Rescued!
27 Mar 2018LongDistanceClara
(I did my best to use in-game screenies to double as interiors below, so apologies if they're a bit immersion breaking and if possible, just go with it
I promise I'll go ballistic once we get some legitimate interiors!I've also realized that I kinda goofed on the whole "2 of 2" thing on the previous bits of this story - I originally planned to do the whole thing in two parts but I had too much fun taking piccies that I ended up making it into three parts, whoops! So this is the final part of the story, previous two bits are here and here)
---
I'M ALIVE!!!
And in egregious amounts of pain! But alive!
I'm on some fairly fantastic pain meds, it has to be said; but they're wearing off and it's time for another trip to happy land shortly. So while I'm vaguely capable of speaking in words of more than one syllable, I thought I'd take advantage of the rather fancy-pants interfaces in this glorious medical facility and make a quick log of the past sixty hours before I chemically lobotomize myself with blessed, blessed pain relief
This entry won't be a long one - largely because I was unconscious for most of the last two and a half days! I really had given up all hope, lying there in my poor crippled Bansidhe. I only vaguely remember drifting in and out of consciousness long enough to see a blanket of ice crystals slowly growing on my flight suit. The chances of me having been able to get an SOS out (given that I was half-crazy from the agony and fatigue) were pretty small; even if anyone did hear it I doubted they'd get there in time, although they might at least take my body off that miserable rock.
I honestly don't know if I really remember this, or imagined it; but I think I have a vague memory of cracking my eyelids open and seeing a ship through the fog of pain and exhaustion. Quite frankly I could have seen a purple elephant playing hopscotch and been completely unsurprised - but piecing events together, it's just possible that I did...
So it turns out that by some utter, utter miracle (and my Communications Instructor all those years back at the flight academy would echo that sentiment - tech-genius I was not!), I had actually managed to setup and transmit the SOS correctly! The signal had been picked up amongst all the chatter at the station and (bless her!) the duty comm-officer who knew me had immediately relayed the message to Hal, who was still working on the Chieftain.
He and Coral probably broke every rule in the book busting out of the station! I'm going to guess I'll have some ruffled feathers to smooth when I get back, the tower guys don't really like it when ships driven by rookies go screaming out without waiting for clearance; but thank god they did - according to Hal, when they smashed in the canopy to get at me (the rear hatch was a giant icicle by this time), my suit was almost completely out of air.
Like I say - apart from that delirious vision of the Chieftain, I don't remember much; I have a vague memory of opening my eyes and feeling the floor shaking beneath me (I guess as we took off), and seeing an out-of-focus face hovering over me. I do remember feeling the warmth of the room, the blood starting to pound in my frozen fingers and toes and the pain starting to build until I was screaming like my poor Viper's namesake; at which point, the fuzzy face disappeared, I felt something sharp and it all went dark again. From what I can understand, that was Coral; Hal was at the conn, hammering it to the nearest medical facility at full speed.
Well, not the nearest as such, but the nearest good one, just a handful of jumps away - and I'm glad he did! I guess he's seen enough people busted up to know that I was in a really bad way. Apparently according to the nurse who came to check on me not long ago, I'd broken both arms (I really thought I'd only done one of them but I guess that's adrenaline for you!), pretty much everything in both legs and a bunch of other stuff, but the really dangerous bit was the 'flail chest' I think he called it? Basically I'd busted up my ribs really bad so I couldn't breathe properly. I'd pummeled one of my lungs to boot so I'd been coughing up blood without even noticing it and I'm going to stop talking about it now because it's making me feel sick! That plus the cold and the lack of oxygen had put me at a 99.9% on the "Death-o-meter" apparently; I'd stopped breathing just as we dropped into the destination system.
The place Hal had taken me was called the Panacea Medical Center in the HIP 17519 system; I can see some of it from the window in my room and holy crap, this place is enormous! I know nothing about these things, but apparently it's known to be one of THE places to go for medical care and research. Which was kinda fortunate as I was in really bad shape when we arrived!
So the ship gets taken down to the hangar where there's a bunch of medical type folks waiting. They rush onboard, throw me on a gurney and barge back out, yelling at Hal and Coral to stay out of the way and remain on the ship! I feel SO bad for all the grief I've caused those guys but I wouldn't be here without them, that's for sure! And bless that lovely little ship that tried its best to cook us alive but when it really counted ended up being my life-saving ambulance
I was technically dead for a while - how's that for a bar story! - and was "on the table" for about fifteen hours. I remember coming to very, very briefly and hearing someone muffled talking to me, but I couldn't understand a word - apparently it was a doc explaining what was happening and that I'd have to go under again for round two. All I remember was a honking great light shining right in my eyes which even through my foggy head was really pretty unpleasant!
Next time I came to properly, I was flat on my back in bed in a very dimly lit room. I felt horribly queasy and just about managed to roll my head over the side of the bed before throwing up for the umpteenth time in a week! Few moments later and a lovely nurse came in and helped me lie back in bed, reassure me, give me some water and generally being wonderful about everything. I'm going to be here a while it seems which is just fine by me - the painkillers I'm on are just bliss - but I'm doing ok apparently; I guess I'd have to agree, considering I was technically dead a few days ago!
Everything hurts, just everything. And they've got me walking around in this weird prosthetic suit thingy that makes me feel part-robot but apparently is designed to speed recovery without forcing you to fully weight-bear? Anyhoo, it means I can get up, get around and use the bathroom (unaided, thank god!); plus it means I can get up to use the interface terminals, so I was able to catch up with Hal and Coral on the ship, which was just wonderful - god I owe those guys, I really feel so bad after what I put them through! Anyhow, figured I'd make this log and send it to the ship while everything is kinda fresh.
Getting pretty uncomfortable again and I can hear my lovely bringer-of-relief coming down the corridor with his assortment of happy pills, so I'd best scoot. One very silly, very lucky girl, signing off
