliens without a single incident of cross-species infection, Humanity's vigilance had begun to wane.
The OES had exchanged some cursory information with the Tadpoles, determined that both species could breath each other's air and survive (with only moderate discomfort) their respective normal atmospheric temperatures and pressures. No one had checked for potentially dangerous microbes.
Xi Feng turned around and saw that Lieutenant Muyskens had passed out again. A globule of spittle was growing at the corner of her mouth.
Muyskens was the first one suffering from Humanity's mistake. Xi Feng feared she wouldn't be the last.
The cruiser's medical section was just aft of the crew quarters and recreation area, near the center of the long span. The placement was intended to minimize the distance off-duty crew had to cross to their duty stations in the event of an emergency. The bridge, command areas, and main engineering were forward; gunnery, secondary engineering, and the shuttle bays were aft. The engineering crew needed to have access all down the length of the ship, of course, but most of their work areas were built around the critical fuel ports and exhaust nozzles of the engines.
Careful of her surroundings, Xi Feng flipped herself over and began to slow herself before reaching her deck. The hatchway was already opened, so she simply needed to hook the grab bar and pop out into the hall. Then she closed the hatch behind her and made a mental note to start getting the crew back into the habit keeping the ship at full military readiness while they moved about.
Medical was only a small portion of this deck—most of the rest was given over to storerooms. It was impractical to provide anything approaching comprehensive medical care aboard Earth Fleet ships. Instead, warships like the Uruguay usually had a single medic and a small stock of supplies for treating minor wound or ailments. Patients in need of anything more serious would be transferred out to better equipped hospitals on Earth, the Moon, or the Enyo in Mars orbit.
Ships sent on more remote deployments, such as Venus or the asteroid stations brought more equipment and a larger medical staff with them. But even they were never too far from hospital care in an emergency.
Task Force One, on the other hand, had brought two doctors, a surgeon, a dentist, and enough staff to run a small hospital of its own along to Uranus. They had set up shop in a compartment on the EFA Kilimanjaro—the task force's ammunition hauler—and had already treated one case of appendicitis, several broken bones, and a spacer from the Barn Swallow who somehow managed to set her head on fire. The Task Force was equipped to treat just about anything. Just about.
Spacers Black and Takenaka, the ones who'd found Lieutenant Muyskens, were floating nervously outside the medical compartment. They both stiffened and saluted at the sight of their commander. Xi Feng paused along the hand rails to return the salute.
"Are you two supposed to be on duty now?" she asked as she approached the hatch.
"Yes, sir," Black said, "in a few minutes, that is. The Master Chief said he might want us, though, sir."
Xi Feng nodded, "All right, comm your station chiefs and tell them I've had to borrow you for a bit. I'll release you back to your posts as soon as I can."
"Aye, sir."
Xi Feng maneuvered between the spacers to get at the medical station hatch. It was closed; Xi Feng didn't know if that meant anything except that Master Chief Ferreira was following procedure to the letter. She worked the latch.
"Coming in, Chief," she announced.
The compartment's small receiving area and office was empty. Xi Feng shut the hatch behind her and looked around. Chief Ferreira was standing in the adjoining examination room, his feet hooked under straps on the floor.
"Chief?"
The medic turned around.
"Commodore," he said, and saluted gravely. "You should probably come in here."
Xi Feng's curiosity was eager to obey, but her discipline resisted a moment longer.
"Do you need the two women outside, Chief?"
Ferreira blinked, "Oh, no I suppose not. Not now, anyway."
Xi Feng didn't want to think about what that might mean. She turned around to crack the hatch again. One of the spacers was speaking into a comm.
"The two of you are released," the Commodore said in a slightly raised voice, "report for duty."
She closed the hatch again, muffling their chorus of "Aye, sir."
"Right, Chief," she said, "I believe you have my flag lieutenant."
Ferreira nodded and beckoned her over to the exam room. Xi Feng pulled herself forward, curiosity and dread mingling in her brain. She squeezed past the medic into the small room.
From inside, Xi Feng could see Chief Ferreira's exam table. Lieutenant Colleen Muyskens was sitting on it, held down by a belt across her middle. She was naked from the waist up and held her head in her hands, sobbing.
"I'm sorry," she said between gasps, "I'm so sorry."
