The End of the Beginning Day 2

Posted on Sun Jan 2nd, 2022 @ 5:27pm by Game Master
Edited on on Fri Jul 5th, 2024 @ 4:16pm

2,670 words; about a 13 minute read

Mission: Interdimensional Archives
Location: Federation Space (hostile territory)
Timeline: Day 2

Day 2

Talrian woke, his body slick with sweat. It soaked through his clothing and the blankets wrapped tightly around him. His leg felt stiff but also pulsed with pain and waves of heat. He tried to look at it, afraid of what he might see - who knew what kind of infections he might have picked up on the station. But the view of his leg, and most of his body, was blocked by the thick coverings wrapped around him like a thick cocoon.

After a brief tossle he was able to throw the blankets aside, against the bulkhead wall that made up one side of the rack on which he slept. He stared down at his left leg, grimacing as it seemed the pulsing waves of pain intensified. He’d been stripped of his armor but redressed in a pair of regular uniform trousers. His feet were clad in standard issue socks and, by the feel, a double pair. Fragments of metal were strapped to either side of his leg, forming a crude but effective splint. He wasn’t sure but he felt that his foot and ankle had been twisted to where they shouldn't have been, after the incident on the station where the railing that blocked his freefall onto several decks below twisted it out of alignment.

He’d been dressed, his hands in a pair of gloves. The double pair of socks, uniform, double blanket cocoon and gloves all contributed to making him warmer then he might have been elsewise. He could tell, through the way he was starting to feel chilled as the air around him soaked into his sweat stained clothing.

Scooting slowly, clenching his teeth to keep from crying out as he dragged his leg, he tried to move into a sitting position. Despite designers and builders best effort, the sleeping racks on the shrike class ships were still made for the average soldier’s height of six foot, meaning it was shorter than his six foot four inch frame - and that of each of his teammates he realized only now that he was thinking about the dimensions. Normally it wasn’t that much of a problem, but with his leg splinted the way it was, he was unable to bend to fit comfortable inside the space.

Achieving his goal, he sat for a moment, trying to catch his breath while he looked around the crew area of the ship. The rack on the other side of the space showed signs of use while the top two - which would have contained the rest of his team had they survived their mission - were emptied of all but the thin cushions that were supposed to serve as a mattress.

The shrike class ships were never designed with any luxurious intent, being completely serviceable warcraft. More space was dedicated to weapon systems and engines than crew comfort. The middle of the room was taken up by a small table with a bench on either side that would, nominally, accommodate the maximum four crew. A bathroom with a waste elimination system and simple shower head was situated at the end of the quarters area, in between two narrow passages that led to the weapons locker area, including the torpedo launchers.

Physical armaments were short supply on this craft, designed for maneuverability, stealth and defense more than as an offensive ship. The phaser systems were powerful enough and, though a small craft, it was still capable of maintaining a cruising speed of warp five for up to twelve hours before it required a rest period.

When the systems were working that was. He recalled they were too close to the station when he had to initiate the explosives placed around the data and power cores, a desperate attempt to make sure they completed their mission before they were destroyed by Federation troops.
After that, and when the ship was thrown out of the brief warp transit it managed, they discovered the ship’s engines were damaged, limiting them to impulse drives only and even then the fuel supply was damaged. Without careful conservation of the fuel supplies that remained, they would run out of fuel in a matter of days, a week at the most. When that happened, they had maybe a day left of life support then the ship would be completely dead.

If they weren’t able to find rescue by then, they would suffer the same fate. It was after he programmed the computer to initiate a databurst with the information they took from the station. That communication was sent to be directed through subspace systems to the nearest Systems Alliance listening station, and then directed back to Command. The information they obtained was worth more than their two lives in how many lives would be saved by the SA in knowing about and then destroying the other stations already coming online near key areas of SA military operations.

He shifted position trying to figure out how he could get out of the bed without too much pain.

“Captain,” Corvus said as he entered back into the crew quarters from the cockpit. The younger man immediately moved across the area, moving around the table and bench that limited walking space to maybe a foot wide and helped Talrian to the bench. “You don’t look so well.”

