Part 2

Posted on Tue Dec 22nd, 2020 @ 11:28pm by Lieutenant Mica Rue & Lieutenant JG Charlotte Aschail

Mission: Enforced Intermission
Location: Escape Pod

The spanner did its job. At least, Mica thought it did. Through the seizure-like shock from the implant she heard the man’s words, felt the spanner pressed against her implant. Within seconds, a beam of energy flooded her, sizzling out last minute thoughts and blowing every circuit in the damn devices implanted into her brain. For a moment the energy got too great, too hot, too much, and Mica had a two word answer to the thoughts that level 4 really was too high. Then it was over, the energy blowing out the implants, the energy backfiring into the spanner.

When Mica opened her eyes weakly, the man was holding his hand, shaking it. The woman stared open mouthed. The spanner was smoking on the floor three feet away. Mica tried to smile. The pressure was rapidly receding, and the buzz of the implants was gone. “Thank you.” She whispered.

"You're welcome." Lance bit out, rubbing his hand, "Damn that stings."

Charlotte sat down on the floor, either unwilling or lacking energy to move to an actual seat, "Are you sure that was smart, ma'am? I mean, I'm not a doctor, but it looked dangerous."

Mica was weak. The last shock had really taken it out of her. Really, the last three had. Her body still trembled residually from the energy, her temple skin smarting where the burns radiated from the now broken implants. While she was still concerned by WHY the implants had shorted and threatened her life, she was also worried about the weakness.

Mica struggled to undo the restraint.

Charlotte reached forward and helped her with the buckle, then reached out to help her sit up.

Sitting up carefully, she felt nauseous. Fighting back the bile, she glanced at the other woman. "It wasn't the smartest idea, but effective. Are YOU alright? Both of you?" she waited for an answer, closing her eyes against the rising tide.

"I'm fine." The two engineers said in unison, then Lance shook his head, "My hand stings, but Charlie's not." He received a glare from his putative boss, "She's been exposed to some radiation and we're not quite sure how much."

Charlotte changed her gaze over Lance for a moment, then sighed, "I wasn't going to worry you as much as jackass over there. There isn't anything that can be done for me, if I don't miss my guess. I was exposed to too much."

Mica opened her eyes again, looking over the woman. There was definitely an unhealthy pallor to her skin, and her eyes looked sunken. "Not necessarily," she shifted, her headache starting to bite against her injuries. "Hand me the medkit."

Lance did so as Charlotte sat there, picking it from the floor where he'd unceremoniously dropped it, handing it to Mica. Charlotte shrugged, "I had to try to shut the matter-antimatter reaction down. It was leaking too much radiation, but someone had to do it. I wanted to stay and try to buy some more time, but this asshole shot me and dragged me away." The words were harsh, but when she referred to Lance, it was more subdued.

It took Mica a few times, but she finally managed to put her fingers over the clasp of the kit and open it. She frowned. Perhaps the spanner wasn't a good idea - it may have just caused some more damage than she thought after all. Setting the thought aside, she glanced through the devices. Not much to help the engineer, but... She grasped the tricorder and the suture wand, considering the two and the polarity reversal that would be needed to....She slumped, laying herself down on the bed while staring at the devices....

Lance crouched to the side between the two women and looked worriedly at Charlotte, "What can I help with, ma'am?"

Mica stared hard at the items, eyes unfocused as she saw "through" them in her old style. "If I just have a minute..." She tried to envision the inside of the devices, their blueprints dividing, sectioning. She turned them over, wondering if she could figure out how to meld the two, to make them work succinctly.

Coming out of her haze, she looked over Charlotte. "If we could re-route the suture energy by changing the modulation of the tricorder, and reverse the polarity, it might be able to absorb some of the radiation, but..." she hesitated, looking past the items at Lance, "the radiation would have to be stored someplace and neither device would be able to hold it."

Lance looked helpless. This wasn't what he had trained for, he was a life support specialist, not... This. Charlotte looked up, "We don't want to irradiate the whole pod." She said quietly, "I suppose we could space them if they could contain the radiation for a couple minutes. Place them by the hatch, strap down and open it on a timer for a couple seconds. We'd lose some life support duration, but that would be it."

Mica nodded. “Hand me that spanner.” She moved to sit up again, losing hold on the tricorder. Gods, what damage had she done?? “Perhaps you should do it.” She held out the second tool toward the couple, fingers twitching ever so slightly.

Charlotte reached out and took the tricorder and spanner from the other woman and looked them over. What was she thinking? Obviously nothing that she (Charlotte) could see.

“I can talk you through connecting the two together.” She closed her eyes a moment longer, imagining the blue prints again, remembering the connection that would need to be changed.

"All right." Charlotte said softly, "If you can describe it, I'm sure I can do it."

It took longer than Mica had hoped, considerably longer than she had meant for it to take. And when they were finished, the woman who had introduced herself as Charlotte looked considerably worse for wear. Mica certainly felt it. And, they had no idea if the device would work.

Flexing her fingers, Lt Rue took the device back with shaking hands, sitting up but leaning back against the wall. Lance had log since explained where they were, the situation they were in, and that, at this point, it was a matter of letting the pod go where the auto-pilot was set on. At least focusing on Charlotte's health could help distract the women perhaps. Maybe it would even save a life.

"We won't know if this works until..." Mica glanced at Charlotte. The other knew what Mica was referring to...she was sure of it. She lifted the item, pressing a few buttons, running her fingertip over the sensor to raise it just slightly, aiming it toward the other woman. "I'm hoping this doesn't hurt at all, although I wouldn't be surprised if it isn't...comfortable." Turning it on, she watched the soft blue beam focus on Charlotte, stared intently at the numbers on the tricorder. They would record the amount of radiation being collected, give some indicator of how much they were leeching from the woman's body. Although after ten minutes the numbers climbed only slightly, Mica didn't dare put the intensity too high - there was no telling what damage a dramatic ripping of radiation from Charlotte's body could do.

So they watched and waited, until a half hour passed and Mica turned off the beam. "That's it for the first pass. Not as much taken as I hoped, but it's a noticeable start." she let her hand fall onto her lap, the device with it. She leaned back her head, closing her eyes. "Your turn, sir," she referred to Lance, "So whatever she needs you to do to drain the radiation and we will try again."

"Drain it?" Lance grimaced, "I... I think she was thinking of just spacing the whole thing, ma'am."