Another One Bites the Frost

Posted on Thu Jan 31st, 2019 @ 4:27am by Lieutenant Commander Shadi Zatra & Master Warrant Officer Tsabina
Edited on on Mon Feb 4th, 2019 @ 5:25am

940 words; about a 5 minute read

Mission: S1:4: A Murder Of Crows
Location: Deck 10, Cryobay 1
Timeline: MD 62

"Lookit, Hayk, lookit! I found another one!" The big, furry galoot pointed excitedly at the faulty cryopod.

"Yeah, yeah, I see it, Meth." The salty Ktarian named Hayk was long past the point of coaching his associate pathology tech and fellow corpse retrieval specialist. Meth was an Amican, which meant his serotonin and adrenaline mixed together, making him perpetually excited and ecstatic even under the most contemptible circumstances. Insisting that he not sound so excited at the sight of a corpse only triggered the biological response even stronger, and people talked enough as it was. "That makes three cryopod failures this week, on top of the two from last week."

Meth wagged his tail. "Why, Hayk? Why are they dying?"

"Hell if I know," Hayk said with an indifferent shrug. "This ship took a pounding harder than a fat-bottomed Risan in jamaharon. We're damned lucky the thing is still spaceworthy." He tapped his combadge. "Cryobay 1 to Ops. We got ourselves another melted popsicle."

=/\="I'm busssy!"=/\= shrieked the Ops Chief on the other end.

"Noted," Hayk said. "You wanna' send someone down here to check the rest? I'm a pathologist, not an engineer."

=/\="I said I'm busy! Go bother Engineering!"=/\=

The channel dropped with a click. Hayk shrugged and said, "Guess things'll get worse before they get better."

"Hey, Hayk! This one's still alive!"

"Well, about time the shit-sandwich had some bread," Hayk said. "What's their status?"

"OH BOY OH BOY OH BOY!"

Hayk flinched. "That bad, huh?"

"Vitals are dropping," Meth confirmed. "Blood pressure, heart rate, all of it's next to nil."

"Great..." Hayk tapped his combadge again. "Pathology 3 to Sickbay."

=/\="This is Sickbay,"=/\=" said a perky female voice.

The nurse. Good enough. "One of the compromised ice cubes is still alive. What do you want us to do?"

=/\="Stabilize them. I'll be there in a moment."=/\=

Presumably by way of the medical transporter, Tsabina materialized a few meters away. She looked about and rushed to the cryopod where Hayk and Meth were standing.

"Is this the one?" she asked.

Meth bounced on his heels while Hayk merely nodded.

"Open it," Tsabina ordered, then set her med bag on the floor to fetch her medical tricorder.

The cryopod opened with a hiss of depressurization, but the foggy mist was thin and sinuous. As the cover door opened, it revealed a languid Vulcan clearly on death's door. "The temperature is barely refrigerated," Tsabina observed with a fretful grimace. "Not even close to cryogenic requirements."

Her tricorder began beeping and chirping like crazy.

"That can't be good," Hayk said glumly.

"No..." Tsabina set her tricorder aside and loaded her hypospray with three different vials. "It's not." The hiss of the hypospray's kiss did little to revive the Vulcan. "No effect," she said after a moment's time. "I need--" She was about to call for a crash cart, but realized there wasn't one nearby. "Help me get her out!"

The emphatic order of her barking tone made Hayk and Meth jump into action. Between the three of them, they easily removed the Vulcan woman and laid her on the ground where Tsabina began chest compressions.

"One, two, three, four" Tsabina counted off. She turned her head to Hayk. "Keep her head back and straight so her airway remains unobstructed!"

"Yes, ma'am..." Hayk knelt down near the Vulcan's head to do just that.

Meth shuddered in gleeful terror. "Oh my dog, oh my dog, oh my dog..."

"One, two, three, four..." After counting off, Tsabina pressed her lips against the Vulcan's cold, clammy mouth and exhaled, forcing as much air as possible. "One, two, three, four..."

"I think she's a goner," Hayk said.

"No!" Tsabina joined her hands together into a hammer-fist and pounded the dead woman's chest. After a few more weak, half-hearted compressions, she began to cry. "No... no, no, no..." She collapsed onto the dead body and began to sob into its still frosty clothing.

Hayk and Meth stood over her, staring with no small amount of discomfort. "What do we do now?" Meth asked.

"Same thing we do every time, Meth," Hayk said. "Grab the stiff, log the name, take it to the morgue."

Turning to read the cryopod, Meth attempted to read it. "T... Tr... Trel."

"That's T'Rel," Hayk corrected. "She's Vulcan, remember?"

"Oh, right," Meth said.

"Figured you'd know that by now after all the others," Hayk said. He knelt down next to Tsabina. "Ma'am, we got a job to do. Could you, uh, back up a little?"

Tsabina pulled back from the corpse and wiped her red, puffy face with her sleeves. "Of course. I'm sorry. It's been a hard few weeks."

"Right," Hayk said. "We, uh, can take it from here."

Nodding graciously, Tsabina rubbed her eyes with her fingertips and tried to regain her emotional bearing. "Yes. Yes, you're right. I'm sorry... Thank you for notifying me. I..." She trailed off and vacantly stared at the pathologists stuffing the corpse into a body bag.

Hayk normally kept to himself and expected others to do the same, but it was plain to see the nurse was temporarily dysregulated by the experience. "You know, it would be a big help if we could get someone from Ops or Engineering down here to see to the rest of the cryopods. We been badgering the shit out of them with no luck, but maybe if someone higher up puts some pressure? Ya know what i mean?"

At first Tsabina made no response. And when she finally processed Hayk's words, she flinched. "Oh. Yes. Yes, all right. I can do that. Thank you. I'll get right on that."

 

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