Post by Deleted on May 15, 2018 16:38:18 GMT
When the doctor had first caught sight of the planet in her peripheral vision, she had thought it was Earth. Deep blue oceans surrounded lush green continents, topped with icing sugar clouds. But it wasn't Earth. This was Deneva, just inside True Federation territory, and there were a thousand enemy ships between the USS Tethys and the planet.
A hospital ship, the Tethys took formation at the rear with a fine view of the warp nacelles of Sovereigns', Akiras', and the occasional Prometheus, with all sorts of shapes and sizes of ships filling in the gaps of Taskforce Vulcan. Why the Tethys was named after a moon, and not something like Nightingale or Marie Curie vexed Hinata Ishihara - after the past 24 hours of patching up the wounded and declaring too many officers dead, it was a sad thought that even in a universe as big as this, Starfleet must have run out of names of inspiring self-sacrificing humanists and tireless pursuers of progress. There was always another cold chunk of rock to name a ship after.
She had heard that war was boredom punctuated by moments of terror, but that hadn't held true so far. Hinata couldn't recall a moment she hadn't been terrified, and there had been no time for boredom. There'd been no time for sleep, and there'd barely been time to take a deep breath. It was one patient, then another, then another, a conveyor belt of horror from a nightmare episode of The Generation Game.
Thankfully, there was no time to reflect on anything, either. Everyone was on autopilot. Everyone had bags under their eyes and everyone avoided each other's gaze. No one wanted to see the pain in each other's eyes, and no one wanted to reveal theirs. To do so would pierce the thin cocoon separating them from complete breakdown.
"Here we go," said Kyla White, strolling back across the large sickbay. Kyla was Hinata's main assistant nurse and the two had practically been within a meter of each other ever since the military operation had begun. Her hair was a royal purple, and had flowed to her waist until about five minutes ago. Tired of it falling from her hair net or sticking to the back of her neck, she'd taken scissors to it and dropped twenty years of growth into the same bin as bloodied gauze and empty hypospray vials.
The first shots were fired, a wave of True Federation attackers strafing the front line, every impact thudding against glistening shields and buckling hulls. Each impact made Hinata wince, the shockwaves seeming to ripple through her body. "Turn that damned thing off," she cried out. A nurse close to the screen that had been relaying the images of the battle switched it off with a gentle push of a button, belying the panic she felt inside at having to blindly wait. At least the video feed had been distracting.
Then the Tethys rocked hard, the unmistakable feeling of weapons fire, and it surprised everyone despite the fact they were on a battlefield. "What's going on?" Kyla yelled out, her voice breaking half way. "They're attacking a hospital ship? What about the front lines? How did they get through?" With every question, the panic rose and the tighter her voice became. With her new hairstyle, she looked desperately young and vulnerable.
A second barrage of weapons fire forced half the medical team to their knees, some grabbing at bio-beds to stop themselves falling over, others holding onto each other. Sparks flew from the console that had only moments before been deactivated.
The conveyor belt churned to life again.
A hospital ship, the Tethys took formation at the rear with a fine view of the warp nacelles of Sovereigns', Akiras', and the occasional Prometheus, with all sorts of shapes and sizes of ships filling in the gaps of Taskforce Vulcan. Why the Tethys was named after a moon, and not something like Nightingale or Marie Curie vexed Hinata Ishihara - after the past 24 hours of patching up the wounded and declaring too many officers dead, it was a sad thought that even in a universe as big as this, Starfleet must have run out of names of inspiring self-sacrificing humanists and tireless pursuers of progress. There was always another cold chunk of rock to name a ship after.
She had heard that war was boredom punctuated by moments of terror, but that hadn't held true so far. Hinata couldn't recall a moment she hadn't been terrified, and there had been no time for boredom. There'd been no time for sleep, and there'd barely been time to take a deep breath. It was one patient, then another, then another, a conveyor belt of horror from a nightmare episode of The Generation Game.
Thankfully, there was no time to reflect on anything, either. Everyone was on autopilot. Everyone had bags under their eyes and everyone avoided each other's gaze. No one wanted to see the pain in each other's eyes, and no one wanted to reveal theirs. To do so would pierce the thin cocoon separating them from complete breakdown.
"Here we go," said Kyla White, strolling back across the large sickbay. Kyla was Hinata's main assistant nurse and the two had practically been within a meter of each other ever since the military operation had begun. Her hair was a royal purple, and had flowed to her waist until about five minutes ago. Tired of it falling from her hair net or sticking to the back of her neck, she'd taken scissors to it and dropped twenty years of growth into the same bin as bloodied gauze and empty hypospray vials.
The first shots were fired, a wave of True Federation attackers strafing the front line, every impact thudding against glistening shields and buckling hulls. Each impact made Hinata wince, the shockwaves seeming to ripple through her body. "Turn that damned thing off," she cried out. A nurse close to the screen that had been relaying the images of the battle switched it off with a gentle push of a button, belying the panic she felt inside at having to blindly wait. At least the video feed had been distracting.
Then the Tethys rocked hard, the unmistakable feeling of weapons fire, and it surprised everyone despite the fact they were on a battlefield. "What's going on?" Kyla yelled out, her voice breaking half way. "They're attacking a hospital ship? What about the front lines? How did they get through?" With every question, the panic rose and the tighter her voice became. With her new hairstyle, she looked desperately young and vulnerable.
A second barrage of weapons fire forced half the medical team to their knees, some grabbing at bio-beds to stop themselves falling over, others holding onto each other. Sparks flew from the console that had only moments before been deactivated.
The conveyor belt churned to life again.