Chapter 2: Emergency
The plasma scalpel hissed, cutting through the teal flesh above the pulsing, bioluminescent organ. Thick, iridescent blood welled, steaming slightly.
"You're killing him!" McCoy roared, shoving past Kirk. His hand clamped hard around Brittany's wrist, stopping the blade millimeters deep. "You're dissecting him like a damn frog!"
Brittany didn't flinch. Her eyes, cold and focused behind the sterile face shield, snapped to McCoy's. "Secondary heart. Near rupture. Shrapnel lodged against the vescular pressure point." She jerked her chin towards the vital signs monitor Chloe was frantically stabilizing. "Look at the pressure wave. See that flutter? It's choking itself."
McCoy's gaze darted to the screen. The rhythmic pulse of the primary heart was weak, erratic. The secondary organ's light pulsed erratically, dimming with each spasm. The readings were alien, but the crisis was universal.
"Release her, Doctor," Spock stated, his voice cutting through the tension. He analyzed the monitor data rapidly. "Her assessment, while unorthodox, correlates with the physiological distress." He pointed a long finger. "Observe the fluctuation coinciding with the artifact's proximity."
McCoy hesitated, decades of Starfleet medical training warring with the undeniable evidence on the screen and the sheer, terrifying audacity of this woman hacking into an unknown alien with what looked like battlefield surgery tools. He looked down at the crewman’s ashen face, the desperate struggle for breath. He released Brittany's wrist with a grunt.
Brittany didn't hesitate. She plunged the scalpel back in with precise, confident strokes, widening the incision just enough. The chamber pulsed, sickly green light illuminating her focused expression. Using micro-forceps with surprising delicacy, she probed the glowing tissue. "Suction, Chloe! Harder!" Iridescent fluid surged as Chloe adjusted the suction tube. "Got it." Brittany’s voice was tight. She withdrew the forceps, holding up a jagged, still-smoldering shard of conduit metal.
Instantly, the secondary heart’s light stabilized, shifting to a steady, rhythmic blue pulse. The primary heart monitor smoothed out, the erratic spikes vanishing.
A collective breath seemed to leave the room. McCoy stared, utterly flabbergasted. "How... how did you know? About the secondary heart? The pressure point?"
Brittany ignored him, swiftly irrigating the wound. "Chloe, get me the bio-sealant gel. The fast-set variant. Prep for closure." She finally glanced up at McCoy, then Kirk, her eyes sharp and unreadable. "He’ll live. Probably." She gestured towards the door where anxious security personnel were bringing in two more wounded crew on stretchers – a Vulcan with a crushed leg and a human clutching a bleeding side. "You have more patients, Doctor. Your people. Unless you’d rather I handle them too?"
Kirk stepped forward, his gaze boring into hers, ignoring the new arrivals for a moment. "Who are you, really?" he demanded, his voice low, intense. "That wasn't just field medicine. That was... specific. Are you Starfleet?"
Brittany paused, bio-sealant applicator hovering mid-air. Her eyes, sharp and utterly confused, locked onto Kirk. "Starfleet?"
Chloe, wiping iridescent blood from her gloves onto a sterile pad, snorted. "Yeah, Captain Serious, what the hell is Starfleet? Sounds like a kid's cartoon." She tossed the pad aside, already reaching for fresh instruments as the moans of the newly arrived injured crew filled the medbay’s sudden quiet.
Ignoring the question, Brittany snapped the applicator down, sealing the teal wound with practiced speed. "Stable," she declared, stripping off her gloves. She moved with decisive swiftness past Kirk and McCoy, heading straight for the Vulcan crewman whose leg was bent at a nauseating angle, bone gleaming white through torn blue fabric. "Chloe, stabilize his vitals. This one’s critical."
Kirk stepped directly into her path, hand outstretched to grip her arm. "Hold on. We need answers. Now." His voice held command, forged in deep space emergencies.
