When Demons Attack Your Mind

Posted on 28 Sep 2014 @ 1:29am by Lieutenant Olsam Mott & Lieutenant Commander Dea Mialin

2,475 words; about a 12 minute read

Mission: Episode 06 - Legend of Souls
Location: USS Galileo - Deck 3, Sickbay
Timeline: MD07: 2023 hrs

[ON]

The loud beep from the biomonitor got Olsam's attention immediately. The ship's second officer had been unconscious but stable following treatment during the chaotic triage situation; he and Dr. Allyndra had remained hopeful but long hours had gone by without a change in her status, until now.

The Bolian physician moved over to the side of the biobed, deactivated the alarm, and watched the biomonitor as it revealed the neural energy changes that signaled Dea's rise to consciousness. The first thing she'd see was a giant blue head hovering over her with a big pearly white smile; honestly, Olsam couldn't think of a more welcoming sight.

Dea's first reaction upon regaining consciousness was to scream and try to sit up rather abruptly but something prevented that. Instinctively her body had not had time to adapt to the fact she was safe. Taking in the new surroundings for a moment two things registered immediately in her brain a) this wasn't the mine or the cave she'd fallen into and b) the blue face belonged to one of Galileo's medical staff.

Forcing herself to breath in an attempt to calm the lingering effects of being knocked unconscious while her body was still in fight or flight mode. "Where am I?" Dea's gaze moved from Dr. Mott to the rest of sickbay then back again.

"The land of the living, Lieutenant Commander," Olsam said with a smile. His eyes cut to the biomonitor briefly to make sure she wasn't about to go into shock, then he turned his attention fully back to her. "You're in Sickbay. You had a bit of a nasty encounter down in the mines, I understand..." He let the statement linger a bit as he broke out the medical tricorder to take more precise readings.

"We'd been in a fire fight with these creatures I'd been injured," Dea's gaze shifted to her leg and side. It appeared those injuries had been healed. Some bruises were visible form her fall, "Next thing I recall is falling then being forced to..." at the moment Dea couldn't put it into words fully just yet, "They went through my helmet like it didn't exist."

Olsam nodded and frowned, as if he understood and sympathized with her situation. "Psionic attacks generally don't respect matter very well." He reached out and placed a comforting hand on her arm and smiled. "But you're in very good care. Dr. Allyndra and I are monitoring your status around the clock. We believe we've flushed a great deal of the residual neural energy out of your nervous system, but it's going to be a long healing process. Your physiology will heal relatively quickly but the psychological damage..." Olsam frowned, looking from side-to-side with some uncertainty. "That's going to take longer to repair."

"Any clue how long?" she met Mott's gaze carefully. I..." Dea paused for a moment then continued. "Heck its not a question I should even be asking this soon." The current state of things certainly didn't come as a surprise to anyone. Given the unknown nature of what had occurred there may not be any good answers.

Olsam smiled and shrugged a little, looking embarrassed by his honesty. "We're not entirely sure. Neurology is definitely an advanced science, but I can't claim we understand psionic energies and the like particularly well. The recovery is going to be...a process. But for now, we can focus on addressing your immediate needs. Are you in any pain?" Olsam asked, raising a hairless eyebrow.

Trying to resist the urge to wince but failing, "Yes my head throbs and I feel like I lost a fight. Probably from the fall. After that things are pretty much a big jumble of chaos and..." Unable to hide the pain she felt. "Then a vague something about forcing me to get one of the other crew to touch a obelisk." Dea felt guilty and ashamed to admit that.

Olsam had turned his back to her to prepare an analgesic in the hypospray; when he heard the admission he paused for just a moment, drawn up short by the wavering emotion in her voice. He finished loading the vial into the hypospray, turned back and depressed it gently against her neck.

"That's 15ccs of terakine. It should ease the pain shortly," Olsam said, reaching over to replace the hypospray on the medcart. His brow was drawn together and his lips were pursed, giving him a look of concern and sympathy. "You're likely to experience some... Hm. Unpleasant memories, I imagine. Your brain will try to make sense of the experience, but not always in ways that we enjoy. You may have some nightmares as it sorts through the images you experienced during your trauma. But that will all pass with time. It's temporary."

