Emergence

Posted on 14 Mar 2013 @ 4:34pm by Lieutenant JG Kestra Orexil & Lieutenant Commander Pola Ni Dhuinn M.D.

2,698 words; about a 13 minute read

Mission: Episode 03 - Frontier
Location: USS Galileo - Deck 4, Sickbay
Timeline: MD03 - 2000

[ON]

It felt as though she were flying, bolstered by the outcry of a million screaming voices, the air from their lungs pressing her up, up, up-

The light twisted, fading and brightening at once, and the wails of men and women were replaced by the wails of electronics. A doctor's dream then, she'd seen these too. Machines failing, patients who couldn't be saved.

But the dream was over. It was, wasn't it? She'd seen them, hadn't she? Her cousin, Trija, and the Vulcan with all his untapped potential and unmanaged grief. Trija was on Earth, in the Sol system, not near her. Not anywhere near. She'd been a fool to think she'd found her escape hatch. The dream was never over.

Her chest hurt; she gasped hard. Air flooded her lungs. Something new. Usually she didn't feel the physical symptoms, only the emotional, the mental, the aches and pains of souls not bodies. She couldn't move her hands or her arms. Her skull felt too heavy even to turn to the side. There was light in her eyes - too bright. Her gaze swiveled, searching for something to latch onto as machines continued to beep and purr around her. She couldn't quite see anything. Too bright, too blurry, too much. Her teeth hurt. Fingers twitched against the firm bed; wrists strained against straps.

She tried swallowing, but her mouth was dry. Her lips, tongue, and throat were useless flesh. "Aaaah," the sound tore from her throat, raw and unused, as the light continued to swirl and buckle. Strange. Was that what she sounded like? She couldn't remember the sound of her own voice. Another dream, perhaps. Not real. None of it was real. Ignore the spiders and the ash. Close the doors. Soon the light would be replaced by darkness again, so she would enjoy it while it lasted. Another stone. Another heart. Another lie ripped from the fears of foreign minds.

Another night found Pola over her desk well after her shift had already ended. The joys of being CMO and the responsibilities which kept her chained to a desk. A half eaten sandwich sat at her elbow as her focus concentrated on the PADD in her hand. Chewing instead on her lower lip, she barely heard the noise of a strange groan before the sound of a biobed alarm going off had her rushing to her feet.

As the panel on her desk flashed with a biobed number, Pola found herself at the side of the patient within seconds. As her hand moved to kill the sound of the alarm, her eyes were moved across the screen readout in concern. Lieutenant JG Kestra Orexil. After being removed from stasis at the Colony, in order to have her injuries treated, the Betazoid had showed no signs of coming out of unconsciousness, even despite the attempt at medical intervention.

After undergoing days of tests, Kestra had responded to neither verbal or strong tactile stimuli. Both pupils had also remained dilated and responsive to light, leading the Doctors to believe that the shock the woman's body had experienced as a result of the burns had caused her body and brain to shut down, a defense mechanism as such. A result of this defense mechanism was that the woman had had to be placed on a ventilator in order to aid her breathing. The brain had channelled all of its power into helping the body rebuild, a side effect of which was that it had begun to take in less oxygen, causing a high risk that the windpipe may have collapses. In order to relieve as much strain as possible, it was seen that a ventilator was the best option. Even more, the criss cross of scarring on Kestra's body showed how far she still needed to go before she would be back to 100%, a process which could go nowhere until she woke.

Continuously there had been false alarms, sudden increases in the neural activity of her brain but over time these seemed to peak and then dissipate for no clear reason. As observations had been under taken, the colony Doctor's began to realize that this seemed to occur when people of the woman's own crew came close. As it became more and more clear that she was showing no signs of exiting the coma, the decision was made, and permission received from the Captain, for Kestra to be transferred back to the medical care of the USS Galileo medical staff, the hope that a consistent exposure to the people she knew perhaps acting as a grasp for her to be able to pull herself back.

Pulled back to the present, Pola's eyes were drawn to the hand's which almost seemed to the struggling to get loose of their restraints. Moving her own hand, she moved to grasp Kestra's in her own as her eyes moved to those which seemed to struggle to focus. "Kestra...Can you hear me? It's Doctor Ni Dhuinn..Pola....Kestra I need you to stay calm, you are in sickbay and you're safe." She couldn't risk removing the ventilator until Kestra was calm, to do so otherwise might damage the Betazoid and cause more issues which the woman didn't need.