Brittany didn't break stride. Her hand shot out, not to strike, but to seize Kirk’s forearm as he reached for her. Using his own momentum against him, she pivoted her hips, yanked him forward, and leveraged her shoulder under his center of gravity. It was startlingly fast, a fluid motion born of necessity, not aggression. Kirk hit the polished concrete floor with a heavy thud, the breath whooshing from his lungs.
"Answers can wait," she stated flatly, barely glancing down at the winded captain sprawled at her feet. "People are dying now." She was already crouching beside the Vulcan, her fingers probing the gruesome fracture with surprising gentleness despite the urgency. "Need compression here, Chloe! This arterial bleed is bad." The Vulcan’s greenish blood pulsed slick and hot beneath her searching touch. Kirk gasped on the floor, stunned.
Kirk gasped on the floor, stunned. Green blood pulsed rhythmically from the Vulcan's mangled leg onto the polished concrete, each beat weakening him. Brittany’s hands moved with unnatural precision, applying pressure just above the fractured femur where the arterial spray threatened to paint the sterile walls.
McCoy, momentarily frozen by Kirk's takedown, surged forward, his medical instincts overriding shock. "Compression bandage! Now!" he barked at Chloe, already ripping open a sterile pack. "Field expediency, damn it, even if she is a maniac!"
"The artery's partially severed," Brittany stated, her voice flat, devoid of panic, as she maintained pressure. She spared McCoy a glance. "Your tricorder – scan for vascular shunts common to Vulcanoid species. He’s compensating, but failing."
Chloe fumbled with the bandage, eyes wide. "Seriously, lady? Magic wands and alien anatomy? What are you?"
Bones snatched his tricorder, recalibrating frantically. "Shut up and wrap it tight, three hands above the break!" The scanner whirred, confirming Brittany’s grim assessment. "She’s right. Two major shunts diverting flow, but pressure’s dropping fast. We need a microvascular clamp or he bleeds out internally."
Kirk pushed himself up onto one elbow, ribs protesting, his gaze snapping back to Brittany as she pointed wordlessly to a sleek, unfamiliar instrument tray. McCoy grabbed a tool resembling silver forceps with glowing tips. "This?"Yes. Target the junction here, here, and here," Brittany instructed, her bloody finger tracing invisible points above the wound. "Clamp duration must be under ninety seconds. Sealant gel immediately after release."
Kirk staggered to his feet, the sting of humiliation replaced by cold, focused fury directed at the woman saving his crewman's life. "You move like Starfleet Security. You know Vulcan physiology like a xenomedic. But you don't know Starfleet?"
Brittany didn’t look up from guiding McCoy’s trembling hand with her own blood-slicked one to the precise arterial junction. The clamps clicked into place, the pulsing blood flow slowing to an ooze. "Starfleet," she murmured, applying the thick bio-gel with her other hand as McCoy released the clamps, "isn’t even a thing yet. Not for decades."
The bio-gel sealed the Vulcan’s artery just as his vital signs plummeted. Monitors screamed a shrill, discordant alarm. "Push hydroxy-ether! Now!" Brittany snapped, her hand already reaching for the hypospray-like injector Chloe thrust at her.
"It's failing! What the hell is in this?" McCoy yelled, staring at his tricorder's incomprehensible cascade of failing organ readings.
"His compensatory mechanisms are overloading," Brittany countered, jamming the injector against the Vulcan's neck. "Standard Vulcan neuro-inhibitor won't work here. Needs a specific synaptic dampener." The injector hissed. The monitors’ shrieking dropped to a frantic warble, then steadied, the Vulcan’s breathing easing from a ragged gasp to shallow, controlled rhythm. McCoy just stared, his mouth working soundlessly.
Spock stepped forward from his silent observation near the door, his posture unnervingly still. "Fascinating," he stated, his voice cutting through the residual alarm beeps. "Your knowledge of Vulcan compensatory physiology is highly specific. Your assertion regarding 'Starfleet's' temporal nonexistence is logically inconsistent with your demonstrated expertise. Explain."