“Feel like shit,” Talrian answered the young man. “But still better than I will in a week or so.”

Corvus’s response to the lame attempt at a joke was just to clench his jaw and move to the end of the rack and sit down. He explained he needed to check Talrian’s wounds and then he’d administer another dose of the pain medication. Talrian nodded, already resolving he’d forego the strong pain medication. The narcotic nature of it would put him to sleep again and he didn’t want that. Not yet. Not after how long he noticed he’d been asleep already.

Corvus was gentle in attempting to remove the socks but no matter how slowly and gently he worked, Talrian still gritted his teeth and shut his eyes to avoid crying out as the smallest tugs and movements sent fresh, vomit inducing waves of pain through his system. He felt the last of the sock come off and opened his eyes, wishing he hadn’t.

Corvus looked as grim as Talrian felt as he ran the medical diagnostic tool over Talrian’s foot and leg. While Corvus wasn’t going to undo the splint and expose his leg for a visual inspection, Talrian didn’t think the young sergeant needed to do so. His foot was a nebula of greens, deep purples bordering on black and enflamed red. Already his two smaller toes appeared blackened.
He shook his head. He didn’t have the same combat medic training he’d made sure Corvus got but even he knew the appearance of his foot was bad. Corvus just stared at him for several long moments when Talrian asked for a prognosis. Then, as if he were being forced, he spoke softly and slowly. “I tried to reset the ankle joint because the blood supply seemed completely cut off. Either there’s some other problem or I didn’t do a good enough job. The blood supply to your foot is still weakened. Your tibia and fibula are broken in several places and your femur is fractured.”

“Okay,” Talrian said, amazed he’d been able to make it this far with such extensive damage.

“The ACL and PCL are both torn.” Corvus paused as he put his diagnostic equipment back in the bag on the table. “Blood flow to most of your leg is compromised and if it can’t be restored soon, the leg below the knee will die. At that point…”

He trailed off and refused to look at Talrian. “You’ll be forced to perform a field amputation won’t you?” Talrian finished the younger man’s unfinished thought.

Corvus nodded then shook his head. “I’m sorry, Captain.”

Talrian sighed as he tried not to give into the immediate reaction that threatened to break free. If it came to that, even with the SA’s advanced limb regeneration capability, it would still mean Talrian’s military career would be over. He’d be forced out on ‘disability retirement’ and then ‘rehabilitated’ to some civilian job some bureaucratic weenie determined was the best fit for his skills and capabilities. From what he knew of the rehabilitation services it was always some soul-deadening, purposeless ‘career’ that he was supposed to be grateful to have. Even worse, the closest he had to a friend in this universe was the young man sitting with him. He’d be forced into having association with other ‘disabled’ and ‘rehabilitated’ former service members. Many of whom were bitter at best and the walking dead at worst.

“I’m going to do what I can to prevent that, but there's not much I can do. If the engines were working right, we’d be back on a station or at the very least a starship with a fully equipped medical bay. They’d have you back up and on your feet in no time.”

Talrian let out the breath he’d been holding. “We’re not done yet,” he said, wondering why he was trying to console the sergeant. It was his life that was ending. The thought that it would be better if he weren’t discovered on the ship until long after the life support system failed crossed his mind. If it weren’t for Corvus, that would be his plan of action. When his leg was caught in the railing, preventing him from falling to his death like the Federation trooper he’d been fighting with, he thought it was almost a miracle. He could live with the pain if it meant he would continue living. But now…

“You hungry?” Corvus asked, a desperate attempt to change the subject and mood settling on them.

Talrian realized he was and said so. Corvus nodded and stood, almost excited to focus on something other than how injured Talrian was. He spent a few minutes in the armory where crews that were forced to use the shrike class ships for more than a few days at a time invariably set up cooking stations. When he returned, he carried several covered dishes on a tray with a pitcher and several glasses. He served out the bowls between them then poured cold tea into glasses for each. “I only had ration packs to work with, but Erick always brought tea with him, so we have that at least.”

