Charlie stifled a yawn as she had pulled yet another night shift this week. Truth be told, she quite liked the peacefulness that usually accompanied the graveyard shift and seen as sleep had eluded her in more recent weeks, she was glad to be useful. She picked up a padd and did the rounds on her two patients to check all was well. Ensign Porter was still sleeping off the aftereffects of Ankaran flu in an isotropic restraint after getting a little handsy with Nurse Chatten in his earlier fevered state. Truth be told the restraint was a little overboard but they were a little short staffed and it had seemed like the easiest and quickest way to reign in the flirtatious young man. As Charlie approached the bed, Porter started muttering about some lady named Hilda who apparently had the restraints too tight. She gave a little giggle as she checked his vitals were still stable and moved on to the next patient.

Lt Simmonds was the only other patient in sickbay. She had unfortunately taken a blow to the head from a hapless Ensign with no spatial awareness and was resting after a nasty concussion. As Charlie flipped open her tricorder to check the swelling was going down, the young Lt’s eyes fluttered open and winced as she peered at the doc. Charlie put a reassuring hand on her shoulder and loaded a hypospray with the other hand. “Sssh, it’s alright Lt, you took a bit of a knock, you’re in sickbay, just rest…” she reassured as she gently pressed the hypo into the woman’s neck and dosed her with painkiller and sedative. Simmonds’ expression eased as she fell back into a deep slumber with a contented smile. Charlie set the hypospray back down and had a quick stretch before making her way back towards the office.

Just as she smiled and nodded to herself that it was going to be a nice easy shift, she was suddenly flung through the doors of the office and slammed into the desk, crumbling to the floor as the first explosion violently coarsed through the ship. She gasped as she sat up and felt a sharp pain in her side but gritted her teeth and pulled herself up carefully on the chair. She winced as she took a couple of deep breaths but pushed the pain to the back of her mind and quickly made her way out into sickbay to check on the patients. She knew she would likely get an influx of casualties momentarily so checked on her existing patients before the storm. Thankfully Ensign Porter was oblivious as he was drugged to the eyeballs and the isotropic restraint had protected him from injury but she as she panned around to Simmonds her blood ran cold. The young Lt lay motionless a good 15 feet away from her bed, face down on the deck. Charlie stumbled over to her as another series of explosions rocked the ship. Finally making it across the room, she rolled the young woman over and pulled out her tricorder. A pair of haunting, lifeless eyes frozen in fear stared back at her as Charlie felt a tear trickle down her cheek and she flipped the tricorder shut again knowing it was too late. A cold shiver went down her spine as she gently closed the woman’s eyes and pulled a sheet from the nearest bed to lay over her. Resting against the bulkhead for a brief moment she wanted to mourn the loss but she knew sickbay would be flooded with injured crew any minute. She swallowed the lump in her throat and crawled across to the nearest console, awaiting the emergency calls to come in. She initiated the emergency protocol calling all staff with any medical training to sickbay and gritted her teeth to fight back the tears as she tapped her comm badge.

=/\= Sickbay to Bridge, emergency protocols initiated, we are awaiting casualties… =/\= she said in a pained voice, unable to hide the fear and pain in her voice.

Dr Bailey