Brittany didn't turn from securing the bio-gel bandage over the sealed wound. "Later."
Spock moved with Vulcan swiftness, his hand closing firmly but not aggressively on her shoulder. "The temporal paradox requires immediate clarification. Your actions constitute a significant—"
Brittany pivoted. Her free hand shot up, not striking, but trapping Spock’s wrist. Using his own forward momentum, she twisted her hips, dropped her center of gravity, and drove her shoulder into his sternum. It wasn’t brute force; it was leverage, timing, perfect application against his balance point. Spock hit the polished floor beside Kirk with a heavy thud, the impact jarringly physical.
McCoy flinched violently. "Good God, woman!"
Kirk, already back on his feet and rubbing his ribs, just watched, his eyes narrowed, calculating. The security team near the door froze, hands hovering near holstered weapons.
Brittany stood over the stunned Vulcan, breathing hard, glaring down at him, then at Kirk. Her voice was ice. "Shut up. Or join him. Your choice." She turned back to McCoy and the still-unconscious Vulcan crewman. "Monitor cortical activity closely. He’s not out of the woods."
Chloe just blinked at the two Starfleet officers on the floor. "Seriously," she breathed, "who the hell are you people?"
Brittany ignored Chloe’s question, her attention snapping back to the Vulcan crewman whose breathing hitched dangerously, monitoring alarms flaring red. "Pressure's crashing again, Doc," she stated flatly, shoving fresh sealant packs at McCoy. "Stabilize him or lose him."
McCoy, momentarily forgetting the two stunned command officers on the floor, dove back in, tricorder whirring desperately. "Dammit, his neural pathways are overloading! What did you do?"
"Saved his life," Brittany retorted, already turning towards the next gurney where a human ensign gasped, clutching a bleeding chest wound. "Chloe, prep for decompression. Pneumothorax." She ripped open the ensign’s tunic, revealing bruised skin over taut, swollen ribs.
Near the door, Kirk hauled himself fully upright, wincing, his eyes locked on Brittany with intense reassessment. Spock rose with fluid, controlled grace, his expression utterly unreadable but his posture radiating focused attention. The security team shifted nervously, fingers twitching near stun batons.
Brittany met Chloe’s glance across the ensign’s body. A silent communication passed between them – a shared weariness, a spark of dark humor at the absurdity. Simultaneously, they rolled their eyes hard. "Men," Brittany muttered under her breath, grabbing a chest tube kit.
"Men," Chloe echoed, shaking her head as she handed over the laser scalpel, her own gaze flicking pointedly towards the recovering Captain and First Officer.
McCoy, focused on his patient, missed it. But Kirk saw the exchange, the shared eyeroll, the dismissive word. Spock observed Kirk observing it, one eyebrow climbing fractionally higher. The sheer impossibility of a human woman, even one as unnervingly competent as Brittany, physically overwhelming a Vulcan – him – finally registered fully on the crew members present. Bones glanced up at the sudden silence, catching the tail end of the women’s shared exasperation and the stunned disbelief radiating from Kirk and Spock. His own jaw tightened, a mixture of outrage and dawning, grudging realization. "Well I'll be... she actually did it," he breathed, staring at Spock, then Brittany.
Ignoring the ripple of shock she’d caused, Brittany activated the laser scalpel. Its thin, blue beam hummed as she pressed it precisely against the ensign’s ribcage. "Hold him still, Chloe," she ordered, her voice cutting through the stunned silence, pure focused intent radiating from her as she prepared to pierce the pleural cavity. Kirk watched, the earlier fury replaced by intense, calculating curiosity.
The laser scalpel hissed, piercing the ensign’s swollen chest. Air hissed out like a deflating tire, immediate relief washing over the young man's pale face.
"Tube in," Brittany ordered, her hands steady as Chloe passed the sterile drain. "Secure it." She wiped sweat from her forehead with her arm, leaving a smear of green Vulcan blood and human red.
