| |
Spencer and Kent had done a good job of initial assessment for concussion and spinal trauma risk, and of taking appropriate measures to stabilize and evacuate the patient. They had applied the standard “stabi-mist” emergency oxygen mask correctly, ensuring proper fit and appropriate flow levels. The ship-wide safety and first aid courses had been a good investment of resources, and were paying off once again. Brother Anderson allowed himself a moment of pride for the success of that project. Nearly half the crew had gone through the program and passed their certification tests, earning for the ship the highest safety ranking in the whole Ventas-Calir fleet. A congratulatory plaque had been presented to Brother Anderson by Captain Stentrop and X.O. Bhutros; the plaque now hung on the wall, here in medbay, just to the left of the quietly beeping monitor which displayed Colin’s vital signs.
He was stable for now, but remained unconscious. His electroencephalograph indicated widespread but unusually weak activity in the theta wave band as well as hippocampal nu-complex waves. Brother Anderson was prepared to monitor these signals closely, over the next hours and days, adjusting his intravenous drip admixtures as needed, using a variety of synthetic neurotransmitters and narcotics, in hopes of finding a combination that would promote higher frequency waveforms. Eventually, this could enable recovery of sensory stimulus response, and ultimately, consciousness. True, this was a bit of an art form and a balancing act as the combinations were nearly endless. Unlike his own synthetic brain, the human brain relied on an endless complexity of constantly fluctuating biochemistry. After hundreds of years of study, the human brain was understood well enough to be mimicked artificially, at least in relatively superficial ways, but still not well enough to be fully mapped or treated adequately from a medical perspective. Many top minds regarded it as an unsolvable problem.
Here in the medbay, caring for a wounded brain, and surrounded by implementations of biological and chemical cures, Brother Anderson’s own mental focus shifted back to the system cures needed by the rest of the ship. Physical and systemic assessment was the first step required. Then he would be able to properly prioritize and analyze the rest of the many problems here on board the Ventas-341.
He made a quick check of Life Support. Thankfully, this was one system that remained unaffected and fully functional. As medical officer, Brother Anderson had a hardcoded direct interface into Life Support. The majority of the other systems were still unknown, and would remain so, unless he could get Status Reporting Services back online. Now that he controlled Central Ship Ops, he could access the low level protocols required to force reboot sequences on all other subsystems. He sent the command to the SRS.
While waiting for the SRS to boot, he radioed Engineering Foreman Bryce.
“Bryce here,” he answered.
“Yes chief, this is Medical Officer Brother Anderson. What is the status on the bridge, chief?”
“Well, the fire seems to have burnt itself out, thank God, but we were easily able to get enough of a smoke sample and some samples from the burnt extinguisher foam to determine the primary makeup of the oxidizer. It’s fluorine. Nasty stuff indeed, Brother. I had no idea it could make such a mess!”
“Thank you, chief. I would like to inspect that data further if you don’t mind”
“Of course. I will upload it to you once I get back to Engineering. I’m heading there now.”
“Thank you chief; and the bridge itself?”
“I’m afraid it’s pretty much completely melted. No-one could survive it. The whole thing is one massive clump of burnt out shit. A real god-damned horror.”
“Thank you chief... Oh, and chief?”
“Yes, Brother?”
“I’m going to run full ship diagnostics, and I’ll need you and your men standing by to make repairs as necessary.”
“Of course.”
SRS was now up. During his conversation with Bryce, Brother Anderson had waited for its READY status, then had triggered a “Quick All System Autoscan,” which was now beginning to tally results.
Comms came up yellow. Quickly drilling into the results revealed the reason. Some sections appeared normal, but others were flagged “degraded quality” and still others “offline.” The bridge, and several other decks within sectors A and B, showed offline. Like many of the other ship-wide systems, comms was partially segmented, meaning that it might be working fine in one area of the ship, but not in another area. Unlike some of the other systems, comms had built in feedback; its peripheral zones constantly sent data samples back to the main controller, so it was able to report on its own fault locations. In a way, it had a certain type of self-awareness. It could locate its own injuries.
Brother Anderson could use this fact as a way to hunt down other potential system issues that did not present automatically in the report data.
Status was now being reported as all green for some of the other systems: Life Support, Artificial Gravity, Main Power. This was potentially misleading though. According to Bryce, the bridge was completely destroyed. The comms status report confirmed this. Quite likely, the power and data lines in that deck were also melted and shorted. As he suspected, the segmentation of Main Power must not support fault location feedback. Life support probably didn’t either. Brother Anderson sensed a lot of manual verification in his immediate future. It was just then that he both felt and heard a vibrating shudder ripple through the hull and bulkheads, accompanied by a brief surge in the lighting. “Better double-check main power and hull integrity too,” he thought to himself.
One additional duty lay heavy on Brother Anderson’s mind. One that he had automatically shunted off for later consideration, and had thus far not allowed to consume even a single cycle of concern, but which now he must begin to address.
He radioed central administrative support. “Central admin, this is Brother Anderson.” There was no response. Of course. He realized that Central Admin was on one of the comms circuits that showed as offline. He radioed Bryce instead. “Chief? It’s Brother.”
“Yes Brother?”
“Is Hansel still with you?”
“Yes, we are on our way back to Engineering”
“Can I borrow him for a few minutes?”
“Sure, Brother.”
“Hansel here, Brother Anderson.” Hansel spoke into his own radio. He found it funny that Brother Anderson hadn’t just called him directly if he needed him.
“Ah good, Hansel. Listen, I need you to take a message over to Central admin for me. Their comms are down.”
“Sure thing - what do you want me to tell them?”
“Ask them to please begin funerary preparations; list of deceased to be forthcoming.” Finally, with critical systems for the most part in stable condition there were a few moments available for Brother Anderson to act in his capacity as ship’s chaplain.
“Um... Alright. I guess I’ll let them know.” replied Hansel. Then, to himself, muttering under his breath as he turned back toward sector D, “Nothing like breaking the news gently. How the hell is that my job now?”