ALT #385: In the Line of Duty
In the Line of Duty
Summary: The morning after the explosion in the simulators, everyone is left with a number of questions. Unfortunately, it seems like no one has any answers — at least, not to the truly important ones.
Date: 26 January 2014
Related Logs: Burning Wings
Atalanta Leightner Thales 
Battlestar Orion — Deck 3 — Sickbay
Serving as the ship's primary care facility, the Medical Center is a rather large, single room structure that has the same load-bearing structures to the walls that the halls do, as well as the same heavy hatch. There is a desk at the entrance staffed by a nurse as well as a small locker for single dose drugs like aspirin. Beds are lined up along each wall with EKG's and hangers for IVs in case of triage. Large cabinets at the rear provide ready access to lifesaving medicines and gear, as well as a ready supply of defibrillators. Not far from the primary entrance is the Chief Medical Officer's office and on the other side is a small hatch to the recovery ward. Towards the rear is a sectioned-off examination area. Opposite the hatch to recovery is a sealed doorway leading down a hallway to the ship's morgue.
AWD #385

The majority of the people injured in yesterday's blast were sent on their way come morning, with orders for bed rest, and to return to top up painkillers or if there's any complications. There are a few patients still remaining. Atalanta is one of them. Given the location of the shrapnel wound, Doctor Thales wanted her to stay on a bit longer for observation.
The lanky Thales is moving about the various beds, checking the charts of a few patients. He comes up to Atalanta's and checks the readout. "You'll be forgiven if you're crawling out of your skin, Colonel. I promise you won't have to stay here much longer."

Leightner cycled out of shift after the excitement died down and now he returns to sickbay, moving to the front desk, signing in and moving to the medic kits, checking them over. In case another bomb goes off, he's off running.

At the sounds of someone shuffling through the paperwork clipped to the foot of her bed, Franklin's eyes flicker open. She hadn't been asleep — not quite — but there's really not much else for her to do in here besides stare at the blindingly bright ceiling lights, or read magazines that are well over a year old and that have already been thumbed through a hundred times. "I'm sure I'll be fine," she says sedately, despite the fact that she's no longer on sedatives. "I'm more concerned with my personnel. Do you have an update on their conditions," she pauses for a moment, over the unfamiliar face. Her eyes flick over his coat for a moment, trying to pick out a pair of pins. Eventually, she simply settles on addressing him as, "Doctor?"

"Thales," replies said doctor. He moves around to check her leg bandage. "Most are fine. Most have been released. Nothing worse than a few shrapnel injuries." He hesitates, frowns and then adds, "There were a few deaths, however. Three, I believe. Sit up, please." He reaches for a tray with bandages. "I need to change this."

Leightner looks to the news on the paperwork, and shakes his head. The man he initially treated didn't make it." He sets the clipboard on the wall and drops his head, taking a moment, then lifting his head and moving off to start setting up instrument trays.

Franklin plants both hands down at her sides, using them to push herself up from a slightly propped position to a fully seated one. There's a wince as she does so — it means both moving her injured leg and putting her weight, at least partially, on her injured arm. She sucks in air through her momentarily clenched teeth, but otherwise make no complaints. "Three?," she asks, trying to keep her voice firm, though she cannot completely conceal the note of indcredulity that's crept into her tone. Three. Her jaw clenches.

"Yes. As far as I know. But to be perfectly honest, I've been more concerned with the living than the dead. It's a doctor's lot." Thales looks up from his work towards Leightner. "Can you find a list of names of the deceased for the Colonel?" And then he's working at unwrapping Franklin's leg. Her skin is a minefield of stitched shrapnel wounds. It's seeping ever so slightly. He goes about cleaning it up and preparing to re-bandage.

Leightner looks over and gets a clipboard, checking it and coming to Atalantas side with the listing of deceased. Standard sickbay incident listing. He sets this in reach of Atalanta to handle at her own time. He then brings an instrument tray to Thales' side, ready to assist.

Franklin's eyes drop down to her leg and although she doesn't pale at the sight of her own wounds, there's this mixed expression of both surprise and revulsion. Of course, her file's remarkably clean, given the fact that she's been at war for over a year — malnourishment for living on starvation rations for several months, but not a single injury from air combat. Not one. She drags her eyes up from a sort of horrified fascination with her oozing leg, looking up into their faces. "Thank you, Petty Officer." And then, "How long am I going to be kept on light duty?," she asks point blank. The possibility that they might pull her off-duty entirely apparently either isn't an option, or hasn't even occurred to her.

