The transporter beam faded, and they were in hell.  Fires riddled the corridor where they had been placed, and screams echoed down the hall.  Reid had her medical tricorder in hand while she directed her triage and trauma team to spread out.  As they walked, they checked the bodies that littered the floor.  Some would be able to be saved, while others were marked to be transferred to the morgue on the Mackenzie.  Okada walked beside her, a hand resting on a phaser.  “I’m going to need to restore main power – if we lose auxiliary, we lose everything.”  Reid gave her a nod as her crew continued to check bodies.  Once they were marked as a possibility, they were transported to the Mackenie’s massive sickbay.  Reid was thankful that her assistant chief, Doctor Yoshiyuki, had stayed on in the transfer.  She imagined his calm demeanor and curt orders were keeping the place operating as it should.  They would be sending plenty of bodies to the ship.

Ensign Solo ran up to her, “Doctor Reid, we’ve hit the door to the bridge, and it won’t open.  Tried manual, tried pulling on the thing.  Readings suggest there are multiple souls alive.”  

Jordan tapped her commbadge, “Reid to Chief Okada – door to the bridge is pretty locked up.”

=^=Seeing that now.  Engine room is a fu…sorry, a disaster.  I’ve got my guys working on main power – estimating five minutes best case and ten minutes worst case.=^=

Reid asked, “How long until auxiliary is out?”

A pause. =^=Seven minutes.  Let me see if I can get you a generator for that section.  Gimme a sec.=^=  Reid turned to the ensign, “Get in touch with Chief Okada and let her know where to send it.  We’re going to clear the hall, and we’ll catch up.”  A nod and the young officer was off in a flash.  She continued down the hallway with her group as they cataloged fatalities and injured.

“Reid, I don’t think this was a capture mission.”  Her fellow physician, Doctor Harold Benson, worked with her in tagging bodies for transfer, “More of these people would have survived if they’d just wanted to scare them.”  Benson was 60 years old and spry – he’d kept up an incredible exercise regiment most of his life.  “I think they were going to be made an example for others.”

Reid closed a young boy’s eyes, her stomach churning with simmering rage at the loss.  She waited until the boy had been transported before she contemplated what he was saying, “And we interrupted before…what?”

Benson injected pain relief into a survivor and gave the young woman some words of comfort and explanation before the transporter whisked her away, “I don’t think any of these people were supposed to survive, Reid.”  They had covered lots of ground and had made it to the bridge’s door. A generator sat on the floor, and Ensign Solo was finishing up interfacing the unit with the door power system.  “I would be grateful to be wrong…but the manner of the injuries…some of this was done in person.”

Reid turned to face him and held up her hand at Solo, “You mean…we’ve still probably got combatants on board?”

Harry shrugged and slipped out his phaser, “We hit the ground running…I haven’t seen anyone that looks drastically different from each other…but we don’t know what these pirates look like either.”

Jordan tapped her badge, “Reid to Doc Yosh – you may need security in sickbay to check on who is who.”  There was no response and she blinked a few times and tapped it again, “Chief Reid to Assistant Chief Yosh.”  Nothing.  A third tap, “Chief Reid to Captain Harris – I’m not getting a response from sickbay.”  There was no pause this time.

=^= Harris here, Doc. Looks like our pirates mixed in with our survivors. The good news is that they’ve been held to deck six.  Our assistant chief engineer made sure everything was closed and locked tight.  The bad news is that they are using Doctor Yoshiyuki as their negotiator.=^=

Reid groaned, and Solo gave her a look.  He had been a recent addition and had barely met the crew.  Jordan explained, “Muramoto is old school in every sense of the word.  He grew up in a very traditional family and community in Japan – so dedicated to the old ways they’ve made a name for themselves, along with a few other communities across the country.  The point is that Muramoto is not going to cooperate.  He’s more likely to fight back or find ways to take that sickbay back under control.  He’ll sacrifice himself to take any pirates out to give someone a chance at either getting out or getting in.”  She returned her attention to her captain, “Sir, we’re going to breach the bridge over here – we’re armed and can handle ourselves.  Keep us in the loop.”  The channel closed, and she turned to Solo, “Let’s do this.”

The door yawned open with a grinding squeak.  The bridge was a wreck as smoke billowed over burning consoles, sprawled bodies, and debris covering the floor.  The team stepped carefully through the door, phasers raised.  No one stood or jumped out to try and take them on.  It became clear that everyone on the bridge was dead.  Benson shouted from across the room, disproving that theory, “Doc Reid – someone alive over here.”  

Reid moved quickly with her kit and found a human splayed across the floor, a trembling blood-soaked blade in one hand and a spent disrupter in the other.  A body lay motionless next to him, dark red smeared across the floor.  “Can you talk?  What happened here?”  She went to work as quickly as possible, but Benson handed her the readings from his medical tricorder.  He wasn’t going to make it.  Jordan began the work of making him comfortable as she tried to ask him again.  

His eyes flitted open and found hers, a gentle smile tugging at his lips, “They were mad that we’d made it back here with our cargo.  They told us to stay away next time if we couldn’t pay.  Nobody can pay…so we decided to take a chance.”  He coughed, his eyes wet with pain, “We took our chance.  Thank you for coming.”  He took a breath.  Then two.  Then none.  Reid sighed, “Time of death 1721.  Goddamn it.”  She stood and glanced around the room, tapping her badge, “Reid to Chief Okada – we good?”

As if to answer her question, the lights powered on, and a few working bridge consoles flickered into action. =^=We have main power…but only for about twenty minutes.  I can’t save her, Doc.  We’ve tagged the cargo, and Captain Harris says we’ll take it the rest of the way.  Did I hear him right that we’ve got pirates trying to take the ship?=^=

Reid shook her head, “Trying is the key word.  We’ll check the other decks and head back to the Mack.  Reid out.”  She turned to Benson and Solo, “We’ve got fifteen minutes to clean up the house before the lights go out.  Let’s get to work.”