Chapter Text
The lights were flickering in and out as the ship shook with prolonged phaser fire. Moans of pain could be heard throughout the room, and the air was thick with the metallic scent of blood. Various nurses and doctors were briskly moving around the room like well-calibrated machines, Starfleet training kicking in smoothly.
“Doctor?”
Julian snaps his gaze from scanning the chaos back to the Andorian with the gash across her forehead, veering dangerously close to her left antennae, blood dripping down her face. At first glance, it wasn’t life-threatening, which was more promising than some of the other patients here. Still, it should be treated quickly to prevent the cut from widening.
Focus, Julian. One step at a time.
He superimposes his knowledge of the delicate tendons and boning present in Andorian physiology and with some careful prodding confirms his initial diagnosis.
“Ensign Zh’Tali, you should count yourself lucky. Your antennae will live to see another day.” he says and grins, a tight-lipped professional smile.
She reared back, squinting at him and his blood-stained uniform with blown pupils as he ran the dermal regenerator over her wound. He continues explaining,
“It’s actually quite interesting, you see, because the Defiant is so much warmer than the usual climate on Andoria, that your body isn’t quite used to congealing your blood at this temperature. Your biology requires a bit of a stiff breeze to get all those coagulants moving. Therefore, you could have lost a lot more blood and the cut really could have widened up into your antennae!”
He awaits for her response.
She blinks. And blinks again.
“Doctor…Bashir,” she slurred, “I need…to get back to my station”
Bashir smiled once more and added most likely concussion to his diagnosis.
“I’m afraid that you’re going to have to be admitted for observation, Ensign” and pats her on the shoulder, readying to move on to the next patient.
She struggled to get up, falling back onto the bed below with his gentle insistence. Julian’s eyes quickly bounce back around to the rest of the patients receiving or waiting for treatment and tapped his combadge. As he looks around, two officers carrying a third between them struggle in, shouting for help. All three of them had plasma burns, but the one in the middle was unconscious, his uniform still smoking. Rushing over to them, he says
“Bashir to Sisko. Approximately 11 injured, with 3 in critical condition. Are we expecting to sustain fire for much longer?”
Static greets him. Fantastic.
The Defiant was a small ship, and if many more people were injured there would be an approximate 67% chance that they wouldn’t be making it back to the Starbase, the chances ticking up in his head after each shake of the ship. However, Julian is most useful here. He begins to make his way over to the more critical patients as the ship creaks and sparks indiscriminately around him.
He throws his mind and body back into the foray, and begins the dance of assess, treat, reassure, and move on. A dance he is getting all too familiar with these days, he thinks ruefully. Was it not a couple of years ago that he was begging for frontier medicine?
Still, Julian muses, he finds satisfaction in finding the cause of someone’s pain and being the solution, even in a warzone. In the simple act of healing, he feels needed. Like he’s putting his unnatural body and mind to good use by solving the puzzle of pain in the people around him.
As he moves through the sea of people in the cramped rooms, he can piece together bits and pieces of what is happening outside the insulated medbay. As the Defiant was leaving yet another razed ketracel white production facility, two Dominion ships had given chase. Somehow, one of these ships had a lucky hit at the front power reserve responsible for the ship’s cloak, allowing the Dominion to batter at the Defiant’s shields. One of the burned engineers, in fact, had come directly from Miles’ team, who was currently attempting to repair the reserve and get the cloaking back online with limited success.
Just as he was about to try his combadge again, the ship gave one last great familiar shudder. The shudder of a ship entering warp. Exhausted cheers erupted from the battered crew and Julian let a genuine smile onto his face and gave a sigh of tired relief. Even he didn’t relish the idea of performing reconstructive surgery in an active firefight. He couldn’t wait to get back to the Starbase and have a piping hot rakatajino and curl up to continue of Garak’s absurd enigma tales that was shoved politely onto him a few weeks ago.
He shakes his head and huffs a laugh to himself – he knows he really needs a break if he genuinely wants to read one of Garak’s recommendations. Talking to the man about them was always an experience (to say the least) but actually reading one could be a bit of a drag.
Just as he was about to step through into the sterile field, though, he hears a thud. He whips his head around just as he sees Ensign Zh’Tali’s body hit the floor at the exit of the medbay. Must’ve been trying to make an escape. Sighing, he begins to make his way over to the fallen officer. But when he reaches her, his eyes widen and he scrambles down next to her.
Phaser burns.
Just as he opens his mouth to yell for a gurney and some covering fire, Julian feels a shimmer of energy above him. Looks up to stare into the barrel of a phaser rifle and the unyielding glare of a Jem’Hadar soldier. It’s as if time slows down, and Julian’s hands without his input come up to angle the rifle away from him and Zh’Tali. The phaser fires over his shoulder, and he feels the heat burn a path on his neck.
Time speeds up, and with it comes the butt of the rifle towards Julian’s head. Off-balance from the shove he just gave, his hands can’t cover his head in time to prevent contact.
The darkness that hits him next spares no mercy.