"You'll be off-duty until tomorrow morning, but I can have some reports brought to you if you'd like," says Thales. "But you can't go walking round on this leg right now, Colonel. You'll pop the stitches, and that would be highly unpleasant for both of us. I think I did a rather nice job. Ah, thanks," this to Leightner as he picks an instrument off the tray. He uses it to tie up a stitch that had come loose at the end. "How long you'll be on light duty depends on you. If you push it, if you try to move too much too quickly, you'll slow down your recovery time." He's clearly used to treating officers - especially ranking officers - who are usually very eager to get back to work.

Leightner keeps an eye on the Doctors hands, and his work, preparing instruments as they are needed, and passing them off with a quiet efficency. He stays silent otherwise, just helping the doctor unobtrusively.

"I suppose I'll just have to assign some fetching young Ensign to carry me up and down the stairwells between decks," she murmurs. It's an attempt at humor — a rather dry one, really, but it's generally best to at least try to remain on the good side of the people responsible for prodding her with sharp objects and keeping her on the line. Franklin twitches once, as the stitch is tugged on, but otherwise makes a more valiant — and much better — attempt to stay still than she had the night before, when still overwhelmed with the chaos of the explosion. "Although if I'm going to be limping for the next few days, you could at least give me a cane so that I don't have to go running after anyone to smack them with it for laughing at me." She sighs. Another joke? Maybe.

"Laughing at you for being wounded in the line of duty? Tch. Let me know if anyone does that. Next time they're injured, I'll switch their painkillers with sugar pills." Thales' lips quirk up into a small grin. He finishes fixing the stitch, then gently cleans the area. Then he's bandaging it up. His touch is exceedingly gentle and careful. "I'm sure we can find you a suitably menacing cane."

"Made out o a Centurion leg. Maybe an arm, with tha middle finger extended." Leightner offers helpfully about the cane as he assists with the instruments.

"We weren't in the line of duty," she replies. And suddenly, there's no question about it — she's angry. It's one thing to lose one of her pilots in combat. The unfortunate reality of her job is that it happens, with far more regularity than it ever should. But losing three people — two of them hers — in the middle of a computer simulation? On their own ship? Her jaw clenches, the muscles twitching as she tries not to grind her teeth. But then her eyes drop. The medical staff — it isn't their fault. They're the ones desperately trying to clean up the mess someone else made. She shifts her weight, then forces a smile, even a laugh. "I think you may be confusing me with Major Holtz, Petty Office. I'll settle for one with a nice hooked handle, so I can trip them up before they have the chance to bolt."

Thales can almost see the visible blood pressure rising in Franklin. "Deep breaths, Colonel. Don't make me shoot you full of happy juice again. It's the perfect opportunity for the rookies to ask you embarrassing questions. He finishes bandaging her leg, then goes to check her arm. "I'd highly recommend you just resting rather than working on paperwork. But I realize that might drive you mad."

Leightner looks to the side to where the Happy juice is. Yep. We gots them drugs, son. Till he's told to whack up the CAG on drugs, though he waits. Soon.
Soon.

"It was the eighties," Franklin explains calmly, as though that somehow excuses everything. "What can I say? There were questonable choices being made, all around." Her arm, it seems, she's significantly more interested in than her leg — after all, as long as she can still push the pedals in her Viper, it's unlikely they'll reassign her to the chairforce up in the CIC. But her arm? She frowns darkly at it as the bandage is peeled away.

The wound looks a bit less chewed up than her leg. Either that or Thales did an especially neat job of stitching it up. "Fortunately, it's mostly surface damage. There's no muscle damage that I've seen." He gently takes her wrist and extends her arm forward and backward. "Tell me if this hurts."

Leightner smiles slightly, resetting the local instruments and moving off to rotate out the supplies in the medical bays.

"Yes," she replies, though the statement is qualified. "Not very much, but yes." Of course, there's the slight issue with muscle movements resulting in her tugging, however unintentionally, on her stitches. Her fingers curl reflexively, though it's possible that's a good sign. "Is anyone else being kept for another overnight?" Franklin's question is a pointed one, and her eyes flick around the other beds for proof of it.

"Anyone who has a leg or torso injury, I'd like to keep them here, but that's on a case-by-case. Other injuries, as long as they promise to be still and to come back to have their dressings changed, they've been discharged." Thales finishes changing the dressing on her arm, then goes to make a note on her chart. "If you're very good and you stay nice and still, I might release you to your own bed tonight."

"Preferably with my supper, and without a lecture on needing to think about what I did," she says, another one of her wry jokes. The corners of her mouth turn upwards, but the expression doesn't quite reach Franklin's eyes. She's clearly disturbed by the events of the night before and though calm, isn't doing an especially good job of hiding it. "Thank you, Doctor Thales. If you have any problems with any of my personnel, please let me know. Captain Smythe in particular is… not fond of spending time in sickbay, for understandable reasons." Ones which are likely covered in his medical file. And if not, well, she doesn't seem particularly inclined to go into the details of another crew member's personal affairs in a space as open as a hospital bed.

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