What comes in three's...

Posted on Thu Jul 18th, 2019 @ 4:00pm by Lieutenant Asa Dael & Ensign John Carrott
Edited on on Mon Jul 22nd, 2019 @ 9:09am

Mission: Mudd on the Souls of Mankind
Location: Sickbay
Timeline: Tribunal - INTERMISSION during the Operatic Space Battle

Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick.

“Why did I ever think an old fashioned grandfather clock would look good in here….” Asa grumbled to themself.

The sound announcing the passing of each second had transformed from a once-reassuring beat to a grating reminder of the passage of time. The young doctor took a calming breath, timing each inhale and exhale to last seven seconds.

Clocks are not what you are upset about, Asa. Come on, use all those counseling skills you learned and fix your dang self. You know what’s wrong. Quit being a superstitious fool and get on with it. they chided themself.

Of course things were never as simple as that. If self-recrimination was an effective disaster preparedness tool, no one on the Hera would ever be in danger again. The propensity towards self-doubt was something the young doctor shared with Mnhei’sahe Dox, their closest friend, and they couldn’t help but wonder what “Min” (as Asa called her) would think of the anxious situation in which Dael found themself.

Almost as if involuntarily, Asa sat down and began to muse on the horrible day that had kick-started this feeling of dread they carried every day now. After all, like Nana Yi’hawn always said….some things come in threes……….

SOME MONTHS PRIOR


The red alert klaxons were screaming, a sound which matched the overall tone currently in Sickbay. Over the course of Captain Telvan's tribunal her treacherous mother had launched an attack on the proceedings after evidence of her ill-doings had been presented, and the assembly had broken off into armed combat. Once transporters were able to be used the Hera had beamed all injured parties to Sick Bay, regardless of affiliation, and the chaos had continued.

Bleeding combatants tried to resume killing one another while bewildered nurses and medical staff did what they could to keep things under control until Security finally arrived. The security personnel acted quickly and efficiently to secure each person to a biobed, stunning when necessary, and putting everyone not of Starfleet in a confinement field.

Beaming in, Asa turned and called to Carrott, "What do we have?"

The red headed man turned and said quickly, "37 people with class C injuries, 14 with class B, and 4 with Class A priority. The EMH is working on the most urgent now, but the joined Trill in biobed 17 was injured along the joining canal and both are bleeding profusely. We have done what we can to stop it, but they need surgery immediately."

"Understood, on my way," Asa said, thankful that the direct beam in to Sickbay had already served as pre-surgical sanitation.

Three steps away from a biobed with a large trill man wearing Artan regalia, Asa's steps stuttered as the ship shuttered from weapons fire. Getting back up, Asa was horrified to see the trill man fall off the bed with a grunt. He tried to right himself, producing a gush of blood over the cloth on his abdomen; as Asa rushed over the man fell to the ground with a sickening thud.

"Someone help me get him up!" Asa called out, grabbing the nearest Security officer and directing her how to lift the patient back on to the biobed.

Carrott was close behind and was bringing over surgical instruments, standing for a moment watching them read the medical records before proffering the laser scalpel he knew would be requested.

After taking the scalpel, Asa quickly removed the man’s shirt and did a quick sanitation of the soon-to-be surgical area. They made an incision along his upper abdomen and quickly set about with an examination of the joining canal. The blood was obviously coming from this area as the man’s stomach and intestines all showed evidence of perforation, and the crucial artery leading to the symbiont was bleeding profusely.

“We don’t have much time, tissue regenerator,” Asa said, turning to find Carrott retrieving it from the tray of instruments he brought over. Carrott’s usually genial face looked gray, overwhelmed at the sudden carnage that had invaded the usually calm confines of Sickbay.

“Carrott, I’m going to need you to get in here with me, ok buddy?” Asa asked, trying for a weak smile to encourage the sometimes flustered nurse.

