Sarah looks up from her bed when Major Thorsson enters, forcing a rather tired smile that rather rapidly changes to a disgruntled look when the major asks her question. "Arrogant, condescending, elitist ingrates," she begins venting her frustrations from the day. "Any and everyone is a disposable tool in some grand plan of theirs which they will never share with you." She shrugs, though obviously angry, "About what you'd expect really. I've worked with plenty of researchers like that, just never when our lives depended on it. A miserable lot to work with."
Seeing a look of confusion spread across the major's face she pauses. "Oh, but you probably meant Lockley and the rest of the team?" she half states, half asks. "Near as we can tell, only Lockley was injured, so I suppose that is good. I'm not really sure what happened. I suspect Captain Wantanabe has been or is being debriefed, so if you want a run down on that part of the mission," she says with a bit of a derisive sneer, "you should check in with him."
"Lockley," she begins and then pauses. "Well, he's lucky to be alive about three times over, but he's a fighter. The stingers on those things are barbed and as you might expect from any dragonfly-wasp-scorpion, inject a venom into their prey. Sort of interesting, actually. A barbed stinger but the effects of the venom seem to be paralytic." The perplexed look on the Major's face prompts Sarah to offer a further explanation. "Oh.. sorry... You see, barbed stingers would normally be only used for defense, since once they are in the victim the bug is hard pressed get them out and live to tell about it. At least back on Earth barbed stingers are mostly seen with a venom that causes pain and inflammation, but not much worse unless you are allergic. They want their sting to be a lesson learned, and its hard to learn a lesson if you are dead. Straight stingers are usually associated with a more toxic venom. Paralytic or necrotic; designed to paralyze or kill their prey. And of course they can sting over and over again. This bug is quite the chimera. Go figure."
"Oh, right..." she cuts her musings off, "So anyway, the stinger did cause some internal damage. A small nick on the small intestines, which Nagle patched. Back on Earth his prognosis would be good. We've been trying not to use the few antibiotics we have on hand, but we had to tap into our supply. We're treating him pretty aggressively to prevent peritonitis or sepsis since if either condition develops we aren't equipped to treat it. Plus, who knows what other bugs are around. We aren't really able to run a sterile practice here, so the antibiotics should help keep things in check, so long as life here obeys some of the Earth rules. Unfortunately we really don't have much left now. "
On a roll she continues "As for the venom, he's had a nasty inflammatory response at the entry site. Not sure if that is due to the venom or the stinger itself. Sort of hard to say at this point. We tried to flush the wound site and are keeping cold compresses to hopefully limit inflammation and systemic exposure to the venom. He's had a few bouts of slowed heart and respiration rates while in the OR, but we've been able to manage and at least so far they have not been enough to cause harm, thankfully."
"The next day is critical as we watch how his body responds to the insults, and we are going to keep him sedated and under close monitoring so we can manage any effects of the poison and let his body heal. After that, Nagle wants to keep him here for at least five days to let everything heal and see if there are any longer term effects. Of course that will likely involve more sedation, at least if his last trips to medical were any indication. If we make it that far, then its just light duty for a while. I don't take too kindly to patients running off and killing themselves as soon as I release them."
The red-haired nurse then turns a critical eye on the woman standing before her. "Major, if I dare say you look about like I feel. Go get some sleep. No one wants to freeze to death, but if the stress we are putting on ourselves kills us first, we are just as dead."
