No Room Upon The Hill

[kermit]

Spoiler: 1737Show

She'd been trying to sleep, with little success. The ambient chatter in what was steadily becoming a very busy sickbay was practically foreign to her, and surprisingly difficult to tune out. The ever-increasing noise was not helping her headache, nor was the knowledge that only a few decks away someone else was leading the peace talks. Her peace talks. Still, she thought, even just a few moments rest would feel like vacation...

Her eyes snapped open, blurry vision met with the slowly pulsing amber ceiling lights of Yellow Alert in sickbay. "How long was I out?" she croaked to no one in particular. Neema propped herself up and surveyed the scene. Things were hectic. Not just normal-everyday-sickbay-hectic either, but really chaotic. Medical staff was in triage mode. All the injuries looked pretty minor, to the untrained Admiral's eye, but there sure were a lot of them. "Something's wrong," she said to herself as she scooted towards the edge of the bed.

A nurse noticed her making her way to her feet and power-walked over to put her back in bed. "Apparatus slump category rice," the man in the white uniform said, "Safari tea orientation."

"Ugh," Neema groaned. It was a noise that defied aphasia, and the nurse gave her a sympathetic look. His expression soon turned stern though, as he raised a hand to point at the biobed. Neema held her own hands up in defeat. "Fine, fine," she muttered pointlessly as she scooted back up and crossed her legs. The nurse gave her a nod and went back to patients he could actually help. "I'll be here if you need me," she called after him, literally wasting her breath.

[kermit]

Spoiler: 1829Show

Minutes felt like hours.

Over and over, Neema watched as people came and went. Talked. Had conversations. Explained the situation to one another. She heard it all, but she heard nothing. Even when the lights shifted to red and Caspius announced stationwide, "Wrap Thinker. Century duty product medium," she was left in excruciating ignorance of what he really said.

When the ground beneath her feet shook and consoles flickered, a murmur ran through the crowded sickbay, and the overall volume decreased. The room filled with fear, and as much as she might've wanted to pretend otherwise, Neema was no exception.

"Faithful judicial impostor," a blonde Lieutenant spoke over the hum. "Choice correction ethics. Warn examination." Her words to the group of patients sounded ... reassuring. It might even have been convincing to someone who hadn't been in her position.

"She doesn't know a damn thing," the Admiral mumbled, safe in the knowledge that nobody could understand her anyway.

[kermit]

Spoiler: 1848Show

"FROG IMPLICIT! FROG IMPLICIT!"

Neema pressed and rubbed at her eyes, in a hopeless attempt to fight away the now-pounding headache. The Lieutenant, Doctor Holliday, was doing a pretty good job of keeping people calm as increasingly severe patients poured into the already-overcrowded medical bay.

By now, Neema had given up her comfortable biobed for a seat on the floor. With her back resting against a cold iso-room wall and her arms hugging her knees, she couldn't help but start to resent the burn victim that now occupied her previous lodging. The thought of it made her sick.

"Frog Implicit, rich sting beam coast," Holliday said, pointing and directing orderlies and lower-ranking providers. "Rent virtue, matter prediction gain ---" She stopped suddenly as she ground shook violently and a high-pitched whine began. She raised her voice to a shout and Neema's eyes widened in horror, far too late to intervene, "TEACH HA--".

A blinding white light ripped through half the room. In a fraction of a second the entire rear wall and the row of biobeds was consumed. Anything not nailed down, including Neema, was blown backwards by the force of the impact. The Admiral barely had time to register the new pain in her head before being pushed the other direction, sprawling prone.

As the room plunged into darkness she slid rapidly along the floor, carried by the rush of atmosphere towards the void.

[kermit]

Spoiler: 1850Show

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Voices called out weakly, one by one.

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Neema rolled her head forward and her haphazardly face-down form crumpled into a kneeling position.

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Her eyes blinked open painfully, and she had to rebalance to reach a hand up and push the mussed hair from her field of view. What she saw was horrific. Not two meters away, an emergency forcefield was active, its faint flicker marking the boundary between what was left of Sickbay 1 and a massive gap ending with twisted bulkheads and sparking conduits.

Neema twisted for a look behind her. Nobody here had been spared the momentary plunge towards vacuum. Half of the patients would now be on the wrong side of the forcefield. In turn, half the remaining caregivers had become patients themselves. For her part, Holliday was still shouting gibberish instructions as she struggled to drag an unconscious man away from a sparking console.

