Lights began to come back on. Oz picked himself up off the floor and offered Jason a hand. He took it and pointed to his ear, shaking his head.
"I can't hear anything either," he mouthed back. "Rapid pressure change."
The Triton’s main holographic display came on and marked breaches in hangar three and on several other nearby decks. The hull had been thinned to millimetres in the space surrounding the damage, but it was still energized with hyperspace particles. Their velocity read as many times the speed of light, they had been knocked adrift while the ship was enshrouded in a hyperspace field.
Oz looked to the helm and saw that Larry was unconscious in his seat. Ashley's chair was empty; she had been thrown over her console and lay on the deck, breathing rapidly. Her legs were bent and turned at impossible angles. She was awake, however, and working at something on her command and control unit.
To his surprise, the Triton’s main engines came to life and with a deft hand that left him in awe; Ashley plotted a drifting course and initiated it as an automated manoeuvring sequence that would guide the ship in a broad arc. They would make the nebula after all. The navigational section of the main status display turned green as she initiated the sequence and marked herself as available and ready. Regardless of her condition, and the anaesthetics her vacsuit systems administered from the chest down for broken ribs, hairline fractures in her hip and her badly broken legs, the ship accepted her status change.
Oz used his command and control unit to order all vacsuits aboard sealed and activated emergency medical measures. His ears tingled and itched fiercely as the nanobots went to work repairing the damage. It was a maddening, irritating sensation and he couldn't help but chuckle as Jason put one hand to his vacsuit protected head and threw him a rude gesture with the other. "-bastard. You know what a pain in the ass that is?"
"Aye, but we've got to get our hearing back."
"Well, no dead on the bridge, a few knockouts, and some serious injuries we shouldn't completely work through with nanobots. I've got a replacement pilot and navigator coming from the lounge. Agameg rode it out like a rubber ball. If anyone else was standing where he was we’d be scraping them off the ceiling."
Agameg Price helped the pair of tactical officers up from the floor; one was cringing as nanobots attended to his broken arm. "Ashley's condition looks serious, is someone on the way?" he asked.
"Internal bleeding has stopped, but she needs to get to medical for her hips and legs. We only have comms through half the ship, the rest is on relay and the only working internal sensors are on the command deck." Jason replied.
"Not good if we're boarded."
Jason waved to his wife, Laura, briefly before going on. She was taking her seat, like most of the crew her vacsuit protected her from anything worse than a bruise. "Considering the course our genius helmswoman just put us on, and where we'll be hiding, I doubt we'll be an easy catch."
Oz brought up the smaller command interface on his command and control unit. Several holograms hovered over his arm and semi-transparent screens populated his head's up display. He had to check on Ashley, she was the most injured.
She smiled wanly at him through her transparent face plate as he knelt down beside her. "My math checking out?"
"Sure did. The meds taking care of you?"
"Real good. Can't feel anything below the shoulders. Everyone else okay?"
"They'll be all right. Larry should be up once the nanos have fixed him up."
"Good, I could use his brain."
"Panloo is on her way. She'll be taking the shift."
"Thanks Oz, I thought I'd have to finish mine on the floor."
He couldn't believe her bravery. Ashley was in tears at the sight of someone else in pain, but with the lower half of her body twisted and broken she only needed someone to talk to or something to do.
"Oz, Iloona is coming to treat Ash personally. One minute out," Jason informed him.
"Thanks J, I'll tell her." He looked to Ashley. "Med team's on the way."
"I'm not going to be okay, am I?" she asked quietly.
Oz looked at her hand before he put his atop it, making sure he wasn't worsening a broken limb. "Check your fitness icon, just glance at it and it'll pop up."
She stared at him for a moment, her fear plain for the first time since he knelt down.
"Go on," he encouraged.
He watched her glance at the icon in her peripheral and saw the medical screen populate her transparent visor. Her eyes widened.
"There are a few problems but it's all in the yellow."
"I'm screwed," she said quietly. It would look bad to someone who wasn’t medically trained. There were a lot of breaks and recently repaired organs, but she was stable.
Oz squeezed her hand and shook his head. "Look at me. The nanos were able to fix the internal bleeding and once you've been straightened out Iloona will be able to mend your legs and hips. She'll put you out while she does it so you'll wake up as fit as ever."
"I was just sitting at my console then I rag dolled in my chair and slipped over the console like a wet noodle. Nothing's ever hurt like that. How's she going to fix it all?"
"You'll be fine. If you were screwed there would be red marks on your fitness reading."
"None of those," she sniffed. "I knew I should have taken a medical qualifier."
"We'll take it together when we get clear of this. It's been a while since I've done one."
"Think we'll ever get clear of trouble?” she asked. “I mean, it's been one thing after another."
"Just some bad luck. We'll patch up and find clear skies somewhere."
"A beach. Find me a beach, Mister Wizard," Ashley chuckled. A tear escaped the corner of her eye. "And tell Iloona I want to look good in a bikini."
Oz couldn't help but chuckle. "Done and done." Damage reports were coming in, his visor was active with scrolling the summaries. Two reactors were down; bulkheads were sealed where previously damaged sections of the ship were reopened by the trauma.
Iloona arrived in a careful rush with two medics behind her. They carried a stretcher equipped for emergency stasis. "Hello Ashley. Looks like you'll be spending your next few shifts in medical."
"Yay, hooky," Ashley managed. She sounded tired, a side effect of one of the emergency anaesthetics.
"Do you feel any pain?" Iloona asked as she gently touched Ashley's reversed ankle.
Oz knew that if the anaesthetic wasn't working as well as it should have, Ashley would be screaming. Instead she sighed and replied; "nope, all doped up. Feeling better all the time."
"Okay, good. What I'd like you to do is keep your eyes on the Commander while we get you onto the stretcher. Ignore everything but him, okay?"
"Okie dokie."
The responder team placed a pole on either side of Ashley and Iloona pressed a button on one. A grey material flowed from the poles and slipped under her, joining seamlessly in the centre and solidifying to form the bed of a stretcher. It solidified and Iloona carefully adjusted Ashley's legs so they were both squarely in the centre.
"Bikini's and beaches, I'll make it happen Ash," Oz told her.
"And drinks with umbrellas. Make sure Ronen’s there too," she added drowsily.
Iloona and the responders brought the stretcher's restraint blanket up and over her and sealed it to the sides so their patient wouldn't roll off. "My, the system's drugged you up good, hasn't it?" Iloona smiled at Ashley. Her thin lips stretched back and upward along her narrow snout, exaggerating the expression.
"Uh huh. Oh hi Panloo. Taking over?" She asked as she noticed the nafalli night shift pilot take her station at the helm.
She was wide eyed, trying not to stare at Ashley's awkwardly bent legs. "Yes, I, um-"
"The course and sequence are already set, all you have to do is make sure the ship is doing what it’s supposed to then pilot us into the nebula."