Mercifully, the ceremony in the shuttle bay had been short enough to allow Devon to keep her impatience hidden -- at least for the most part.  A close observer would have seen what it cost her to project that image of apparent calm. But the important point was that everyone had been dismissed before she'd started feeling compelled to openly tap her foot.

No sooner had she arrived in Sickbay than the new captain's first order echoed over the comm system, and Devon sighed.  That bit about following Starfleet regulations hadn't been an idle threat, it seemed.  At least this was an easy one, one even Devon could follow.  "Sickbay reports ready, all systems operational," she said, transmitting the standard status report to the bridge.  Once the commlink was safely closed, she sighed again.  "Let's hope they're all that simple," she muttered, before diving back into her work once more.  Several nurses scattered as she headed over to check those pesky biobeds one last time.

On the way out to triple check the preventative maintenance logs in the biobeds, you nearly miss slamming into a small group of junior officers carrying a wounded crew mate into Sickbay.

The junior flight officer, Lt(jg) MacLearen, is badly banged up, broken ribs, skull fracture, bleeding badly from a scalp wound.

”He was injured in a shuttle craft accident just before we departed Starbase 211.” explains an Ensign as they barge into Sickbay. ”In the haste to get that extra cargo loaded in the lower shuttlebay, the flight crews were moving shuttle pods up to the deck 4 bay when they had a close call with one of the cargo tenders.  MacLearen took evasive action to avoid a collision with the lumbering tender.”

He’s damn lucky he wasn’t killed in a collision, but the jostling inside the shuttle has done plenty of damage. His breathing is shallow and irregular, those broken ribs might have done some serious internal damage.  That blow to his head needs immediate attention to make sure it isn’t life altering or life threatening.

"Idiots," Devon muttered under her breath as she hurried to tend the man's wounds.  "All right, get him on the biobed.  And stop jostling him."  Once he was settled on the bed and the readings had stabilized, her hands moved automatically to start treatment, first picking up a hypospray to anesthetize him.

"Okay, what's your name?" she asked the injured man, and one of the nurses did a faint double-take, realizing that Devon's voice was now calm and soothing.  From anyone else, it might have been called gentle.

"MacLearen," he managed faintly, and Devon nodded.

"Okay, MacLearen, this is going to help you sleep.  And when you wake up, you'll be just fine, all right?"  He nodded, and she smiled reassuringly before injecting the hypospray into his arm.

Then she was back to normal, barking orders.  "Prep him for surgery, he's got a subdural hematoma and a punctured lung.  And the liver's perforated.  Dammit.  If they were in such a hurry, why did we all have the time to sit through that little piece of theater in the shuttle bay?"

"He's ready, doctor.  Quarantine field activated," the head surgical nurse reported.

"Good.  Except this is not the way I wanted to find out if the biobeds were working."  She wasn't normally superstitious, but a casualty in the first five minutes of a new assignment didn't seem like a very good sign.
This message was last edited by the player at 22:43, Mon 07 Mar 2022.

As the quarantine field comes into place, the central communications system chirps:
""This is the Captain speaking. There will be a meeting of all department heads and senior staff in my ready room in one hour. Captain out."

At the announcement, Devon sighed quietly.  She bit back the first remark that came to mind, then did the same with the second.  It was just too bad that the captain or the first officer wasn't around to be impressed with this example of her self-control.  "Someone tell her I'm busy," she finally said.  "And I don't know yet if I'll be free in an hour.  If she doesn't like that answer, well... we can discuss that later," she finished, again faintly pleased with herself at not having resorted to actual threats, as she continued her work.

Perform a Scan
20:09, Today: Starfleet, on behalf of Dr. Devon Bishop, rolled 5 using 2d6+2 ((2,1)). +1 tricoder

Choose:

(1) FAIL Mark 1 XP

This biobed hasn't been correctly re-calibrated. The patient diagnostic system malfunctions and reports a Transient Ischemic Attack but none of the other symptoms are consistent with this diagnosis.  You're going in blind.

or...

(2) Edge Bump WEAK SUCCESS

Checking the patient diagnostics on the biobed, you are surprised to learn...

I'll tell you something interesting about the injury or the patient.

