59U.S.S. Enterprise: An Engineer's Adventure
Chapter 1 – Biting the Dust and Spitting it Out
When are you coming back, Penelope?
The universe does not acknowledge good deeds. It is not concerned with the safety of the innocent or the health of the sick. It does not reward the brave.
Why Penelope Waters was still alive must then be chalked up only to some mysterious combination of quick thinking, technical skill, and good luck. Most of it likely not her own.
At least, that was what the engineering officer thought the moment she woke up in hospital when she'd expected never to wake up at all. Her vision came back slowly, with her hearing trailing far behind. Faintly, she could her a calm voice telling her to lie back, giving her the disorienting effect of hearing words spoken long after the mouth had moved. It reminded her of a simulation that had not loaded correctly.
"Where am I?" Penelope attempted to ask the slowly focusing form of what she assumed was a doctor, though moments later she realized her question had come out a near unintelligible: "W'r 'm I?"
Thankfully, the doctor seemed to understand. She answered in a London accent while waving various medical devices around her head. "Hello, Lieutenant Waters. Good to see you're finally awake. My name is Dr. Venara, and you are currently in a Starfleet Hospital on Earth."
Earth? The last thing she remembered was being in space aboard a starship crashing into her home planet.
"You have been unconscious nearly forty eight hours. Your ship, the U.S.S Enterprise, was attacked. Do you remember that?" the physician asked, continuing on in her examination. Two days?
Penelope nodded, her mind drawing back to the sight of the burning engine room and her fellow officers unconscious or dead. Some, she recalled, had been sucked out into space.
"Do you remember what happened to you during the attack?" the doctor probed, finally moving the device from her face and down to her lower abdomen. It was then that Penelope finally registered the pain of the wound she had sustained there. Her hiss drew the eyes of the doctor back up. "I apologize, Lieutenant. Would you like a pain regulator?"
"No," Penelope replied, thankful to have her mouth cooperating with her brain again.
"You're sure?" Dr. Venara pressed. "It would not make you drowsy. I don't think either of us wants you back asleep just yet." Penelope succinctly assured the doctor she was fine sans drugs, and so the doctor once again asked her about her memories regarding the date of the attack.
"There had been an explosion, not in our section, but in an adjacent one. The effect of this made many of our computers turn offline, and some damage to life support had been sustained. In addition, many functions of the starship's engine power had been-" Penelope quickly said.
The doctor smiled as she interrupted, "Lieutenant, I'm not asking for your report. I simply want you to walk us both through your personal experience of what occurred before you were knocked out."
"Why?" Penelope asked.
"Well," Dr. Venara answered, "Your brain scans appear normal, but due to the injury on your head, I'm a bit worried about the effect to your cognitive functions. That's why I feel it appropriate to find the limits of your memory that day."
"Oh-kay." Penelope said, a bit worried about the underlying implication of brain damage. She attempted to collect her thoughts. "I had spent the beginning of the mission solely in my quarters, and then at my station in engineering; however, Admiral Marcus's ship started to attack. Engineering was in disarray. Gravity became- OW!" Penelope was cut off when the doctor's machines were replaced with her hands around her stomach wound.
"Are you alright?" the doctor wondered, her touch gentling but not ceasing.
Penelope nodded. "Yes, it's fine, just wasn't paying attention."
"Go on."
"The pressure from the hull breach caused some around me to pass out, then I remember a piece of shattered metal hitting, hitting Johnny..." she trailed off. That she remembered in almost startling detail. The sight of a body flinging across the deck, landing a few feet away from her. His entire form had been caved in around the giant shard. She'd bent down to identify the crewmen as the metal floated away. It was Johnny, and all of a sudden, Penelope felt as though she couldn't breathe.
"Can you continue, Lieutenant Waters?" the voice from the doctor was as soft as a light summer rain. Johnny was dead. Dead. Really, properly dead. And she would give her life for his, in an instant. But later she could mourn, like George had said. Now she just needed to get out of this damn hospital.
"I- there was such...chaos. I realized that we needed to be secure to something. Gravity had changed, not like it did later, but because of the breach nearby. George and I were the only ones left in our section conscious. We- we buckled our breathing crewmates to their chairs on my orders. Warp had stopped then. I don't know why, but it made it easier to move around. Then we, I mean George and myself, tried to put out some of the fires that had started around."
