War Stories: Book One Read online

  After keeping me in his damn dungeon imagining vast conspiracies to create genetically enhanced doctors in Starfleet…

  But no, there was nothing about the Starfleet investigation into whether or not Lt. Commander Elizabeth Lense, chief medical officer of the U.S.S. Lexington, top of her class at Starfleet Medical, had violated the Federation law forbidding postnatal genetic enhancement.

  Of course, she hadn’t. The whole idea was patently ridiculous. And if the Federation wasn’t presently embroiled in a war with an enemy ruled by shapechangers who had spent the last several years fomenting paranoia throughout the quadrant, it no doubt would have been investigated quietly and with a minimum of fuss.

  Instead, the revelation that the salutatorian of her class, Julian Bashir, had been illegally genetically enhanced by his parents when he was six led some to think that Lense, having, in essence, beaten him, might also be so enhanced.

  So they locked her in a room on Starbase 314 and went over her life with a fine-toothed comb. End result: she was an absolutely brilliant and completely human physician, who had been kept off active duty, and probably costing lives with her absence, because some admiral somewhere thought it was a good idea.

  Part of Lense wanted to resign right there.

  Instead, she returned to the Lexington. There was, after all, a war on.

  The door chime rang. “Come in.”

  Heather Anderson walked in. Lense had been hoping that Captain Eberling himself would come by. The son-of-a-bitch owes me that much, at least. I always thought Starfleet captains defended their officers when they’re falsely accused.

  Instead, he’d sent the first officer to do his dirty work. Lense had never liked Anderson much. She wasn’t sure why, there was just something about the older woman that rubbed her wrong.

  “Good to see you again, Elizabeth.”

  “Commander, I only just reported on board—”

  “Uh, it’s ‘Captain’ now, Elizabeth—but ‘Heather’ is just fine. They’re sending us right back to the front lines, so we’re probably going to all be in close quarters for some time.”

  Lense frowned, only just now noticing the fourth pip on Anderson’s collar. “What happened to Captain Eberling?”

  Anderson’s lips seemed to twist oddly. “Didn’t they tell you?”

  “They kept me in a room for a month, Comma—Sorry, Captain. The war could’ve ended while I was in there, and I wouldn’t have known.”

  “I’m afraid that Captain Eberling died at Tyra.”

  Blinking, Lense said, “I’m sorry?”

  “Captain Eberling is dead.”

  Anderson went on for several seconds. Somewhere, in the back of her head, Lense registered the captain’s words explaining that over a hundred ships were at Tyra, and only fourteen, including the Lexington, made it out in one piece. However, Eberling was fatally wounded on the bridge.

  “Damn…” Lense muttered.

  “There was nothing you could’ve done,” Anderson said.

  “Hm?” Lense was confused by the statement.

  “The captain was dead before he ever got to sickbay. Your being here wouldn’t have made a difference.”

  Lense wanted to say any number of things. She wanted to ask about the other people she might have been able to save if she had been where she belonged. She wanted to say that she would never get the chance to get the apology from Eberling that she felt she deserved. She wanted to say that she wondered what it meant that her first thought upon learning of the death of a man she had once respected was self-righteous anger. She wanted to ask how the hell Anderson knew what difference her being there really would have made. She wanted to say that she had no desire to serve under Captain “Heather is just fine” Anderson, regardless of rank.

  She said none of those things. Instead, she just said, “Thank you, Captain.”

  Anderson smiled. Or, rather, her lips upturned. Smiles tended to brighten faces and show some kind of humor or joy. But the rest of Anderson’s face remained as pursed and humorless as always. “It’s ‘Heather.’ And don’t mention it. There’s a senior staff meeting at 1100 in the observation lounge. I’ll give everyone the mission specs there.” Her lips turned downward into a frown that was as unconvincing as the smile. “It won’t be another Tyra, I promise you that. In fact, this may give us a chance to get some of our own back.”

  With that, Anderson left Lense alone to figure out how she felt.

  The mission the Lexington went on wasn’t another Tyra.

  It was worse.

