Cmdr Ivanova, Lt Rofer | future XO & CMO | Fixing that which is broken

Posted on Fri May 31st, 2013 @ 6:49am by Admiral Rochelle Ivanova & Lieutenant Carrie Rofer M.D., Ph.D.
Edited on on Fri May 31st, 2013 @ 8:27pm

2,470 words; about a 12 minute read

Mission: Secret Meetings
Location: Vindicator's Infirmary

Carrie Rofer peered into her PADD with such fascination, the world around her seemed to have gone completely dark and quiet. In reality, nothing was further from the truth, as staff members came and went in the main infirmary section, tweaking machinery and checking up on occasional visitors. The fact the office door was open didn't seem to make a dent in the young Doctor's deeply immersed mental state.

She scrolled down to read the next page, when it happened.

In retrospect, Carrie would lament on the human brain's strange tendency to filter out sounds it deems repetitive while intercepting -- quite violently -- anything that may prove to be alarming, lighting the brain up like a Christmas tree, and making her fling her entire body fly out of the seat and right out the door, with eyes filled with the panic of a turkey chased by a redneck on thanksgiving.

"Yellow alert, BUZZ BUZZ, Yellow Alert," her brain finally managed to interpret the horrible buzzing sound and she took a careful breath, her hand on her chest. She smiled casually at her startled staff and leaned against a biobed to let her heart regain a more suitable beating rhythm.

"The bridge reported finding the missing shuttle," a nurse gestured with her head at the door, as if she just came from the bridge and witnessed the discovery first hand. "They're expecting casualties, we're setting up triage over at the intensive care unit."

At the mention of 'casualties' and 'triage', Carrie's brain relented, finally snapping out of its daze. "Do we know how many?" She rose, her posture authoritative, and walked over to the designated arrival area.

"Anywhere from zero to ten," the nurse commented. "Sensors detected an explosion, we don't know if there's anyone to rescue, or what state they're in."

"I see," Carrie nodded and went to the wall to bring her trauma gown and disinfect her hands.

"Get the on-call team over. Let's prepare the quarantine rooms just in case. We should be ready for burns and massive traumas, we may have to utilize the re-pressurizing cells if the injured are found exposed."

The nurse nodded and turned to join the rest of the staff, who by now were running around readying the infirmary for the incoming emergency.

To Ivanova, Yellow Alerts were to the ship as a summer breeze was to a Hurricane -- a relative non-issue meant to bring about an air of caution... A word that was seemingly voided from the redhead's vocabulary. Had she been awake and not drifting in and out of a thin veil of consciousness, she may very well have rolled her eyes and sighed. However... This situation would have likely lent itself to a very dark and bitter taste being left to roll across her refined pallet even if she wasn't already completely tangled up in it front and center style.

Terrorism.

Across her injured mind played images of Logan and Andrea, of bright flashes of light and falling debris -- the sound of an explosion and the loud roar and whine as nearly an entire starbase crumbled in on itself like a great steel beast in the throes of death. But those powerful images, while setting her heart to race at a fever pitch, dissipated and instead were replaced with visions of a shuttle exploding and the sound of Commander Landon Neyes yelling her name as she flew from a console into a chair and from that chair, into darkness. It was only a strike of sheer luck that the shuttle's shields had been up, that the blast wave from the explosion at such a close range hadn't torn them apart, that the debris hadn't completely killed those shields and exposed them to those elements.

What it had done, however, was render the shuttle worthless and left it's inhabitants scrambling -- or rather laying -- on the floor.

Rochelle gasped, violently being jarred back to the land of the conscious by a knife sharp pain lancing through her ribs and shooting, or so it felt like, from sides straight down her left leg and settling in her ankles. Her shoulder smarted. Her head spun and something in her neck popped back into place with an audible 'snick' that nearly made her vomit as she tried, in vain, to move. Someone had gotten smart and restrained her against the biobed, more likely out of need to protect her from injuring her neck further by thrashing around and trying to get to her feet -- the exact game plan she had in mind... Minus the thrashing and trying part.

