Seeking Aid
Posted on Sat Aug 2nd, 2025 @ 3:02pm by Captain M'Raz & Lieutenant John Doe & Lieutenant Richard Pierce MD
1,165 words; about a 6 minute read
Mission:
Admiral Ambition and the Borg
Location: USS Jane Addams, various locations
Timeline: MD004 - 2046
As the ship continued under tow, Taggart's head began hurting again. It felt like a spike was being shoved through his temples. Gasping in pain, he finally relented, knowing he'd be no good in a command position right now.
Reaching up, he tapped is commbadge. "Lieutenant Taggart to...to Captain M'Raz," he gasped as he spoke.
"M'Raz here," he said as he brought a wounded crewman, draped over his shoulder, to the safe zone they'd set up, on Deck 2. "Report."
Hearing his Captain's strong voice made Taggart feel all the worse for what he was about to say. "I'm sorry, Sir, but I think I nee....." before he finished speaking, a very powerful lance or pain screamed through his mind, causing him to grunt and lose consciousness, as he crumbled out of the command seat and onto the deck.
"Amazing, with communications out, he got through at all," Raz said. "I'm heading up to the Bridge. You ..." He pointed toward an able-looking ensign. "Let Sickbay know what's happened. I'll get him down there, one way or the other."
As the ensign ran off, Raz reversed his course, because he knew a route now, and made it to the Bridge in considerably less time than it had taken him to find that safe spot. The Lieutenant was indeed unconscious. He searched the Bridge, his gaze landing on his Chief Science Officer. "You have the Bridge. Not much to do really, with communications out and us being under tow, but orders are orders ..."
"I'm taking him to Sickbay." Raz lifted Taggart, moving him into a fireman's carry, and headed back the way he came. The trip was longer and harder and more than once, he'd had to leave Taggart propped up against a bulkhead while he worked to clear a path, but he got him there and dropped him unceremoniously on the nearest biobed. "He collapsed on the Bridge."
Pierce had just stepped back through the warped doors of Sickbay, sweat clinging to his temples and grime streaked across his uniform. His medkit hit the nearest counter with a heavy thud as he stripped off his gloves, muttering to himself about blown sealants and half-dead jefferies tubes. Three decks, zero working lights, and more than a few bodies—some breathing, some not.
He barely had time to process the exhaustion settling into his bones when the doors groaned open behind him again, and Raz came through hauling a limp form across his shoulders.
The Betazoid was out and unresponsive.
Pierce moved before his brain caught up. He swept aside a tray of instruments to clear space on the biobed as Raz dropped Taggart down with the finesse of a sack of potatoes.
“Get me vitals!” he barked, slamming his hand down on the biobed controls to override the frozen interface. “Oxygen saturation’s tanking, neural patterns are chaotic—he’s not just passed out, something hit him. Neurological.”
His eyes scanned the data readout, fragmented though it was, while his hands moved on instinct—hypospray, cortical stimulator, neural monitor. Taggart’s pulse was rapid and uneven, his brainwave activity spiking in dangerous, unpredictable waves.
"Was this a seizure? Stroke? Brain trauma?" Pierce muttered. "No visible head wound... no radiation exposure from the deck sweep I logged..."
He leaned in closer, frowning as he adjusted the stimulator settings.
"Or something else entirely..."
He didn’t have enough working diagnostics equipment to confirm anything beyond “bad and getting worse,” but there was one thing he was sure of: Taggart hadn’t collapsed from exhaustion alone.
Pierce worked quickly to stabilize the readings. The biobed fought him every step of the way—half the software still fried—but he wasn’t about to let the kid spiral deeper without a fight.
"I'll be on the Bridge," Raz said. "Take care of him." He didn't wait for answer just made the trip back to the Bridge. Every trip through the damaged depths of his ship felt like another weight added to his very soul; by the time, he had returned to the Bridge to relieve Harris, he felt as though he were nearing his hundredth birthday.
"You're relieved, Harris," he said quietly as he slipped into the command seat and waited.
[Two Hours and Twenty-Three Minutes Later]
The Jane Addams was towed into its final resting place while the engineering team prepared to transport. Mazurski, after shutting down the repair vessel, beamed over to confer with Raz. "You're combadges will work now," he said. "They've been connected to the base. We've got housing arranged for the night and the replicators are all working, so you'll have food and a quiet place to sleep. We don't have any doctors left on board. I'm assuming you do ..."
Raz nodded in the affirmative and Mazurski continued on.
"Okay, good. So, your doctors take care of the wounded." He paused a moment and then added, "oh and we'll ... umm ... take you off last."
"Thank you," Raz said. "For everything. I won't forget it."
"Our pleasure," Mazurski said as he tapped his combadge. "Mazurski to base. You can begin beaming everyone over. Injured go directly to Sickbay.They have a doctor ..." He disappeared in a blue shimmer as Raz rose to his feet.
"You heard the man," Raz said. "We're moving over to the base. Don't worry about your belongings. We'll work out how to get them later."
[Elsewhere on the Ship]
Jason was still with Elias McEntyre below decks. They had spent the last two hours while the Jane Addams was getting towed, helping out with the crew who were trapped. Looking out the window and seeing the ship docking, the Commander sighed in relief. "Looks like our work here is done."
And then people started disappearing, caught up in the transporter beams that brought them to safety, one by one, deck by deck. Where they were met by members of the engineering team and sorted -- some assigned to (borrowed) quarters and guided toward the Mess Hall where coffee and food was waiting while others were sent to Sickbay.
Raz, well, he was the last to go and leaving his ship was maybe the hardest thing he'd ever done. He wouldn't. Couldn't. And so, he sat in the command chair, swamped by a thousand memories, and held back the emotions by sheer force of will. Gamma Shift duty on the Bridge, younger then, hoping for action. Later as its First Officer, hoping that nothing happened, that things stayed quiet. All the alerts. The muttered jokes they didn't think he heard (he always heard) and then, finally, the moment he first say the Borg. His claws lengthened, sharp and eager, digging into the arms of the chair as he roared his defiance and heard it echo through an empty ship.
Captain M'Raz
Commanding Officer
USS Jane Addams
Lieutenant Michael Taggart
Chief Flight Control Officer
USS Jane Addams
Lieutenant Richard Pierce, M.D.
Chief Medical Officer
USS Jane Addams
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