All That Remains

Posted on Sat Apr 26th, 2025 @ 6:00pm by Master Warrant Officer Yerin Di'Ara

1,052 words; about a 5 minute read

Mission: Mission 9: When the Stars Went Silent
Location: Sickbay
Timeline: Two Days After the Battle of Vulcan

Thirteen people.

As far as Yerin knew, there were only thirteen of them so far who managed to get onto the Denver before the Bellerophon exploded. It was possible there might have been other survivors on another ship, but because of their current situation it was difficult to reach out to other ships to find out if any of her shipmates had survived. So for now, it was just her and a dozen of her patients that she managed to save.

They were lucky to be alive.

Throughout the battle, she hadn’t even suffered a single injury. Even with all the debris flying and how much the ship was jostled every time they took a hit, she didn’t even get hurt once. Yet she had to watch as people around her all fell one after the other throughout that battle. Patch holes, stop the bleeding, keep them alive. It was the only thing she could do as casualties quickly mounted as the heavy fighting took its toll on the crew.

But as things got bad, and knowing she had the means to save them, Yerin couldn’t help but go that far to help… at her own expense.

The knock at the door snapped her out of her thoughts, followed by a familiar voice that called out her name.

“Yerin? Are you in there?”

“Y… yeah!”

Yerin shook her head, willing all of those thoughts away and hurriedly splashed her face with some water from the sink before drying it with the small towel she brought with her. Even after finding herself on another ship, she couldn’t allow herself even some time to rest as she needed to make sure her patients were well taken care of. And once they were in good hands, she jumped right in, helping out with the other nurses on the Denver’s sickbay with their own casualties.

Checking her appearance in the mirror one last time, she smiled at herself and then opened the door.

“Hey, are you okay?”

She hadn’t even managed to get out of the staff bathroom when the young Denobulan nurse suddenly pounced on her. The worried look on her face had Yerin quickly moving to reassure her with a smile as she reached out to gently squeeze her upper arms. “I’m fine. I wasn’t even in there for five minutes. I just needed to wash up a little. Did you need me for something?”

She shook her head. “Ensign Mayer woke up.”

That immediately got her attention. “Thanks, Rhaani. I’ll take care of it.”

It didn’t take long for her to reach the bedridden young engineer, burn treatment bandages covering most of his body and half of his face. He was the only one awake in his ward, the other beds occupied by equally critical patients recovering from treatment, the subtle beeps of their biomed monitoring systems broke the silence of the eerily quiet room.

“There she is,” he said hoarsely with a blood stained smile. Yerin smiled back and quickly snatched a sterile cleaning pad from a nearby tray and wiped the blood from his mouth. “And still beautiful as ever.”

“Well that’s a good sign,” she drawled. “Waking up after a tough surgery and the first thing you do is flirt with me.”

“Hey… the body might be battered and broken but the spirit is still very much willing.”

The comely Orlanian grinned at that. “That’s a good thing. You’ll need that spirit to recover.”

He was quiet for a moment, briefly looking past her as if he was seeing something else. Then his eyes came back into focus. “I’m… sorry I didn’t believe you.”

“It’s okay. Most people don’t.”

“Was that how you saved me?”

“Yes.”

“Can you do it again?”

“I can’t,” she reasoned gently. “You’re already so weak. You might not survive if I try to draw more from you.”

“It hurts though…”

Pain. Even through the brave front he was putting up she could still feel it keenly radiating from him. Fear, helplessness, regret, and pain. “I can give you something else for that.”

“It won’t be as good. You know the pain I’m talking about.”

She did.

“I can’t keep-”

“Please, Angel…”

Yerin sighed. If there was one thing she was weak to it was seeing the suffering of others. It was why she embraced this calling. What he was asking for wasn’t impossible, even though she would have to sacrifice a little of her own essence; not enough to cause any harm to her but she knew she can never tell him or anyone what the real cost was. They’d feel too guilty.

“Alright,” she murmured softly and smiled. “Close your eyes.”

There was no one else nearby, so she wasn’t too worried about being seen. And the security sensors won’t see anything unusual, other than her giving comfort to a patient. So she placed her hand lightly on his head as her eyes fluttered closed.

* * *

Bidding Ensign Mayer a good rest, Yerin headed into a nearby prep room to wash her hands, and promptly froze mid step as a slight wave of dizziness came over her. She knew this would happen. She’d gotten carried away, like she always did, but at least this meant that his condition was more manageable now. Hopefully his doctor won’t be too shocked to see the improvement.

As for her slight dizzy spell, it wasn’t anything she couldn’t fix with a meal to recover her strength. Ideally she would prefer something else but food and some coffee would have to do. The best option just wasn’t possible right now. Oddly, with the exception of a few races, she found that many species outside Orlan were quite conservative. Her ways would not be understood or appreciated, as she found out early on.

She’d finished cleaning up and drying her hands, and was already heading back to the treatment wing, when she overheard the shrill sound of someone coding and a terse voice call out.

“She’s crashing! I need some help over here!”

She broke into a run, rushing over to help. That meal would have to wait.

 

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