Care packages in escape pods

[Cathul Thuku]

"The communications array is back: might not be at full capacity, but maybe we can use tightbeam to relay our request for medvac from the Resolute Vengeance to the Gravitational Anomaly" the communications officer reported back to Cathul, while Cathul ended her use of battle meditation.

"Do it, while we can still save the lives of those in the pods"

The Ison Corridor battle over Indellian, which, by now, reduced in intensity fast enough to contemplate medvac with little trouble. Where the Alliance High Command foolishly believed that having naval elements deployed in there with so little escorts would enable them to prevent the First Order from effectively respond in force agains the GA fleets, while most of the support elements were fighting over Anoat, Hoth, Bespin and Varonat, it was a battle where two brave but unfortunate captains, lost their ships and requested medvac to survivors in escape pods. Rick Kaloo, on which rumors abound about his POW status, and [member="Silara Varis"]. Meanwhile, for whatever reason, the First Order always seemed to target Therapy Command first when in large-scale fleet engagements like Asmeru, Skor and other engagements. Which resulted in Therapy Command losing escorts at a disturbingly high rate as of late. Thank the Force for medvac, she thought, while the Pharmacokinetics was brought in an emergency from Skor to deal with the casualties around the battlefield in the Ivax Nebula. And, of course, the Neimoidian Yachts collected escape pods near the last known locations of their respective sources, wasting no time getting the all-too-many injured from the battle and into medvac, where they could be treated. In the meantime, Cathul realizes that, until the Pharmacokinetics arrives, the Excubitor will have to house the survivors from other ships in not-that-safe conditions but that was already done before on Kaeshana, and onboard that very ship. The very yacht that carried Silara herself, after her body, clad in a vac-suit filled with holes, was salvaged (alongside others) has arrived in the hangar bay, with other yachts laden with escape pods and other drifting bodies, some of whom had their own set of holes in vac-suits.

"Captain Varis is in a critical condition, we need her in a bacta tank, stat!"

 

[Silara Varis]

[member="Cathul Thuku"]

Somewhere...

She had not a clue where she was. Blood dribbled down her lips from her forehead. Her skin was bluish, and her lips a deep shade of purple. She'd managed to plug up a few holes in her suit and they'd held with patches until the last second. Good thing they picked her up, because she was hypoxic.

As her gurney was rolling she was fast unconscious, muttering words and syllables. In her mind she was trapped, still aboard the ANS Resolute Vengeance. Over and over again she replayed the scene. She'd given the command to scuttle the ship, her and Ensign Karol had been shredded by loose bolts and then thrown out of the airlock.

And then his head floating away.

Every time she asked for a volunteer, she tried desperately to change the scene. To stop her next orders.

But her mind would not have it. Even when she told him no, all of their faces suddenly became his. All of them...

She screamed a silent scream as she watched him get shredded, thrown out, and beheaded by shrapnel for the thousandth time.

"NNNNOOOOOOOO!"​

 

[Cathul Thuku]

By now [member="Silara Varis"] is in a bacta tank, with Cathul judging that a bacta tank might be better suited for that sort of critical-care trauma than using Force-healing. With the hundreds of injured naval personnel, both from her own ship and the ships whose escape pods she just had Neimoidian Yachts scour the place for, she can't use Force-healing on all of them, much less at once. Hopefully this operation will be met with more success than on Kaeshana, she thought, while treating the broken limbs underneath a third-degree burn sustained by a patient. And also use the Force to get the shrapnel out of the patient's body once the anaesthesia is in place, so that the remaining stuff can be made to get the patient back in service as soon as possible. But such medvac operations were the reason why she, and with it, Therapy Command was a prime target for First Order naval commanders, or otherwise portrayed as more fit for medvac than for actual combat operations: Therapy Command was a dual-purpose GA asset, unlike, for example, Phoenix Fleet.

"She's going to need some time in an hyperbaric chamber once she gets out of the bacta tank: same goes with all the patients who suffered from decompression sicknesses"

"Aren't you some space witch, admiral? Can't you use some magic on her?" the lieutenant nurse asked, while being handed the list of patients she has to care for in that ward filled with bacta tanks.

