Vivienne Claybrook wasn’t a medic by any means, but during her travels, she had gotten into several situations where some measure of medical skill was useful, and because she mostly felt useless aboard the Cupertino anyway, she had volunteered to help out in the makeshift triage centre which had once (once meaning this very morning) been the recreational area. 

The place was already crowded and quickly becoming unbearably full, and with each passing moment the physical impact of what had happened mingled with the emotional one. Both were stressful for Vivienne. Even though her empathic and telepathic senses were muted due to her hybrid nature, it had a tendency to crop up at the most inconvenient of moments. 

But if she couldn’t even help here, was she anything else than utterly useless? The answer was probably a disheartening ‘not really’ which had the young woman power through whatever it was she picked up on, and try her best to ignore it. 
“You okay?”, she asked a somewhat beaten up looking officer who had just stumbled into view. 

Vitor had been at the Cargo Bay when they were hit. He was still wondering if they were hit or struck something or whatever. In one moment he had been helping out a fellow Crewman, the next they were flying around, being hit by loose cargo as the ship felt like it was a marble rolling in the floor.

One of the containers had struck him on the back, head and arm. He managed to break free from it, but must have cut himself on the back of his head. He felt the blood when his hand touched the burning cut.

Slowly he stood and someone directed him to the makeshift triage center and he stumbled inside. He looked up to the women adressing him and forced a smile.

“I have seen better days”

“Ouch, that doesn’t look good.”, Vivienne said, disconnecting herself from what it was she was actually feeling. Instead, she gave a careful smile while the man nodded and picked a chair to sit on.

“I know, I got struck by a container.” He raised his hand showing the blood and pointing to the back of his head. “I must have a cut somewhere.”

“Let’s see.”, replied Vivienne, trying to ignore the slight nausea that washed over her at the sight of the blood, a physical reaction to something perfectly normal that she had never faced as such before. She carefully moved the man’s hair to the side, and for the lack of better equipment and professionalism, wiped the blood away with the edge of her sleeve. 

Vitor winced, resisting the urge to, at the very least, say “OUCH”. He took a deep breath.

“I see you found it.”

“Yeah, there’s a cut. It’s not deep from what I can tell.”, she nodded, and turned to look for something to help. Or someone. But the area was quickly filling up, making the air thick and hot, and she had to take a few calming breaths to clear her head. 
Eventually, she reached for a dermal regenerator.

Vitor looked more attentively at her, trying to distract himself from the pain. He raised an eyebrow as she wasn’t wearing a uniform. Maybe she was off duty when everything happened.

“Your not part of the medical staff, are you?”

“Not a medic, no.”, Vivienne shook her head. She wasn’t even Starfleet. She was the journalist Captain Jurev had taken pity on, and which the new Captain wanted to get rid of. Not that she had ever told Vivienne that to her face, but Vivienne could sense those things. 

The quick and simple reply almost made him turn his head to her.

“Are you even Starfleet?”

“No…”, she sighed. And admitting that hurt because being part of Starfleet had always been a dream of hers, but she had failed the entry exam for Starfleet Academy twice and not dared a third try. 

Vitor arched his eyebrow surprised and for a second wondered if he was in good hands.

“Then your a civilian? How did you get to be onboard?”

“The former Captain – Jurev – invited me. It’s a really long story.”

Vitor almost asked about that, his curiosity kicking in. But under the circumstances he tried and divert the talk in another direction.

“I only met the new Captain. How is she?”

“Well the new Captain…. I don’t know.”, she frowned, lowering her voice. “Someone said there was no red alert. That’s… uncommon, right?” 

Vitor wasn’t sure what to respond. There really was no Red Alert. They could have been caught by surprise, but as a precaution it was better to have a high alert on when in a dangerous area. His first impression, and considering the impromptu briefing he ended up in, was that the Captain was also new.

“No… Well yes… Maybe? I don’t know how things were. I wasn’t on the bridge. A red alert is pretty extreme but in certain circumstances…”

He trailed off slightly. He didn’t want to dish on his new CO, and wasn’t aware of all the was happening.

“I can’t speak for the Captain but admittedly maybe we wouldn’t have been rolled over that hard if we were on red alert.”

Vivienne nodded. It was the sentiment she had picked up from those around her, too. “But she’s the Captain.” 

“Yeah but she is also human…” He narrowed his eyebrows. “Right?”

“Right.”

Vitor shrugged, he sensed a slight animosity from his improvised nurse.

“I can’t judge if I don’t have the clear picture. I might have done the same if I was in the centre seat”

Vivienne nodded, and gave it some thought. Mistakes were something that just happened, and no one was perfect. Still, over the past few days following her arrival, Nassar hadn’t exactly bothered to connect with anyone. And even now, when something must have happened, she left people guessing as to what their situation was. 

“I guess we don’t have all the information.”, she agreed. She just really hoped that they would get all the information. And soon.