The doctor urged her at her lapse in the recount. "Had you both secured yourselves?"
"Yes. We made sure there was a tie to the railing. That was clipped onto me, and I had a line connected to him..."
"Waters!" George yelled from some distance away. This was her only warning to the extinguisher tossed her way. Penelope deftly caught it, and the two began their way through the section. The pair went as carefully and quickly as possible, checking pulses and securing all living crewman in sight. They did not have time for the dead, like how Johnny was still lying back there. If there was another hull breach, if he got sucked out, no one would ever see him again...
"Come closer!" Penelope called over to him as she caught sight of a blasted line of tubing. "We need to reattach these cooling units!" She could feel the officer tugging on the line as he struggled to make his way. By the time her got to her, she was halfway through the task. George dropped down and began to help quicken the process.
Smoke from nearby started to cloud both their lungs, watering their eyes and making them cough. "Dammit!" George exclaimed. "Where the hell is medical?" That, Penelope thought, was an excellent question.
"Go see if you can put out that fire, George. I'll fix this, and then we'll regroup and get the impulse working again. We need access to the computers." The last part was hardly necessary, but Penelope's desperation was bleeding through her normally cool attitude. George nodded and sprinted away.
Once the tubing had been fixed, albeit in a very crude and temporary way, Penelope followed the line to George. She found that he had successfully extinguished the flames affecting a structure that made reverse thrusting possible.
"Waters, I managed to weld the bulkheads for the backup. We should be receiving power, at least to D Section, in half a minute."
Relief flooded Penelope's system, though she knew they were not out of the dark yet. "Good work, George." The smoke was still quite thick in this section, and once again they both broke out in a coughing fit.
Then, the power began to hum in D Section of Engineering. George let out a whoop of delight followed by a painful cough.
"All right, as far as this line stretches, check for crew and put out fires. If you see a malfunction in machines not absolutely necessary to fix, ignore it. Report back to me ASAP."
"Yes ma'am," George called cheerfully as he ran in the opposite direction. Penelope approached the computer dead ahead. Her PADD had been lost in the initial hull breach, and George's had caught aflame. The rest found on fallen crewmen were drained. Penelope suspected a possible energy interference, likely from the pressurized differences caused by the hull breach.
It was her first chance to contact the bridge, and more importantly, medical.
"Engineering D to the Bridge. Engineering D to the Bridge. Please respond," Penelope said to the computer, attempting to keep her voice as stable as possible. Please, please, please respond.
"Bridge to Engineering D, this is Lieutenant Oplan. Do you have power there?" The crackled voice brought tears to her eyes. She began charging a PADD found on a crewwoman earlier.
"Yes, Lieutenant Oplan. This is Junior Lieutenant Waters in command of D Section Engineering Unit, reporting. Noted are two casualties. Only myself and Ensign George are currently conscious in D Section. After some quick work, auxiliary power has returned."
"Lieutenant Waters, power has now returned to all sections of engineering. Whatever you did, it's working."
Penelope felt a smile grace her lips at that, but then continued with hesitancy. "Lieutenant, the situation in C Section?"
"No contact from C Section that the Bridge is aware of." Penelope pushed past the emotions that sprung from that one statement. There was no time for that now.
"Permission to attempt entry into C Section and rescue any of the crew remaining."
There was a pause from the Bridge. The voice that answered her request was precise and hurried.
"Lieutenant Waters, this is Acting-Captain Spock. I have spoken to Chief Engineer Chekov. Your orders are to make your way to B Section of Engineering. There, you and any able-bodied engineers will attempt to increase the Enterprise's shield capabilities, reboot weapons systems, and increase the ability of warp travel. Under no circumstances will you or others enter C Section. A medical team should be arriving and dispersing through all sections of engineering. Please direct any injured crewmen to them. Acknowledge."
"Orders acknowledged, Captain."
"It is vital that you succeed. Spock out."
Penelope took the PADD from the charging dock and called out to George, following the line to him. When she found him, he was holding tightly onto Williams, thankfully conscious.
"Is there any more metal wiring?" George asked, wishing to secure Williams to them.