"My magic power is finite, lieutenant. Using Force-healing does not excuse the need for such followup treatment"

 

[Silara Varis]

[member="Cathul Thuku"]

Deep in a solitary sleep the nightmares continued. She felt every juke and swivel of her ship. She even swore she could taste the blood that sprayed from the wounds on Ensign Karol as the bolts had shredded their armor before they were launched out of the airlock. Something inside of her had snapped, broken loose. Now she was forced to confront her deepest fears.

Inadequacy.​

Her eyes fluttered as a series of shocks restarted her heart. Her will to die was strong that her body was physically shutting itself down, but the med droids would not allow it.

Shock....​

Flashbacks ran through her mind.

She was at the Battle of Dulyovin as a young Agent. She had commandeered her own StealthX and taken off with her squad against orders. They came under attack, she juked and dodged. Then she was viewing the ground and the after action report. All squad mates, KIA. The agency had been shut down by GA brass after that.

"Let me die. I'm Sorry."​

​

Shock!​

She was aboard the Resolute Vengeance Again. This time her temper flaring out of control on the bridge. The XO turned to relieve her of her command as she opened fire on Ashin Varanin and the Shambhala. Guns were drawn, she was escorted off the bridge...

"No please....not this one."

Then her Chief saved her. She entered the bridge, drew her pistol and put one right in the XO's chest. She could still see his eyes glossing over, blue with a hazel tint, iris' going wide.

"I'm a monster. Let me go..."

Shock​

...........

Her eyes fluttered open. She was in plain blue fatigues, looking up from a surgical table. Beside her three white gowned attendants, and a droid asiistant. She felt pain across her body. Tears welled into her eyes.

"Ma'am? Do you know where you are."

She didn't answer. Her eyes were glazed over.

"Ma'am?"

"She is unresponsive, most likely suffering from PTSD aftershock. Captain, alert Admiral Thuku of her Captains situation immediately. We will be keeping Captain Varis in intensive care and discharging her to Therapy Command HQ on Sullust when we are finished."

"Aye Sir."

"Captain you need to wake up. C'mon, up you go now."

"No." Was her whispered reply.

The Mon Cal Major was close to losing his mind now.

"Captain Varis, I have sixty two other patients to treat. Now on your feet Sailor, Ten hut!"

 

[Cathul Thuku]

"Admiral, we have word from the sickbay that Captain [member="Silara Varis"] is unresponsive and seems to suffer from PTSD aftershock" the communications officer reported back in.

"PTSD aftershock? I have a ward full of patients suffering from that sort of thing, and several of those are in intensive care. They will be carried off the ship and onto the ANS Pharmacokinetics once it arrives. Speaking of which, do you have an ETA for it?"

"ETA 20 mikes for the Pharmacokinetics, admiral" the pilot reported, based on the sensory feeds.

Therapy Command HQ on Sullust, as the Mon Cal major implied it to be, was actually more hospital than anything else. As much as it is a hospital in military care, Sullust civilians can, if necessary, go there to get treatment. But the sixty-four patients, including the 62 on the manifest of the chief medical officer, Silara and that which Cathul personally treated, were far from the end of the story, with other injured survivors on the surviving ships being treated elsewhere on the Excubitor, Eriadu's Fist or even the Argent Dawn. The patient she used Force-healing on to cure its broken limbs and skin, caused by the space battle, was stabilized by the time the Pharmacokinetics finally made its reversion to realspace and, along with the other severely injured survivors from the Ison Corridor, Silara was placed on a stretcher specifically designed for transporting patients in critical condition. Meanwhile, since no additional survivors from Indellian were found, given that all the remaining ships were lost with all hands on either side, the Neimoidian Yachts used for medvac were being dispatched to Anoat and Bespin, each capable of holding 35 patients, since Hoth was a place where another medvac unit was already dispatched on the count of the massive casualties taken on the ground there. With that said, the whole ward full of PTSD aftershock patients was awaiting transfer to the Pharmacokinetics, alongside a couple of the more severe cases that couldn't continue active service. Once the ambulances have docked...

"Move it, intensive-care handlers! The Pharmacokinetics will take your patients' lot to Sullust! Hopefully may most of your patients survive to return to the front lines"

"Roger, roger, admiral" the intensive-care handler acknowledged, while moving what patients they could to the Sullust-bound ambulances.