"Dammit," Devon said through gritted teeth.  That did it; whoever had been in charge of the biobeds was getting fired -- or court-martialed or whatever Starfleet called it.  "All right, no one pay any attention to those readings, assume they're all wrong.  Get a tricorder and monitor his vitals," she said to the nurse at her elbow.  "I hope the same person wasn't in charge of those?  You get some fluids ready in case we need them," she told another nurse, who looked at her blankly.

"Fluids, sir?" he echoed.

"Yes, fluids!  Saline solution, blood," Devon snapped.  "We can't count on the biobed for them, so we have to be ready to give them manually.  And don't call me sir, I'm a doctor, not an officer."

Things get a bit tense and it takes a deep knowledge of old school medicine to proceed with the biobed doing little more than keeping your patient off the floor…

21:41, Today: Starfleet, on behalf of Dr. Devon Bishop, rolled 9 using 2d6+2 ((2,5)). Take -1 forward = 8 WEAK SUCCESS

…despite the false reports from the diagnostic, you get the pilot immobilized and stabilized before the broken ribs do any more damage. At least he isn’t in immediate danger of suffocating in his own blood. That subdural hematoma needs to be brought under control but…

choose:

(1) We’re not out of the woods yet… …fluid from the bleed is building up pressure and you need to work fast to ensure there are no life altering effects.

or:

(2) Overload… …the bleeding is contained but you’ll need to do surgery to cauterize the blood vessels. Just as you begin working on it, the power coupling at junction 12-3 blows and the lights in sickbay go out. You’re already working on the wound, no turning back now, you’re doing this in the dark.

At last the patient was stabilized enough that Devon no longer worried that the surgery itself might be too much for him -- no thanks to the biobed, but at least her team was proving to be reasonably capable in a crisis.  There might be hope for some of them yet.

"All right, we need to cauterize this," she began, just as the room was plunged into darkness.  One of the nurses let out an alarmed squeak, and for the briefest of moments -- though it seemed an eternity -- Devon froze.

Those areas of the ship that hadn't been pitch black had had an orange, smoky glow to them, thanks to the small fires burning throughout the all but shattered vessel.  Sickbay, as one of the more protected parts of the ship, was still relatively intact, but that had been helpful only in that it made it possible to keep the environmental systems running.  The planet was K-class, which meant they had all been forced to crowd into those few rooms that could still hold oxygen and heat.

Of course, with over half the crew already dead, they hadn't been nearly as crowded as they might have been.

They learned later that they had been stranded there for almost three days, the Excalibur at first presumed to have been vaporized, as so many ships had been.  With the CMO not among the survivors, Devon had been in charge.  Not once during those three days had she closed her eyes, working incessantly in the dark and the cold.  She had not lost a single person who had survived the crash.  They had told her she was a hero, given her a commendation.  She had thrown it into the recycler.

"Get a light!" she called out, gasping for breath as though she'd been running.  One of the nurses was already scrambling to obey, and thankfully, without the light, no one could see how pale Devon was.  And she was still frozen besides, though now it was because she couldn't risk moving until she was sure of what was happening with her patient.  "What the hell is wrong with this ship?" she raged, quietly.  Now she was going to have to hunt down the person responsible for keeping the lights on and give them the same treatment as the one in charge of the biobeds.

-----> from Main Bridge:

She stepped off and made her way into Sickbay and looked around for any medical personnel who didn't currently appeared occupied. "What is our status? I understand there was an overload in a power coupling which has deprived Sickbay of power. Engineering crews have been dispatched."

Her sensitive eyes pierced the darkness and saw the injured crew member. "Status report, doctor. How was this man injured so soon after we were underway and what are his injuries?"

Performing delicate surgery by flashlight, Devon was at first quite sure that she must be imagining the sudden appearance of the captain barking orders.  I mean, the woman could see that there was a medical emergency, why would she need to know all the details right this second?  After a brief pause to remind herself that they hadn't yet gone any distance and she could still be unceremoniously thrown off the ship just as she was starting to settle in, she spoke up without looking at the captain.

