I'll just say ahead of time, I've absolutely fallen head over heels in love with Star Trek through the new movies. Sci-Fi has a special place in my heart, and I may just have to go back and watch the old Star Trek to satisfy my new craze. That said, while I may not be boldly going where no man has gone before, this is a universe I haven't experienced and as such I expect I'll stumble over inaccuracies. Please feel free to let me know - I'm eager to learn - and of course reviews are always a delight to read. Okay, enough blabber, I'll let Evelette take the wheel. I hope you enjoy my latest work, The Awakening.
Station Outside Jupiter 2258, 62.
The doors of the med bay drew back, thrusting her into the mad panic of life combating death. Everywhere people dressed in the star fleet uniform were darting about, shouting information and grabbing tools, prepping for the incoming patient.
Evelette took a moment to steady herself, adjusting to the uncomfortable sense of stepping back into her own history. The officers behind her seemed uncertain as to if they should wait or continue forcing her forward, so she gave them no opportunity to do either, rushing forward and stripping off her jacket shouting, "I need sanitary uniform immediately."
As much as she loathed the establishment she'd just been placed in the heart of, there was a level of admiration owed to their medical staff's uncanny ability to detect and obey authority. A young man rushed forward with a white coat, the silver emblem of Starfleet glistening on the chest. She snatched it up, rushing over to the sanitation station as she rolled up the sleeves, scattering a pair of women prepping surgical equipment as she thrust her hands forward into the scanning apparatus, watching the green lines form a grid across her skin, cleansing and assessing simultaneously.
It flashed affirmative blue and she pulled her limbs out, turning to another man who had appeared with a clear pad. "M - Doctor Swan," he staggered over how to address a civilian. "Patient reports."
She snatched it from him, moving forward to the awaiting white table at the center of the storm. She began flipping through the information, ignoring the team. The information was pitifully – and shockingly – inadequate. Male. Caucasian. Height, eye color – it was all esthetic. No medical history, no details of some terrible neural injury to explain why she had been torn from her host of patients who needed her to be hourly present.
The light overhead gave a flash of red, and then the doors gapped wide and the hovering stretcher came surging inward. The man was strapped down, thrashing in what she immediately assumed was a seizure. She tossed the data pad aside and barked "Get him on the table now, on his side unless you want to drown him in his own fluids. Do you want to make it worse? Get those restrains off!"
The men she was yelling at were obviously unaccustomed to being yelled at by a lab coat. They hesitated at her command, forcing her to push the nearest one aside and begin working on the straps herself. Medical staff hurried forward to help, and she cradled the man's head as four men hoisted him off the hovering board and onto the white cushioning of the table.
She snatched a scanner from the table as her staff moved back, positioning it over the side of his head as he continued thrashing. "Watch him. If he moves to close to the side readjust him but other than that don't touch him. Now who the hell can tell me what happened to him?"
"He's suffered severe trauma."
The deep toned voice drew her gaze upward from the information flowing in on the scanner screen. His voice was enough to put every defensive mechanism in her body to work, and from across the flurrying room she locked eyes with Starfleet Admiral Alexander Marcus.
She could scream her head off, or she could help save the man's life.
Only her need to do what she could was enough to set aside the potentially all-consuming rage the admiral's presence provoked, and she tossed the scanner at the nearest assistant. "I need thirty three milligrams of Thoraxian Kistrom now! Someone tell me we have a better neural reader than the S. R. Durex. That's over two years old!"
"Ma'am!" An Orion women thrust the blue vial prepped in a needle towards her.
Evelette didn't bother answering as she snatched it up. "Turn him on his back now! Where's my scanner?"
"Coming!" Wherever the answer came from her didn't bother to look as she covered the man's head with her arms while her team turned him over. She murmured a prayer then rammed the end of the injector into his neck, the liquid shooting into his system and forcing his muscles to relax. It was eerie, the sudden drop of his limbs as he went dead still.
