The Work that Cannot Wait
Posted on 24 Mar 2026 @ 8:01pm by Lieutenant Commander Claire Dunross MD
1,334 words; about a 7 minute read
Mission: Arawyn’s Itchy Trigger Finger
// Auxiliary Sickbay – Deck 16 //
The air was wrong.
Too thick. Too hot. Too sharp.
It clung to the back of the throat with the metallic tang of blood and the acrid bite of burned insulation, of scorched conduit and overheated circuitry bleeding through the bulkheads from the deck below. Underneath it all lay the smell Claire Dunross knew too well. Burnt skin. Cooked fabric. The unmistakable scent of bodies caught too close to plasma discharge.
She did not react to it.
Had not, in years.
“Hold the field,” she said quietly.
The biobed cast its sterile glow across the patient, though there was nothing clean about the work. Blood welled and was answered immediately, her instruments precise, efficient, never hesitating. The dermal regenerator hummed in controlled passes as she sealed a ruptured vessel, tissue knitting together under her guidance.
A low boom rolled through the deck.
The surgical plane shifted a fraction.
Claire adjusted without looking up.
“Compensate,” she said.
“Aye, Doctor.”
The field steadied again, the distortion smoothing out beneath her hands.
The smell of it all pressed in. Blood. Burnt skin. The acrid bite of scorched conduit bleeding through the bulkheads from the deck below. She ignored it, as she always did.
“Nearly there,” she murmured, more to the work than to anyone else.
Another tremor. Closer.
She finished the seal, checked the integrity once, then moved on without pause.
The doors opened behind her.
Too fast. Too loud.
Not a chime.
An intrusion.
“Doctor Dunross, we need the suite. Dr Jorik has a critical case incoming. Immediate neurosurgical—”
Claire did not turn.
“What does my patient look like?” she replied, dry as anything, the words slipping out without heat but with unmistakable edge.
A beat.
The interruption faltered.
She adjusted the angle of the regenerator, sealing the last of the internal damage with practiced efficiency.
“I’m almost there,” she added, calmer now, as though that settled the matter entirely. “He can have the room when I’m finished with it.”
Another distant concussion shuddered through the deck plating.
Closer.
The smell of burnt conduit sharpened.
Still, her hands did not waver.
“Final pass,” she murmured. “Let’s make this clean.”
Seconds stretched, then resolved.
The bleeding stopped.
Vitals steadied.
The biobed shifted tone, no longer fighting for survival but maintaining it.
Claire withdrew her hands at last, stepping back just enough to take in the full picture.
“He’ll live,” she said simply. “For now.”
Gloves came off in one smooth motion, discarded without ceremony.
“Move him to recovery. Monitor for internal rebound. I want updates every ten minutes.”
“Aye, Doctor.”
She did not wait for acknowledgment.
She was already moving.
The moment she stepped out of the surgical suite, the full violence of Deck 16 closed in around her.
Noise. Motion. Heat.
The corridor beyond was a funnel of chaos feeding directly from main engineering. Crew staggered in, some walking, some carried, uniforms burned through in places, skin blistered and raw. The air shimmered faintly with residual heat distortion, and beneath the antiseptic there was no masking it now.
Blood.
Burnt flesh.
Ozone.
Claire pushed through it without hesitation.
“Clear the doorway,” she called, not loudly, but with the kind of authority that made people move anyway.
And then she saw the biobed.
Saw him.
Her stride slowed.
Just for a moment.
Elias Harlan lay pale against the biobed, blood still marking the path of what had been done to keep him alive. The wound was unmistakable. Cranial penetration. Emergency extraction. Neural trauma written plainly in the readings above him.
Jorik stood beside him, composed as ever, though there was something in the stillness that spoke of urgency held tightly in check.
Claire’s eyes moved over the data, quick, precise.
Her composure held.
Then faltered.
Only for a heartbeat.
“God above,” she breathed, so quietly it was nearly lost beneath the noise of the room.
Her gaze snapped back to Jorik, sharp again, focused.
“You’ve done what you could,” she said, and there was no condescension in it. Only truth. “But this—”
She gestured once toward Harlan.
“—this is beyond what we can finish here.”
Another rumble shook the deck, stronger this time. Somewhere, something heavy crashed. A distant shout followed.
Claire ignored it.
“We need a full surgical suite. Neuro support. Proper stabilization fields. We cannot—”
“Doctor!”
The voice cut through everything.
A technician, breathless, eyes wide.
“Transporters are back online. Limited function but we can move critical patients. Main Sickbay is ready.”
Claire did not hesitate.
“Good,” she said at once.
She stepped in closer to the biobed, her hand briefly bracing against its edge as she leaned over Harlan, eyes locking onto the monitors one last time.
“This is our way out.”
She straightened, already issuing orders.
“Prepare him for transport. Continuous neural stabilization. I do not want a single drop in support during transition, do you understand me?”
“Aye, Doctor.”
Her gaze flicked back to Jorik.
“Take the transport,” she said, firm, decisive. “Take him there.”
No room for debate.
“They’ve got the facilities. They’ve got the team. That is where he survives this.” She thought of the support waiting for him up there. Amberlyn and McDavid would no doubt be ready to receive.
Another tremor rolled through the deck, closer still, the acrid scent of burning systems flaring sharper in the air.
“Go,” she repeated, already stepping back as the transporter lock was established.
Harlan’s form shimmered where he lay on the biobed, the pattern beginning to break apart into light. Jorik shimmered out a moment later.
For the briefest moment, Claire did not move.
There it was. The pull.
The clean precision of a surgical suite. The challenge of it. The want to be there when they opened him up properly, to see it through, to finish what had been started.
Her place.
The thought came sharp and instinctive.
And just as quickly, she set it aside.
No.
Not there.
Here.
Her gaze shifted, taking in the room again. The overflow of injured. The ones waiting. The ones who would never make it to a surgical table if someone did not keep this place moving.
Transporters were working.
That changed everything.
Her role changed with it.
And it was going to be a long day.
She knew it in her bones. Knew, with the quiet certainty that came from too many moments like this, that later she would remember the ones they could not save. The ones who slipped through despite everything.
Later.
Not now.
Now, this was where she thrived.
Where she led.
Claire reached blindly for the mug sitting abandoned on the console, finding it by memory more than sight. The tea was cold, forgotten, but she drank it anyway. A long swallow. Then another. Enough to wet her throat, to ground herself for half a second in something that was not blood and smoke and urgency.
She set it down with a soft click.
Her uniform clung damply to her back beneath the surgical jacket, heat and effort and the weight of the room pressing in. A stray lock of hair had worked loose, sticking to her temple. She brushed it back with the back of her wrist, irritation flickering, then pulled the tie free and gathered her hair again in a swift, practiced motion, securing it tighter this time.
No distractions.
Not today.
Claire exhaled once, steadying.
Then she turned back into the noise without hesitation.
“Right,” she called, voice carrying cleanly through the chaos. “Triage priority one to me. If they can be moved, we move them. If they cannot, we stabilize and send. We are only sending the most critical up. Everyone else we treat.”
A beat, sharper now:
“We keep them alive long enough to get them upstairs. That’s the job.”
The work surged forward again around her.
And Claire Dunross stepped into it without pause, already reaching for the next patient.
LtCmdr Claire Dunross, MD
Asst Chief Medical Officer
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