"His injuries are very serious and I'm trying to cauterize these blood vessels without a working biobed in the dark!  Do you seriously expect me to stop while I give you a report?  What's his pressure?" she demanded of a nurse.

The nurse, collecting himself, glanced at the tricorder in his hand and reported, "Seventy-five over thirty-two, sir -- doctor."

"Give another unit of blood."  Guessing that the captain was still there and expecting at least something resembling a report, she risked a quick glance up to confirm that unfortunate fact, then sighed quietly to herself.  "I don't know the whole story, you'll have to ask someone else.  Something about a shuttle pod tangling with a cargo loader.  He lost," she added, dryly.  "O2 sats?"

"Ninety percent."

"Too low, MacLearen," Devon murmured.  "You can do better than that."

"Calm yourself, Doctor. Your emotional outburst helps no one, least of all your patient," the Captain said before tapping her communicator.

"Captain to Engineering. As of this moment your priority is to get Sickbay on emergency power and then work on getting them full power and working biobeds. Captain, out."

"Is there anything else you need, Doctor or will that suffice for the immediate future?"

Norn's voice came on the intercon.


"Norn here, Captain. I'm currently on it.

Please give me a moment.
 

It couldn't be a wiring issue.
He'd made sure that the yard repaired all vital systems, including sickbay, with fresh wiring. AND he'd installed additional power buffering in Sickbay, just to make sure that
this didn't happen.

His hand immediately went to the manual override on power transfer, and then stopped before instituting the command. He wasn't some junior officer anymore, he was chief engineer and the safety of the ship came first.

Federation designers were not complete idiots: sickbay came with a whole host of alternate power routes and even internal emergency backups, and these were supposed to come online instantly.

If they'd ALL failed, there was probably some kind of computer to log as to why they hadn't turned on.

He checked the internal engineering logs and the computer decision matrix.

Scan because what the hell is going on and how do I fix it?!??
This message was last edited by the player at 00:20, Fri 11 Mar 2022.

Devon begged to differ -- her emotional outbursts were in fact a great help to her -- but she said nothing, letting the captain get on with the business of getting power restored.  Of course Devon still planned on taking her own steps to make sure that this blackout didn't happen again, but at least this was one thing she and the captain could agree on. "Yes, that will suffice," was all she said, keeping to herself the obvious corollary -- that it would have to suffice, as things stood.

@T'leera: Issue Orders 19:36, Today: Starfleet, on behalf of Captain Tleera, rolled 10 using 2d6+3 ((5,2)). STRONG SUCCESS



Sirin takes +1 forward

---

@Sirin: Perform a Scan 19:41, Today: Starfleet, on behalf of Lieutenant(jg) Sirin Norn, rolled 11 using 2d6+3 ((6,2)). +1 tricorder, +1 issue orders = 13 STRONG SUCCESS

Spending 1 Hold on your behalf to answer the question: 'what has happened here' - you keep 2 hold for finding a solution to the problem.

The logs show a power surge but the surge protectors and buffers should have protected the distribution network. The fail safes were deactivated.  The system didn't fail at all, it was deliberately shut down. The logs show an unauthorized access using the former Captain's authorization codes...

---

@Devon: Go Boldly 19:51, Today: Starfleet, on behalf of Dr. Devon Bishop, rolled 5 using 2d6 ((4,1)). FAIL Mark 1XP

The dark, the memories, these people in your sickbay nattering in your ear while you are trying to work...

"Eighty five percent doctor." the nurse reports, "Blood pressure is dropping, breathing is shallow."

You're trying to stop the bleeding but losing precious time...

"Forgive me, doctor - normally I would ask permission for this but it would appear time is of the essence."

T'leera stepped forward and placed her hands on the injured man's face. "My mind to your mind. My thoughts to your thoughts."

Once the link was established, the Captain attempted to use it to lend strength and vitality to the crew member, giving the Doctor and her team extra team to try and stabilise and save his life.

"Oh... oh dear."

On the one hand, he was satisfied with the answer: this was indeed something that he could fix. A manual override could bypass even a Captain's override, at least from the main engineering console.

He hit the manual bypass, and was rewarded after a few seconds with sickbay's power indicator turning green.