Red alert... That was where the savage little redhead's senses were set to. Her internal klaxons blazing and screamed against the pounding within her skull and the smell of her own blood tainting her every breath as it poured from her nostrils. She could taste it as her eyes darted along the ceiling and anywhere they could find as a target given her limited mobility. But she was safe, or so her psyche slowly began to tell her, safe but injured and laying the sickbay of a ship... The Vindicator had come for her.

"Lay still," a voice chimed in, overcoming the mayhem in the infirmary. Carrie gave up on trying to guess the woman's rank; the collar of her shirt -- as was much of the rest of her clothing -- was now partly shredded partly darkened, revealing patches of skin that followed suit.

"Whatever explosion happened on that shuttle," Carrie noted while shining a light into Rochelle's eyes and letting the nurse start cutting neatly around the shredded holes in the woman's uniforms, "You're very luck to be alive. I'd like to make sure that doesn't change anytime soon," she shook her head and looked at the bioscanner above the bed. "Seal this bed section for contaminants until we fix those burns," she spoke to the nurse and brought her attention back to the scanner, examining the state of her patient's head. "Hm."

The restrained Commander's eyes reacted to the light, though not in the desired way. She shut them, instinctively attempting to shield them from even brighter light. "Is this necessary?" She slurred, though in her muddled mind it sounded as sharp and clear as day -- like the chiming of a rather irate bell that heralded some formal indication of warning. A tornado siren maybe... Or was that the blood rushing past her ears to fuel the migraine that was beginning to settle in her temples?

She recognized the words burn and explosion, they certainly went hand in hand and Ivanova nearly reminded the young doctor of such with a snarky snarl, but was strangely unable to find her tongue to do so as her bruised brain strained against the new sensation of her clothing being cut away by the skilled, but haphazard, hands of nurses. Her skin immediately shivered and bristled with goose bumps populating where the cold air rushed to greet her freshly bared flesh. "Hmm?" She finally hummed in question, her head wrapping around that frightening little thoughtful sound. No one ever wanted to hear a doctor say 'hm'. Ever. Especially not right after an accident.

Carrie's head snapped back, her eyebrows raised slightly to look again at the woman. Yes, clearly necessary; she saw the concussion on the scan, but the slurry speech raised a couple of extra options the young Doctor was not yet ready to dismiss without further check.

The flashlight was out again, moving sideways in front of Rochelle's eyes. "Follow the light.. Can you tell me your name?" Carrie continued to look at the woman, ignoring the last question, turning sideways only momentarily to collect the results of the internal scan that tested for internal bleeding. She was about to 'hm' again, but stopped herself and returned her attention to the woman on the bed.

The lack of answer only served to drive the Commander further up the wall. "I asked you a question, Doctor, now put that light away before you have an accident with it." She snapped, albeit in the same tone an irritated drunkard may have taken with an insolent coffee table or other inanimate object that had piqued their ire.She sputtered then, blowing hard and coughing as she inhaled her own blood while drawing a breath to continue her verbal assault. It would have to wait until she was freed and able to stand on her own two feet. She sighed, heavily, and stared at the young woman "Commander Rochelle Andreevna Ivanova, happy?"

Carrie ignored the comment but moved the light away, satisfied she has enough data.

"That depends," Carrie nodded, turning her attention to her patient's bleeding with the help of the nurse. "If your irritability is abnormal, it may indicate a much more severe head trauma. In which case I am not happy." she gave Ivanova a small condescending smile that indicated she found this comment rather amusing, and then nodded at the nurse to bring over a full medical file for followup testing.

"Now please, Commander, try to relax, you have a several broken ribs and a punctured lung, neither of which I'll be able to treat if you choke to death."

Rochelle's eyes closed in a wince, forcefully slowing her breathing down to accommodate the pressure brought about by her injuries even through the pain meds. She only reopened them to meet the doctor's challenge head on, "I assure you that my irritation is more than warranted, Lieutenant." The rank was hissed through teeth tightly clenched together, "Fix it fast and get me out of here. That's an order."

"Good, then you'll be fine," Carrie smiled, "regardless of redundant orders," she nodded at the nurse again, who, to her credit, tried to bite back a snort and gave Rochelle's hand a brief commiserating squeeze. Carrie remained oblivious.