Kestra flexed her hand against Pola's. Her grip was weak, but definite, and through the contact she absorbed the doctor's feelings like water to a sponge. Love. Joy. Weariness. Surprise. Concern. Love. I can hear you perfectly, she projected quite clearly, as she started to gag. Something was in her throat. Ventilator, she absorbed from the surface of Pola's mind. She tried to breathe through her nose. Too much light. Can't move.

It took Pola by surprise as she felt her mind being invaded for a brief moment until the words Kestra projected formed in her mind. Blinking for a moment, she tightened her hold on the Betazoid's hand before speaking. "Computer, dim lights to 40%." As the room darkened, Pola moved a hand to very gently stroke Kestra's hair, feeling very protective of the woman suddenly. "How is that hun?"

There was still too much light, but it no longer felt like needles piercing her eyes. Not that her eyes were useful; she rolled them in their sockets, but everything was a blur, nothing finite, every object bleeding into each other. She could remember Pola's face, but she couldn't see it now. Just bland pinkish tones running into grey. The ship- the crew- where are we- what happened?

Frowning slightly as she noticed the continued senistivity to light, Pola couldn't risk going any lower incase any patients came in injured. "Computer, isolate biobed 2 and weaken the light to 20% just this space, and the area a meter either side." Pola hoped this would at least help with any light in Kestra's peripheral line of vision. "You're onboard the USS Galileo. After the Klingon's attacked you were caught in an explosion. Please don't worry, everyone and the ship are all fine."

Fine? So many dreams of horrors; they'd felt as though they'd belonged to others. Perhaps not? Perhaps they were her own? No. She could feel some of them happening even now, elsewhere in the ship, a man was twitching, running from spiders, a woman was screaming over her father, bloody beneath a tractor wheel. Kestra shut her eyes hard. She felt the truth of Pola's words though: the ship was no longer under attack. How could the ship be fine? Marek, she thought. I need to see him. Make sure that our tactical units are on stand-by in case of a turnaround. There's something not right about the Sienna team; he needs to be aware-

A strike of pain shot through Pola's body at the mention of one of the crew whom they had lost. Uncertain how to explain it to Kestra, she instead tried to focus instead on address the rest of her query. "Kestra...you've been in a coma for approximately three weeks....The Sienna team are gone. In fact we have just launched on a new mission."

Kestra's brow twitched. Loss, she felt. One of many. Gone. Uncertainty. Pain. Grief. A gasp escaped her lips as the doctor's feelings slid over the raw open edge of her empathic and telepathic perception. No shields. No dignity. She hadn't the strength or wherewithal for either. She was a vessel struggling to live, little more than that. She shot tendrils out to every corner of the ship. Marek was gone. She felt his brother, nearly mad with loss. Her own grief gathered and resonated. There were too many minds on the ship, unfamiliar thoughts and feelings slipping in and out of her grasp. How many? How many others died?

Pola should have realised that she wouldn't be able to hide anything from a telepath, especially a telepath who had evidently had her abilities amplified. "Twelve...we had some injuries which meant that people had to be left behind at the colony for further treatment but actual deaths...twelve..." Each one she could name and their images were forever etched into her memory, her first casualties which incharge of sickbay.

Davidson, too. Kestra's lip trembled slightly, her eyes gathering what little moisture there was to pool and trickle out their corners. They had been her friends and colleagues for a short time. She would never see them again. How? she asked silently. She couldn't focus her gaze still, but she sought out Pola's blurry outline. How did this happen?

Seeing the woman start to cry, Pola was thrown back to when she herself had felt all of these same emotions. Pola had had weeks to comes to terms with it all, even in the midsts of the battle she'd had another focus but Kestra...this was all new to her. "The Klingons attacked and boarded us. He had to limp into a nebula to hide...eventually using Sienna to escape." Pola could speak to Kestra of Sienna as the woman knew of it already.

We used it? Kestra's brows lifted. It worked?

Hesitating, Pola placed her hand gently against Kestra's arm. "Kestra you need to rest...you've been in a coma so long I need to do tests to see what is happening with you, evulate what damage, if any, still remains. The important thing is you are back with us now."