  Dominion forces were threatening the border near the Setlik system. The site of a major battle during a previous war between the Federation and Cardassia, it was once again a flash point in this war in which those two nations were only supporting players. The Lexington was one of six Nebula-class vessels assigned to the sector, along with the Honshu, Sutherland, T’Kumbra, Monitor, and Aldebaran. In addition, they had support from ten Norway-class ships. Intelligence reports indicated a distinct possibility of an attempt to take Setlik by a small garrison of Cardassian ships, led by one Jem’Hadar strike ship, and this force would be more than enough to deal with it.

  Typically, Intelligence was both absolutely right and completely wrong. The Dominion/Cardassian forces did try to take Setlik—but with two very large garrisons of Cardassian ships and six Jem’Hadar strike ships.

  The Narvik, Oslo, Lillehammer, and Bodø were destroyed before the Lexington had a chance to even go to red alert.

  Lense had been on the bridge at the time. She was discussing the possibility of setting up one of the shuttlebays to handle triage in case things got bad. Said discussion was taking place with the new first officer, Commander Fiona Galloway, since “Heather” was busy with other concerns. This suited Lense just fine.

  Then the tactical officer—some Bolian ensign who didn’t look old enough to have a ridge—announced the arrival of over a dozen warp signatures, and then four of their support ships were gone in plumes of flame, and a Jem’Hadar ship was firing on the Lexington.

  Galloway bellowed, “Damage report!”

  Mai-Fan Wan, the second officer, said from the ops station, “Mutlitple hits to decks nine, ten, eleven, and twelve.”

  Lense tensed. Sickbay was on deck nine.

  Wan continued: “Hull breach on deck twelve. Plasma fires erupting on all four decks.”

  So much for “getting our own back,” Heather, Lense thought angrily, and said, “I’ve got to get to sickbay.”

  Nobody spared her a glance as she headed to the turbolift.

  “Target that Jem’Hadar ship and fire, all phasers.” That was Anderson’s voice.

  “Load torpedo bays.”

  “Sensors indicate that the T’Kumbra, the Tromsø, and the Trondheim are trying to cut a wedge in the Cardassian ships.”

  “The Honshu, Bergen, Sutherland, and Stavanger are chasing the ships going after Setlik IV.”

  “Course 189 mark 2, then hit them with—”

  Whatever it was Anderson wanted to hit them with was lost to the turbolift doors closing. “Sickbay,” Lense said. Plasma fires. I’ll need to get the burn units up and running. She tapped her combadge. “Lense to Kumagai.”

  Silence greeted her request.

  Damn newbies. The Lexington’s medical staff had almost doubled—from eleven to nineteen—in the month she was away. Lense’s staff now included two more doctors, twice as many nurses, and an additional medtech. Kumagai was one of those two doctors—an ensign, fresh out of Starfleet Medical, with a specialty in treating burn wounds (hence his assignment to a ship on the front lines).

  “Lense to Kumagai,” she repeated.

  Again, silence.

  She tried her assistant, who had filled in as CMO while she was away. “Lense to Cox. Julianna, you there?”

  More silence.

  “Lense to Cavanaugh. Lense to Griscom.”

  She sighed. With all those people, one of them should have replied.

  “Lense t
o sickbay, someone report!”

  The turbolift doors opened onto deck nine. Uniformed personnel ran back and forth, some carrying what looked to Lense’s untrained eye like equipment to be used in repairs. People shouted at each other, both across the hall and over intercoms and combadges.

  As she walked closer to sickbay, she started to notice the burning smell. It had the distinct metallic odor of a plasma fire, but it was more of a lingering smell than an active one. Good, she thought, that means the fire-suppression systems are working. The computer could starve a fire with force fields, and it usually had a quick enough response time that damage was often minimal.

  The moment the doors to sickbay started to part, she spoke. “Why the hell isn’t any—?”

  Whatever she planned to say next caught in her throat.

  Sickbay was full of bodies.

  The smoky metallic smell from the plasma fire lingered, but it was mixed with the equally metallic odor of blood.