Talrian noticed that, as several times before, Corvus managed to turn the standard ration packs into something that resembled edible meals. “How did you get ice for the tea?” Talrian asked, draining his first glass in one go despite the chilled nature of the liquid.

Corvus shrugged. “Cobbled together a sort of airlock around a patch of damage. Let the cold of space freeze a packet of water.”

Talrian smiled at the ingenuity. It was something he discovered when he first enlisted in the
Federation Marine Corps in their own universe. Despite his vast education he was, at first, ‘forced’ to serve with those who would never pass Starfleet entrance exams. Many of his fellow boots and enlisted personnel came from outer colonies or societies that didn’t allow for the free pursuit of education and intellectual goals. Where they may have lacked in the ability to debate intergalactic politics or the advanced mathematics that was the core of warp field theory, they made up for it in the ability to survive in isolated wilderness and a definite genius ability to take the ration packs and, using their hunting or foraging skills, make them desirable and palatable rather than just serviceable nutrition packs. The same seemed to be true of this universe in which they were stuck after the Atlantic abandoned them.

The meal Sergeant Corvus served them would never be listed on the menu of a fine dining establishment, it was tasty and filling which is what mattered more to soldiers in the field.

“What’s our situation otherwise?” Talrian asked after, by his insistence, Corvus brought out several tubs and was helping to clean the dishes. With just the two of them, they had enough room on the table to set them aside to completely dry before Corvus would stow them away back in cubbies in the armory. Talrian wondered if the builders of the shrike ever discovered the non-authorized uses to which crews turned areas of shrikes into and if they had intentionally designed the areas in such a way to facilitate these ‘stolen luxuries’.

“Passive scans say we’ve not been discovered. Not even a patrol as far out as I can stretch the sensors. But we’re more than thirty light years from Alliance space.”

“Which makes it twenty light years before we can even hope to be discovered by an Alliance ship,” Talrian sighed. Using impulse engines, which were sublight speeds, that would take twenty years or longer to reach. It was too much to expect any Alliance starship captain to blindly infiltrate Federation space to attempt to discover them and initiate a rescue. As he’d stated before, using the communication system would allow Federation ships to pinpoint their location before they could be discovered and rescued by their own forces. Which left them dependent on the hope for a miracle. Which is why the last act they would take was to make sure the information they obtained would be sent to the Alliance.

He’d hoped that discussing their situation would reveal it wasn’t as hopeless as he feared, but it proved to be the opposite.

After Corvus returned from stowing away their dishes, he pulled out a deck of cards and sat opposite Talrian. “I recall, some time ago, you stated if you ever got the time for it, you’d teach me to play plygiah.” Corvus shrugged as he took the cards out of the case. “I think this qualifies.”

Talrian chuckled in spite of himself then took the cards and prepared to deal out the intricate game. “We’ll need something to use as wagering devices,” he said looking around the room, “and don’t come crying to me when I send you back to the mudflat farm you called home in massive debt.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” Corvus said with a smile. While it was true he was raised on a farm, it was more a family farm and operated mostly by hired help. His father may have just been a law enforcement officer, but his mother was a full professor at the university and neither were particularly suited to farming. Corvus learned what he could from the farmhands but never truly expected to run the farm until after he was able to retire from Starfleet. A dream that ended when the Atlantic on which he and Talrian served was pulled into this mixed up universe. Here his family were never part of the colony settlers that left Earth. His parents were in the same employment positions, but lived in a suburban home on the outskirts of Denver and, from as much as he could tell, only had the two children. In this universe, Jeremy Corvus didn’t exist until six years prior. “I might have to remind you to be wary of farmboys, after all, according to Campbell it really is the basis for the hero’s journey.”

“Somebody’s been going through their suggested reading list,” Talrian said, rolling his eyes at the SA Command’s out of touch suggestions to ‘improve esprit d’corps’. Especially how Terran-centric the suggestions were. He began to deal, explaining the formation of the basic hands of the game.

 

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