"None to spare," Penelope replied, unclipping the line from her, and attaching it instead around Williams waist.
"Wait, what about you, Wrenchy?" Williams argued. Penelope sighed at the inane nickname given to her by Scotty. How she managed to feel irritation under all her panic was a miracle.
"I'll manage. Our orders are to report to B Section and to get warp and shields up and running again." Not waiting to hear protest, Penelope clutched her PADD and led the trio past the now sealed C Section. Along the way, they encountered medics.
"Did you allow any of the medics to examine you or your fellow officers?" Dr. Venara asked.
Penelope shook her head. "No, our injuries were only minor at the time, and the medical section was burdened by much greater problems. We continued on our way after directing the medical team to our crewmen back in D."
The label to B Section precluded the absolute madness that had filled the area. Half of the remaining engineers were there, the other half in A Section. Both D and E Sections had been evacuated and were now considered non-essential. The situation in C Section was unknown to her, but likely bleak.
Many of the engineers had gotten the same idea as Penelope had, securing themselves along the railing or to a machine. Instructing George and Williams to aid Lieutenant Commander Yomai left Penelope with the chance to get her own body tied back into the rail lines.
Main power managed to weakly return, with backup power remaining stronger by the minute. Penelope joined a group of senior officers in their attempt to stabilize remaining shield power in case of further attacks.
Just as their project reached it's final stages, everything went to hell.
"The other ship attacked again?"
"Yes, Doctor. And that time, there was...I could not find any solution. The ship was falling...I remember feeling something hit my head as gravity once again shifted. I think I may have passed out."
"Uhhhh," Penelope moaned as she fluttered her eyes. There was a high pitched buzzing in her ears, keeping her from the crew's screams. Despite all the efforts from earlier, new fires had been set ablaze. Machines were sparking all around.
Rubbing her throbbing head, Penelope's fingers brought back blood when they returned to her gaze. The buzzing noise continued as she stumbled around, looking for...crewmen? Medics? Orders? She received some in the form of a blaring alert system.
"Attention all decks. Evacuation Protocols initiate. Repeat: Evacuation-"
Penelope didn't hear the rest over the whirring in her ears and the pained pleas from other engineers. She stumbled over to the computer dock, seeing that only auxiliary power remained, and not enough of it. Panic seeped back into her mind. There was nothing. Most of engineering was either dead or incapacitated. The Enterprise was falling. She didn't have the tools, the personnel, the strength to –
No. What could she do? That was the only question. There was always something she could do.
The answer appeared in the presence of a failing gravity system. Grateful for the secure metal lining attached around her waist, Penelope still let out a desperate yell as she was tugged sideways into the floor. Unfortunately, she landed on a misplaced sonic-wedge that lodged itself stubbornly in her abdomen.
"AHHHHHH!" she screamed as the pain coursed through her immediately. Blanking on every single lesson taught in mandatory first aid, Penelope felt her brain stop. There was so much...hurt. Everything was on fire: her head, her stomach, her legs and arms. She could feel sweat rolling down her body, cooling her not at all. It felt like she was melting from all the heat.
Penelope Waters was going to die.
The fact came to her rather abruptly. There would be no evacuation or rescue for her. Her head wound was bleeding and so was her side. Even if she was careful and the ship wasn't crashing, she'd bleed out before long.
That did not mean she would go down without a fight. Penelope clenched her teeth, picked herself up, and hauled her damaged body to B Section's artificial gravity generator. It was a large, highly complex system of wires, tubes, lines, chemical products, and Penelope convinced herself that she was going to do her damn well best to fix what she could and stabilize Enterprise. For Johnny, that's what she would do.
There was little she could do, as something was inherently wrong with the essential engineering systems. Likely the warp core of the ship, which was located in A Section. Despite her last burst of optimism, Penelope remained realistic about her chances of getting to the core without passing out first.
She did what she could, for as long as she could. At times, the gravity normalized, but never for long. Penelope remembered seeing a few bodies that were not secured fly past her, and she remembered how the blood began to leak from her head onto the panel and from her side into her boots.