  This wouldn’t be unusual in the midst of a large-scale battle, but for the fact that it was all medical personnel. The biobeds were empty, but members of her staff were sprawled about. Julianna lay on the floor, third-degree plasma burns all up and down the right side of her body. Next to her was Nurse Rodgers, like burns on her left side. They were both dead.

  There was a giant hole where one of the bulkheads used to be, a force field over that hole, through which she could see dozens of badly burned pieces of whatever normally was inside starship bulkheads.

  The fire-suppresion systems did work, she thought through the shock, just not fast enough.

  She forced herself to look around. Triage. See who needs immediate attention. Half the equipment in sickbay was also burned. She heard moans, and one person screaming. Nobody seemed to be in any shape to help out.

  “I need a doctor here!”

  That voice came from the doors, which had just parted to reveal a lieutenant she didn’t recognize carrying in an ensign she also didn’t recognize. This was due in part to the blood obscuring both their faces.

  Somewhere in the back of her head, she cursed Cox for not giving the crew adequate first-aid training— the lieutenant was carrying the ensign like he was bringing his bride across the threshold instead of in a proper “firefighter’s carry”—then remembered that Cox was lying dead at her feet.

  “Computer, activate EMH.”

  A short, male human figure appeared in the center of the room. “Please state the nature of the medical emergency,” the figure said in a haughty tone.

  “There’s a war on,” Lense said dryly. “Examine the people on the floor. Do triage, and treat the most gravely injured first. There’s no support staff handy, so you’ll have to find everything yourself.”

  The EMH looked around. “I’m a doctor, not an archaeologist.”

  “Move!”

  “Of course.” The EMH knelt down to start examining those on the floor.

  Lense pointed to the lieutenant. “You—set her down there, then you sit here.”

  “I’m fine, Doctor, it’s all her blood on me. I need to get back to engineering.”

  She waved him off. “Fine, go.”

  Sickbay’s supposed to be the best protected part of the damn ship, she thought as she ran a scanner over the ensign. The Jem’Hadar managed to penetrate it with one shot. That’s ridiculous. They’re supposed to build ships that are able to defend against our foes.

  As the biobed readings came through—broken arm, a combination of electrical and plasma burns on both legs, several cuts and contusions, and a concussion—Lense thought, Of course, we didn’t know about the Dominion when they built the Lexington. She’d heard stories about how the Jem’Hadar could walk through force fields and had technology far beyond anything the Federation had ever seen.

  If we can’t protect sickbay, how the hell are we going to protect the rest of the ship?

  She managed to stabilize the ensign and apply a dermal regenerator and a sedative. As long as she lay still and remained sedated, her body would eventually heal.

  “I’ve completed the triage,” the EMH said. “One requires immediate surgery. Two will require surgery within the next three hours. Three are stable and sedated. The remaining eight are deceased.”

  Lense closed her eyes. She had sent four medtechs to various parts of the ship to facilitate the transportation of wounded. She had been on the bridge.

  The EMH had just listed the remainder of the Lexington medical staff.

  “Get started on the surgeries.”

  “Excuse me?” the EMH said archly.

  “We’re about to get inundated with wounded, and we’re a sickbay of two. One of us needs to be able to diagnose in an instant and make judgment calls as to what treatment to perform; the other needs to perform those treatments. I think we know how that division of labor should go, yes?”

  “A logical course of action, I suppose.” The EMH sounded almost grudging.

  Who the hell programmed this monstrosity, anyhow? “ So why are you standing around? Get to work on that patient who needs immediate surgery!”

  “There’s no need to yell, Doctor,” the EMH said as he went over to prepare for surgery. “Of course, without a nurse, this will be most difficult.”

  “My heart bleeds for you,” Lense muttered.

  “Doctor?”

  Lense turned to see that her metaphorical words applied to someone else in reality—a patient was being brought in on an antigrav gurney, blood pouring from a chest wound. With a start, she recognized the patient as Jenson, one of the three medtechs she’d sent out—and she had no idea who it was navigating the gurney.

  “What happened?” she asked as she ran the scanner over the wound. Eyes widening as the tricorder told her that there was a massive arterial tear, she said, “Never mind.” Jenson had seconds at the most.

