Backpost: The Arithmetic of Duty

Posted on Sun Sep 6th, 2026 @ 2:48am by Captain Samuel Woolheater & Legate Andrinn Orin

Mission: MISSION 0 - History Speaks
Location: USS Elysium - Deck 12 - Sickbay
Timeline: Directly Following "Sickbay"
2215 words - 4.4 OF Standard Post Measure

[ON:]

Marine Captain Samuel Woolheater had been back aboard the Elysium for less than five minutes. He looked like he had brought half of Niea IV back with him.

His body armor was streaked with dust and grime, the fabric beneath it was dark with sweat. His helmet hung from his gear and his rifle remained slung across his chest, muzzle down, safeties on, exactly where it had been when the transporter took him. Green blood had dried across one shoulder and down the side of his armor. There was red on his sleeves and one glove.

None of it was his. Sam hadn't really noticed.

The corridor outside Sickbay was crowded. Medical personnel moved through the doors with equipment and antigrav gurneys while others directed the steady traffic of wounded away from the treatment areas. The doors opened often enough for Sam to catch pieces of what was happening beyond them. He saw Marines. He saw grey prison clothing. He saw one familiar face swollen almost beyond recognition.

For several seconds, Sam simply stood there. This was the part that never appeared properly on a tactical display.

On the ground there had been objectives. Goals and routes. Operations and fields of fire. Obstacles and their breach points. People to rescue and their extraction windows. There were friendly positions and there were enemy positions. It was either one thing or the other. Black or white and positive or negative. It fit into his Marine brain with military precision. It was what he had been trained for, what Marines had all been trained for. And they performed very well at it. Problems to be solved quickly because hesitation could kill somebody. Here, in sickbay, lying on gurneys and on beds. Some agitated and some were still, there were names.

A medic spotted the blood on him and changed direction. "Captain, are you wounded?"

"No."

The medic's eyes traveled over his armor. "Sir, you're bleeding."

Sam looked down at himself for the first time. "No. I'm not." He rubbed at the dried green smear with his thumb. It didn't come away. "None of that's mine."

The medic hesitated.

"Colonel Azhul," He asked. "Where is she?" Whatever answer he'd been expecting, the pause before the medic spoke told him enough, "Surgery, Captain."

Sam went very still. "What's her condition?" The medic was silent a moment and then answered directly. "Serious. Internal injuries. She's stabilized and the surgical team has her."

Sam looked past the medic toward the doors. He wanted to go in. Instead, he asked, "How many of mine?" The answer wasn't complete yet. Some had already been treated. Others were still being assessed. Several remained under observation. Medical was still sorting through the casualties from the operation. Two were dead. Sam listened without interrupting.

"All right." He stepped away from the doors. There was nothing he could do for Azhul now. The battlefield, this medical battlefield belonged to the skilled medical persons who now fought to keep people alive and render urgent medical care. What the Lonian captors had done...was beyond the pale.

He found an empty stretch of bulkhead farther down the corridor and leaned against it for the first time since returning aboard. His shoulders sagged beneath the armor. They had gotten them out. That mattered. He would have made the same decision again. That mattered too. But the two Romulan Marines who had gone down weren't coming back. Azhul was in surgery. Others were broken, burned and bleeding behind those doors. Nothing was certain. Sam hadn't seen Captain Young, CWO Man'darr, MSgt Henderson or MSgt Gami. He knew only of two confirmed dead.

They were getting thin.

And the operation wasn't over. The shooting might have stopped, but now came everything that followed it. There would be accusations, explanations, consequences and probably a dozen people arguing about what should have happened. Andrinn would be walking straight into the middle of it.

Sam pushed himself away from the bulkhead and touched his commbadge.

=/\= Woolheater to Legate Orin =/\=


----Bridge----

Andrinn was on the Bridge when a comm signal was rerouted through a nearby station. Andrinn was standing when the console beeped and he went over to answer it. "Orin here. Sam? Everything okay?"

For a moment, Sam didn't answer. Hearing Andrinn's voice did something he hadn't expected. Perhaps it was simply hearing someone who wasn't shouting an order, calling for a medic or reporting casualties. Sam closed his eyes briefly. =/\= I'm not injured. =/\=

It was not the same thing as saying everything was okay. He opened his eyes and looked again toward Sickbay. Another antigrav gurney passed through the doors. Medical personnel moved around it and disappeared from view.

=/\= I'm outside Sickbay. Colonel Azhul is in surgery. Internal injuries. I can see the surgeons working on my CO. They tell me she's stable. =/\= He paused. =/\= I've got two Marines confirmed dead. Romulans. I don't have a complete casualty count yet. Some of my people I haven't laid eyes on since we came back. =/\=

His jaw tightened. There was anger there now that the adrenaline was beginning to burn away. Not at the mission. Not at the Marines who had carried it out. He had seen enough inside that detention center to know exactly why they had gone through those doors. He would give the order again. That didn't make standing outside Sickbay any easier. =/\= Andrinn, you need to know what came back through those transporters before everybody starts arguing about what happened down there. What they did to those people...what they did to our crewmates. =/\=

Sam stopped himself. This wasn't something he wanted to reduce to a comm transmission. =/\= Where are you? =/\=

"Currently, I'm on the Bridge. But, I'm sure if push comes to shove, I can meet you somewhere. Or you can come up here? Lord only knows it might be helpful?" Andrinn said as he thought about it. "Yeah, come up here. I don't know if we're going to be getting anymore transmissions from the surface and it might be good to have you meet me here," Andrinn quickly said as he thought about it.