Placation. Her heart was in the right place, but Kestra's frustration leaked out into Pola's mind regardless. She'd missed so much. And remembered so little of how she'd come to be here. What had happened? To her? To the ship? She could feel so much, dreams and consciousness mingling and mangling from all sides. It felt as though she'd spent years in the nightmare. Not weeks, as Pola said. And that world had been so much more real than this one. She'd been connected to it, viscerally, on every level. Here, she could barely more her fingers and her consciousness was saturated with the murmurs and mumbles of strangers.

As a wave of frustration moved through her mind and body, Pola closed her eyes as the effect felt foreign and alien to her. It took a few moments more before the realisation hit that this wasn't her own emotion, but one which was being admitted by the patient on the bed. Strengthening what barriers she could, it only served to dampen the emotions. "Kestra...we will get you through this. The important part is that you are here now, you are awake. Everything after this we will get you through."

Kestra choked again as a small shift to the side with her head striated the ventilator. Calm, she remembered; Pola needed her to be calm. How could she be? Breathe. She couldn't. The machine- She coughed around the tube, eyes watering for an entirely different reason now. Out. Out.

Sensing an almost panic, Pola met Kestra's eyes as an alarm went off on the biobed, showing that the woman was fighting the ventalator. "Kestra I need you to be calm..I can't remove the tubbing if you fight it. Just calm your breathing and breath with it."

It was too much air. Too much plastic in her mouth and throat. Swallowing was razor glass shards. Her tongue couldn't move. Elsewhere in the ship, Kestra could feel her cousin sleeping unsteadily in the wake of her rescue. Safe. Sleeping. Kestra latched onto her, piggybacking on the steady cycle of her mind, and her eyes fluttered closed.

Once the alarm had stopped, Pola checked the biobed scans to ensure that Kestra's body was strong enough to breath on its on and that her airway wouldn't collapse. "On three Kestra, I need you to breath out. One...two...three..." On three Pola gently pulled the tubing on the patients outward breath.

Kestra exhaled, and felt the machine drawn out, out, and there- she coughed hard. It had felt alien in her throat, but now she felt too empty. Her body had become used to the gadget, reliant on it. Now, despite breathing on her own, the muscles that had screamed against it moments before wanted for it. They'd accepted the new resident. She had left her body, moved away, and she was a stranger living in it now.

Switched off the controls of the ventilator, Pola pulled the tubing away, as she reached for a beaker of water. Resting her hand against the back of Kestra's head, she offered her a drink. "Your throat will feel sore and raw for awhile but Ill give you some medication to help. For the moment, I need you to be very careful swallowing, small tiny sips, as the muscles of your throat need to readjust."

The water leaked from the corners of Kestra's lips. Her mouth had been posed still around the breathing apparatus for so long, it appeared to have forgotten what it was to close. Nevertheless, a measure of the liquid poured past her lethargic tongue and scalded the sore muscles in her throat. It was an effort not to choke or cough the invading wet back out where it wouldn't hurt, but sense prevailed. She needed this. It felt cool and lovely on her outer skin. She would learn to like it on the inside as well once more.

Pola took it very slow with the fluid she was teasing Kestra into drinking, pulling the beaker again, she carefully dried the woman's lips and neck before allowing her to lie back down. Manipulating the controls of the biobed, she brought the woman up into a reclined position before taking a step back. "Now rest..do you think you can manage that for me?"

Kestra's lashes were already falling heavy against her cheeks. Between the fight with the ventilator and the physical and emotional exhaustion, she was more than ready to sleep an actual sleep again. She didn't worry she would become trapped in dreams once more; those gates were open now, thanks to Liyar and Trija. She thought, vaguely, that she ought to say something. But Pola wasn't touching her anymore and it didn't occur to Kestra in her weary state that she'd managed the entire conversation with only intermittent contact. No contact equaled no communication as far as her conscious mind was concerned, despite the facts. Instead, she blinked twice, and availed herself of encumbered slumber.

As she watched the monitors for minutes after Kestra fell asleep, Pola was hesitant to step away incase the woman fell into a coma again. Pola knew that the probability was highly unlikely, but it didn't prevent the worry, especially having seen the Betazoid's reaction to having been away, as such, for so long. Knowing she didn't have any plans tonight, the Doctor grabbed a chair and PADD as she settled herself in to at least watch over Kestra for abit, until relief came and could take over the vigil.

[OFF]

Lieutenant Commander Pola Ni Dhuinn
Chief Medical Officer
USS Galileo

LTJG Kestra Orexil
Former Chief Security Officer
USS Galileo

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