Snatch and Grab

Posted on 30 Oct 2019 @ 1:21am by Lieutenant Lucas Abrams M.D. & Ensign Shay Mitchell & Senior Chief Petty Officer Alexander Rylan

2,792 words; about a 14 minute read

Mission: Truth and Justice
Location: Deck Six (Corridors + Environmental Control)
Timeline: MD 5 || 1645 Hours

The lights in the corridor were dimmed and the alert lights were flashing periodically, though thankfully the audibles were off, as Alex and Lucas made their way through the corridors towards Environmental Control. The corridors seemed to be empty so far. That was a mixed blessing.

"Okay," Alex said. "So I'm thinking that of everyone we could run into on this deck, the Gold Shirts we'll hopefully find guarding Environmental Control will be the ones most likely to be possessed... infected... whatever. If I'm Di Pasquale, or the parasite in her head, I want people I know are on my side there, not someone I've bamboozled into thinking everyone else is a traitor. They lose EC and they're in deep excrement. I am a little surprised we haven't run into anyone yet."

"I'm not," Lucas said unable to keep the grim expression from his face. The ship was quiet, deserted, and it unnerved the big man in ways he never thought possible. "Doctor Kij mentioned the ship is under General Quarters Three. That means rest of the crew that isn't essential to the ship's functions have been ordered to muster areas. Anyone we come across at this point is likely to be infected."

He opened his mouth to continue speaking, but something caught his attention up ahead. From where he was, it looking like a heap of laundry. That wasn't what it was, though. The surgeon knew exactly what it was and made his way toward it. Lucas crouched down and frowned, tipping the young man's head back. He hadn't been prepared for what he was about to see, which caused him to jerk back. Part of his head was missing, but that didn't keep him from pressing his fingers against the young man's carotid artery. "He's dead."

"Hmmm..." Alex said. "Probably. I still think EC is our best bet. But..." Alex had his tricorder out and was scanning for lifesigns. Then he held up his hand to stop their progress. "There are patrols. Why they haven't hit Sickbay I have no idea. Maybe not enough people converted?" He pulled a PaDD out of a pocket in his utilities and synced it to his tricorder and used the PaDD to call up a schematic of the deck and the tricorder to give them an approximate position on any lifesigns within the tricorder's range. "The groupings on the side are people in their quarters. That's Environmental Control. There's four there. These patrols here and here seem to be groups of four and this one... Ahhh..." Alex grinned. "Those little piggies just split into two groups of two." Alex looked over the schematics. "I think, if we're quick and quiet, we can intercept this dynamic duo...here, at this juncture, and take them down before they can call for help and if we time it right, make off with one before the others are any the wiser. At the very least we'd get a head start. It would definitely be easier than trying to lure those four out of Environmental Control."

"I agree with you," the mountain of a man stated. "Splitting up isn't necessarily a good idea, but I think it would be in our best interest if one of us came at them from behind. Perhaps, one of us could lure them somewhere while the other waits in an alcove or something? Catching them off guard would benefit us."

"Well," Alex said. "Considering who is who here and who's got what background, you're the bait. Cut down this corridor," Alex indicated a corridor on the schematic. "And try to lead them here. I'll be waiting. I'll blitz one fast and hard and fix it so they are too injured to interfere. You do your best with the other one and I'll help you as soon as mine is down. Remember, Doctor. Our friends and crewmates are not in the drivers seat. They look like our friends, they're wearing our uniforms, and they will infest you or kill you dead in a heartbeat if you hesitate. So get yours restrained as soon as possible and I'll try to sedate them once my hands are free. You good to go?"

"Yes. I'll turn them around and get them to come our way. You'll be able to ambush them from there once they've gotten passed you," Lucas said, gesturing toward a place that would conceal Alex until it was time for him to make his presence known. "Let me know when you're ready, and I'll begin baiting them."

"I'm ready," Alex said as he hid himself away. "Go get'em!"

Lucas set the medkits he was carrying down and contemplated how he was going to draw the attention of the enemy, who also happened to be their fellow crewmen. As a doctor, he didn't want anyone to lose their life, but the need to defend themselves was necessary. Taking a deep breath, the large man closed his eyes as he hoped this would all go well. "Hello? Is anyone around? I'm injured and can't move," he called out, sitting down on the floor and leaning back against the bulkhead to wait.

Shay stopped and listened. "Do you hear that? I thought we cleared this deck."