“Um, ok, right, yes,” Carrott stammered in assent, moving to sterilize his hands quickly and taking the opposite side of the biobed.

Asa had begun healing what they could of the joining artery, but the blood loss was quite intense. “I need you to run a line of trill type Zed Alpha blood directly into the symbiont, Carrott. We don’t have time for it to filter through the host,” they said in a calm but efficient manner.

And I don’t know how long the host will be alive Asa thought ruefully.

Carrott took a deep breath and walked to the replicator to get the needed blood, shaking his hands and arms in the manner he often did when he was trying to “shake off” any negative thoughts. The young nurse was obviously as concerned as Asa was, but doing everything he could to keep his fear in check. After he had started the IV, he looked to see was still operating on the symbiont only.

“The host, Doctor! What about the host?” he said in a rushed manner.

“The host has multiple ruined arteries, a perforated stomach that has leaked poison into the bowels and bloodstream, and lungs that are shredded from what may have been flying shrapnel. His entire bloodstream is toxic, and the brain wave pattern matching his cerebral nuclei is no longer active. The host is dead, Carrott, the body just doesn’t know it yet. Anything I do to save the host will tax the symbiont and likely cause both of them to die…..If I got to him 10 minutes sooner, things might have been different, but it’s too late now. We need to stabilize the symbiont and arrange for a symbiont-compatible stasis pod immediately. I’ll work here, I need you to go find one right now. There should be the specifications programmed into the replicator.”

Asa’s tone was clipped in a way not like their usual affable nature, speaking of the urgency of the need, and a hint of the sorrow at the loss of life. Seeing Carrott had not moved and was staring at the ruined body of the trill man with trembling hands, they spoke again, but this time in softer tones.

“I know it’s a terrible loss, and it is against our natural reaction to have to sacrifice one life to save another, but this life is lost anyway, John. He would want us to save his symbiont, and we have a duty to save what life we can. We can mourn later, but right now I need you to focus, ok? You can do this John, I promise.”

Shaken from his reverie, Carrott ran off to the replicator to procure a stasis chamber for the symbiont. With a nod to themself, Asa set about performing the surgery to remove the symbiont. One they had only seen done in Starfleet academy and never dreamed of performing. It was pointless to wish the EMH was doing this, but Asa found those thoughts running through their head.

Carrott returned, hands still shaky but with less trembling. As he handed over the receptacle he said, trepidation in his voice, “We are sealing the hosts’ fate if we do this doc. Are…..are you sure?”

With a sigh, Asa accepted the receptacle and said, “Yeah….I am. He’s already gone, John. But after I remove the symbiont, I would like you to stay with him and keep him comfortable until he passes. It…it won’t take long. I would do so myself, but I don’t have the luxury of time today. I’m sorry, I truly am.”

Tears filling his eyes, Carrott simply nodded his understanding and drew a seat to sit vigil over the Artan officer. Asa worked quickly and efficiently, healing the tissues in the symbiont before completing the extraction and placing them securely in a transport vessel until they could be returned to the Trill symbiosis commission. Asa closed the open wound in the dying Trill, trying to allow him whatever dignity could still be found in his death. Assuring he had adequate pain medication to not feel anything as he passed, Asa patted Carrott on the shoulder and began moving on to the next patient.

En route to the next Class A patient, Asa saw one of the biobeds housing a Class B injured human begin flashing “Severe Radiation Warning”. Rushing over, Asa immediately drew a radiation-shielding field around the treatment area and began scanning.

Noticing a smug smile on the grizzled woman’s face, Asa shouted, “What did you do? You weren’t radioactive when we beamed you aboard!”

Answered only with silence, Asa scanned with their tricorder and snarled in frustration when they found the cause of the sudden increase in radiation- a small pebble of uranium had been encased in lead and attached to housing unit containing a lead-dissolving syringe contained in a breast implant in the woman’s chest. The unit had been triggered apparently by the woman pressing a concealed button on her Artan regalia that sent a signal to the housing unit. The lead dissolved revealing a graphite coating that increased the reactivity of the uranium as it fused, increasing the woman’s body temperature to dangerous level and leaking deadly radiation to everyone in Sickbay.

