The Aftermath of Wolf 359

Chapter 3

Crusher woke up after finally getting some sleep. Picard was still asleep next to her, his face was red and blotchy where she had just done surgery, as if he were having an allergic reaction, and there was blood and crust coming out of his eyelid. She scanned him quickly, and gave him a hypospay to lower his fever, reduce the allergic reaction, and gave him another dose of the painkiller before it fully wore off. While she needed to get him to sickbay for a more detailed scan of his eye, he needed to rest more now, so she let him sleep. She sat looking at him deeply concerned for a minute, knowing how much pain he was in, and worried there was so little she could do about it. She went into the next room, replicated a new uniform for herself and got into the sonic shower. She noticed there were spots of blood on the shoulder of her lab coat once she took it off, likely because it had been mixed in with his tears the night before. After she cleaned herself up, she replicated a cappuccino, orange juice, and a muffin.

"Crusher to sickbay, report?"

"Selar here. We've treated 184 injuries, 38 critical. I've converted cargo bays one and two for additional casualties, and we have 72 beds occupied now. We have medics treating minor injuries in the transporter rooms as well, and we'll get their report when things calm down here. Anything that can be treated with a dermal regenerator, oral hydration solution, or warming blanket isn't even coming to us now. We lost two patients through the night."

"Have you been on duty all night?"

"You and Martin needed to rest, and Hacopian couldn't have handled this by himself."

"Is Martin back on duty?"

"He came back on duty an hour ago, and Hacopian is off now. Dr. Templar from the Princeton has joined us as well, as have several of the nursing staff who were rescued."

"I thought the Princeton was destroyed."

"He was found with minor injuries in an escape pod."

"Great. We need all the help we can get." Crusher said.

"I noticed you held non-emergency calls, how are you and the captain doing?"

"Picard was having a lot of trouble sleeping last night. I don't think I've slept that poorly since Wesley was a baby. I finally got him to stay asleep around four in the morning. I gave him enough quadtriptonal to keep him asleep for another two to three hours. I'll need to do a microcellular scan of his eye when he wakes up. He's neither medically or psychologically stable enough to be left alone at the moment. If you could send a nurse here – possibly someone who needs some sleep, I can relieve you for a while."

"There's no need for that, I can continue working at this pace for at least another two to three days."

"Would you like to relieve me here for a while? I'm sure two to three hours of rest would do you a lot of good, and you'll also know what to do if there's a problem."

"That sounds acceptable." She said. "I'll be there soon."

"Doctor." Selar said as she entered.

"It sounds like you have had your hands full in sickbay."

"We have. How is the captain?"

"Not well. I need to check his eye when he wakes up. He had an anaphylactic reaction a while ago. The tissue around where we removed the implants is showing clear signs of irritation, I'll want to do something about that when he wakes up. The swelling in his throat is what concerns me the most, it was swollen shut earlier."

"I know how to treat anaphylaxis, Doctor."

Crusher nodded, knowing part of the reason she wanted Selar here was that could easily treat anything like that. "He's been nauseous, but he's been throwing up some kind of foreign substance, and I rather not treat the nausea until whatever that is out of his system. I gave him 10ccs of triptacederine a few minutes ago, but if he's in pain don't wait for me to get back to give him more or something stronger. I wouldn't be surprised if he wakes up screaming when the quadtriptonal wears off, then he'll often start crying once he orients himself. Call me and try to comfort him. Give him 15ccs imaprovoline if he's hysterical and you can't get him to calm down. Whatever you, don't tell him what's going on in sickbay now."