  She took a quick look around, but the only instruments nearby were fried by the plasma fire. The spares were across the room in a drawer—they may as well have been in the Gamma Quadrant, for all the good they did her right now.

  The hell with it. She shoved her decidedly nonsterile hand into Jenson’s chest cavity and tried to close the arterial tear with her fingers. If she could just hold it shut, the blood would keep pumping.

  It was a ridiculous gesture. It had no chance of actually working. She could barely get a grip on the artery with the blood pouring out of Jenson’s body. But she had to try.

  She looked up at the person who’d brought Jenson in, and saw that he had one pip on his uniform. “Ensign, get over to the set of drawers on the far wall. In the second from the top is a tray. Bring the whole thing over here, now!”

  “Yessir,” the ensign said, sounding almost relieved to be given an order.

  It took the rest of Garth Jenson’s life for the ensign to make it back with the tray. By then, he had lost too much blood—no amount of infusion would do the trick, especially given how much more he’d lose in the time it would take to repair the artery.

  Lense closed her eyes, counted to five, then opened them.

  The smell got worse.

  Again, she asked, “What happened?”

  “It all happened so fast. We were just standing there down on deck twelve, talking about—something.” The ensign almost giggled. “I don’t even remember, but we were having one of those stupid arguments that’s about nothing at all, but neither side will ever back down for anything, no matter what the other one says?”

  Lense bit her tongue. She had plenty of arguments like that on Starbase 314 recently.

  “And then all of a sudden, the red alert went off, and we all started to go to battle stations, and Jenson—I don’t know why I remember this part particularly—but Jenson said to Halprin, Wilhoite, and Soriano, ‘We’d better get a move on.’ And then—”

  “Wait a minute,” Lense said, stunned at this revelation. Those were the other three medtechs. Now that she had a moment to think about it, none of them should have been on deck twelve
. Jenson was supposed to be down in engineering, with Wilhoite on deck twenty, Halprin on deck eight, and Soriano on deck two. “They were all together?”

  “Yes, sir. Along with me and … and Ensign Hasegawa. We were all going to report to our duty stations, when … when the bulkhead ripped off.”

  Lense recalled Wan’s damage report. Hull breach on deck twelve.

  The ensign shook his head. “Soriano, Wilhoite, and Halprin were blown out into space, sir, along with Hasegawa. A piece of shrapnel tore through Jenson’s chest before the force field kicked in. I don’t know how I managed to make it through without a scratch.” The ensign smiled, but like Captain Anderson’s, it didn’t reach the rest of his face. “I guess I’m lucky, huh?” he asked, not sounding like he felt in the least bit lucky.

  “Go to your duty station, Ensign. I get the feeling they’re going to need you, wherever that is.”

  “Mithra to sickbay—we’ve got wounded down here. Where the hell are your people?”

  Lieutenant Commander Rachel Mithra was the chief engineer. “They’re all dead or incapacitated, Commander.” Think, think, think. “ Are transporters still operational?”

  “What difference does that make? Shields are up.”

  “Think inside the box, Commander—we can beam intraship with shields up, yes?”

  “What? Oh, yeah, of course we can. Sorry, Doctor, it’s a little—”

  “Save it. Feed the coordinates of your wounded to the transporter room and beam them directly in here.”

  For the next hour, the Lexington sickbay was unusually quiet. The EMH performed its surgical procedures with a minimum of fuss, a maximum of competence, and a healthy dose of smugness, but with no support staff, neither it nor Lense had anyone to talk to but each other, and Lense deliberately kept that interaction to a minimum. The only constant noise was that of the transporter as it beamed in the latest casualties, punctuated by the occasional scream of pain.

  The smell of blood got worse. Lense would have thought she’d get used to it.

  It took a brief lull to realize that there were no other casualties being beamed in. She was about to contact the bridge for an update, when Commander Galloway came stumbling in, carrying another crew member—in, Lense noted, a proper carry. She quickly took stock of the wounds on Galloway’s head and torso.