Dea relaxed a bit feeling the cool hypospray against her neck. "Thank you Doctor. Can't say I'm looking forward to nightmares as a result of something that was itself a living nightmare but I trust medical judgement when you say its only temporary. Those things can just as easily kill." Hearing those words come out of her mouth sent a chill up Dea's spine.

Olsam nodded, trying to keep his usually bright and cheery disposition to a minimum. It had its place, but at the bedside of someone recovering from severe psychiatric trauma probably wasn't one of them. "If you experience trouble sleeping then we can prescribe something to help you with that but I would caution you to do as much as you can on your own without the aid of medications. The more you allow your mind to process the experience, the faster the recovery is likely to be." He gave a smile which widened slightly into a grin. "Which isn't to say you should pretend you're a Klingon or anything; pain is pain, and we have a lot of things to help ease the suffering."

"Oh I'm no Klingon thats for sure. I certainly wasn't trying to act like one even down on the planet. " For a moment Dea paused as she met Mott's gaze. "There is something you can do. I can't say I'm in a mood to seriously laugh yet but please don't look like someone is about to die either. Safe to say I had my fill of that being in that mine."

Olsam laughed and his demeanor seemed to change almost instantaneously; the concerned doctor gave way to the jovial, friendly fellow crewmate. "All right, fair enough. You know, they train us to be like that. All doctoral and stuff." He stopped, stood straight as a board and put on a very serious, mocking face that quickly degenerated into a grin. It lingered for a moment before he became a little serious again, squeezing her arm. She wasn't someone he knew particularly well, yet, but that didn't stop him from feeling concerned. "You had us a bit worried there for a time, though."

"Yeah I know they train you to be that way. Thing is sometimes that isn't helpful," Dea's expression turned more serious. "At the moment I don't recall much after my words to the away team in the mine. How long was I out of it?"

"Not very long," Olsam said, turning away to update something on the computer console next to the biobed. The biomonitor beeped a reply to his commands, and he turned back to her. In his experience, giving exact times just gave the patient something to obsess over. With a specific time frame it just heightened anxiety about memory loss, what their behavior may have been like, and so on. In short, not helpful for recovery. "But you'll be out of it a lot longer if you don't take things easy for awhile. Neural trauma doesn't get treated with a wave of the hand; it's a complex system, and recovery takes time. And rest. A dreaded word for every Starfleet officer, I know."

For a moment Dea just looked at him, "You do know your asking nearly the impossible given our current situation. I'll do what I can but something tells me I'm going to have to show up at meeting over the Tribble situation and do my best to talk about what happened down there."

Olsam gave an understanding smile. She was, after all, the ship's second officer. Some run-of-the-mill scientist was likely to slip by without too many expectations, but given the desperation of their current situation she would be needed elsewhere. "I understand... Just take it as easy as you can? And I'm afraid I'm going to have to insist you wear this particularly stylish new neurocortical monitor, the latest from Starfleet Medical. It will provide us with a complete encephalographic profile by tracking and recording your neural functions. It will send an alert back to Sickbay if it detects any unusual neurological activity."

The Bolian turned away to the medcart, picked up a device and then turned back with it perched delicately in his hand. He used his other hand to wave in front, around and above the device, as if showing it off to a potential customer. He grasped it from the top and turned it ninety degrees in either direction to show off all the angles.

"How long am I stuck with this device?" Dea met his gaze and while her question was serious she failed to hide a slight smile at his actions. "But I can also say you make a better Doctor than a sales person."

"Oh, my great-grandfather Tukk Mott is spinning in the sea right now! How could you say such a thing? I come from a long line of great salesmen! Tukk was Bolarus IX's premier toupee salesman. And my uncle could swindle a Ferengi!" Olsam exclaimed, grinning. He held up his palm to eye-level, showing off the neurocortical model. "I'm afraid we only have one contract for this particular model - one week. But just think with this deluxe package you're guaranteed to be monitored 'round the clock by Sickbay and provided with the best neurological care in the system."

