Trauma and Triage was a carefully coordinated chaos as the twenty injured were processed in the various phases of identification, inspection, diagnosis, and treatment.  Arriving last with Ensign Jason Macarthy, Deputy Chief Cassidy Montgomery, followed by the triage team.  They shifted the young officer through the ongoing work to the intensive care area.  Wordlessly, two of the team entered the room and activated the readied systems while Cass and one other continued stabilizing Jason.  They had trained.  They had practiced.  The team in the room motioned they were ready.  Cass rolled the ensign into the room.

“We’ve got all the evidence stored and secured in room 2 with two security officers stationed.”  The chief resident of the unit handed Cass a PADD with his report, “Ensign Macarthy’s burns are going to take more than just a dermal regenerator.  Whatever hit him was hot and explosive.  I’ve scheduled his surgical operations over the next few days.  We’ve dosed for the pain.  I’d recommend keeping him in a coma to ensure his body has a chance to rest and heal.”  Cass thanked him and turned to stare at the young ensign.  She was starting to suspect this wasn’t a what that had done this, but a who.

Sonja had compiled the information needed for the investigation and went to find the Deputy Chief for Medical. She made her way to the med section of the Starbase and asked the aide where Chief Montgomery was; upon getting the information, she made her way to the location. She walked up to the side of Montgomery, “Hello, Chief. Have we found out anything more regarding this incident? The information we have compiled I already sent to your PADD for review to see if anything coincides.”

Cass pulled up the report and began to read it, “Well, Lieutenant Thompson…this confirms a lot of my theories.”  She nodded at the room where Ensign Macarthy lay, “I don’t think it was an accident.  Your team found traces of a minor explosive material.” She held up the PADD, “Your team identified this junction of the power systems as the location of the original explosion…and that’s where he was standing.  What’s interesting is…,” she tapped at the PADD and pulled up the training schedule for that day, “He was scheduled to be in that location at that moment due to the scenario they had chosen for the training in that holodeck.”  She returned to her report, “There’s also the curiosity of the one uninjured person, Ensign Jessica Talbot.  Every single person that came out of that holodeck had something wrong – smoke inhalation, burning eyes…you pick it, they had it. And yet…Ms. Talbot didn’t have a thing to complain about.”

Sonja rose her eyebrow because that sure didn’t seem like a coincidence. The fact that Macarthy was set to be in that spot at that time showed Sonja there was something more to this story. And it looked like Macarthy was the target for a reason. Sonja hadn’t interacted much with Ensign Talbot, as she had just arrived back to the station after a “family emergency” she looked at the Chief “It seems like this is more than just a surface accident. Ensign Talbot just returned from what is in the logs as a family emergency, but I am beginning to think there is more to it than that. Has Macarthy shown any signs of waking so we can get his point of view on the incident?”

Cass checked the status report, “He’s in a medically induced coma for both pain and healing.”  She tapped at her PADD, “There’s got to be a connection between Talbot and Macarthy.  We can’t wake him to find out until he’s been through his procedures.  That’ll take two days.”  She turned to the Patrol Leader, “It’s been a bit since my security training…but I would think asking folks who work and serve around the two might give us something.  I’m going to request some additional security in the ward, including overnight.  Whatever was aimed at that kid…they didn’t want him to survive.”

Sonja nodded “I think it is time to go and start interviewing some of the Security staff who worked with both of them. Once any new information has come to light I will reach out. Thank you for your help in this matter.” She smiled and proceeded out of the medbay heading for her office to prepare some interviews.