“Like hell,” was all Asa said as they quickly donned protective gloves and made a quick incision in the woman’s chest. Withdrawing the uranium ball of grief, Asa ran to the matter reclamater and quickly had the uranium removed from Sickbay. On the way back to the patient, Asa called to the Sickbay staff, “Radiation scans on all patients, stat. We just had one trigger a device that could have killed us all. Check on any implants and report to me immediately.”


The flurry of activity in Sickbay increased as all staff members began frantically scanning patients. The EMH signaled understanding and continued on the surgery he was working on. Thankfully no other patients had brought aboard a Chernobyl surprise, but a homing device was detected by a security officer scanning a Class C patient’s boot. The stalwart security staff waived Asa down, who confirmed the patient had stable enough vitals to answer a few questions.

The patient was a leering old human man, about 180cm in height with dirty blonde hair mixed in with a ruddy gray. He was sporting a smile featuring ugly, yellow teeth that were consistent with addiction to several illicit substances, and a pock marked face speaking to fighting injuries never healed. The laugh he was failing to conceal sounded as nasty as he himself looked, and Asa had no doubt he had some wickedness in mind.

Leaning over to complete their scan, they asked the man, “What is so funny? You don’t seem to be in a position to make one laugh….”

The man tapped the side of his nose and said, “Oh, no worse position than you are in really. None of us will live to see tomorrow.”

Arching an eyebrow, Asa inquired, “Really? And why is that?”

“Oh, could be any number of things,” he said, trying to act innocent. “The Queen will likely blow you all out of the sky any moment now.”

“You seem less certain of that than you do our impending death. Tell me, what you have done!” Asa boomed.

“Me? Why, nothing,” he replied.

“What does the tracker in your shoe do then?” Asa asked, irritation growing with each exchange.

“It tracks me,” was the smug response.

Patience evaporated, Asa drew up a chair and sat down, leaning in close and getting close to the mans face.

“Sir, I don’t know what series of choices led you here. I don’t know why death looks like such an appealing option to you. It doesn’t look that way to me, or to the adults and children of so many peoples aboard this ship. Children, man! Would you let children and infants die because your Queen is pissed off at her daughter? You would murder infants to serve a political agenda? Come on, you must be better than that….” Their voice was earnest, heartfelt, and a bit manic. Security was circling the doctor, ready to take over questioning in an instant, but as long as the man was in Sickbay, he was Asa’s purview.

“Ch…children? Infants?” he squeaked, sounding startled. “No…no one told me there were families aboard. I….I thought it was just you ‘fleeters. I don’t want to be part of killing no children. That’s not me, ‘Ol Matt wouldn’t do that, no I wouldn’t.”

Gathering steam and resolve, ‘Ol Matt continued, “The tracker in my shoe is for a series of explosive devices that are following this ship through the Nebula. Once they catch up, the Queen can trigger them from her vessel. There’s enough charge in those bastards to blow seven starships to kingdom come. I don’t know what you can do about it, but here, take this,” he said, handing over a small data stick, “It’s everything I know. I….borrowed…..the schematics a while back when I agreed to become a human tracking device.”

“Thank you,” Asa said, voice full of relief. Handing over the data stick to security, Asa typed a message into the bridge crew alerting them of the trailing devices and continued on to the next Class A patient.

The patient’s body was hard to recognize at first as that of Ensign Caroline Damodred. The young human woman had joined the Hera about 3 months prior, fresh from the Academy and excited to join the engineering crew. Now she was covered in severe plasma burns, shards of shattered console cover, and bleeding gashes inflicted when a console in Engineering erupted after a particularly nasty shot to the Hera. Nurse Almera was slowly removing Caroline’s ruined clothing, wincing as each piece of fabric pulled at her skin, causing her blood pressure to spike in response to the pain. Damodred had tried to call out her agony, but her mouth was a ruin of melted flesh and missing teeth, making speech impossible.