The other Security officer, a man in his thirties, turned to look back. They'd made an initial sweep of the deck, but the Jeffries tubes hadn't been cleared yet, so it was possible someone had accessed the deck that way. Still, it was something that needed to be checked out. "I heard it, and we did clear the deck. Whoever it is probably got here through the Jeffries tubes. Let's go check it out," he said, pulling his phaser and making sure it was ready to go.

Mitchell nodded her head and removed her own phaser, preparing it. She nodded toward the direction the voice was coming from. "You go that way. I'm going to swing around the other way. Whoever it is, kill them," she said, then continued forward.

The second officer nodded his head, then made his way toward the voice. He wasn't going to let anyone know he was heading that way, and it didn't take long before he saw Lucas hunched over against the bulkhead. The big guy appeared to be unconscious, but from this angle, he couldn't tell what his injuries were. "Hey," he said, approaching the big guy to nudge his leg with a booted foot, but still kept his phaser leveled before the big man. "You die already?"

Lucas remained motionless and hoped like hell Alex was ready.

Alex came up behind the second officer and slapped a sleeper hold on him, pulling him back into the alcove and hanging on until the man was choked out. The man slammed Alex into the bulkhead several times, almost causing Alex to lose his grip, and while he didn't break any of Alex's ribs, they didn't feel very good. Once Alex had the man down, he made sure he was alive, then quickly used a hypospray full of a fairly powerful sedative. Alex set the dial for the man's approximate height and wait and pressed the hypo against the man's neck. He shoved the unconscious master-at-arms back into the corridor and motioned for Lucas to move and let the unconscious man replace him as the visual bait.

"Easier than I thought it would be," Alex said, softly. He didn't whisper. Whispers were easier to hear than soft talking. He moved back into the alcove and as out of site as he could. He took the unconscious man's phaser as he backed away. Alex handed the doctor the extra phaser. Phaser's whined and that whine carried. He wanted to take the other MA out and get the Hell out of there with whichever one they were bringing with them without attracting too much more attention.

"Call out again," Alex said quietly. A quiet voice was far more effect than a whisper when trying to be covert, as whispers tended to carry farther. "Loud enough for the other one to hear you, be no louder."

Shay was tucked in an alcove for cover just down the corridor. A twisted smile on her face. So, they'd managed to take down one of her own? If they expected the same from her, then they'd be in for a surprise. In fact, she'd sent the other man ahead in case a trap had been set. There was a plus side to this. They had no idea she was mere yards away. It was time to use this to her advantage.

The young Ensign waited until Lucas was on his feet again, then raised her phaser. She fired, but hadn't been expecting him to move as quickly as he had, hitting his arm.

Lucas let out an inhuman sound of pain as he collapsed into the area Rylan had once been hiding in. He looked to his arm, which was no longer there, and tried to keep his breathing as even as possible when all he wanted to do was pass out. The pain was excruciating. Worse than anything he'd ever felt in his life. "You... you have to get her," he managed through gritted teeth.

"Why don't the two of you give up now, and perhaps, I might let you join the winning side." she called from her hiding spot.

Lucas grimaced and tried to focus. He was beginning to see double. The big guy had never been hit by phaser fire before, and if he made it through this, he hoped it never happened again. "She... probably... has more than... a phaser," he stammered.

Alex grabbed Lucas and hauled the big man back further into the alcove. He pulled a hypospray from his kit, loaded it with something, made an adjustment to the setting, took one more look at Lucas, shrugged, and turned the dial up two more clicks. When it was set, he injected Lucas in the neck. Then examined the wound. It was cauterized, so Lucas wasn't going to bleed out, but it was a bad burn. Alex sprayed a coating of something on it. That was all he could do for now if they were going to get out of this alive. "That'll help take some of the edge off the pain and stabilize you a little. You can't pass out though Doc. I need you to take this phaser and start firing down the corridor in Mitchell's direction." He put one of their phasers in Lucus's good hand. "You do that, I'll put out Mitchell's porch lights, and we'll go back to Sickbay. You with me, Doc? Just need you to fire down the corridor, over and over until you either can't or you hear me yell for you to stop."

Lucas was grateful for the effects of the medication and the edge it took off of the pain. Truth be told, he was ready to let shock take hold and welcome the darkness that was beckoning to him, but Alex needed him to focus. It was that need, and his sheer willpower alone that pushed him forward. "I'm with you," he managed, albeit softly as he took the phaser in his good hand. "You tell me when you're ready, and I'll start firing in her direction."

