Star Law: A Marshal Cole Series

Chapter 21 (a)

The alert had been over for some time now but the frightening results were still being dealt with. Captain Cutler stood in the Medical Centre and saw the chaos. Dozens of people were being treated for various injuries, some life threatening. There were six beds in the medical center and all had been converted to intensive care. The rest of the infirmary had people in various stages of triage with cuts, broken bones and worse. The ER off the waiting area had two examination beds. It was here where an unconscious Volks lay. An electronic curtain shielded him from public viewing.

Volks rated a bed since he was one of the few still not conscious from whatever affected Central Plaza. There were 11 dead altogether including one shooting courtesy of the security chief himself. Cutler's jaw was working overtime on that one. Despite the best efforts of the medical team, four people had succumbed to injuries after arriving in emergency. Even now, Kar Oharat was bedside prepping another patient for surgery and both medical droids were working in the ICU. Kripisov was somewhere in the surgical suite cleaning up for yet another person on the table.

There had been three fires on the ship. One in Central Plaza had resulted in four deaths. The other two took place in a cabin and ship security offices. There were no casualties in those but they had fire fighters scratching their heads. Final sweeps were being done ship-wide and the last of the injured were filtering into the Medical Center. Aside from a few areas off limits pending further investigation, clean-up crews were already hard at work washing up the blood and debris. Security was standing by as no one truly knew if it was over. The entire ship was holding its breath.

Cutler was desperate for a briefing and hoped that the marshal would be able to shed light on what happened. More importantly he wanted re-assurances it wouldn't happen again.

Marshal Cole, Miguel and Boz finally arrived at the Med Centre trailed by an older gentleman. They, aside from Boz, all looked tired and grim faced. Cutler eyed the older man suspiciously. Volunteers had come out the woodwork amidst the chaos so before he could ask, Cole had stepped forward with a datapadd.

"Everything has been documented in Central Plaza," said Cole. "The bodies are being moved even now. Four of the dead were from a kitchen fire, three from falls."

Cutler sighed "Three people have died since arriving here," he said and then pointed to a make-shift morgue where bodybags were kept. "I'd never have expected so many injuries from falls related to losing consciousness."

"Many people were running blindly to get away from the pain," said Miguel. "They literally ran into and over the railings."

"Is that your impression, Boz?" the captain asked his trusted AI.

"Miguel is correct, sir," began Boz. "We were observing in security as it happened. Under normal circumstances, passengers would have had enough time to escape the danger given the alarms and slow start of the fire. However, they were in pain due to the phenomena and disoriented. They couldn't find a way out."

"Is that we are calling it?" asked Cutler? "The phenomena?"

"Yes, sir," answered Boz.

"Do you know what it is?"

Boz paused. "No, sir. There isn't a computer system or AI aboard this ship that experienced what happened to the biological entities aboard this ship."