“Easy Eve, I’ve got her,” Asa said, placing a hand on Nurse Almera’s shaking shoulder. Ensign Eve Almera was gray of hair and steady of mind and hand, but the ever-present, ever-calm fixture of multiple starships was shaking slightly as she tried unsuccessfully to hide the tears forming in her eyes.

With a suppressed gulp of empathy and worry, Almera stood aside, handing over the tissue knitter to Asa. “I….I tried Doctor. I….I did my best.”

“I know you did,” Asa said, suppressing a shudder of their own as they took in Damodred’s vitals. “She would already be dead if it weren’t for you. Go grab yourself a glass of water, ok? Take five minutes and then I want you helping with the Class C cases, ok?”

Without waiting for the “Aye” in response, Asa set about trying to complete the debris extraction. They spared a reassuring smile for Almera as she left, and waived down Nurse Vines as she finished closing the patient she had been working on with the EMH.

“I need her over here,” Dael called to the EMH as he was on his way to the other remaining Class A patient. He nodded understanding and continued on his way.

“OK Caroline, I’m going to try and ease your pain to start, then we are going to complete extracting this debris from your skin. I know you can’t talk right now, so blink twice if you need me to stop. If you need my attention, blink three times. Can you blink three times to show me you understood?”

Caroline Damodred showed her courage, clear eyes blinking three times in understanding. Small piteous whimpers escaped her as Asa slowly, painfully removed the tattered remains of first one sleeve, then another. Her shirt peeled off largely without incident, and Asa was disinfecting as they went, doing a preliminary round 1 of tissue regeneration, knowing that doing too much at once on injuries of this nature would cause the patient to go into shock and possibly perish.

Vimes was applying soothing, healing balm as Asa moved on to removing the pants from Damodred’s legs. There was a large piece of glass sticking out near the femoral artery that would need to be addressed first, and Asa prepared to remove it.

“Caroline, I’m doing all I can for your pain levels. I know they must be intense, but I have to also make sure your blood pressure and heart rate do not fall too much. I’m about to remove a large, foreign body from near your femoral artery. I know it’s hard, but if you can avoid it, I need you to not move,” Asa said in a steady, calm tone.

Thank the heavens for ‘doctor voice’. Making patients feel confident even when we aren’t since the first doctor used it. Asa mused internally, trying to project confidence and competence when all they wanted to do was run and hide.

Caroline blinked three times, indicating she understood and was ready. In one fluid motion, Asa withdrew the glass shard and healed the bleeding artery before too much blood could be lost. Even so, Caroline’s skin would have been pale if it had not been burned from losing a near fatal amount of blood.

“I need IV blood and fluids, stat,” Asa called to Vimes, knowing she would move quickly to fill the order. “And hook up the nanobot scrubbers to remove debris and foreign bodies from her blood stream too please, can’t be too careful.”


Asa looked at Caroline, horrified to see her blinking twice, then pausing, then blinking twice again. Over and over. She was screaming STOP and Asa hadn’t even noticed.

“Oh gods, Caroline, I’m so sorry. We have stopped what we can, but I need you to let Nurse Vimes start this IV.”

After receiving three blinks to indicate understanding, Vimes began gingerly starting the IV line. At first all seemed to be going well. Damodred’s blood pressure was stabilizing, her body temperature was high but not increasing, and her breathing was normalizing. The nanobot scrubbers were removing internal debris from her bloodstream and Asa was slowly working with a tissue knitter to abrade and clean Caroline’s wrecked skin when the alarms above the biobed all began flashing and the patient began wildly thrashing.

