Characters: Dr. Mira Trassano
If someone had said that MedLab One was busy, that person might have been lynched by the staff for the horrific understatement.
Mira Trassano wanted nothing more at the moment than about twenty extra doctors and could only imagine how busy Dr Evers was in MedLab Two. She took a moment to tap her link and advise Dr Brannon to make her way to MedLab Two with the wounded from the bridge as soon as she could. After a quick glance, she was heading over to a new arrival when Mr Carter burst through the doors. I didn’t think he could move that fast, Mira thought idly.
“Doctor! The fighter pilots have docked. They need medics in the bay!”
Mira nodded curtly at him and scanned the lab again. No one here would be any worse off with the care of a nurse instead of a doctor. “Mr Carter, please remain here. Lee, Rogers and Harper, clutch some MedKits and those two stretchers and follow me.” Taking up a kit herself, Dr Trassano strode out the door with the nurses in her wake.
The hanger on Deck 18 was a nightmare of bruised bloodied moaning bodies. Mira paused in the doorway for a bare heartbeat, overwhelmed. Never had she seen sights like this before she came to the Rangers and the Phoenix. Even the most overcrowded and hectic of hospital emergency rooms didn’t have the air of disaster and despair that hung in the hanger. The small Centauri could feel the sting of tears in her eyes and ruthlessly crushed them down.
Wading through the bodies littered across the hanger floor, Mira soon was too busy to feel the despair or the fear. She drew heedlessly on the last of her remaining strength. She became only the hands and voice that gave comfort and healing, only the vessel that held the necessary skill. She didn’t see Dr Brannon arrive until they found themselves leaning over the same pilot. Mira smiled up to the other doctor, relieved to see her. If Helle is here than MedLab is in good condition and not too hectic, she thought.
Mira moved to the next Ranger and found herself to be too late. As she closed the man’s eyes, a grayness edged itself into her vision. Trying to blink the grayness away, she stared at the her hand resting on the shoulder of the dead Ranger. The pale slender blood-stained fingers were trembling. I cannot stop them. Why can’t I stop the trembling?
Mira took a deep breath and clenched the offending hand into a fist. I’m simply tired, she assured herself. I’ll rest later. The plump woman rose and moved onto the next Ranger. She was too narrowly focused on the wounded to see the Captain arrive, or later, leave. The bay was slowly cleared of wounded. The majority of them sent back to their quarters to rest and recuperate. The other Rangers were taken to the MedLabs according to the severity of the wounds. Mira followed the last of the wounded to MedLab One leaving the remaining traces of disaster to be cleaned away from the fighter bay.
Several hours later, Mira Trassano stood in MedLab One scrubbing her trembling hands. The grayness had eaten the edges of her sight and all she saw was the scrub-brush on her bloody fingers. Mira had lost track of how long she had scrubbed. Her hands were raw and pink and trembling, framed by a fatigue-caused gray haze. The brush clattered into the basin, falling away from slack fingers. The blood-stains remained.
(C) 1998 Mona Hinds. All rights reserved.