"I need suction people!" She demanded, accepting a tube from somewhere to her right and ramming it into the man's mouth to remove excess frothing saliva. The tool was expanding down his throat on its own, insuring the absorption of anything on its way up that might block his airways. That he hadn't vomited yet was surprising. "So, he suffered a massive trauma? He isn't bleeding and I don't see any indication of blunt force."
"Failed attempt at testing a cryogenic chamber." Marcus called.
She glanced up. "What the hell use is – never mind. I need fifty CC's of Kristos, and a competent crew if Starfleet can handle that! Where is the gods damned scanner!"
"Ma'am!" A shockingly short woman held out the data pad sized silver box out to her. Ripping it from the woman's hands Eve positioned the device over the man's head, letting it hover of its own accord and putting her fingers to the edge of the screen, expanding it with a drawing out motion as a map of the man's brain appeared. The pulses of activity appeared as moving red lights, but there were massive dark clouds on the screen. Brain damage the likes of which she rarely saw in someone whose skull wasn't caved in let alone the fact that there was any activity at all was completely illogical.
Strangely, the brain activity was all going towards the black sectors, as if the nerves were attempting to branch out. With this much damage, the brain shouldn't have been working at all. The man should have been dead.
"How long has he been like this?" She demanded, moving aside the scanner and accepting the drug, administering it to his forearm as she swept around. He was completely still now but for the unsteady and uneven rise and fall of his chest, head turned to the side so his dark hair hung over his face.
"Less than an hour."
"It took more than that to contact and bring me out, you were expecting this kind of result?" She shot and accusing glare at Marcus as she leaned over the table, taking a light from the hand of one of the team members and hurrying up to the man's head, turning his face towards her and drawing back the lid on one of his eyes, shining in the light. The pupil constricted. She let the lid close, shoving the light into her pocket as she examined his pulse. His heart was still functioning, but the beating was all wrong. Sporadic. His current blow flow couldn't be consistent enough, he should have been going into the stages of his body shutting down.
The screens lit up with his information as a swift orange light swept over him, and his body showed up in several forms on the screen against the far wall. His skeleton, completely solid and normal. His circulatory system, the computer could read the issue with his heart, but blood flow was continuing. Lymph system, normal. Respiratory, his lungs looked like the alveoli had been over expanded and burst. His organs were all discolored, but by the second the black on them was ebbing away. His lungs were still functioning, taking in air while certain sections of tissue began quivering as blood surged through and the cells fought to recover from forced stasis. New tissue growth – his lungs were reconstructing themselves from the old useless tissue.
But the neural system, that was the truly unthinkable. As she watched, pulses of red shot through his body, soaking into the sectors where nerves were damaged beyond repair. And as they expanded, new pathways began to form not unlike a spider web construction. His system was repairing itself.
"Doctor?" The admiral called.
She blinked, aware that the room had come to a halt. They were watching her, waiting for an order. Only the machines worked absent her direction, recording information. Many were flashing red, alerting the staff to just how wrong and incomprehensible this all was.
"Hook him into intravenous." She said, less forceful than before. Her own brain was doing the unimaginable, trying to counter this with some logic. She was drawing up everything she knew on cryogenic stasis and the body's recovering from it, but the technology was archaic. "He's severely dehydrated, and practically starving."
She examined the man's face as her staff brought up a line, the two bulbous jars of fluid and the machine. They turned him once again onto his back, inserting the suction tube into his throat as they inserted the needle to his arm. His eyes were moving rapidly beneath the lids now, as if he were dreaming. She moved over to the nervous system screen, and drew up the live scan of his brain. The darkness was rapidly fading, nearly his entire brain regenerated. It was unprecedented. His body was healing itself.
And then the explosion of activity again. A violent gasp, and the man launched up. Medical staff moved back like frightened rabbits, and the security rushed forward. She could see what was about to occur – the man's hand snaking around the pastic tube who's needle he'd just torn from his arm.