<orange> One hold: this sounds like something that can be solved with a manual override from engineering. Unless this guy went in and sabotaged the wires themselves, the power can be manually overridden by a skilled engineer at site, or the cheif engineer from the main engineering console. Thankfully, Norn had both available. He had just not been willing to flip the switch until he was sure that the cause wasn't the safety systems shutting sickbay down to prevent an overload.

One hold: How do we keep this shit from happening again? Purge all the old command codes. Instantly log the captain's old code to trigger security. This should DEFINITELY have been done in dry dock, but someone must have reset them to an older version. Norn will purge the database and overwrite them, though this will require the captain's permission.


A few microseconds after back, in sickbay, the satisfying hum of restored power could be heard.

He took several deep breaths. Comms would be live in sickbay. Who knew what could be overheard. This needed to be relayed to the captain immediately.

<blue> Captain, I've tracked down the problem. It was fixed with a workaround,
but I need to speak to you, at your earliest convenience.

Of course, the captain was busy at the moment.
This message was last edited by the player at 23:44, Fri 11 Mar 2022.

Though Devon's first instinct was to object at the sight of any non-medical personnel approaching a patient, she let the captain try, realizing that sometimes, even she had to give in and accept help.  As bad as that was for her ego, the patient always had to come first, and at this point, they had to try anything and everything that might possibly help.

And then the lights came back on.  A collective sigh of relief echoed in the room.

"All right, things are finally looking up," she said, with grudging gratitude, her hands moving a little more confidently now.  It was entirely unscientific, and she wasn't always right, but something told her that MacLearen was doing just a fraction better now.  "You hang in there, kid," she murmured.  "Vitals?"

@Sirin ... someone must have reset them to an older version ...

Management of these types of authorizations is a security function, not a task for the engineering department, but a quick look at the security standard procedures confirms your suspicions. Following a change of senior personnel their authorizations code must be reset. The manual states that this is done automatically by the ship's computer when it registers personnel changes.  You would have to ask Lieutenant Serrano to check the security logs to be sure, but it does strike you as exceedingly odd that the former Captain's codes are still valid.

... instantly log the captain's old code to trigger security ...

A very reasonable course of action. Something else to discuss with the security officer.

---

@Devon ...then the lights came back on...

As the power begins to flow again, the biobed reboots and comes back online. As it restarts, the diagnostic sensor cluster and quarantine containment field are restored. A quick glance at the biofunction monitor confirms that everything is working within acceptable tolerances...

Please state the nature of the medical emergency 19:07, Today: Starfleet, on behalf of Dr. Devon Bishop, rolled 6 using 2d6+2 ((2,2)). Edge Boost WEAK SUCCESS

...with the bed once again alleviating the stress caused by the broken ribs, the pilot's vitals begin to stabilize. You can't be sure whether or not the Captain's mind meld controlling his brain functions is helping or not, but after a few moments you have the bleeding under control. MacLearen is going to need to spend some time in a stasis field while the swelling comes down, but there is a good chance there won't be any permanent damage to cognitive function.

T'leera stepped back and out of the way once it had become apparent the injured pilot was stabilised and would recover.

She nodded to the Doctor. "If you are able to pass him off to one of the other doctors and attend this meeting, that would be idea. It seems there are things happening above and beyond what I was originally going to present. Things that are of vital importance."

She walked over to the wall comm panel. "This is the Captain - all department heads and senior staff are to convene in the ready room at this time. Captain out."

Given that Devon had an ingrained habit of avoiding any kind of meeting at all costs, it was very tempting to claim that she had to stay with her patient for the foreseeable future.  This time, however, she hesitated.  Under the circumstances, this particular meeting might be a useful opportunity to find out who was responsible for things breaking in her Sickbay, and ensuring that everything would run smoothly from now on.  So she nodded.  "Give me a few minutes to make sure he's settled properly.  I'll be there as soon as I can."

After the captain had gone, Devon made one last, careful check of the systems, then pointed at the intensivist.  "All right, you monitor the patient.  You," she continued, her gaze turning to the head surgical nurse, "monitor the stasis field.  And you," she finished, now looking at one of the med techs, "monitor the biobed.  I don't trust any of the equipment in here right now.  Double-check all of it.  If anything changes, and I mean anything, let me know."

