The Wounded
Posted on 23 Mar 2026 @ 11:27am by Lieutenant Commander Elias Harlan & Lieutenant Jorik
1,841 words; about a 9 minute read
Mission:
Arawyn’s Itchy Trigger Finger
Location: Deck 16
Jorik moved through the corridor on Deck 16 with the same measured stride he always used—spine aligned, hands clasped behind his back, boots making no more sound than necessary on the carpeted deck plating. The Annex Sickbay was only a short walk from the nearest turbolift; he had already memorized the route during his original orientation. The corridor was quieter than main sickbay on Deck 7—fewer crew passing, fewer ambient voices—exactly as expected for a secondary triage facility designed primarily for engineering casualties.
He had chosen to walk rather than take the lift for the additional 1.7 minutes it afforded him to review the overnight data on his PADD. The Lathira IV crisis had resolved the day before; the ship had broken orbit and resumed course toward the nearest starbase. No new alerts had come through during the night. Routine, for once, seemed plausible.
The lattice of his mind was steady this morning. The recalibration from the holodeck session—and the subsequent conversation with Elias—had not eliminated the persistent variables entirely, but it had reordered them. The emotion once labeled as interference now occupied a reinforced node: present, acknowledged, integrated. It no longer disrupted processing; in fact, the structure felt… more resilient under load. He catalogued the change without sentiment. It simply was.
Then the ship lurched.
A deep, concussive boom rolled through the hull—felt more than heard—followed immediately by the red-alert klaxons and the harsh strobing of emergency lighting. The deck vibrated under his feet as inertial dampers strained to compensate for sudden power fluctuations. Jorik’s hand shot to the bulkhead for balance; the PADD slipped from his fingers and clattered to the carpet.
Red Alert. All hands to battle stations. Containment breach, main engineering.
The automated voice cut through the klaxons, calm and mechanical. Jorik’s gaze snapped toward the nearest access hatch labeled MAIN ENGINEERING – PORT ACCESS. The heavy blast door was already sealed, red status lights pulsing along its frame. Containment protocols had locked it down automatically.
He did not hesitate.
He moved—faster than protocol would dictate, faster than he had moved in years—straight to the secondary access corridor that branched off Deck 16 toward engineering’s auxiliary entry.
The corridor lights flickered as power rerouted; emergency force fields shimmered briefly at junctions before snapping off again. His boots struck the deck in a rhythm that was no longer measured.
The secondary door came into view: a standard sliding panel, not blast-rated, its status light red and locked. A manual release lever protruded from the frame—Starfleet’s concession to the possibility that automated systems might fail when lives were on the line.
Jorik reached it in three strides, gripped the lever with both hands, and pulled.
The mechanism resisted for 1.3 seconds—safety interlock engaging—then gave with a metallic groan. Hydraulics hissed; the door parted 30 centimeters, then jammed. Smoke and the sharp ozone tang of arcing plasma wafted through the gap. Shouts and klaxons echoed from the other side.
He wedged his shoulder into the opening, planted one boot against the frame, and forced the panel wider with raw strength. Metal screeched. The gap widened to 60 centimeters—enough.
He slipped through.
Main Engineering was pure chaos—klaxons screaming, coolant vapor curling in thick white clouds inside the straining force field, red emergency strobes painting every surface in blood. Engineers moved in frantic, practiced patterns: rerouting power, sealing secondary lines, shouting status reports over the din. Jorik’s ears strained for one voice amid the noise—the familiar, steady cadence that had once anchored him through countless crises—but he heard nothing. Only the absence of it.
He ignored the engineers rushing past, their faces streaked with soot and sweat. Someone was issuing orders from the central console—Ryan Collingway, by the voice—but it wasn’t Elias Harlan.
Jorik seized the arm of the next crewman who tried to sprint by—an ensign, wide-eyed and coughing. “Where is Commander Harlan?” The words came out louder than intended, almost a shout, edged with something raw he did not pause to name.
The ensign’s gaze snapped to him, panic-stricken. “Over there!”
Jorik followed the pointed finger across the expanse. Two figures knelt beside a third who lay prone on the deck plating. One he recognized instantly—Nathan Caldwell, hand hastily wrapped in a blood-soaked field dressing, fingers charred and blistered, uniform scorched across the chest and shoulders. Third-degree burns mottled his face and neck, yet he remained conscious, steadying a medical tricorder with his good hand while the second person—an ensign—pressed a hypospray to the fallen man’s neck.
The fallen man was Elias.
Jorik crossed the distance in long, efficient strides, boots ringing against the deck. He knelt without preamble, took the tricorder from Nathan’s trembling grip, and scanned Elias in one fluid motion.
A jagged shard of conduit protruded from Elias’s forehead—duranium, approximately 18 centimeters exposed, having breached the frontal bone and lodged deep into the cranial cavity. Blood sheeted down his face, matting dark hair, pooling beneath his head. Vitals flickered on the tricorder display: pulse thready, blood pressure plummeting, intracranial pressure rising catastrophically. Brain tissue compromised. Neural pathways disrupted. Time remaining measurable in minutes.
Jorik said nothing to Nathan or the Ensign. Words were irrelevant. He placed two fingers on Elias’s katra points—left temple and cheek—closed his eyes, and initiated the meld.
The connection snapped into place like a circuit completing. Elias was there—faint, flickering, but present. A storm of pain, confusion, fading awareness. Jorik poured calm into the link, steady and unyielding.
Stay alive.