"Once sec," Alex said. He pulled an ampule of something out of his medkit. He held it up. "This medication here, they don't issue it in combat field kits anymore. It's really effective, but it doesn't mix well with phaser fire. I'm going to roll it down that corridor and shoot it. When I hit it, it's going to ignite, just for a second. When that happens, you start shooting down the corridor." Alex rolled the ampule down the corridor as he said he would, and shot it. As he had explained, the contents ignited and there was a flash. "Now, Doc!" Alex yelled and then started making his way through the corridors at high speed to where he could get an angle on Mitchell."

Lucas shifted his body and began to fire down the corridor in Shay's direction. He hoped like hell this was going to work for Alex's sake. His own life didn't matter as much given that he'd already suffered quite a serious injury, but he would do his damnedest is make sure Alex lived.

Shay leaned back against the wall when the phaser fire came her way. There wasn't much she could do at the moment given how steady it was, and the young woman knew there was more than that coming. She just needed to be prepared for it, and she was. With her phaser still in hand, she leveled it in front of her, knowing that was the only way anyone would be able to attack. There would be no catching her off guard this time.

While making his way through the corridors to try and get an angle on Mitchell, Alex's eyes fell on the entrance to a Jeffries tube. He stopped and realized he was going about this the hard way. "Fail to plan. Plan to fail." he said. Alex opened the tube hatch and quickly made his way through the tube, cutting through to the opposite hatch, which opened in the corridor where Shay was aiming her phaser at that very moment, but much closer to her than if he had attempted to round the corner. Alex knew he wasn't going to get a chance to aim when he popped out, so he thumbed his phaser to wide angle beam. He could hear Lucas firing down the corridor. The doctor must have been getting weaker, because the intervals between shots were becoming longer. Alex waited and picked his moment... and then popped out of the Jefferies tube, into the corridor, immediately going prone. In the same motion he brought his phaser up and fired, set to wide angle, heavy stun. The blast was wide enough that he didn't need to do more than point it in Shay's general direction. Without pausing, he thumbed the beam back to normal and hit her with another shot, also heavy stun. The woman was going to have one Hell of a phaser stun hangover, but Alex figured her head was going to feel crappy after having that thing in there anyway.

"HOLD YOUR FIRE, DOC!" Alex said. "We're good, Doc. You can relax." He went over to Shay and pulled out his medkit. For good measure he shot her up with a sedative and a neuroparalytic used to immobilize patients in the field who had dangerous spinal injuries and needed to hold very still, but whose pain levels made that problematic. Usually, you asked before you gave someone one, since it was extremely disconcerting to suddenly be paralyzed. "Sorry, Lieutenant. Maybe we can all laugh about this over a beer sometime.'' Alex rose and scooped up Mitchell. He figured she definitely had a critter in her head, so she'd be the better subject. He could neutralize the paralytic back at Sickbay. He carried Shay back to Lucas. "Doc, I know it hurts. I know it does. But you have to get up, plant yourself on my six, and put one foot in front of the other until we're back in Sickbay. It's that or you hunker down and I come back for you. Your call, but you have to make it now."

"Go," Lucas told him as he began to lose the battle against the darkness that consumed. Alex had Shay, and that's what they needed. Nothing else mattered. He reached out to grip Alex's arm for a brief moment before he finally gave in to unconsciousness.

Alex frowned when Lucas passed out. He set Shay down a moment and checked for pulse. Lucas was alive. Alex quickly scanned him with a medical scanner. If Alex got back to him in time, with a full field kit, he could probably keep the surgeon alive. That was assuming, of course, no one stuck a parasite in his head or just plain murdered the man before Alex could return. "Shit." Alex said. "You'd better be here when I get back, Doc, and you'd better be alive. If I get myself killed or possessed by a sentient slug, Jayla is gonna be pissed. Which is kinda ironic, if you think about it. I mean, do I complain about her having a sentient slug inside of her? No. I don't." Alex sighed. He dragged Lucas over to the nearest Jeffries tube access, opened the hatch, and maneuvered the large physician inside, shutting the hatch after him. "Hang in there, Doc. Much like MacArthur, I shall return." Alex picked Shay up and started making his way to Sickbay.

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