[To Ready Room]

The Captain watched for a moment before nodding to the Sickbay crew members. "Very well done, all of you. I will make note of your performance under less than ideal conditions in my report to Starfleet."

She turned and walked out, headed for the Ready Room.


-------> To Ready Room

[From Ready Room]

Devon breezed into the main Sickbay area, her sharp green eyes taking in the room as she entered.  As threatened, a security detail was already there, but they'd had the sense to station themselves out of the way.  "What's his condition?" she demanded of the intensivist, who jumped slightly at the sound of her voice, not having realized who it was that had entered the room.

"Uh, stable, doctor," she replied, hastily.  "BP 126 over 95, heart 79 bpm, O2 sats 93."

"Good."  She looked over at the other two who had been assigned to watch MacLearen, trying to recall their personnel files.  She'd really only taken note of their medical experience, naturally, so she was at a bit of a disadvantage trying to remember if they'd both been here prior to the mutiny or whatever it was or not.  Before she'd arrived, however, she had been told that the Sickbay staff was somewhat more intact than many of the other departments, given that mutineers, in general, did not do much recruiting among medical personnel.

Regardless of whether or not they had participated in any kind of uprising, they still might have some sympathies for their former commander.  On the other hand, these were all highly-trained people, and she found it hard to believe that any of them would risk even one life simply as a show of solidarity with a disgraced ex-captain.

On the other other hand, she knew she had something of a blind spot when it came to non-medical matters, so she couldn't count on that.  But she was in charge now, and she had to try to fix all this.

"All right, attention, please," she finally said, waving all Sickbay staff in sight to come closer.  "First, the patient is going to be closely monitored.  I want at least two people watching his condition every minute.  Second, we're going to be checking every piece of equipment in this Sickbay, and I mean every. Single. One.  Once you've finished checking something in every way you know how, ask someone else to check it again.  Then I'll check everything again myself."

She paused uncomfortably, for once very aware that she was doing something that no one in the room would like.  "As some of you have already worked out, I'm strict and I'm tough.  I expect the best from each and every one of you.  And sometimes, I'm going to ask all of you to do things that you don't want to do, maybe things that don't even seem to make a lot of sense.  But I will always have a reason for any request I make, and I will always act in what seems to me the best possible way for the health and well-being of this crew.  And I will never ask any of you to do anything I'm not willing to do myself."  Again she paused, even more uncomfortably, and this time raised a hand to wave everyone back to their posts.  "Okay, that's all the morale-boosting you're going to get from me.  Everyone get to work."

Issue Orders w/ Doctor Coming Through 09:14, Today: Starfleet, on behalf of Dr. Devon Bishop, rolled 9 using 2d6+2 ((2,5)). WEAK SUCCESS

After your orders, Sickbay becomes a bustling hub of activity. Assistants diligently scan MacLearen's condition while technicians check and recheck the power distribution systems and biobeds.

but...

Option 1: Monitoring your patient is constant and the equipment inspections take hours. Somewhere along the way Nurse Vaht apparently misreads MacLearen's biomonitor and is about to give him an unnecessary hypospray of synaptazine.

or...

Option 2: Monitoring your patient is constant and the equipment inspections take hours. Somewhere along the way Crewman Yu misses a misconfigured biobed scanning array and is about to close up the maintenance panel leaving the bed maintenance incomplete.

Happening to catch sight of this mistake in the making, Devon hurried over to the crewman's side before he can replace the panel.  "No, no, no, wait a second, wait, let me see.  No, look, this array still isn't configured correctly, it won't work."  She reached over and made a few rapid adjustments while Yu blushed and stammered.

"S-sorry, sir.  Doctor."

"Yeah, well -- "  She broke off and shook her head, reminding herself that the ship was still awfully close to the Starbase.  "Look, just go take a break, all right?  I'll fix this, and you can start fresh when you come back."

"Yes, Doctor," he said, turning and almost slinking away, though Devon was already too distracted to notice this.

"This whole ship is going to fall apart the first time a Romulan looks at it funny," she muttered to herself as she worked.