“Shit!” Asa exclaimed, rushing to deliver an anti-convulsant and sedative to stop Caroline from moving any further and exacerbating her wounds. Frantically reading the PaDD sending info from the nanobots, Asa quickly understood the cause. The burst of radiation from the failed terrorist Asa intercepted was not enough to injure a healthy person…..but it was just enough to cause weakening of the arterial walls and arterial adventitia’s in an already wounded and bleeding (and therefore more exposed) Damodred.

The nanobots, not being programmed to adapt to radiation damage, had operated at full strength and in the process of extricating micro-debris had completely punctured the veins of Caroline’s femoral and carotid arteries in hundreds of places, causing a sudden and dramatic increase in internal bleeding. Meanwhile, Damodred’s adventitia was no longer able to secure any of her veins to their connective tissues, causing muscle spasms and shutting down her immune system while sending her blood pressure to spike and fall erratically.

“I need mediatic trigenerated stem cells stat!,” Asa began calling out orders, sensing the bustle of their staff rushing to help. Looking over their shoulder, Asa spotted the EMH and said, “Doctor, radiation remediation on all patients, starting with class A, pass the word to everyone please.”

Meanwhile Caroline had begun to vomit and Nurse Vimes reacted quickly, turned her to her side to help her avoid choking. Unfortunately the movement involved touching her plasma burned skin and Damodred let out a scream of pain in response. With no time left for the slow pace Asa would have preferred, the doctor moved to inject the stem cells that Carrott had reappeared to proffer. The young officer looked grim, clearly his time waiting for the Trill man to die had worn on him, but his face also held a resolve to do all he could for everyone he served.

“Carrott, Vimes- this is going to be ugly. I have to inject her directly in each affected artery, starting with the carotid. Hold her still.” Receiving nods of understanding, Asa continued, sliding the needle into Caroline’s bleeding neck. Bracing for the worst, Dael deployed the stem cells, holding their breath waiting for them to work.

The horrid beeping above the biobed increased in frequency as Damodred’s blood tried to process both the stem cell infusion and to flush out the now-defunct and disarmed nanobots. The pain relief and sedatives were no longer having any effect and only Carrott’s considerable strength was holding the still-vomiting woman to the biobed. Even during the tumult, Dael had continued working with tissue knitter, tricorder and a bevy of other tools, switching between them as fast as they could while being careful to avoid any further damage. Vimes was keeping the IV’s filled with replacement blood and fluids, trying to keep the young officer from bleeding out internally while the doctor worked.

Unfortunately, there are times when even 24th Century medicine is lacking. It was at precisely 23:48 and 18 seconds that Ensign Caroline Damodred, beloved daughter, rising engineer, soccer player, friend, and one-time spelling bee champion shuddered one last time, let forth a horrible gurgle, and died.

Hands shaking, Asa stood over their former patient. It was too much. The entire day had been too much. Now…a promising young life cut short because of the idiocy of the greedy and vindictive. Feeling like a complete failure, Asa collapsed in a nearby chair and rested head in hands, waiting for the shaking to stop.

There is no time for this, Dael. Get up. Quit being an idiot and lead these people the nasty voice in their mind screamed at them. After taking a deep breath, the doctor began to rise when a pale and worried Nurse Vimes pulled up the nearby chair and drew a privacy panel across the area, concealing both Asa’s shaking form and Damodred’s now still one.

Vimes reached out, gently raising Asa’s chin to force them to make eye contact and then clasping their combined hands together tightly.

“Doc….Asa….sweetheart….Well, I’m going to take a chance at insubordination and just talk to you, person to person right now,” she began.

Seeing no protest at her words, the nurse continued, “Sweetheart, you did all you could. That poor girl didn’t have much of a chance to start with. You did everything you could. And we are going to take the time to mourn her. You and I together. We are going to mourn properly. But Asa, we gotta keep going right now. So here’s what we are going to do. We are going to count to 10 – aloud- together. Then we are going to give each other a hug, then drop this privacy screen and I am going to help Caroline find somewhere to rest until her final arrangements can be made, and you are going to do what you do best- get out there and help people. Fair?”