"Of course I'll fix you, I'm the Doctor. You know," she shook her head in exasperation, reaching over to bring a cart of medical equipment, "people on this ship seem to be all surprised to see a Doctor in the ship's hospital. One must wonder what it is you are all taught in the academy.. Okay, I'm going to have to reinflate your lung. This will be a little uncomfortable," she noted, holding the device over Rochelle's chest.

"Really? You don't say." An exasperated sigh would have followed suit, Hell it SHOULD have followed suit, but refused to if only for the sake of self preservation. Rochelle looked up at the nurse and was almost relieved at the empathetic glint to be found in the other woman's eyes. Apparently the little doctor was a known issue. "We're taught to obey orders, not have lights shoved in our fac--" Ivanova's haughty response was broken by the gurgling of air in her lungs and the extreme feeling of pressure that followed suit. The entire experience unsettled the plucky little dynamo and ultimately brought about what could only be described as a yeowl.

Anguish, pain, misery... It all bubbled up in that strangled cry as Carrie worked on her innards and the nurses treated the surface wounds. When all was said and done, she lay shivering against the bio bed with her eyes squeezed shut and body tense in the expectation of some new form of medical torture to commence.

Carrie had offered sedatives. In fact, she offered twice; once at the beginning of the burn treatment, and then again, just before leaving the medical intern and nurses to finish realigning the broken ribs and touching up the burns and scrapes.
Apparently people considered it brave to refuse pain medication. Carrie was really at a loss as to why.

"Well," she picked up the PADD with Rochelle's medical chart as she walked back towards the bio bed, having checked the rest of the survivors, "I assume you'd be happy to know we're done. At least for the moment," she added quickly, her eyes shifting from the chart to the woman's skin and back, nodding in approval.

Perched precariously atop the bed, and finally released from the restraints designed to protect her fragile neck and spine -- or was it the doctor's fragile neck and spine? -- the redheaded Commander watched Carrie's approach with a wary eye. Bravery was one thing, so was bravado, and while Ivanova cared little for it, she cared even less for the side effects sedatives and steroids left in their relatively brutal wake. She blew a weak huff of understanding mixed with bemusement, and shook her head. "You assume correctly, Lieutenant." She answered, reaching to pick at the remnant flakes of dried blood along her upper lip. "So we're good here? I can leave?" To where, was another issue entirely. After all, it wasn't like she'd boarded the vessel the conventional way and as such had no quarters yet assigned. She'd even have to replicate a new uniform, something to at least cover her better than the sheet they'd covered her with for modesty's sake after removing her all but destroyed and blood soaked threads.

Carrie tapped the PADD, nodding thoughtfully. "Your concussion was quite severe, I want you off your feet for at least the next 12 hours, and on reduced-load work for the next 36 hours." She handed Rochelle the PADD, "Here."

"What's this for?" Rochelle asked, warily taking the offered PADD. "I'll deal with the rest."

"It's a Doctor's note, in case you need to show your superiors." Carrie let out a cheeky smile and then gestured with her hand, as if to say 'hang on, there's more!'. She fiddled with her side pocket and finally plucked a small candy out.

"And here's a lollipop. It's actually good for you, it's specially infused with electrolytes to help prevent dehydration." She handed the lollipop over with a smile. "It is scientifically proven to make you feel better."

For a split second Rochelle was completely taken aback by the combination of doctor's note and sucker, quickly taking it as an insult at first glance. She blinked, trying to determine whether or not she'd actually heard the young Doctor correctly -- and then it clicked. The smile was innocent, the explanation genuine. The girl just lacked tact. The redhead blew out the pensive breath she didn't realize she'd been holding and reached to accept the offered candy. "Thank you" She answered, "That's very thoughtful."

Maybe... The doctor wasn't being difficult deliberately. Maybe.

Carrie seemed pleased with herself, nodding with a satisfied smile. "You're most welcome. Now, I'll let you get dressed and go on to rest."

She let out another smile and turned on her heels, walking cheerfully out to her office.

--

Commander Rochelle Ivanova
Acting Executive Officer
USS Vindicator

Lieutenant Carrie Rofer, M.D., Ph.D
Chief Medical Officer
USS Vindicator

 

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