With a nod Dea commented, "So my attempt at a joke failed." For a moment she paused, "Safe to say I've never enjoyed being anyone's 'guinea pig'. This experience doesn't help."

"I'm sorry, what?" Olsam closed his hand around the neurocortical monitor and dropped his arm down. "A...guinea pig? What's a guinea pig?" He looked around the room for any pig-like creature but didn't see one. Just tribbles.

Directing her attention back to Mott, "Its a phrase I picked up from a Terran crew mate some years back. In short it refers to being as test subject in this case an unwilling one for those beings."

Olsam lifted an eyebrow, looking from her to the neurocortical monitor and back again. A simple monitor, even if it was annoyingly attached to the base of the parietal bone, didn't seem like it was turning her into an unwilling test subject. After all, he wasn't breaking out the neuralyte probe again or anything. That hardly seemed necessary!

"Well... It'll only be a week," Olsam said weakly, pondering what he could do to make the experience more pleasant for her. "I could probably replicate a different color for the casing, if you'd like. Pair it up with your uniform a bit better. Maybe add a little sparkle, hm? Ooo, what if we changed the underlying light patterns... I could probably reprogram the subprocessor so the lights mimic your voice patterns, add a little flash, a little panache."

"No my reference was to the red energy beings," Dea commented, "Color doesn't matter. I'm frustrated enough over what happened. My apologies," she looked at Mott, "It's not your fault."

"Oh! That thing," Olsam responded, nodding his head. He looked thoughtful for a moment and then shrugged. "I'm sorry, I don't think there's a silver lining to being attacked by that thing, except getting to hang out in Sickbay with me for a bit. And that's always a treat, right?" He gave an exaggerated grin and wiggled his eyebrows. "But otherwise... Well. You lived! And it was horrible. And the psychological recovery will be difficult. But, you lived. And you'll get to write an interesting report, too. No more of that, 'Ensign So-and-So spilled induction lubricant all over the flight deck again like a stupid clumsy ass.' Now it'll be, 'I was attacked by some aliens!'"

Dea couldn't help but smile at Mott's comment, "Yeah those are bad days when I have to indicate people are being clumsy for no good reason. Not sure I consider being attacked by aliens a good reason but its certainly not boring."

"Boring isn't so bad sometimes," Olsam said, leaning down to inspect the side of Dea's head. He gently turned it to one side, produced the neurocortical monitor and attached it to her skull along the parietal bone. While he continued chatting, he programmed the monitor through the medical tricorder to take regular scans to send to Sickbay and alert the on-duty physician in case of anomalous readings or an emergency. "As soon as you're feeling up to it, you're welcome to return to your quarters...and rest. We can keep an eye on things with the monitor, but don't push it, hm? No taking the shuttlecraft out for air shows, dog fighting or even joy riding."

Dea slowly nodded, "Yeah I think some peace and quiet in my quarters, well as much of it as I can get will be good." Unable to hide the smile that formed, "Yeah I think joy riding is frowned on at all times not just after a rough day on an away mission."

"Really? Not even once?" Olsam looked over his shoulder from the bedside computer console and paused in the middle of her discharge orders. "I thought every department had a little fun with their specialization. I know after a long shift in Sickbay, I just like to kick back and relax with a nice cold hypo of metorapan."

"Please tell me you are joking again," Dea commented with a tired smile. "But yes within reason one should have fun in what they do as far as their job goes." Meeting Mott's gaze more seriously, "Thank you again Doctor."

"You're very welcome," he said, the corner of his eyes wrinkling as he smiled. He placed a big warm hand on top of hers to give an affectionate squeeze before turning back to the computer console to finalize the discharge paperwork. In a few moments he'd have her released and maybe, finally, possibly, he could get some much needed rest...

[OFF]

Lieutenant Olsam Mott, M.D.
Assistant Chief Medical Officer
USS Galileo

&

LTCMDR Dea Mialin
Chief Flight Control Officer
USS Galileo

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