Her voice had the melodious yet firm quality of a good teacher, or perhaps a mother. It sparked something inside Asa’s memories of maternal authority, spurring them to follow her suggestions. Nodding to show they understood, Asa began the count.

“1…..2……,” the pair intoned together. Upon reaching 10 they both stood and embraced. Although Asa knew Vimes was correct, there was a Sickbay full of people needing help, they indulged in letting the hug linger a few extra seconds. Taking a deep breath, Dael put their “doctor face” back on, dropped the privacy screen and got back to work.

It took another 16 hours of continuous work to treat all the waiting patients, and a stream of injured crew continued to flow in for an hour or so after the last blow in the space battle was delivered. Fortunately none had injuries near as severe as the ones Asa had already treated that day and all were eventually released, whole and healed in body. Nonetheless, Asa could not shake the feeling that the final bell had not rung on this bout of calamities.

PRESENT DAY

Snapping back from melancholic reverie, Asa was surprised to see only a few minutes had passed. Some days Asa found hours could pass before they “snapped out of it”. Ever since that night they had a feeling of waiting for the other shoe to drop. They knew something horrible was coming, but not how to stop it.

Of course, if one is looking for bad news, one only ever has to wait so long before one is bound to receive it.

Ensign Carrott came rushing through the door to Asa’s office, his bright face redder than usual and he was panting as if he had been doing heavy labor.

“John….why are you here? Weren’t you off an hour ago? Is everything ok?” Asa said in alarm, moving to cross their office in a few steps and join Carrott in Sickbay proper.

“Huh? What?” Carrott said, taking a moment for his brain to catch up to the conversation, “Oh, right. No, it’s not me, it’s Nichole from next door. We heard a bang and came running, but she was passed out of the floor…..face down.”

He said the last with a note of finality and concern. Petty Officer Nichole Rua was one week away from her due date, and the usually plump human was now about to pop. Her laying on her stomach would not have been comfortable, and with any fall carried a risk of harm to the baby.

The petty officer was unconscious on a biobed, her heartrate low and a small trickle of blood coming out of her nose. Carrott’s breathing was returning to normal as he continued, “Anyway….well, I carried her here as fast as I could. Want me to call up the people on her birthing plan?”

With a small smile at Carrott’s kind hearted nature, Asa gave their assent and began assessing what may have gone wrong. Pulling up Rua’s records, Asa noted the small blood clots that had been forming in Rua’s brain on her scans. They had been dissolved every time they were caught, but the cause had remained idiopathic. The best either Asa or the EMH had been able to come up with was the DNA from the father of the child must have caused the fetus to develop characteristics that were not compatible with the mother’s body. While cerebral blood clots were a hitherto unknown complication of multi-species pregnancies, it was a big universe and anything really could happen.

The parentage of Rua’s child was more a mystery than her symptomology. Rua had said not a word about who the father was, simply leaving it as “He was a bullheaded man.” Asa had not wanted to push, but was secretly infuriated that none of the tests they had performed had given any inclination as to the child’s biology beyond “humanoid”. Even the scans they had tried to perform came back clouded…..when they came back at all. There was a disturbing habit for any images taken of the fetus to come back completely blank, as if blackout curtains had been drawn across Nicole’s womb.

A bleary eyed Nurse Almera staggered into Sickbay, trailing an even more bleary eyed Nurse Vimes. The two patron matrons of Sickbay had been resting from their last shift when called back in a mere 2 hours after getting off work. Asa considered asking them if they would like to be dismissed and use the staff on duty for the delivery, but they knew the two women would be offended at the suggestion. Besides, they had formed a unique bond with the expectant Rua, sharing secrets after hours and comforting her through the hardest parts of being pregnant alone.