An alert continued to blare in her ears, but she ignored it. Other engineers ran by, not paying her a thought as they rushed their fellows to Sickbay or evacuation pods. Her hands worked at a pace that was sluggish by her normal standards, but at this point, even her slowest movements caused a stabbing pain. The gravity was changing again, and finally, finally, Penelope stabilized again. It wouldn't last long, but it would give command more time. With each time the gravity failed, Penelope stabilized, thankful someone had redirected power to her.
Penelope could feel her mind slipping. Her eyes couldn't focus. The blood – she could feel it seeping all over her. She didn't dare look down, knowing what greeted her would be a bloody mess. Her legs shook, so Penelope slid down to a sitting position against the generator.
And then suddenly, power and lights flooded back into her deck, and Penelope let out a small cry of relief. Straight ahead, she told herself. Keep breathing, don't look down, and stay calm. She repeated the mantra over and over while her hands groped for her PADD.
Flipping open the device, Penelope called out weakly. "Waters to Medical. Please respond." About twenty seconds passed in near agony. Her breaths became short and pained, and her eyes were flickering.
"This is Medical Officer Johnson. Is this an emergency, Waters?"
"I'm bleeding, I'm bleeding, I'm bleeding," she panted into the communicator, failing to keep her thoughts straight. Stay calm, keep...breathing...
"How bad? Please respond. What is the severity of your injury?"
Calm, calm, she needed to be calm, but she was starting to cry. Fuck, it hurt. The metal twisting in her belly still remained.
"Waters! Give me your location so that I can send medics to you." Keep breathing, eyes ahead, stay calm. Was that the right order? Keep breathing, straight ahead, eyes calm. Yes?
Breathe.
"Waters! Hello? Give me your location, now." The voice on the other end had become insistent. Why? She had to breathe and stay calm and focus, dammit, focus.
Breathe...breathe...
"This is an order, Waters. Respond."
"B." God that hurt. Everything hurt.
"Section B? Of what unit, Waters?"
"Engine-engineer-please I need to breathe," she pleaded, her words coming out in pants.
"Waters, it's going to be fine. Turn on the signaling switch. There's a team nearby, but they need to know where you are in B Section." Her blood and sweat and grease slicked fingers just barely made the effort to do as the voice instructed.
"Waters, the medics are coming. Try to stay calm, and for god's sake, do not go to sleep!" The PADD communication line went dead. Calm. Yes, but not sleep? That was becoming more difficult. Penelope's head swam and the buzz once again filled her ears. How could she be so warm, and yet so cold at the same time?
As her mind slipped into the darkness, voices rippled at the edges of everything.
Death is not the end. It's an adventure...
Don't be afraid, Penelope. It was just a dream...
What the hell are you doing back here...
It's the penal colony or Starfleet, Miss Waters. The choice is yours...
You're pretty handy, Cadet. Ever thought about transferring to Engineering...
We've received a distress call from Vulcan. With our primary fleet engaged...
Waters, Penelope: U.S.S. Enterprise. Good luck, Cadets, and Godspeed...
You're pretty attached to that damn wrench, aren't ya, Waters...
When are you coming back...
When are you coming back, Penelope...
"The medical officer's instructions are the last thing you remember?"
Penelope nodded.
"That's about as good as you can get, with what your body went through," the doctor commented, picking up a digital medical file and flipping through it. "The two medics from your ship reported that you were unresponsive, and proceeded to transport you to sickbay while they restarted your heart. There, they performed emergency surgery on you to remove the tool from your side and stop the internal bleeding from your head wound. There was some complication during the surgery."
"Complication?"
"Your heart rate dropped swiftly, a concerning amount. The CMO was called into to help the medics working on you, but together they managed to save your life. It was, however, a very close thing, Lieutenant.
Once the ship landed, you were transferred here. I took over your care. In addition to your two major injuries, we had to do some work to clear your lungs and decontaminate the minor radiation in your body."
"We...landed? Is the Enterprise okay?" Penelope wondered aloud. How the crew managed that, Penelope had no idea. They had been crashing, and the engineering officer thought there had been little hope for regaining flight capabilities.
And yet, here she was.
"The Enterprise sustained multiple attacks, and it did nearly crash, but your ship managed to land successfully."
"Am I alright now?"
Doctor Venara took a seat next to her bedside. "You have made a remarkable recovery in the past few days. Your head wound was...bad, but you seem to have sustained no serious repercussions from it. Luckily, the injury to your abdomen avoided piercing any major organs."
