Posted by Lieutenant Tija Aizala (Chief Medical Officer) in Main Sim - Sickbay

Posted by Commander Maxwell Harkness (Executive Officer) in Main Sim - Sickbay

Posted by Lieutenant Tija Aizala (Chief Medical Officer) in Main Sim - Sickbay
Posted by… suppressed (6) by the Post Ghost! 👻

<snip>

One of the surgical nurses was standing by, awaiting the order from Tija as what operation to move forward with.

For James’ efforts, locating the mass on the back of her neck which was the nest of the parasite was easy enough. A quick scan could even find the tendrals moving through the body, wrapping around nerve clusters and down through the spine.

GM Wombat

“Doctor,” Garth said to Lieutenant Tija as it looked like she had paused for a moment, “we should be expecting the away team, although it’s not clear if they’ve brought further samples or other information that might help us.”

(Lt. J.g. Garth, CSO)

“Thank you, Lieutenant. I sure hope they will have helpful information for us,” Tija replied curtly, though not exactly unkindly.

“Is it possible to verify that using the transport on something so small won’t accidentally take something else with it?” Adinah asked, brows furrowed as she thought about it. “I dont know much about transporters, but that feels like something that should be tried out at least once before actually attempting the procedure. Accidentally taking out part of the spine or brain would do severe damage.”

“Of course,” Adinah added quickly, “I’m no engineer or anything. If that far of a specification can be made then it might be worth a shot.”

Cadet Gartenberg (Medical)

Mika nodded in agreement. “I’m afraid it wouldn’t work on something so small, but if it did, it would be a fantastic idea. As for another idea…” She frowned, thinking. “Perhaps they are allergic to or even poisoned by something we wouldn’t normally think of that would be harmless, or mostly harmless to us?” She suggested, before quickly adding, “Then again, I have no idea how we’d figure out what would work… If anything at all.”
Cadet Tandra Mika, Doctor

The CMO listened closely to both Cadets and nodded here and there. “I generally agree. Sadly we don’t have the option to really try it first. While Richards is already dead and we can’t really do more harm to him …” Suddenly her voice trailed off and Tija looked at Garth. “What if we don’t try it on his whole body, but just on his severed arm?”

Turning back towards the Cadets, she looked straight at Mika and said, “I wouldn’t normal feel comfortable experimenting with the remains of another being, but desperate times call for desperate measures, I suppose.” After taking a deep breath she continued, “If you can think of anything, you have permission to try it on Richards. Just make sure your protective gear is in place and that the force field around him is never fully lowered.”

OOC: I’m leaving the snipping for the next cadet to post. As a reminder, the rule of thumb is to leave one post per person (plus the accompanying “posted by” lines and add (snip) where the deleted text was. In this case that means one post for the GM, CSO, three Cadets and the CMO :)

~Lt. Tija, Asst. CMO

Max finally made his way to sickbay, having cleaned up after finally stripping off the environmental suit.

“Alright Doc, we made it back, and supposedly in one piece. Were you able to figure out a way to help the infected people?”

Cmdr. Harkness - XO

As the doors to sickbay opened and closed, Tija turned her head enough to see who had entered. If possible her whole posture became even more erect and stiff as she laid eyes on the First Officer. “The short answer is ‘no’, Sir,” she replied without preamble and without missing a beat continued, “But we found ways to at least halt the infection and are working on ideas to remove the parasite completely. We found that drastically reducing the temperature and humidity stops the growth of the parasite. We had some, if minimal success with trying to severe the neural connection between host and parasite. And Cadet James had the idea of using the transporter to beam the parasite out of the host. We are about to give it a try on Richards’ severed hand.” She tried to give her report as neutral and professional as possible, but depending on how closely everyone else in sickbay watched her and listened to the tone of her voice, they might be able to detect a hint of … frustration, maybe.

~Lt. Tija, Asst. CMO

Max nodded. “The entity that took over the Potterfield said it could give us back the people it infected. But that we wouldn’t like it. It sounded like they would still be zombies, they wouldn’t return to their old self.

“I was sort of hoping that you’d have something better, because I’d hate to leave them as empty. I’m not sure if that really is a better life,” Max finished trailing off. Maybe they would be better off left with the entity.

Cmdr. Harkness - XO

Tija nodded here and there as she listened to the Commander, her expression turning rather grim. “To be quite frank, I didn’t even expect that the entity would willing return the infected people, nor that those who had been fully transformed by the parasite could be healed. They were killed by the parasite after all. So all that is keeping them “alive”, so to speak, is the parasite.” She made quotation marks with her fingers, when she said the word ‘alive’ and then crossed her arms in front of her chest. “I don’t want to be the one who makes the decision on her own as to what should happen to people like Richards. I’d hate to leave them behind, but I also agree with you. Maybe this should be for the full senior staff to be decided.” For a moment she looked straight into Harkness’ eyes before turning her gaze towards the other two patients. “As for Torrirs and Osten, I haven’t given up hope yet that we will still be able to reverse the infection since - unlike Richards - they haven’t been fully transformed.”

~Lt. Tija, Asst. CMO

“I’m sorry,” Garth spoke up from the main sickbay terminal, putting a hand to his forehead. “Did you say that you talked to an entity? The parasite has shown no signs of intelligence, I checked for it specifically.”

He grumbled to himself as he hobbled over. “What was the agreement you came to with this entity then? Am I to understand that we are going to let an intelligent being who knowingly murdered Ensign Richards, actively tried to kill Torrirs and Osten, and slaughtered the entire crew of the Potterfiled go free?”

(Lt. J.g. Garth, CSO)