“Hello ladies,” Asa called in greeting, “I’m getting started now……” Asa trailed off, looking at their tricorder a moment, hitting it against the side of their hand, and scanning again. When the reading came back the same, Asa picked up another tricorder and scanned again. Upon checking the reading, they slowly placed the tool down as the color drained from their face.

“She….she had an aneurism burst. A…a big one. The damage is…..significant. We need to begin an emergency cesarean right now.” Dael’s tone was shaken, their worst fears were coming true. The other shoe was dropping.

Sickbay was immediately a whirlwind of activity; Almera and Vimes were removing Rua’s clothing to prepare for surgery as Carrott called his wife to update her on what was going on. Asa overheard a yelp of surprise from Mrs. Carrott…..a lovely woman who was due to delivery soon herself and been looking forward to raising her child side by side with Nicole.

After a calming breath, Asa approached the biobed. Rua was prepped and ready for surgery, but had shown no reactivity through the process of getting her undressed and in position. No one had said anything yet, but Asa knew the entire medical staff knew what the flat line on the brain activity monitoring line meant. Hoping against hope they were wrong, the doctor set about removing the remainder of the blood clot from the petty officer’s brain and restoring proper circulation through the entire neruo-cortex. Still that damn line would not budge. Carrott said nothing but moved to sit next to Rua, holding her hand with a look of grim determination on his face.

“I’m….I’m not leaving her, Lieutenant,” he said to Dael.

He never calls me Lieutenant. He knows how bad this is and is ready to go to battle with me if needed to so he can stand by his friend. Good for him. Asa thought.

“Of course you aren’t,” Dael responded gently. “I just need you to remember you are here as a friend and to not interfere with the operation unless asked, ok?”

Receiving a nod of understanding, Dael continued working. The scans of the infant were blank, leaving Asa to ascertain the child’s heartbeat with an old-fashioned stethoscope. Feeling anachronistic, they listened closely and found the heartbeat to be much higher than expected. By palpating Rua’s abdomen Asa felt a great deal of activity and something…….sharp? What was going on in there?

Turning to Vimes and Almera, Asa performatively cracked their knuckles and set about administering pain blockers and sedatives……just in case Rua were to wake up during the procedure. Silently, Nurse Almera handed the tissue separator to Asa, followed by the paralysizing hypospray that served to help recently-seized muscles relax. After clearing the abdominal dermis and tissues Asa began to cut into the muscles of Rua’s lower abdomen slowly. The petty officer’s fall onto her stomach had caused some severe bruising. There were strange punctures in the abdominal wall, as if small dull knives had poked Rua from the inside. After seeing a gush of blood begin from inside Rua’s uterus Asa’s heart skipped a beat as a wave of dread washed over them.

The room was too quiet from then on. Somehow the ambient noises seemed to have sensed the mood in the room and conspired to fall silent all at once. There was only the sound of Asa asking for various tools while working to clear a passage for Rua’s child to emerge from her too-still form.

“I have encountered a thickened placenta covering the entire form of the child. This may be what was stopping our scans, cutting into the tissue now and will save a portion for further study later. Nurses, please store all tissues for future study later also. We may need to clone some of the cells at a later date to treat the child if parentage remains unknown.”

“Aye Doctor,” both nurses chimed in unison.

The thick, viscous material gave way to Dael’s laser scalpel and the doctor reached in to extricate their newest charge. Expecting the supple yet sticky feel of human infant flesh, Asa had to squash down a reaction to recoil instinctively upon feeling……..fur? Reaching in with a second hand, the doctor moved their dominant hand to cradle what had to be the babes head and introduced this new life to the harsh light of existence.

“Is that…..?” Nurse Vimes began to ask, face shocked at what she was seeing.

“A minotaur,” Asa said flatly, voice grim. They did not know how Rua had come to be pregnant with a Minotaur, but they had a few ideas…..none of them good. There would be time for that later though, right now they had patients to save.

After taking a moment to come to their senses, Asa continued their previous sentence.

“A minotaur that is an innocent, has harmed no one, and is our patient. Clearing airway now.”