Sam looked toward Sickbay one more time. The bridge. He had been aboard the Elysium long enough to know where it was. He had never actually been on the main bridge. =/\= Copy. I'm coming to you. Woolheater out. =/\=

He closed the channel. For a moment, Sam remained where he was. His eyes went back to the doors of Sickbay. Somewhere beyond them surgeons were working on Colonel Azhul. The wounded were being treated. Marines were being accounted for. There was nothing he could do there. That was difficult to accept. Sam pushed himself away from the bulkhead and headed for the nearest turbolift.

He considered stopping long enough to turn in the rest of his gear. No. Andrinn had asked him to come now. The turbolift doors opened and he stepped inside. "Bridge." The doors closed. For the first time since returning aboard, Sam was alone. He caught his reflection in the polished surface opposite him. "Jesus."

Blood. Dirt. Sweat. Body armor. His helmet still tucked beneath one arm. His dirty-blond hair was flattened against his head. Whatever expression was staring back at him looked considerably older than the one that had gone down to Niea IV. He reached up and wiped at a streak of dried blood along his cheek. It smeared. "Better." The turbolift began to slow. Sam straightened automatically. The doors opened onto the bridge of the USS Elysium. Captain Woolheater stepped out.

For all the years he had worn a Starfleet uniform, all the ships he'd served aboard and all the places that uniform had taken him, Sam had never spent much time on a starship's bridge. It wasn't his battlefield. His was down there. Boots on the ground. Dirt under them. People close enough to touch. This was different.

Sam's eyes moved briefly across the compartment. Stations. Displays. Officers working them. The enormous viewscreen beyond. Under other circumstances, he might have stopped to take it in. These weren't other circumstances. He found Andrinn. Sam crossed the bridge toward him, still carrying the smell and grime of Niea IV with him. "Orinn, sir"

He stopped beside the Legate. For just a moment, Sam looked at him without saying anything. Then, quieter: "This looks...interesting. I take it the Lonians are...upset?" There should have been satisfaction in saying it. There wasn't.

"That's unfortunately the understatement of the year. They've lost some of their fighters and people in the fight against us, even though that's what we weren't aiming for. Unfortunate, but part of what happens when they decide another group of people are....beneath them," Andrinn replied as he turned around to see Sam standing there.

Andrinn could tell there was something more. "What is it Sam? Never seen a Bridge before or something?"

Woolheater glanced around the bridge again, "No, sir. Not this one." There was the faintest trace of humor in it, but it didn't last. "I've been on bridges before. Just never had much reason to be on Elysium's." His eyes moved briefly toward the viewscreen and then back to Andrinn. "Not really my battlefield." He shifted the helmet beneath his arm. "And this probably isn't the day for the nickel tour." Sam stepped a little closer, lowering his voice enough that the conversation didn't need to belong to the entire bridge. "I wanted to tell you something." He paused. "You were right." There was no satisfaction in the words. "About them. About what was happening down there. You gave us enough to know we needed to be ready if everything else failed." Sam looked down briefly at the dried blood on his glove. "Everything else failed." His eyes came back to Andrinn. "So...thank you."

It wasn't elaborate. Sam didn't know how to make it elaborate. "You may have saved some lives today." For a moment, the sounds of the bridge filled the space between them. "The people we brought back are hurt. Some of them badly. But they're back." Sam glanced toward the turbolift as though Deck Twelve were somehow visible through it. "Medical will put them back together. They always do."

A beat.

"Colonel Azhul is still in surgery. So are several others. I've got two confirmed dead. I'm still waiting on the final casualty report." He took a breath and let it out slowly. "I'll keep two fire teams on hot ready until we're clear of this. Eight Marines, geared and standing by. If the Lonians decide losing their prison wasn't enough excitement for one day and try boarding us, they'll have company."

That almost sounded like the old Sam. Almost.

"You know that if they try and come to take the ship, Major Richardson will beat them back into your area and I'll let you kick some more butt, Sam," Orin said to Woolheater as he looked back over to the other man after putting some commands into a nearby console. But, when Orin looked at Woolheater, he noticed something that he hadn't before.

Sam nodded, "Richardson is getting patched up. But, yes, the man is formidable even while in surgery and unconscious."

"You know that you're bleeding a little bit, right?" Orin said as he grabbed for a nearby medkit. Sam must've been running on adrenaline or something because he had a little cut right below his right eye on his cheek. Orin grabbed one of the dermal regenerator and ran it over the cut to close it up.

Sam let Andrinn do that. He supposed that he missed a cut or two. "Thanks."

Once the cut was finally closed, Orin smiled as he put away the device used to heal up Sam. "Might leave a scar. I'm definitely not a medical officer, nor would I ever want to get into the blood and guts of that kind of work. But, at least you're healed up. As for what else you said, at least they're hurting and not worse. Hurting we can deal with. Death is a whole other thing."

Sam blinked and touched the place beneath his eye, "Huh. I thought I made it without a scratch." The faint smile disappeared at Andrinn's last words. "Yeah."

Sam looked toward the viewscreen, "Two is already too many." He settled his helmet beneath his arm and returned his attention to what was happening around them. "What do you need from me?"

Andrinn shrugged as he smiled and said, "Emotional support by this point? I think now it's just a matter of getting all the people to Sickbay that need it. Otherwise, just listening out to make sure you or I aren't needed somewhere else?"

Sam nodded. "This is your arena, then." He looked around the bridge for a moment. There wasn't anything here that needed a Marine captain standing around waiting to become useful. "I've got people downstairs who probably do." Settling his helmet beneath his arm. "I'll head back down and check on the situation below decks, standing by for orders. If you need me, sir, you know where to find me."

He started toward the turbolift, then glanced back at Andrinn. "And thanks."

OFF:

A JP by:

Legate Andrinn Orin

and

Captain Samuel Woolheater