Posted by Commander Roman Alden (First Officer & Chief Science Officer) in side - sim: The Infiltrator

(snip)

After she finished with security she was planning to continue but called away to help with an issue in the secondary cargo bay. When she started with the support departments like quartermaster, cargo, food and sanitation departments. She started by running those numbers and then started going through each crew member.

The support staff was clean and accounted for. But it would take her the rest of the day to finish security and support staff.

Rand worked at it, only stopping to see to her regular duties. It was meticulous and detailed work. Something Rand exceled at, but some of the documentation she needed to cross reference had to be requested from the larger fleet library through subspace. She had permission do for the comm time, and Rand had the clearance level to keep her searches restricted from everyone but senior staff.

Roman remained in the lab the rest of the day. It had always been the easiest way to distract himself from things. And now that he knew there was a blip in the records, he was getting a little worried. Anyone with a brain would. So he buried himself in work. If there was something he’d been putting off, it was getting done. And there were a stack of scientific tasks he’d been putting off… Mostly because they were not his favorite but he had to get it done eventually. Someone had already been waiting three days for him to finish these.

It was just past 1500 when there was a call to Medical: =C= Medical emergency, biology lab, medical emergency, biology lab. =C= if Randy was in medical, he’d hear it, along with the resulting immediate response of an emergency medical team.

~ Roman

Lt jg Dr Grat, and Lt Nurse Temple were part of the medical team that responded. Randy was still on duty, pulling a double shift to help out and he was on the team too. The call send ice down his spine. Luckily they were just down the corridor. Randy was the first one through the door of the lab, scanned the room, and barked at the first officer he saw, “What happened?”

Randy

The lab techs in the biology lab were speechlessly staring at the events transpiring near the edge of the room. Franks was crouched by an unconscious Alden, laying on his back on the floor. Franks searched Alden’s wrist with his fingers for a pulse. “He’s alive, I found it.” Franks sounded relieved. The officer Randy barked at happened to be Ensign Scott, looking on with horror. “I… He… It just sparked…”

Randy looked at Scott and her total look of horror and speechlessness from the woman drained the color from Randy’s face. He moved over to Alden and started running a scan with his tricorder while he listened to Franks explain what happened.

Franks looked up and filled them in. Nodding his head towards a large and complicated looking piece of equipment he said, “He was running something through here for Ensign Carpenter, only the CSO is permitted to use it. But something must be wrong with it because as soon as he touched it, it overloaded and gave him a good shock.” Franks sympathetically winced. “Looked painful, it was a good enough shock to lock his muscles and then when the computer sensed the overload and stopped it he dropped.”

~ Roman | Franks

Grat looked around, “Anyone else hurt?” At the negative he moved over to Alden, waving Temple to take Randy’s place, “Randy you are good nurse, but move. The man is about to be your brother-in-law, let me look at him. Get a stretcher.” Grat started taking vitals and running scans. Randy got up and took Franks with him out of the way. His voice was low and gone was the sassy-go-luck cross dressing Scott. “No one, I mean no one touches anything.” Franks nodded looking really concerned. He knew Randy well enough to understand he was concerned about something. His first thought was that it was another practical joke gone wrong. His next thought was for Rand.

Randy left and pulled out his comm, =c=Randy to Morgan. I need you to come to deck 9 immediately.=c=

A somewhat tired voice came back over the comm saying she’d be right there. Tracy and Randy had been dating casually for awhile and Randy was a good judge of character. He didn’t know who had been cleared and verified yet, but he knew Tracy and trusted her. She met him in the corridor on his way back with the stretcher and he explained very quickly what was going on and what had happened. “Give me your tricorder, Randy. I want to take readings on the machine.” Morgan took it and scanned the machine for traces of biological evidence. Finger prints, skin or hair samples, anything that would tell her who had recently touched the machine. She called an engineering officer to the lab to run a full diagnostic on the machine and waited for the results.

The fingerprints on the machine were Alden’s and an engineer’s. No others were found. Skin and hair samples from the exterior of the machine turned up nothing. The Engineer’s diagnostic tool a few hours to come back and revealed that the machine had been repaired the night before. There was a work ticket, and there was nothing off about the ticket. The engineer who did the work had made a mistake resulting in the overload. It was a rookie mistake but it wasn’t inherently foul play, anyone who wasn’t paying attention could have done it. Alden was lucky though, the machine hadn’t pulled enough amperage to kill. If it had been higher, he’d be dead. If the ship hadn’t cut the power to the machine and he’d been shocked for longer, the damage to his body would have been worse than it was.

Morgan asked to see a copy of the ticket. To see who put in the request, who answered it, and if the DNA trace matched the engineering officer who worked on the machine.

Randy was thinking about Rand, the fact she wasn’t there on the edge panicking meant no one had told her. He wasn’t going to tell her until he knew if Roman was okay or not. She’d be upset with him, he didn’t care.

Randy

Grat’s scans showed the path the electrical current took through Alden’s body. Electricity always took the path of least resistance, using the body to complete a circuit. Alden had touched the machine with both hands, so it had travelled through his arms and chest, damaging everything it touched along the way. Unfortunately, hearts and electric currents didn’t mix, while his vitals were within a good range, his heart was beating erratically, an arrhythmia caused by the electric current interfering with the heart’s natural impulses. The scans showed damaged muscles along his arms, chest, and in his heart. More detailed scans in Sickbay would show the extent of it better. There were electrical burns on his palms, where the electricity had entered and then exited his body.

~ Roman

Grat barked out, “Lt Franks!”

Franks hurried over, “Yes Sir?”

“NO ONE touches that machine. I don’t want anyone else in my medbay.” Franks nodded and looked at the engineer, “Can you disconnect it from ship’s power without hurting yourself or causing another charge?”

Grat turned back, “Randy, come help. Temple get fluids, the burn kit, and the dermal regenerator, and prep the pulmonary support unit in the surgical suite.” Temple left in a hurry Together Grat and Randy lifted Alden onto the stretcher and rushed him out. Randy looked at Franks, “Rand.” and then was gone.

In the surgical suite Grat turned on the biobed and checked the K-3 Indicator to see how much pain Alden was in. First was an intense scan to make sure there wasn’t a residual electric current still in his system. Confirming there wasn’t Grat nodded to Randy and Temple to get started. Randy hooked up the pulmonary support unit to take some of the strain off of Alden’s damaged heart. Temple set up the plasma infusion unit and then started working on the burns on Alden’s hands with the dermal regenerator. Grat started a cortical stimulator to reset the rhythm of his heart. “Give him Terakine for the pain and Chloromide to help regulate his heart.”

Grat started the bio bed to the following procedures: CPK Levels, Deep Tissue Scan, and a Myocardial Enzyme Balance

But Grat didn’t waste time. Alden would need surgery to correct the damage to his heart muscles and the nerves, and he started right away. The tissue migrator was put to immediate and prolonged use along with the dermal regenerators. Direct Reticular Stimulation was started to repair the nerves and restore his natural neuropathic rhythms.

Grat