Post 458: After Impact

Stardate:70926.0330
Title: After Impact
Author: Lt. Grace
Scene: Aboard the USS Alchemy
Time: Following "Anything Known"
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The bridge was dark, and everything was eerily silent around him. But he was alive, that much Salvek knew for certain.

"Computer," he groaned, as he pulled himself out from beneath the pile of fried machinery which had previously been the engineering panel. "Lights."

Nothing happened.

A moment later, he heard scratching and creaking noises behind him, and when he turned to look a single beam of light from a palm beacon shone on his face. He squinted, raised his hand to shield his eyes, and once they had adjusted, recognized Simon Biggs standing there.

"Commander," he offered, handing another beacon to Salvek.

Salvek took the device, switched it on and nodded his thanks. He heard an angry grumble and Klingon curse words coming from beneath the tactical station, and saw Maak sway and stagger to his feet. He tried to bring up power to the systems- any system, and failed.

"We won't be going anywhere for awhile." Maak concluded. He snarled in frustration and pounded the console in protest. It faintly blinked on for an instant as if to taunt him, then browned out again.

Salvek began looking around beneath the other scattered and charred components which lay strewn around them from the force of the emergency landing.

"Lt. Grace, where are you?" Salvek became concerned, looking for the woman who had, somehow, saved at least the bridge crew from dying with her skills.

Biggs tried next, raising his voice. "Fe-bru-ar-y!"

"Here. . ." February replied, shaking her head in a vain attempt to stop the ringing within. She'd been thrown clear of the helm and was laying on the floor beneath the communications station.

"Don't try to move, I'll be right there," Simon instructed, and he pulled a med-kit from its location fastened to the wall and headed toward her, tricorder drawn.

Maak helped him pull Bru out from beneath the station, and leaned her up against the wall as Simon used his field medic training to check her over.

She had a large, swelling bruise that ran along the side of her face, but aside from that she seemed unharmed. "No broken bones," Simon was happy to report, "or internal injuries, or damage to your symbiont-"

"Reece!" February cried out suddenly. As soon as she heard the word symbiont, she came out of her fog and realized who was missing. "Where is Reece?"

The rest had momentarily forgotten about the man who had warned them, in no uncertain terms, that they might end up in this very situation if they didn't see to the sensor situation.

"Shine your light this way, Biggs," Salvek commanded, as he and Maak began hurrying to rifle through all the unchecked rubble around them.

They found Reece laying beneath the jagged fragments of his own station. Upon hearing February call his name, the Trill stirred and remembered what had happened. "Sometimes," he moaned, "I really hate being right."

"He's injured," Simon announced grimly, getting a first look at Reece. "We need to move him."

Hearing this, February found the strength to rise from the deck and she and each of the men around her grabbed one of Reece's limbs and pulled, freeing him. He gasped in pain, and February reached out to hold up his head as the others set him down on the deck and Simon ran the tricorder over him.

"The science station landed on me?" Reece observed, frowning between shallow breaths. "That's just insult to injury. Damn rude, if you ask me."

"Don't talk, Reece, hold still." Simon instructed as he scanned Dabin with the tricorder. Then he reached into the med kit, took a hypo from it and injected it into Reece. "Goodnight."

February, who was staring in disbelief at the abrasions on Dabin's arms, began to tremble with fear as he went completely limp; the hypo taking effect and knocking him out.

"Dabin!" she shrieked, and Simon put a strong hand on her arm. "Bru, I need to examine him more carefully, but I need more light. Can you help me? Find as many palm beacons as you can and gather them up." Biggs asked, trying to distract her. She nodded, and wordlessly began searching all over for more emergency supply kits.

Salvek addressed Biggs once Grace was out of earshot. "How bad is it?"

"Bad enough. He'll be all right, if he gets proper treatment. I'm going to need a hell of a lot more to work with than this." He held up the med-kit helplessly. "I need to get him to Sickbay, or what passes for the Sickbay on this thing. I'm only a medic, do we have an EMH?"

"If we can get it online. I need to find," Salvek's voice broke momentarily, "My wife. I will need her help to restore power."

"You'll have to use the ladders in the turbolift shaft to try to get to her," Maak responded. "Shall I go with you?"

"No," Salvek replied. "We need to know right away what is going on outside the ship. Put on an environmental suit, and go outside to take a look around. Do not wander far."

Maak nodded, and set about carrying out Salvek's orders.

"Stay with Reece and Grace until I return." The Vulcan further instructed Biggs.

"Hurry, Commander." Simon urged.

Salvek used his superior strength to pry open the turbolift doors with relative ease, and he and his beacon of light disappeared down the shaft as he began the descent toward Engineering.

February returned to Biggs with three more beacons and shone them all down onto Reece. "This is all I can find, is it enough?"

"Thank you. Set them up around me, and then," he was about to tell February to hold Reece's hand, but both were pretty banged up, and so stopped short of doing so. "Stay close to him, he'll want to know you're there when he comes around."

She sat back down on the deck and laid Reece's head in her lap, brushing his hair back gently. *You're going to be fine,* she thought to him. *Just fine.*

Simon held a dermal regenerator over Reece's arm, and hoped that Salvek would return soon.

Maak made quick work of donning an environmental suit, and made his way out the airlock in the corridor of the deck above the bridge. He was not prepared for what he saw when he analyzed their surroundings.

The thing that struck him first was how bright it was here. He took out his tricorder and analyzed the readings. This was no moon. This was a tiny class L planet. Habitable, even if only just barely so.

As far as the eye could see, all he could make out was the bright light, reflecting back at him from the seemingly endless banks of snow that covered the surface like a thick, frozen blanket.

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Lt. February Grace
Helm/Flight Controller
USS Independence/USS Alchemy
(Crashed on the snowy wastelands of Yensul V)

NRPG: And I hate to tell you this, but I don't think we're alone on this planet, either. ~FG