Chapter IIa: Absolute Disaster

Moira, you lose your grip for a second when the acid hits your hand and the pirate manages to get loose a bit. His head jolts towards your face, trying to bite you but Darcy rams her shoulder right into his face before he gets you. You hear a disgusting crunching sound as his teeth break from the impact. Darcy lets out a scream but the attack gives you the opportunity to get into a better position. You grab the pirate and throw him to the ground.
The second he hits the floor, Kendall's phaser beam shoots right in the torso, missing Moira by just a few centimeters. The pirate goes limp instantly. Before anyone can react to that, Kendall falls down on her knees and rams her pen into his head over and over until only a bloody mess is left of his face.
Darcy stands up slowly. The shoulder part of her uniform has some holes burned into it by the acid revealing lightly burned skin underneath, although not nearly as bad as Cass' injuries.
"Someone get that thing into a containment field right now! The parasite might still be alive!", she yells.

Laser Feeling: Robb, from your previous studies on the parasite, you are certain that infecting a host is a much more complicated process and requires the parasite to already be in a juvenile stage. The acid could not have infected anyone with a parasite.

Marbo, Cass is in bad shape. Her skin on her throat and face is badly burned and she's slowly fading into unconsciousness. You can disinfect her wounds here but you need to get her to sickbay immediately to really treat her wounds.

Marbo will grab Cass as best he can without exacerbating the damage from the wounds, and start carrying her towards the medbay. He is not strong, but in his adrenaline fueled panic he will do his absolute best to get her there as fast as he can.

"Sickbay. Zlam. remove infected civilian from stasis pod B, prepare surgical suite for bio-chemical burn treatment and skin graft. Ready morphine. Lower containment protocols surrounding cargo bay C. Secure route only direct to sick bay. Arriving shortly."

The bridge crew will not stand in the way of Moira and Marbo and will lower the force field for them. Marbo, you carry Cass to sickbay, where Dr. Belka has already set up an operation table and all required instruments.
Give me a Lasers roll for this, prepared and help apply.

Darcy looks at her shoulder. "Nothing serious. It can wait until the commander has been treated." She picks up her rifle that she dropped to help you with the pirate and hands it to another security officer. Around the same time, two medical officers arrive with what looks like a coffin made from transparent plastic. Under heavy observation by the security officers, they lift the dead body into it and hit some buttons. A containment force field activates, keeping the body inside the field.
Once that is done, Darcy will turn back to Moira. "What the hell happened there, Lieutenant Commander? Why did the force field break down?"

Darcy looks at Moira for a few long seconds. She seems exhausted and you can tell that she is nervous. Her perfect facade has been dropped for now.
Eventually she speaks up: "Shawna gave me a chance - more than one - even though she didn't like me. Lieutenant Commander Bruce, I hereby request you to serve as my acting First Officer until the commander is able to return to duty."
She pauses and looks down at her injured shoulder. "And if I may ask a favor of you, could you take the bridge? I would like to go to sickbay to have my injuries treated and to check up on the commander. And I guess I could keep an eye on the parasite as well."
Before Moira can reply, your conversation is interrupted by a comm by Lt. Mezron: "Bridge to Acting Captain Darcy, a ship has just entered the system. Please come to the bridge!"

----

Marbo you are doing all you can for Cass but you have already been through a lot today. You are stressed, exhausted and on ethanol withdrawal but you manage to get through the operation.
Cass is stable but in a bad shape. Any other day, she would have been much better after the operation. You treated her wounds and grafted artificial skin to where it had been burned off but her real skin is slightly rejecting it. The seams between the real and the artificial skin are still very visible, the skin tone of the grafts does not quite match her real one and it is noticeably tighter and less elastic. Most likely, all of this will be fixable later, though, once she has recovered.
You've had to put her into a sterile tank however, to prevent infection of the wounds. She will have to stay in there for a few hours.

----

Kendall, you go through decontamination and some quick medical tests before the doctors let you go to your ship. It is sitting in a cargo hold - not the one that all the action took place in, though. Although the decontamination has cleaned off all the organic liquids from you, much of your outfit is still stained dark reddish brown with blood. Your hair and face are also sticky with the remains of the blood. You enter your ship and are finally able to relax a bit in this familiar, quiet environment, free of murderous parasites.

----

Cass, you wake up. Your face and neck still burn slightly but overall, you feel very numb. You almost feel like you're floating but when you open your eyes, you see that you are trapped in a large cylinder of transparent plastic. The air in there smells like chemicals and is uncomfortably warm. Outside of the cylinder, you see the familiar surroundings of the Potential's sickbay. Marbo is running around, talking to nurses and doctors but you can't hear anything. You are completely isolated from all sounds from the outside.
To your right, you can see the stasis pod of Captain Darcy. He looks calm and peaceful, completely unaware of what has been happening on his ship in the last few hours.

"Bridge here. We do not know yet. The ship is not replying to our hails." There's a pause. "Might be more pirates!"