"Stop this right now!" She roared, rushing forward and tossing the first thing at hand at the head of one of the red shirts. He ducked under the considerably large silver scanner, and they flinched back in surprise as the doctor hurried forward, shoving back the staff and positioning herself between her patient and the man closest to the tubing. She grabbed her patient's wrist, and held her free hand out as if she could ward them off.
All eyes went to the Admiral, watching with a grim expression. He alone moved forward, broaching the edge of the meter wide space she had created between the medical bed and the crowd. "Doctor Swan, your services are no longer required. A security team will escort you to a shuttle, which will return you promptly to Earth."
"You brought me here to save him, then let me save him." She growled. Her fingers were tight around the man's wrist – his heart was flying at a rate that could suggest cardiac arrest, though his breathing was slow and deliberate behind her. "If he wasn't important you wouldn't have brought me here. You want him alive? Then get your brutes and Cretans out of my medical bay."
"He seems recovered already." Marcus said icily.
She let a small bitter smile tug at her lips. "His cells have suffered severely from being revived at a completely improper rate – returning his blood to liquid made it extremely hypotonic. You're lucky he isn't in a coma or making a lovely viscous mess on your shiny black shoes – the next few hours are going to be vital to his survival. Now you brought me here because I'm the best god damned neurologist you have alive, unless you have another also frozen that you'd like to bring back with all the delicacy of drugged primates."
Marcus almost smiled. "Good to have you back, Doctor Swan."
"I'm not." She said sharply, but she eased as he nodded and the room began to empty of medical staff.
"How many do you need?"
"Is there anyone with half a brain aboard wherever we are?"
"They just left."
"Then no."
He chuckled. "Even if they're vital to his survival?"
"Their not being here is."
"The backup stays. When he's stable, Anderson and Waylon will escort you to me, and we'll discuss how to proceed."
"Fine, so long as they don't try touching him again."
"So long as he remains civil." Marcus looked passed her to the man. He made no reply, but his heart beat was slowing under her fingers. "Take good care of him."
"I don't need you to tell me to." She breathed, eyeing the admiral as he took his leave, his military trained red shirts nodding and then forming a wall of security at the door as he exited. They all stood perfectly; still, hands on phasers at their sides and watching her patient with an eagerness she didn't like.
Taking a deep breath, she removed her hand and faced the man. His intense stare startled her slightly, though she was careful not to let it show. He had a look that cut through flesh, looking at her like this was the first time she'd ever truly been seen. But there was more there, the unpredictable look of something feral. He looked human, but basic instinct told her he was more. She tried smiling, but his face was so blank it only made her feel more uneasy. She took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. "Hello. I'm Eve – and despite this crews best attempts, I'm going to see to it you live a long and healthy life. What's your name?"
He didn't answer. He simply watched.
"Do you understand what I'm saying?" She frowned.
Nothing.
"Well, you won't need this." She touched his hand, still gripping the clear hose. The needle was leaking liquid onto the floor. He opened his hand, letting her take it and set it aside, turning off the valve. "Alright, so you do understand… I guess I'll just have to call you John. How are you feeling?"
She didn't expect a response this time, picking up a hand held scanner from a tray a few feet off and walking back beside him. "Lay back please."
He didn't move.
She raised a brow, meeting those freezing blue eyes with her own emerald orbs. She put a hand on his chest, and pressed. Slowly he lay back, shifting to make himself more comfortable as she moved around to his other side, holding the scanner's clear disk up to his temple. "You've got an extraordinary brain, John. After liberation from these types of hell holes, I specialized in neurology. I've seen the brains of every species known to humanity, and I've never seen one that can fix itself like yours. I assume it's the neural impulses that are healing the rest of your body's damage, signalling stem cells. I'm going to take a blood sample, alright?"
