As Captain Devreux made his way towards Main Sickbay, the stretchers struck him first, running as far as the eye could see along the corridor outside the sickbay. On each lay a sailor in pain and agony, suffering the consequences of a battle that had nearly claimed them all. Burns, bruises, breaks, contusions, hematomas, fractures, these were the injuries of war.

“Catecholamines, vasopressin, angiotensin spiking. PAOP is five and falling,” a nurse reported as Captain Devreux stepped into the sickbay

“His interstitial pulmonary edema is worsening.” Doctor Henderson stood over a Crewman who had been on deck five when the Polaris’ shields had failed. The young man had third degree plasma burns from his head to his toes, and the worst of it was across his torso. “Get him back on oxygen and another 20 CCs of nitrofurosemide,” Henderson ordered as he folded his medical tricorder back up. “Lieutenant Michaels, I need you at bed six.”

A young doctor came rushing over, almost colliding with Captain Devreux as he rushed to the bedside. “What’s up doc?”

“Organ perfusion is too aggressive here,” Henderson explained. “I know he’s 55 TBSA, but crank resuscitation back by 20%.”

“Yes sir.”

As Doctor Henderson left the Lieutenant to his work, he noticed the Captain standing there with a look of grave concern washed his face. The doctor ushered for the Executive Officer to follow him as the pair made their way over to the Chief Medical Officer’s private office.

“Even with all the magic in our medical bays, physicians still overestimate burn depth every time,” Henderson explained as they crossed the crowded sickbay. “But don’t worry,” he assured his colleague as they stepped into the office. “Crewman Miller will make a full recovery.”

“And the others?”

“Not going to lie to you Gérard. Tonight has been bad,” he cautioned as he handed Devreux a PADD with the latest numbers. “Eighty nine dead on arrival. Another thirty three, we couldn’t save. It has been code blue after code blue all night.” The exobiologist turned battle surgeon looked absolutely exhausted. “I assume you saw the stretchers on the way in?”

“I did.”

“Those are the least severe. Every sickbay on the ship is full, except Sickbay Three since it’s in one of the uninhabitable sections. We also repurposed Cargo Bays 5, but we are still forty five patients over capacity.”

“Anywhere else we could put them?” asked Devreux. “It hardly seems merciful to leave them out there in the hallway.”

“Unfortunately not.” Cargo Bay 5 had been a godsend because, as a biostorage bay, it had the environmental controls they needed to set up a makeshift medical facility. “Typically, we would use the holodecks during mass casualty situations. It’s one of the nice features of the Odyssey class. But that’s when we’re responding to an emergency, not when we are the emergency. At current power levels, Operations tells me the holodecks are non-operable, and will remain that way for days. They’re doing what they can just to make us enough power for the medical replicators.”

Devreux made a note to see if he could find another place to move the injured. Maybe some of the fancy guest quarters they typically reserved for diplomats? “How many more are likely to succumb to their injuries?” Devreux asked. He knew that there was no way to estimate that accurately, but he wanted a sense for how much worse it was going to get.

“Maybe another twenty or thirty,” answered Doctor Henderson regretfully. He saw the Captain’s heart drop. “We’re doing everything we can Gèrard,” he assured his colleague. “But sometimes, the damage is just too severe.” It was the Dominion War all over again, the scale of the injured and the ailments they suffered.

“How is the team down in the city doing?” For as bad as they had it up here, Captain Devreux understood from Admiral Reyes and Captain Vox that the ground battle had also been incredibly bloody. Devreux and Henderson had worked to get as many medical staff down there as they could, without completely decimating the Polaris’ staff, to tend to the casualties they had suffered in the firefight with the Jem’Hadar.

“Our field unit has secured a hospital in the city,” Henderson explained. “The Dominion wrecked it pretty badly, but they’re working with an engineering team from the USS Ingenuity to get it operational. For now, they’ve got just enough working beds to manage the critical cases.”

“And how many is that?”

“Eighty four in critical.”

That number stung. And there was an even worse number Captain Devreux was afraid to ask about, but he knew he needed to. “And dead?”

“Across all the teams from all ships, two hundred and ninety have been declared dead on the surface,” Henderson answered. “But be warned, that number is preliminary, and there are still some officers unaccounted for down there.”

Captain Devreux had been holding his breath for a depressingly large number, but he had not imagined it would be that large. What sort of hell had Reyes and their colleagues faced down there? Thank god the fighting had stopped when it did, although he still didn’t understand exactly why it had stopped.

“Should I even ask how the other ships are doing?” Devreux had been on the bridge during the battle. He knew that, while the Polaris had taken a beating, the other ships hadn’t fared much better. And one, the Norway class escort from Task Group 514, had been lost with all hands.

“The others are all in about the same spot as us,” Commander Henderson explained grimly.”Steamrunner got it the worst, but thankfully, Ingenuity had a few extra beds to take on her most critical patients.” Commander Cora Lee’s vessel had, by far, come through the least scathed. “In normal times, I’d offer to help the other CMOs, but I’ve got nowhere to put their patients and no staff to tend to their wounds.” Henderson looked guilty as he said it.

“Doctor, you are doing incredible work. Don’t think otherwise for even a second,” Captain Devreux assured him. “Is there anything I can do to help you and the staff?”

“Short of cloning us all, I’m afraid not. We’ll be on coffee and stims for days, but we’re going to get everyone through this that we can.”

Devreux frowned. That was a bleak way to look at it.

“Don’t have such a long face, Captain. We got into this profession knowing what could be asked of us.” His voice grew serious, full of conviction, as he continued. “We took that solemn pledge to consecrate our lives to the service of humanity, to practice with conscience and dignity, to heal, to help, and to save. This is our calling, and we will rise to it today, tomorrow, and every day, so long as we shall live.”

There was silence as the two stood there, considering those words. While Dr. Henderson spent most of his time as the head of Biological Sciences for the Advanced Science, Technology and Research Activity, he still took that oath with utmost sincerity.

“Code Blue, Sickbay Two, Bed Four.”

The frantic voice on the intercom pierced the veil, and without another word, Doctor Henderson was gone. It was an all too familiar call in this dark and dreadful night, that of another life on the precipice between life and death.