*** Temporary Sickbay * USS Chimera *** It was surprising what difference one extra pair of hands could make. The pair in question belonged to Private Ra'nar. The order to find medical equipment to send to the Gott had not been too pleasing to Rangi, for the temporary sickbay was becoming hard pressed to find enough to deal with its own casualties without finding any to spare. She had set about gathering together what she could when Private Ra'nar had arrived. She had explained the situation to him though it wasnt too difficult for him to see the state for himself. He in turn had told her of the casualties on board the Gott, which included General Bretam. While Mercedes and Maika assembled as much medical supply as could be spared, Ra'nar had offered his help which had been gladly accepted. "We've put together as much as we can spare." Rangi said as she approached him "I'm sorry its not more but..." she spread her hands wide to indicate the need in Chimera sickbay. Ra'nar had lost track of the time since he had entered the temporary sickbay, it had seemed like six maybe even eight hours ago, but there was surely no way it could have been that long. At the time he had intended to pick up a few supplies and get back the Gott and the ODA wounded, but what he found in the holodeck was far worse. Ra'nar wiped the sweat from his brow and he tried to heal the burns on the young Ensign he was treating. Second degree by the looks of it, covering over sixty percent of this body, but he was one of the lucky ones. "Doctor Fisher! I need another 20CCs." Scott glanced up from his patient before throwing the vial to Ra'nar. It seemed that the extra dose put the young man at ease. It was not long after Ra'nar had stabilised the young man that he noticed Ensign Dexter enter the temporary sickbay walk over to Doctor Summers to inform her of something. "Ma'am, there's been an order to evacuate the Chimera starting with the injured." Dexter could see her surprise but continued, "We will be moving over to the Gott Ma'am, Chimera is in no condition to make the trip home." The implications of this took a second or so to sink in.She stared at him with what he thought was a suspicious look and feeling a bit uneasy when there was no immediate response he ventured "...Ma'am?" "Right ...thankyou ensign." he started at the sudden reply as she turned quickly to Ra'nar and motioned to Scott that he join them. "New orders." she said "We have to evacuate the ship...beginning here." Ra'nar frowned, all he seemed to do was frown, he had not smiled for hours. " I am not sure that some of the older ones will survive transport. Their DNA seems to be in some kind of flux, and sending it though a transporter beam may not be the best of Ideas." Rangi breathed a sigh and said with an air of defeat. " I know....We had to do a site to site to get them here when sickbay was more or less destroyed.Its so..so...frustrating!" she added looking towards the small group of aged patients. Scott shook his head when he met Ra'nars eye. "Is there a shuttle?" she asked turning back to Dexter. Dexter searched his memory, "The ODA took three of the shuttles, the other two are badly damaged." Ra'nar could see the troubled faces, "We could…" He started before rethinking the idea and deciding that it was decent enough to be said, "....load up the escape pods. The Gott is not that far away, manoeuvring thrusters should be enough to get them there." "We'd never move them through the ship." Scott said, frowning deeply. "There're no working lifts." Rangi added " ..so that would leave only the pods on 'this' deck and I dont know their condition. Ensign...do you?" she looked at Dexter hopefully. Dexter thought back to the ship wide damage report he had seen only an hour ago, "One of them was lost when we entered the 'portal', ejected by mistake, but the rest are fine..." He paused for a moment, "...As far as I know anyway." "We can do it then!" Rangis voice filled with relief and the smallest smile lit her face briefly. "Scott..prepare section 4 and 5..Ra'nar...we'll do the rest. Ensign..make ready all the pods that are fit for use. We'll make our way to the ejection hatches as soon as we can..oh...and please contact the Gott and let them know." Dexter smiled, "Yes ma'am." He then headed for the exit. "Well, looks like we got a plan of action," Scott said more cheerfully. Ra'nar briefly smiled, "Yes, lets just hope that those pods are not damaged or the Gott may well be beaming over…" Ra'nar stopped, it was too terrible to say but both Rangi and Scott knew what he was implying, not many would make the transport, alive. Scott turned and walked swiftly away, stopping to tell Maikai and Mercedes the change of plan. Rangi said quietly, turning her head towards the patients once more. " I hope this works...." *** Forty minutes later *** After much careful moving patients, most on stretchers but some walking, the pods on deck 6 were almost completely filled. It only took one more trip to bring the last patients to the cramped pods, then they were ready to go. Ra'nar, Scott and Rangi moved together. Ra'nar spoke up first, "That was the last of them. All the injured are sedated and the pods are set on a course for the Gott which should tractor them aboard." Rangi nodded and pushed hair back from her face. "Right..next...there are..what...twenty two throughout the ship?" Scott nodded. "All their positions are logged we can get the Gott to transport them from their positions...but at least one of us needs to be there to meet them." Rangi glanced at Ra'nar. "We should do that..you know the layout of sickbay dont you?..and there will be too many for one person to deal with. Scott...I want you to go back to Corporal Swithin." she said thinking of the one critically injured crewman that Scott had found. " Transport with her...how long before you can get back to her?" Scott shrugged " Twenty minutes? fifteen maybe." "Off you go then. Mercedes and Maikai can deal with the rest here and follow us over. Ra'nar..you agree?" Ra'nar nodded, "I have no problem with that, we should be able to handle the rest of the injured when they manage to arrive." Ra'nar shook Scotts hand as he left before turning back to Rangi, "A good doctor you have there." "Yes indeed." she agreed with a smile and the pair began to walk back towards the temporary sickbay. "We can take some of the cases with us. " she said "..all the medication should be packed by now.Is the euipment on the Gott functioning do you know?" They walked single file past a heap of debris, pushed to one side of the corridor to give a pathway. "When I think what we lost on deck five..it could drive me to despair!" Ra'nar thought back to his home town and how it was completely decimated, "I know what you mean." For some reason Ra'nar always lost his usual conversational style of talking when thinking about that, indeed it took him several seconds to think of what to say next. "The equipment on the Gott is working for the most part, but we will need extra generators. Power is a bit of a problem. If we take a few from the holodeck they should be simple to hook up to the sickbay equipment." "Trouble is.." Rangi said dropping back to pass another obstacle.She caught up with him."...we dont know how long we have left here. I mean..Dexter said we were to abandon Chimera, but there are things we could salvage given time." Ra'nar took in a deep breath, "Yes, there is one thing in particular that I really don't want to leave without." Said Ra'nar while thinking about his sword still in his quarters, {the one time that I don't take it on a mission.} "But we will have to see how much time we have." Rangi glanced at him enquiringly. "What is it?" she asked. "With the pods already on their way, we really don't have too long." Almost embarrassed he answered, "My sword, I have seen a lot of combat with it and I have come to think of it as my good luck charm. However most of that deck is cut off and it may just have to stay there." "It's in your quarters?...well...I dont think you'd have time to get there and back." Rangi said in a tone of concern and loked at him doubtfully. **** To Be Continued..........**** Private Ra'nar Medical Secialist USS Chimera & LtCmdr Rangi Summers CMO/2XO USS Chimera & Ensign Dexter (npc) Ra'nar & Scott Fisher (npc) Rangi