The trappings of hell.

Posted on Mon Dec 18th, 2017 @ 3:47pm by Commander Talia Varen

Mission: What Lies Beneath
Location: Sickbay

Everything went to hell in a handbasket in the 6 hours he was sleeping. Sickbay was chaotic and the patients were spilling over into secondary units. Talia was in a hazmat suit in an isolation bay with a young alien girl with dark hair. Her face was flushed brightly red..

Waking up Leo showered, he looked at himself in the mirror and what he saw staring back at him felt empty, hollow. He dressed and left his quarters to Sickbay to report in as ordered. He was looking forward to some stability in this uneasy moment and knew Talia would provide it just by sight of her.

A machine was next to the girl and brightly colored tubes travelled between the two of them. Talia stood behind the glass pane, clearly running test after test on the girl who was burning with fever. Icepacks came through the replicator, and Talia packed her neck, armpits and groin with them.

The trip was a brief one albiet a silent one as he looked at crew with a weak smile and yet they were as silent to him as the embrace of cold space was. A crew of tens of thousands and not one he could hear. When he walked into Sickbay everything was busy, biobeds filled, moans and groans of discomfort, chirping of consoles and monitors. What was going on here?

"Can I help you Commander, are you feeling better?" A nurse appears from between people standing waiting to be seen.

"Yes I'm here to see Dr Varen." Even though he was still relieved of duty Talia was not and he didn't want to undermine her authority or position by being casual without her present at least.

Leo was informed that she was in the bio contamination section, Leo knew this to be a sealed section, one way in and one way out. Nothing in and absolutely nothing out if the call came for it. When he walked to the observation window he saw a girl, another in blue and white. That had to be Talia. He tried to communicate with her but remember he couldn't hear her, forgetting to it was only one way and she'd still be able to hear and feel his presence.

She could however feel him, as a gentle warmth in the back of her mind. Talia's shoulders relaxed unconsciously as he approached the window for the ease that he made her feel even when not touching her was something beautiful. She couldn't acknowledge it at the moment- as the monitors screamed a warning above her. A cooling field was working with the ice, and Talia hung another bag of blue liquid above one of the IV lines so that it would infuse.

Silently he watched lest he disturb her work as a young girl was the recipeint. Talia was a skilled and capable Doctor and he didn't ever want to stand in the way of that nor hold her back from advancing it should she want to. Yet all he could do is watch in silence, watching his Imzadi do what she'd be trained to do and take pride in the professionalism and skill she was demonstrating its application.

Licking dry lips, she focused tired eyes on the screen above her patient. A trickle of blood was dried on the corner of her mouth and she was covered with the purplish lesions that she'd been seeing on the others. Only hers were so advanced they were bleeding- oozing fluid onto the sheets. She'd tried antiviral and antibiotics alike, but she couldn't yet have any effect on the virus that was taking 332 by storm.

Leo looked on but as he saw what Talia was, even on the monitors in the observation booth questions of his own began to surface. He activated the communications link. "What are those all over her Doctor?" Leo holding the professionalism. Something had obviously gone seriously wrong if all these people packed into Sickbay and Talia was in the bio isolation unit.

She reached over to activate the communications device inside her isolation suit. "It is very likely that this is patient Zero for the virus that caused the lockdown. It looks like she stowed away on a freighter- but her identification is unknown."

"Do you have a timeline for the infection?" Leo asked, if people were going to start dying then they would need medical aid from Starfleet which would take time to arrive and only medical assigned ships could board or enter the station if that were the case.

"It appears to be spread via airborne droplet- so direct contact has to be had between an infected person and either a surface or another person, though if given time it can aerosolize which allows people to breathe it in. On surfaces, its easy enough to kill- but once it's in a body...I've already sent out decontamination teams to see if we can't slow the spread of the virus on surfaces...but...the virus itself is another matter entirely."

"Are we looking at potential fatalities?" Her answer would determine if he put the call in for medical aid or not but nor so....if how many of the Command Staff had been infected and considering he had just walked into a packed Sickbay, part of him was prepared to be told he had it. "Is there a way we can test for it, we need to know if the Command staff are infected?"

"Yes, and yes there is a simple blood screen. You're not infected- I took the liberty of testing you before I sent you home."

"What about now? All those patients I passed when I walked in?" There were alot of people packed into Sickbay but when she told him about the possibility of potential fatalities, he knew what his next course of action was to be.

"We're managing the best we can commander." she said softly "My quarantine stands- no one in and no one out until we have this under control."

"I'll put a signal to Starfleet for a medical flotilla." It was the only help they could call upon and knowing this would put additional pressure on her when they arrived since she was the locking officer.

The bob of her head was all that indicated that she'd heard him- and a shaky breath from the other side of the comm line told him at least just how her stress level was being managed. She was leaning over the patient when another alarm screamed above her.

Leo looked up to where the alarm came from but from his angle he couldn't make out what the monitors were saying and even if he could, medical situations were not his forte.

The hiss of the cooling sprays sounded, for her temperature was creeping up to dangerous levels again for her species. This was how people would die- in heat and the agony of sores impossible to heal and the rage of the immune system. A hypospray hissed at her throat, trying to bring up her blood pressure, and Talia watched the readings carefully, still bent over her still little body. She was dying- and Talia was fighting a losing battle.