Kirk stepped closer, carefully avoiding the puddle of iridescent fluid near Spock’s boot. "That knowledge," he said, his voice low, cutting through the medical alarms and groans. "It’s not standard. Not for here."
Brittany slammed a sterile dressing over the chest tube site, ignoring him. "Chloe, flush the line. He needs plasma expander, stat." She turned finally, meeting Kirk’s gaze head-on, exhaustion warring with defiance in her eyes. "Later."
McCoy cursed, grappling with the Vulcan’s fluctuating neural readings. "His synaptic pathways are firing like a damn overloaded circuit! What did you inject him with?" He thrust his tricorder towards Brittany accusingly.
"Synaptic dampener," she snapped back, snatching a fresh injector from Chloe. "Standard protocol for Vulcanoids in systemic shock." She adjusted the dosage dial with practiced familiarity.
Spock, standing unnervingly still nearby, observed her fingers move. "The formulation you selected," he stated, his voice devoid of inflection but carrying immense weight, "corresponds precisely to Starfleet Medical Regulation 7-Alpha, Subsection 9, variant for neurological cascade." His dark eyes locked onto hers. "A regulation established in 2241."
Silence descended, heavy and sudden, except for the hum of machinery and the Vulcan’s shallow breathing. Even McCoy froze, his accusation dying on his lips. All eyes turned to Brittany. Kirk took another step, his own disbelief mirroring the shock on Bones' face.
Brittany looked down at the injector in her hand, then back at Spock. Her expression hardened, impenetrable. "Funny coincidence, Pointy." She jammed the injector against the Vulcan's neck. It hissed. "Wake up."
The injector hissed against the Vulcan’s neck. His eyelids fluttered open, revealing dark, disoriented eyes. The monitors settled into a steady, rhythmic beep.
"Coincidence?" Kirk’s voice was dangerously soft, stepping closer, ignoring the slick floor. "You expect us to believe that?"
Brittany tossed the spent injector onto a tray with a sharp clatter. "I expect you to believe your crewman isn’t dead," she shot back, turning towards the human ensign gasping on the next gurney. "Chloe, pressure’s dropping again on Ensign Chekov here. More plasma."
McCoy finally found his voice, hoarse with disbelief. "That formulation! The dosage! It’s textbook Starfleet Med, my textbook! How—?"
"Later," Brittany snarled, ripping open a sterile pack with her teeth. She didn’t look at them, her focus entirely on Chekov’s pale face, her hands pressing gauze hard against the oozing wound near his ribs. Blood seeped through the white fabric instantly.
Spock remained unnervingly still, his gaze fixed on Brittany like a targeting scanner. "The temporal incongruity is profound. Your knowledge exists decades before its documented origin. Logic dictates only two possibilities: deliberate temporal incursion, or access to classified future intelligence."
Kirk’s hand shot out, not to grab her this time, but to block her path to the instrument tray. "Pick one. Now." His eyes were flint. "Who sent you?"
A harsh, humorless laugh escaped Brittany. She shoved his arm aside with surprising strength. "Nobody sent me, Captain Kirk. I just live here." She snatched a laser cauterizer, its tip glowing cherry-red. "And right now? Your Ensign’s lung is collapsing again. Move. Or bleed him yourself."
She pushed past Kirk, the heat radiating from the cauterizer palpable. Chloe met her eyes, a silent question hanging between them – how much longer can we dodge this? Brittany’s slight, almost imperceptible shake of her head was answer enough. Not yet. Survival first. Secrets later. The cauterizer hissed as she touched it to Chekov’s bleeding vessels, the smell of seared flesh sharp in the sterile air. Kirk watched, jaw clenched tight, the mystery of the woman eclipsing even the wreckage outside.
The cauterizer hissed against Chekov’s flesh, sealing the bleeder. Kirk watched, jaw clenched tight, the mystery of the woman eclipsing even the wreckage outside. "Stable," Brittany announced, tossing the tool aside with a clatter, her movements efficient, devoid of wasted energy. "For now."
