Trouble On The Captain's Front

Posted on Sat May 16th, 2026 @ 5:11am by Lieutenant Commander Nyxala Valentine

1,152 words; about a 6 minute read

Mission: Flight Of The Valkyries
Location: Runabout Kitakami

Nyx kept going between the infant and the Captain making sure that both were stable, but an additional scan several minutes after Ryuuji had gone to the front had indicated that her action to drain the blood around Taiga's heart had only been a very temporary relief. Already there were signs of additional blood buildup and she pressed a hypo with a blood expander to her neck. That could only do so much good and Nyx knew that there was perhaps one more time that she could do that before it wouldn't do any good without an actual transfusion. The problem with that was that she had no additional blood units on board with her, plus she wasn't the same type herself.

A quick glance as the chrono told her that thirty minutes had passed, which meant that if she only evacuated the excess blood, Taiga would cease to have enough going through her system approximately thirty-four minutes prior to arrival at Starbase 43. Another brief moment and the alternative procedure that came into her mind was almost outright dismissed because it would have the same result. Or would it? She glanced over at the replicator and got to work. Six minutes later she'd replicated several units of basic saline in bags and inserted an IV into her arm and taped it down. She performed her evacuation of the blood in the pericardial sac once more, but this time injected it into one of the saline bags and turned it on to full drip along with another of the saline.

She took a glance up to make the decision whether to get some assistance, but there wasn't time. It was now or never and neither of the other two would even know half of what needed being done. Nyx began to breathe deeply as she opened up the robe that Taiga was wearing, baring her chest and stomach and began the sterilization process. Finally she closed her eyes for a handful of seconds before letting the scalpel do the work as she opened the chest cavity and punched through ribcage before she used forcefield retractors to give herself a nice wide surgical area to work with. She checked the readings as the lungs inflated in front of her and the heart in it's sac beat slowly. Sure, she could use some help, but as the doctor began the delicate process of both providing suction to clear the cavity and gently cut into the pericardial sac, there was one other thing on her mind.

In it's own way, this was similar to another situation from long ago.

She shook her head as she kept herself from going back into a memory of when she was behind enemy lines with a badly wounded soldier and friend. In the mud and wreckage of a city with people hunting them was a far cry from in this runabout with a fair amount of good medical technology around her. Even without an assistant, she was in much better shape than she had been seven years before.

As the heart muscle came into view, she leaned in further to observe what was happening. It wasn't spurting, that was a good sign, but neither was it bleeding slowly. The tear was visible, but the heart tissue was starting to necrotize, it was dying and it was determined to take Taiga with it.

Over Nyx's dead body.

Her eyes flicked to the front of the runabout and the door that led to the cockpit and kept her mouth shut. This was not the way she'd want Ryuuji to see his wife for the last time and she was a miracle worker, or so said the light blue ribbon and the medal that went along with it.

Nyx took a minute to hook the suction up to a filter that would re-route the purified blood back into the IV system she'd set up and added another medication to the mix, it also wouldn't do for Taiga to wake up during this procedure. Finally ready, she pulled out a laser scalpel and paused. What she was about to do was dangerous, because realistically she should be killing Taiga before bringing her back, but she was afraid that if she did this the 'right' way, then she may have problems bringing her back.

Instead her hand was rock steady as she focused on her work, timing her strokes with the rhythm of the heartbeat while she delicately shaved off the dead tissue. The muscle recoiled automatically when she went a little deeper than she had planned on, but aside from some increased blood flow, there was no harm done that she could see. Finally, after who knew how long, that part was done and she placed the scalpel down and reached for the needle and thread that she'd set up.

She could have been a seamstress, it was said, because in a hospital setting, her stitches were neat and even, to the point where once they dissolved, there was barely a scar to be seen. This wasn't that, because she wasn't focusing on a lack of scars, she was in a battle to save her Captain. The heartbeat was beginning to fade in strength, but that only helped her because it meant that the muscle didn't move as far while she made fast stitches to close the wound and like a corset, she tightened them at one time, drawing the wound closed far neater than she'd initially planned on.

She reached out with one bloodied hand and picked up the tricorder to check her work and gave a slight sigh of relief. She used the regenerator over the tissue to only half-heal it. When they got to the Starbase, they would be undoing what she'd just done, this was just a slapdash fix, not a permanent one, she knew her place and what she could and couldn't do in a situation like this.

That done, she checked the bleeding and saw that while it was seeping, it had slowed dramatically. A couple of minutes and the sac that surrounded the heart was intact once more. She turned back to her medical bag and pulled out a canister and sprayed the foaming packing gel into the body cavity. The sterile gel would absorb any remaining particulates to prevent infection while providing support to the heart to prevent some of the seepage. Finally, she reversed everything else and used a sterile tape to seal the incision shut. If she needed to get back in, it would need to be in a hurry.

A check of the vitals showed that the Captain was still very weak, but in a much more stable situation, which should hold long enough to get to the Starbase and safety.

Post by:

Lieutenant Commander Nyx Valentine
Chief Medical Officer
USS Tokyo

and the non-responsive body of

Captain Taiga Aisaka
Captain
USS Tokyo

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