Penelope processed this, "So, I'm good to go." She tried to lift herself up on her elbows and swing her legs over the bed.
"Now hold on a minute, Waters. You've only barely woken up-" the doctor protested, placing her hands on Penelope's shoulders.
Penelope pushed back. "Listen, Doctor, I appreciate you worrying, but I think I'll be just fine."
"Well I have to disagree, Lieutenant. You're vitals are nowhere near-" Dr. Venara's voice took a disapproving edge, but was once again cut off.
"Vitals? You can't keep me here because my blood pressure is too low," Penelope argued, standing up fully now and supporting herself with the bed frame. She fought back a wave of dizziness.
"No, but your wounds are nowhere near the level of healing they should be for a dis-"
"In fact, you cannot keep me here at all. I am allowed to refuse medical treatment and discharge myself at any time-"
"Be that as it may, Lieutenant, I strongly recommend getting back in your bed."
"With all due respect, Doctor, I think I know my own body well enough to-"
"And with all due respect to you, Lieutenant, you seem to know absolutely nothing at all about your health. I am the one with medical training-"
"And I am the one who can sign documents allowing me to leave this institution. I would like to see those immediately, along with my belongings and clothing." Penelope's accent had become thick with her anger, causing a sting of embarrassment. She ignored it.
The last statement was said firmly enough that it jolted the doctor out of the un-winnable argument. Dr. Venara's face twisted into complete frustration as she admitted defeat.
"Fine, Lieutenant, I will send a nurse to get your things," the Doctor said angrily before walking out of the room. Penelope did not experience any rush of victory as nausea overtook her senses, and she managed to grab a bucket just in time so as not to throw up on the clean white floors of the hospital. Quickly, she placed the bucket under the bed, hoping neither nurse nor doctor would find it. Childish, maybe, but Penelope was done arguing with these people.
Gingerly, Penelope sat back on the edge of the bed. Looking down, she noticed her body was covered by a standard regulation hospital gown, concealing her nasty side wound. Her head ached, but it would be manageable. The dizziness and nausea stopped the moment she sat down, but she was determined to get control enough to stand without support.
The doors slid open, and three people emerged: Dr. Venara, an Orion nurse, and a vaguely familiar face. The trio approached her, and the nurse handed her a plain white box. Penelope thanked him and looked inside, ignoring the doctor and her companion. It was her stuff, including a newly cleaned Starfleet engineering uniform.
"Lieutenant Waters, this is your ship's CMO, Doctor McCoy. Maybe he can convince you to stay.
At least give me another day so we can run more tests," Venara announced, gesturing to the man standing with her.
Before she could greet the doctor, he exclaimed, "Are you outta your goddamn mind, Lieutenant?" This startled her, as she wasn't expecting such a brash 'hello' from the CMO, despite his reputation for extreme grumpiness.
"Not only did you get stabbed by a – whatever the hell screwdriver wrench thing – you got a major fucking brain injury. And now you've been up for," Dr. McCoy checked the chart at the end of her bed, "Half an hour, so you think it's time to what, go home?"
Penelope sat quiet for a moment, contemplating what he said. The doctor raised fair points, as had Venara, but...
"Yes."
Doctor McCoy and Doctor Venara shared a look that Penelope read as: Is this engineer an idiot?
"I don't think you understand the stress your body is still under, Waters." McCoy continued on after a moment.
"I do. But I will discharge myself now." Doctor Venara crossed her arms, while her CMO looked like a vein was going to pop on his forehead. And they thought her vitals were bad.
"Dammit, girl, do you know how many people we just lost?"
"I was in engineering, sir," she replied with thinly veiled anger. Girl? She was twenty-five years old, hardly a child by human standards. "I know what was lost."
"And yet you're still willing to leave this hospital, against the advice of both your attending physician and your Chief Medical Officer?" he pressed. "Knowing that your actions will likely lead to detrimental health effects?"
"Correct."
The CMO threw his hands in the air. "Fine, Waters, but don't expect me to clear you for duty until I'm good and ready to." He then quickly stormed out of the room, muttering to himself. Dr. Venara took on a defeated type of body language.
Penelope stared up at the woman.
"May I see the discharge documents now, Doctor?"