Leo was helpless but to watch the scene unfold before him. He dared not interupt her in case he distracted her because a young girls life was on the line and Talia was clearly doing all she could to save her.

It wasn't enough and while Talia's gaze was elsewhere, the girls body began to shiver. There was the terrible sound of all the air being forced out of the girl's lungs her body jerking violently with the heat. What could only be a curse sounded through the comm link as Talia reached over to turn the girl onto her side. What she wasn't expecting was the sheer tensile strength of the Orion girl.

"Whats happening?" Leo asked as he watched the scene go from bad to worse. He knew he couldn't help, knew others couldn't help because of the isolation unit. All he could do however was hope.

Talias inattention to her patient for that split second caused her to be thrown across the room and impact with a crunch against the wall. Her helmet sparked against the heaviest forcefield sending sparks across the room in a shower of blinding yellow and white.

All Leo could do was watch, the containment she was locked into preventing him from helping in even the smallest degree. "Talia..." He called, his voice filled with worry and fear, more so now that he couldn't directly help. When he didn't get an answer he changed his tactic. ~Talia?~ He whispered. ~Are you alright?~

Silence and darkness was all the response the unconscious Talia could give. It was a long few minutes before Talia came to and moved her head away from the sparking force field. A quiet sound of pain escaped her as she simply lay there, regaining her sense of....self.

Leo was joined by a Nurse who looked on, she had told Leo Talia was ok but the worse was yet to come. The Nurse informed Leo that Talia had lost containment, her suit had ruptured which means until she was free of contamination she was locked in there. Leo asked if there was anything that could be done, another suit, repairs, measures that could be taken but his hopes were shot down one by one as it all fell down to one thing, Talia was now contaminated.

Talia slowly pushed herself off the ground into a sitting position as the room spun around her. "Ouch."

Leo watched as Talia sat. ~Talia....~ He trailed off, asking if she was ok seemed a stupid question, he knew what the situation was, the monitors painfully showed the blood and the cracks causing containment failure.

~Not so loud Leo.~ She whispered back to him, pain heavy in her mind.

Leo didn't think he was that loud, but softened his voice. ~Are you alright?~ The hint of worry and fear ever present as he looked at her through the observation window.

She flapped her hand at him from where she sat as if telling him not to worry.

A small sigh from Leo, but everything else remained as he suspected Talia was unaware of her current situation while she recovered. The worst part was there was nothing Leo could do, all of this because of a young girl and now he wondered what was going to happen to Talia as a result.

Her sigh echoed his as she slowly rose from the floor and walked unsteadily to her patient. The pallor to her skin and the quietness made Talia aware without looking that the girl was dead.

Leo's attention was focused on Talia, not the patient. The worry continued to grow within him, like a pit opening up and swallowing his confidence and replacing it with dead, the maybes, the what might happens, all of which were negative and it played on him.

She turned and looked at him, giving him the first view of the blood trickling from her hairline and the crack in the helmet faceplate. "Stop that Leo. I can't have you filling my head with that. Have faith in my abilities."

Leo fell silent, it was not that he doubted her abilities or her skills, but had doubt in the situation he saw her in. Nobody liked seeing a loved on hurt, but this was different and he was helpless to do anything but stare and hope. He saw the break in the faceplate, the blood lining her features, her brow, knew from his EVA training how annoying that was going to be for her since she couldn't stem or wipe it away.

She moved for the door and seemed surprised when the doors shed programmed refused to allow her exit.

Leo already knew why, if Talia had tried the door she must not have been aware herself. ~It wont open, you have lost containment.~ His voice low, soft and gentle for her.

A curse escaped her lips and she lay her hand on the closed door, bowing her head for a moment. A long breath out and she unfastened the helmet and shimmied out of the esuit. She didnt need it anymore, the damage was done.

He had to fight back the urge to tell her not to remove the helmet, but it was pointless at this stage. With containment lost she was infected to, in an enclosed room he didn't know what they would do to her but if anything could be told by the girls corpse he knew nothing good. The Nurse was already trying to gather anything and everything that Talia could need or potentially want to help her.

She walked to the window where Leo was standing, and she pressed her hand to the plate glass in front of her. ~Do not worry amore. I'll be alright.~

Leo had to smile at that, he did like it when she spoke his language even if she was new to being constantly surrounded by it since they started dating. He put his hand to hers, a silent moment to others yet between them a whole lot more.

The silent sharing of affection between them never faltered as she spoke. "You have to go. Ensure they have the lockdown of the decks affected done properly. I cant let this reach the whole station."

Leo didn't want to, but he understood her reasoning, duty first the population of the station came first. The Nurse would know which decks were effected, then he'd apply a buffer between that and evacuate those decks. I don't want to. He spoke softly. But I understand that I do

~Go be the commander I know and love.~ , her smile was a little strained because of the pain in her head it stretch the skin that was bruised and it hurt.

It was difficult for him to leave, his heart demanded he stay, be with the woman he loved and cared for, be the support and pillar of strength for her but experience and duty told him that this situation was bigger than one woman's life and one mans heart. He nodded, in Italian he told her he loved her, then slipped from view of the window and out the door.