The Admiral blinked a few more times and looked out towards the void again. With her head tilted at just the right angle, she could almost see the extent of the damage. From a hundred meters deep in the station's central core, she could almost see... stars.

[kermit]

Spoiler: 1859Show

Neema sat, staring, mesmerized, paralyzed.

Her head was still throbbing, though she could no longer quite remember when it started. She tried to count the decks. She tried to visualize the missing sections. She tried to put a number to the people she'd just lost, but numbers weren't coming easy. She realized she'd gotten off track, and started over, over and over, and over again. She mumbled her pointless calculations and rubbed at her forehead.

She didn't feel the arrival of the presence beside her, and the hand gently set on her shoulder startled her into a breathlessly terrified vulgar exclamation.

Holliday pulled her hand back and spoke quickly, "Response mildew." Neema blinked and shook her head, a hand instinctively moving to her chest. The doctor's tone was urgent. "Compartment brand spontaneous exempt." She motioned between Neema and herself, then between Neema and the other patients. She pointed at the shattered room, and to the flickering lights. She pointed at the door.

"We have to leave," Neema echoed, closely enough.

"Pillow slogan."

She accepted Holliday's extended hand and pulled herself up to her feet. The doctor then continued on her way around what was left of the room, getting other patients up and moving. Neema took a moment to check herself for injuries and was relieved to find she'd been pretty lucky, all things considered.

As the doctors herded patients and staff towards the door, they all felt another rumble, followed by a hard jolt. Some lost their footing as the group was showered with sparks. The illumination flickered out as the shockwaves of an explosion rippled through. Only a few remained standing and the creaks of stressed metal punctuated their untenable position. While most were still getting back to their feet, a shriek pierced the air only to end abruptly.

A support beam had collapsed, blocking the way. Neema pushed through the crowd to reach the obstruction. By the time she realized what she was looking at, she'd already stepped in the blood.

[kermit]

Spoiler: 1904Show

A note of panic ripped through the crowd as they looked on in horror.

"Elegant survivor," someone murmured. Neema closed her eyes at the particularly unfortunate mistranslation. The group of patients and low-ranking medical personnel found themselves trapped between a hull breach and a collapsed support blocking the exit. The Admiral took a moment to compose herself, but really that's all she could afford. No one was taking charge, with Holliday gone.

"All right," Neema said, raising her voice and stepping forward, "We have to get out of this room."

Naturally, the crowd didn't have the reaction the Admiral was accustomed to. There was shouting and arguing and a few of the orderlies started trying to lift the rubble. They wouldn't be able to, and even if they could, it wouldn't be safe. Neema reached out to touch one of the crewmen on the shoulder. The man turned and barked, "Supply tropical initial dragon gain cower combine passage!"

Neema winced as he turned back, and momentarily considered that this might all be futile. Some patients at the back of the group had started pushing forward, not realizing that there was no where to go.

"HEY!" she shouted, hoping tone would convey meaning, "You're wasting time, there's too much debris." To her surprise, they stopped working and looked up at her.

"Dictionary prefer assembly champagne," one said to another.

"Porter critical sharp," the second answered.

Someone from the crowd called out, "Bishop flight arrow, manual physics!"

"Manual physics?"

"Advance resort"

"STOP!" Neema yelled, "Stars, just listen!" Yes, she did realize what she was saying. "We have to get..." She motioned at the group, including herself, and then pointed at the door past the rubble, "out of here."

"Corruption cruel offset charge inside!" Somebody yelled out. Neema pointed at the source of the voice. It was a young Lieutenant with her arm in her sling. Neema put her finger up to her lips in the universal sign for 'be quiet'. Incredibly, the woman obeyed. Maybe she'd recognized her?

"Now then," she said to herself, looking at the medical crew. They were young, and scared. No rank insignia on their uniforms. She tried to make her voice gentle, but almost certainly failed. "Where's the jefferies tube?"

"Level resort?" one of the crew answered. Neema held out closed fists. She raised one over the other and lifted one leg at a time, mimicking climbing. "Forge extent?" the man guessed. "Forge extent! Now forge extent!"

"That's it, you've got it," Neema answered, a tiny smile of satisfaction crossing her lips.

A man in a gold-striped uniform spoke up and stepped out of the crowd, "Avenue contraction composer governor chase community!" He knew where it was. Neema followed the engineer and the orderly around the corner as they waved on and lead the crowd to the access hatch.