Rescue repair and retire.

Posted on Sun Mar 30th, 2025 @ 12:34am by Lieutenant Acacia Thomas
Edited on on Sun Mar 30th, 2025 @ 12:35am

1,316 words; about a 7 minute read

Mission: Let That Be Your Last
Location: Sickbay
Timeline: Slight backpost

A bottle of water and a cup of peppermint tea instead of long since gone cold sat on the expansive desk that in case you used in her main office. She gravitated towards the tea, taking a long sip of the cold liquid to steady her nerves and her stomach which was still acting up despite having delivered the baby that she'd assumed was the culprit.

Maybe it was stress. Either way she had work to do, and she could not do that with the continual nausea roiling through her belly. She sipped at the peppermint flavored liquid, and wondered if she should add ginger or just replicate a plate of ginger cookies.

Miach grunted as he made his way into sickbay. Morrigan at his heels as the double doors parted and allowed them entrance. He took a deep breath and winced. He walked in and almost stumbled.

"Gods, you are a heavy bastard. I think you broke my ribs." He coughed and a small trickle of green escaped his lips. "Well hell."

"That's a fine thing to say to someone you just met." A young woman in a labcoat with a non-standard medical blue tunic was speaking to him from the doorway of the chief's office.

Miach laughed and groaned "Gods below don't make me laugh." He coughed and a spurt of emerald blood colored his lips and hand. "You were not the one that was addressed to." He motioned behind him where Morrigan padded behind. "She was. I fear I may need your ministrations doctor." He wheezed

The accent he was affecting with charming, and she smiled to hear it. "I didn't figure, think you might be right though. How did that happen?"

He coughed "When the ship got hit we got tossed through the office door. I hit the desk, she hit me." He grunted and stiffened as a shot of pain ran through his body. "It didn't help that I spent the intervening time patching up the wounded as best as I could."

Acacia snorted and gestured to the bed beside him. "Up you get, let me get a good look at you."

Miach coughed again as he wheezed towards the bed. Then groaned like a particularly old man as he lifted himself and fell onto the bed. He gasped as the impact stole his breath away from his ribs grinding together audibly.

"Gods below..." he wheezed "but that stings like a bitch."

"I heard that move even without assistance." she murmerred, queueing up a screen and sighing deeply. Slipping a hand under his neck, she placed a neuro-disruption device and asked quietly "Ready for a painblock?"

He grunted "Aye, you heard it. I feckin felt it. Yes please for the pain block. As it stands the kitten is doing feck all to help."

Morrigan growled audibly~I am doing what I can Prriest. I share the pain you know this.~

Miach turned to look at the shelat who had taken up position against the wall out of the way.

"I know Morrigan, I'm just being sarcastic is all." He replied audibly.

Acacia shuddered visibly as the sehlat growled and it forced a visceral fear response from the woman. "I'm not accustomed to allowing animals in my sickbay." she spoke with a voice that shook, her fingers activating the block and effectively turning off his pain. "Now...i'll put up a privacy screen so you can disrobe."

Miach breathed deeply then snorted "She is far more than an animal. Our relationship is... complicated. She is harmless to the crew."

"Tell that to my adrenals." she muttered under her breath. "Any more noises like that from you and i'll toss you out on your tail." her voice had steadied as she looked at the sehlat, forcing herself to calm down..

Morrigan lay down and emitted a rolling purring sound.

~Oh Prrriest, I like this one. She has firrrre, rrrrreminds me of the wife.~ Morrigan's voice rumbled into Miach's head.

He snorted "Morrigan approves of you. Says you have fire."

"Nature of the beast" the green haired woman grinned down at him, gesturing to the whole of sickbay. "Also being partnered to a Marine tends to make one...stubborn." There was a tone that indicated that might be an understatement.

Miach snorted again "Let me guess you punched your husband in the nose and he fell in love with you?"

Laughing outright she shook her head "No, but I had violet hair then, and lets just say I was memorable."

~It sounds like you need to get him a box of purrrrrple crayons Prrrrriest.~ Morrigan's mental voice echoed down their link. Which made Miach laugh convulsively for a few seconds.

"The cat thinks your husband would prefer a box of purple crayons then?" he asked jokingly.

Chuckling at the long standing joke about Marines liking to eat crayons she shook her head "They'd have to be green, because he's married to the corps."

He coughed and the grating of his ribs could be heard.

"Green I'll keep that in mind." He gasped as the pain was muted but the feeling of ribs rubbing against each other was wrong on a visceral level.

Turning up the amplitude of the nerve blocking agent, she spoke softly "If you aren't still I'm going to have to put you under. If I do that, you're out of commission for at least 24 hours. "

He took a breath, looked over at Morrigan and closed his eyes. He exhaled hot and dry like the last gasp of breeze from a desert tomb. Then a solid granite mask fell over his face as he walled up his emotions. The pain of his body, the emotional pain of being separated from his wife and child, the pain of the mothers and fathers he had tried to help on the other decks. He forced them all into a box as he stipple his fingers in a very Vulan act and nodded.

"Of course doctor. Please proceed." His voice was flat bereft of the jovial joking tones from earlier. "Please, make it expeditious surgery as I'll not be able to keep myself under for long."

She was startled by the change in him, but put her skills to work swiftly enough. She counted down the ribs to the point where she would find the air collection. Pressing the tiny ultrasonic scalpel, she seamlessly passed through the tissue, until the hiss of air answered her.

He gasped softly as the pressure in is thorax lessened with the release of the air. He looked down his nose at the Acacia, not out of haughtiness but instead because he didn't want to move his body while he was under her scalpel.

"Thank you, that did make it easier to breath." he said in short two to three word gasps.

Air then blood rushed from the tube into the stasis holder which sat on the bed. It quickly filled, emptied and refilled. Once his body was out to rights she gently slid a regeneration gel applicator into the tube and squeezed it empty.

He nodded, "I take it everything..." he paused as he breathed "came out alright and you are currently sealing the internal bleeding?"

"Indeed" she deadpanned back to him, mimicking his tone. "I'll have you set to rights momentarily."

He nodded stiffly and deliberately so as not to move his torso and lay there waiting for the procedure to be done.

"Fill your lungs" she said softly, as she withdrew the tube and its contents. A drip of aqua liquid slid down his side, and was used by her to seal the wound shed inflicted on him with the flick of her re generator. "Rest a moment, Commander, before you think to try something else heroic ok?"

With a flick of her pen she placed him on medical leave until he was fit again in her assessment.

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