"Captain?" Bones’ voice cut through the tense quiet, sharp with disbelief. He pointed at Chekov’s face. "Look at him."
Brittany's head snapped up from securing Chekov's bandage. Her eyes locked onto his youthful face, pale beneath streaks of grime and drying blood. The restless energy, the faint ghost of adolescent bravado clinging despite shock and pain – it was unmistakably young Chekov.
"Mother of pearl," McCoy breathed, his own gaze darting between Chekov and Brittany's stunned expression. "You recognize him? How in blazes?"
Kirk stepped closer, the medical crisis momentarily overshadowed by this new impossibility. "You knew my name before I said it. Now him?" His voice was low, intense, a command wrapped in disbelief. "Explain."
Brittany ignored both men, her focus solely on Chekov. "Easy, kid," she murmured, adjusting his oxygen mask with surprising gentleness, her earlier harshness gone. "Just breathe."
"Kid?" McCoy sputtered, incredulous. "He's a Starfleet officer!"
"He's nineteen, maybe twenty, tops," Brittany countered flatly, her fingers checking Chekov's pulse at his wrist, fast but steady. She finally met Kirk's probing stare, exhaustion warring with defiance. "And you? Kirk? Pike's golden boy? The guy who reprogrammed the Kobayashi Maru?" A flicker of something unreadable crossed her face – not admiration, but stark recognition. "Yeah. I know who you are."
Spock moved silently to stand beside Kirk, his gaze analytical, dissecting her every micro-expression. "Your knowledge extends beyond medical protocols to specific personnel and classified Academy events occurring decades in your subjective future. Probability of coincidence approaches zero."
Bones threw his hands up, nearly dropping his tricorder. "Classified! How does a... a... mansion-dwelling socialite know Starfleet Academy classifieds?"
A harsh, humorless laugh escaped Brittany. "Socialite?" She wiped her bloody hands on a clean section of her ruined leggings. "Try trauma surgeon. Kandahar, Mombasa, Jakarta. Places your shiny Starfleet medics haven't even mapped yet." She leveled a look at McCoy that dared him to contradict her. "Your fancy toys are nice, Doc. But I could run circles around you with a field kit and a prayer."
McCoy’s jaw dropped. "Kandahar? That hellhole closed in 2014! You'd have to be—"
"Old enough, Doc," Brittany cut him off, her stare flat and unyielding. She ripped open another sterile pack with her teeth, the sharp sound echoing.
Kirk stepped forward, invading her space again, but cautiously this time, hands open at his sides. "The Kobayashi Maru reprogramming wasn't just classified, it was erased from primary logs. Only Pike, Spock, and I knew the exact parameters." His eyes were chips of flint. "How do you know?"
Outside, a deep metallic groan shuddered through the mansion walls, vibrating the floor plates beneath their feet. Dust sifted from the ceiling. Everyone flinched.
Brittany didn't. She just gestured towards the window with her chin, where the wrecked saucer section loomed against the darkening sky, lit by internal fires. "Answers later, Captain. That sound? That's your primary warp conduit threatening to breach. Right now." She met his furious gaze. "You want to grill me? Fine. But first, help me stop your flying bomb from cooking us all. Or does Starfleet let its ships blow up civilian residences?"
Spock tilted his head, listening to another distant groan from the field. "Her assessment, while lacking empirical data we can access, aligns with the acoustic profile of failing duranium under stress. Probability of catastrophic matter/antimatter containment loss within the hour is 68.3% and rising." He looked at Kirk. "We require access to Engineering. Immediately."
Bones sputtered, pointing a shaky finger at Brittany. "And we're just trusting Miss 'I-Know-Your-Future-Secrets'?"
Brittany grabbed a heavy-duty med-kit from under a counter, slinging it over her shoulder. "Trust is irrelevant, Doc. Survival isn't." She pushed past them towards the ruined hallway leading outside, her boots crunching on broken glass and dried alien blood. "Coming, Flyboy? Or do you need another demonstration?" She didn't look back.