The mental whisper carried no plea, only command. Elias’s presence stirred weakly in response—recognition, then a dim, instinctive push toward consciousness—but it was slipping.
Jorik severed the meld, opened his eyes, and rose in one motion. He slid both arms beneath Elias—shoulders and knees—and lifted him as though the human weighed nothing. Vulcan strength, so often restrained, now served its purpose without hesitation.
“I am taking him to sickbay,” he stated, voice flat, final. No request for permission. No explanation.
Nathan opened his mouth—whether to protest or assist, Jorik did not wait to learn. He turned and strode toward the nearest access corridor, Elias cradled against his chest. The weight was negligible. The urgency was absolute.
Behind him, the force field flickered again—integrity dropping, purge bar crawling toward completion—but Jorik did not look back. Logic dictated triage preparation in the Annex, casualty staging, resource allocation.
Logic be damned. Elias was dying. And Jorik was not going to let him.
Jorik carried Elias through the secondary access corridor with steady, unhurried strides—Vulcan strength making the human’s weight irrelevant, though the urgency in his grip was anything but.
The corridor outside was already filling with wounded: engineers staggering out of main engineering, soot-streaked and coughing, some supporting others, all heading toward the Annex Sickbay. Red emergency lights pulsed in slow rhythm; klaxons wailed distantly.
Jorik did not slow. The lattice of his mind was clear, focused—every node aligned on the single priority: Elias’s survival. The reinforced emotion that had once threatened disruption now served as ballast, steadying his focus rather than fracturing it. Logic had its place; this required more.
A nurse—Ensign Nissa Camparda—stood in the corridor, tricorder already sweeping the incoming casualties, her face pale but composed.
“This one requires immediate neurosurgical intervention,” Jorik stated, voice cutting through the chaos without rising in volume. “Cranial penetration, probable frontal lobe involvement, rising intracranial pressure. He will die without decompression and extraction within the next 8.4 minutes.”
Camparda’s eyes widened at the sight of Elias’s blood-slicked face and the protruding conduit shard, but she nodded sharply and stepped aside. “Surgical suite one is occupied—Dr. Dunross is mid-procedure. Biobed four is open.”
Jorik did not acknowledge the information beyond a single nod. The small facility was already straining: three biobeds occupied by moaning engineers, another nurse prepping dermal regenerators, the air thick with antiseptic and the metallic scent of blood. He bypassed the occupied surgical suite entirely—Claire Dunross would be occupied for at least another twenty minutes—and claimed the last available biobed, easing Elias down with careful precision.
Vital signs flared crimson on the overhead monitor:
Pulse: 48 bpm and falling
BP: 78/42
ICP: 38 mmHg and rising
Cerebral perfusion pressure: critical
Jorik moved without hesitation. He pulled the surgical cart to the bedside—laser scalpel, neural probe array, hemostatic field generator, micro-suction, bone-regeneration matrix—and began.
First: stabilize. He adjusted the biobed’s neural interface collar to monitor brain activity in real time, then administered a fast-acting osmotic diuretic via hypospray to reduce swelling. The ICP dropped 4 mmHg within thirty seconds—temporary, but enough.
Next: the conduit. Jorik sanitized his hands with one smooth motion in the sanitizer, then gripped the exposed duranium shard between thumb and forefinger. He activated the micro-suction and a low-intensity neural stabilizer field around the wound site to minimize secondary trauma during extraction.
“Computer, record procedure,” he said quietly. “Neurosurgical extraction of foreign body, frontal lobe penetration, intracranial hemorrhage. Patient: Commander Elias Harlan. Surgeon: Lieutenant Jorik.”
He applied gentle, constant traction—slow, controlled, no sudden jerks. The shard slid free with a wet, sickening sound; fresh blood welled immediately. Jorik dropped the conduit into a sterile tray, then pressed a hemostatic pad to the entry wound while the auto-suture array deployed micro-filaments to seal the dural breach.
The tricorder confirmed: no major arterial laceration, but significant edema and localized hematoma pressing on the prefrontal cortex. Motor and speech centers at risk. He switched to the neural probe, guiding it through the entry channel under real-time holographic guidance. Tiny bursts of low-frequency sonic disruption broke up the hematoma without excessive tissue damage; suction removed the debris.
Vital signs stabilized fractionally—pulse climbing to 62 bpm, BP creeping to 92/58—but Elias remained unconscious, pupils unequal, left side slack.
He activated the cortical stimulator array, calibrating it to reinforce damaged neural pathways while the biobed’s regenerative field accelerated tissue repair. A second hypospray delivered a neuroprotective cocktail—citicoline analog, cerebrolysin derivative, adjusted for human metabolism.
He straightened, gaze fixed on the monitor. ICP was down to 24 mmHg.
Perfusion improving. Elias was still alive.
For now.
Jorik turned to a nurse, who had been assisting another patient.
“He requires an isolation area,” he instructed. “Full neural monitoring, anti-seizure prophylaxis on standby, and alert Commander Dunross that I require a surgical suite as soon as it is available. This patient will need craniotomy for complete hematoma evacuation and dural repair within the hour.”
She nodded and moved to comply.
Jorik looked down at Elias—blood-streaked, pale, breathing shallowly through the oxygen mask—and for the first time since the meld, allowed himself one unfiltered thought.
Stay alive.
The lattice pulsed once—strong, reinforced—and he returned to work.
With Elias stable, there was still much to do.
--
Lieutenant Commander Elias Harlan
Chief Engineering Officer
USS Arawyn
&
Lieutenant Jorik
Medical Officer
USS Arawyn
RSS Feed