* * *
Xi Feng frowned, more out of discomfort than displeasure. Earth Fleet officers and spacers were generally entitled to the same high level of medical privacy enjoyed by the citizens of most OES countries. There were a range of exceptions, of course, but the circumstances in which they applied were rare, and usually implied something very bad had happened.
"Is she all right?" Xi Feng asked, knowing the answer.
"No," Chief Ferreira said.
"I'm sorry," Muyskens said again. Xi Feng wanted to put a comforting hand on the girl, but Chief Ferreira was standing in the way.
"The crewmen said they found her passed out in the head," Ferreira explained. "She was conscious again by the time I saw her, but in a great deal of pain."
Muyskens groaned.
"Anyway, when I was examining her, I found this," the medic used a hand to brush Muyskens' hair up over her head and gestured for Xi Feng to look at the back of her neck.
The first thing XI Feng noticed was that someone—probably Ferreira—had used a marker to draw on Muyskens back. A rough ellipse enclosed an area around the lieutenant's neck out to her shoulder blades. Chief Ferreira was pointing at something inside, a raised area.
It looked like a mole—a large one—to Xi Feng's inexpert eye. Mostly it was just a pinkish bump about two centimeters in diameter. But a crescent of what looked like dark fur covered the edge of one side. Something shifted in Xi Feng's stomach.
"I don’t' know what I’m looking at," she said.
"Actually, neither do I," Ferreira shook his head. "The Lieutenant said she hadn't known about it. But when I prodded it—"
"Please!" Muyskens yelled suddenly from between her palms.
"Don't worry," the medic said to her. He looked back at Xi Feng, "When I touched it, this whole area," he indicated the region he'd marked, "well, the skin started moving. Never seen anything like it. For a second, I thought the compartment was decompressing."
Xi Feng looked at the Master Chief's face, frowning. He sighed.
"The part that worries me most, though, is where she thinks she got it."
"It's—" Muyskens choked off a sob. She lowered her hands and looked teary-eyed into the Commodore's. "It's where I hurt myself on the Tadpole ship. I think I cut myself and—and…"
Fuck.
Xi Feng was back in the waiting room before she was fully conscious of what she was doing. She stabbed furiously at a comm panel, making an emergency call to the bridge. Then she slammed her fist into the wall for good measure.
"Lieutenant Cheyo," the tactical officer said. His eyes widened slightly when he saw Xi Feng's face. "Yes, sir?"
"Lieutenant, lock down the ship," she snapped. "Biohazard emergency. Do that, then have the rest of the task force do the same. I'll have to brief later, but we may have an alien infection aboard."
To his credit, the lieutenant hardly hesitated before saying "Aye, sir. Uh, do you want me to have the crew go into suits and masks?"
Xi Feng zapped the suggestion through her mind in less than a second.
"No, save the air. But compartmentalize the ventilation and seal the damn hatches."
"Aye, sir."
Xi Feng ended the connection. "Fuck." She said it out loud this time.
It was obvious now, of course, that Task Force One's biological security policy had been dangerously, criminally, lax. They were the same as Earth Fleet's overall policies, but that didn’t absolve Xi Feng of responsibility. She could and should have been stricter.
Humanity had been lucky. After first contact with the Bats, Earth had spent months running exhaustive tests before deciding to trust the Bats' own assurances that they posed no threat. Human biology and genetics were utterly incompatible with life on the Bat homeworld.
The Charterlings had been approved even more quickly. They lived in nearly sterile environments and had never caused any problems during their interactions with the Russians.
Over the years, Humans had even grown comfortable with the Kyhyex. No one had ever been in the same room as one of the creatures—the Bats had warned that they could be significant radiation hazards. Still, after decades of dealing with aliens without a single incident of cross-species infection, Humanity's vigilance had begun to wane.
The OES had exchanged some cursory information with the Tadpoles, determined that both species could breath each other's air and survive (with only moderate discomfort) their respective normal atmospheric temperatures and pressures. No one had checked for potentially dangerous microbes.
Xi Feng turned around and saw that Lieutenant Muyskens had passed out again. A globule of spittle was growing at the corner of her mouth.
Muyskens was the first one suffering from Humanity's mistake. Xi Feng feared she wouldn't be the last.