With that, Asa reached down to clear the nose and mouth of the…..little girl it would seem…..and thumped her lightly on the back, resulting in an ear-splitting roar instead of a cry, followed by a much quieter cough and then a few burbling cries much more familiar to the sound of the assembled medics.

“Let’s get Nicole closed up. Nurse Almera, I want some skin to sk-, well, skin to fur contact. Touch after birth is incredibly important, and we are going to do this right, yes?” Seeing the resolve in Almera’s and Vimes eyes, Asa knew they could trust the two professionals to not let any preconceptions against Minotaur’s stop them from providing excellent care.

“Carrott, I know you are not on duty, but I need you to call Commander Paris. I would, but I’m kinda up to my arms over here, ok?” Asa said softly to a stunned Carrott.

“Right…um, doing now,” Carrott said weakly. While still holding Rua’s hand with his left, he used his right hand to type out a message to the Commander to please come to sickbay as soon as possible.

Well I meant on the comms, but whatever, he’s in shock Asa thought.

Almera had placed the cleaned babe on Rua’s chest and was holding them both in place. Everyone in Sick Bay was hoping against hope that somehow this would be the miracle to wake up the petty officer. While closing the incision, Asa focused on sending their energy into the woman the way they had once called a dying Sam back from the brink. Where Sam had been lost in his head, Asa felt nothing here. It was as if their energy was flowing into empty Space. Nothing they sent out seemed to stir anything in the core of the new mother.

As the tissue knitter whirred to close Rua’s abdomen the biobed began beeping in alarm. Blood clots were forming and bursting rapidly, as if removing the child and placenta had caused Rua’s blood to attack itself. Over and over Asa administered blood thinners, just to watch Rua’s blood continue to thicken, moving from clots to turning to outright sludge.

“Carrott, I need you to get the baby off her, ok?” Asa said, trusting Carrott to understand the urgency.

The red headed man rushed in, picking up the baby and managed to poke himself in the eye with a tiny horn. Nevertheless, he was soon rubbing her furry little back and singing a reassuring song to the mewling growls he was trying to soothe.

Perfect form. He’s supporting her neck, holding her over his heart, using low tones like would have been heard in utero. The man may be an anxious mess, but he’s a natural father Asa mused.

On the table, the biobed was flashing several alarms as the oxygen slowly left Rua’s blood. Moving at lightning fast speed, Asa administered 18 different medications, each one in response to a different system that was failing. Endocrine shut down, heart attack, stroke, three additional aneurisms…..Rua’s body kept failing, one system after another.

Vimes and Almera worked heroically, offering solutions, moving to help, massaging limbs to keep blood moving, pumping breastmilk to prepare for the future, and carefully putting placenta and other tissue samples in a stasis box. It was a matter of time though, and everyone was avoiding putting word to what they knew was coming.

After being worked on for over an hour, Rua’s body had finally had enough. Her heart quit pumping, her blood became still, her lungs stopped and her brainwaves showed no response to any stimuli. Looking sadly at the poor woman, Asa said quietly, “Time of Death 2218.”

“No!” Carrott yelled, still carefully holding the babe, but running quickly to Asa’s side. “You can’t let her die! She wanted this child so much! She would want to be here! This isn’t right!”

Tears flowing freely, Asa said softly, “Carrott, there isn’t anything we can do. She’s gone. We have to be this child’s family now.”

After a brief pause, Asa asked, “John, did you call the Commander? She usually wouldn’t take this long to respond.”

Ears turning the color of his hair, the young man said, “I, um, I forgot to press send. I’ll call her now….”

Patting the distraught man on the shoulder, Asa walked to their office. Door closed, they collapsed in their chair to wait for the Commander, hearing the voice of Nana Yihawn echoing in their head.

“Death and disaster comes in threes. Be careful thee does not summon three times three unto thee, for in the completion of one cycle is the birth of the next.”