She walked over, retrieving a needle from another tray, noting the bottles of medicine she'd demanded were still out. She grabbed one, then turning tossed it toward his hand. His eyes snapped to it, and his hand snaked out to snatch it from the air. She smiled, walking back over. "That's a good sign."
She held open her hand, and slowly he placed the small bottle into her palm. Somehow, she got the feeling he was learning from her faster than she was from him.
She set it aside, taking his arm and turning it to expose the inside of his elbow. She held the needle up to insure he saw it, then nodded to his arm. She couldn't tell if his mind was having issue with her words or if he simply was choosing not to speak, but some basic part of her told her to alert him to any pain she might be causing.
He made no indication of discomfort as the needle shot into his arm when she pressed the circle of the actual device to his skin, and she watched the red fluid flow up into the clear vial with interest. She couldn't even imagine what it might have to tell. She set it aside as the little bottle was filled, then with a small swab cleaned off a bead of blood trying to rise. She held another to the spot once she'd cleaned it, flashing him another smile. "Would you like a bandage with flowers or spaceships?"
He frowned, and she laughed to herself.
Their time together went on like this much longer, she had a hundred more tests to run. Within the first hour his body was utterly without flaw, passing tests he'd failed at the start. His organs were fully functioning, his lungs more healthy than anyone could hope for. Full nervous activity. In fact, he seemed to be using more brain power than humans ever did.
With several blood samples set aside, and a small army of test results, she had to admit to herself he no longer had any need of her assistance. Sighing, she leaned one hip against his table and rubbed her eyes tiredly. It had been several hours, her guard which had at the start been so imposing now leaning and slouching and human again. Only John was unhindered by the passage of time.
"Well, despite the fact that I should be signing your death certificate, you seem perfectly healthy." She confessed. "Which means it's time I leave you. I hope the Admiral knows how fortunate he is to have someone as gifted as yourself. Take care, John. And for my own sake, avoid any more cryogenic mishaps? You can send me flowers once you're settled."
She gave his hand a gentle squeeze, no longer unsettled by the utter emotionlessness of his face. She'd continued talking to his throughout the process, amused by how little he changed externally when so much was going on inside him.
Slipping the white coat off her shoulders, she set it aside on one of the trays and picked up her own tan coat from the floor, pulling it around her body. "Gentlemen?"
Two red shirts moved forward, presumably Waylon and Anderson. She nodded, and the pair made their way to the door. She was just moving through it when he spoke.
"Doctor Swan."
She perked up, looking over her shoulder. John had sat up, his legs hanging over the side which explained why the other men in the room had stiffened. He wasn't smiling exactly, but the hostility she'd first noticed was no longer present.
"Thank you for your assistance."
"You're welcome." She gave a small smile. "Good luck, John."
He tilted his head, as if her good wishes were strange to hear. She took a long look at the medical miracle, her mind aching with an overload of ideas about the millions of possibilities if John's abilities could be replicated. He had trapped her, by no design of his own. She was, merely by the sharing of the impossible, bound to him in a way she didn't understand or enjoy. Her mind could think of all the ways his abilities could heal. Now she had to face the mind eager to see how they could be harnessed to destroy.
She followed her escort out of the med bay, sliding her hands into her pockets and keeping her eyes down as she was led across a catwalk through the hanger of the massive base she likely wasn't authorized to know existed. She couldn't trouble herself with whatever was going on around her. Now she had to assemble herself for the oncoming throw down with the man she'd sworn at the beginning of her civilian career never to help again.
Starfleet saw Admiral Alexander Marcus as a hero, a figure to rally behind.
Starfleet hadn't had a glimpse behind the curtain though.
She knew, by virtue of experience in biology and physiology, that she'd just helped to restore a natural predator. The thought manifested as a small shiver, which with a frown she tried to ignore as she pulled her jacket tight. But as much as she tried to tell herself she was wrong, there was no forgetting the ferocity in the man's eyes as he tried to decide how to proceed.
John, whoever he was, was a killer. And she, in whatever small part, had helped bring him back.