Tegan Chronicles STV Style 1
Line of Fire
11
B'Elanna was pulling her uniform tunic back on and Tom was talking to the doctor about switching his upcoming duty shift for another day because he forgot he promised Janeway he would finish the repairs on the Delta Flyer when Tegan sat straight up. Tom was the first one to notice as his head jerked in her direction just in time to see the sheet flutter down into her lap. He would have taken a second to enjoy the view had it not been for the blood curdling scream that simultaneously followed as Tegan grabbed the sheet, bunching it at her waist and scrambled off the bed.
"Tegan it's ok." B'Elanna stepped forward causing Tegan to take several steps back flattening herself against the far wall.
She held the sheet at her waist for what little good it did, and her stump lifted in a mix of emotions as she looked from B'Elanna to Tom to the EMH and back. Her irises quickly turned dark as white light lit up her eyes. Her voice was an anger filled growl. "What did you do to me?" Her eyes still aglow flicked from one to the other again. "Who are you?"
"Tegan." Tom seemed to be the only one who could speak in the current situation. Although he was certain the doctor was busy searching his vast memory banks for anything that would cause this while B'Elanna's human and Klingon sides fought over the appropriate course of action. "It's Tom, don't you remember me? You're on Voyager."
"No."
Finally the doctor spoke. "Sickbay to Captain Janeway."
"What is it doctor?" Janeway, who was sitting on the bridge, answered her com as she jumped to her feet.
"Could you come to the sickbay Captain, we're got a little problem."
"I'll be right there."
"Who am I?" Tegan doubled over in pain letting go of the sheet and pressing the heel of her hand into her right eye as if she was trying to force her eyeball into the back of her skull. She groaned as she pulled herself into a fetal ball while managing to stay on her feet. ""My head, what did you do to my head?"
Without saying another word the EMH picked up a hypospray and calmly walked over to her. He squatted in front of her and without saying a word he pressed it firmly against her neck and depressed the trigger. He caught her tight form in his arms as her body relaxed and fell forward and pulled the blanket around it before asking B'Elanna to help him get Tegan back in the bed.
Just as they were lifting the feather weight body back onto the bed Janeway walked in. "Doctor what happened?"
"I don't know." His brow mimicked his shoulders as they shrugged slightly. "She woke up screaming."
"I've never heard anything like it, and I'm half Klingon." B'Elanna shook her head as she looked down at the sedated Tegan, her hair splayed on the cushion beneath her head.
"She didn't know who we were, or who she is." The doctor shivered just enough for Janeway to catch the movement beneath his uniform. "But that's not all, her eyes, they lit up."
"Lit up?" She repeated. She would have thought he had a severe glitch in his program if she hadn't remembered thinking she had seen light emanate from Tegan's eyes once before. She really hadn't given it another thought until now.
"They glowed." Tom nodded. "It was like nothing I've ever seen."
Janeway ran her index and middle finger down one side of her jaw and her thumb down the other until they met at her chin. She let her hand drop and turned to regard Tegan. The air that she'd held trapped in her lungs escaped on a sharp sigh.
"She was scared." B'Elanna twisted her head to look at Janeway. "But it was more than that, she was angry, in pain, and I don't know. Captain?"
"Yes B'Elanna?" She raised her eyes to meet the half Klingon's.
"I felt sorry for her, but I was also scared." She gave Tom a look that dared him to repeat that.
"Thank you B'Elanna. If I have any questions for you or Tom I'll let you know." Janeway watched them both glance to the other before taking her cue to leave. She stepped over to the EMH and spoke in a low voice. "Doctor?"
"I don't know Captain, I'm at a loss. Her physiology is a little different than anything we've ever come across."
"But she is human." Janeway made the statement more for clarification.
"Actually I've been looking into that a little more. There are markers on her DNA that show tampering. She is human but it appears she was altered in some way, possibly before she was ever born."
"In vitro DNA manipulation? They didn't have that kind of technology in 1971."
"I know." The EMH gave her a 'what are you to do' look. "It is still possible that it is part of the healing process."
"No, I'm afraid her eyes lighting up are completely independent of whatever that weapon blast did to her and the consequential treatment." She bowed her head for a moment.
"Captain?" He watched her lift her head to him.
"It was a couple weeks ago, we were in the astrometrics lab and I thought I saw something flash in her eyes but I couldn't be sure it was so fast." She slowly turned to look at Tegan. "Can you wake her up?"
"I can, but I don't think that would be wise."
She stood there for a moment her brain spinning from a million thoughts as she took his advice into consideration. "Fine. I'm going to post a security team at the door just as a precaution."
"She was scared Captain, she backed away from us like her life depended on it."
"I understand, but I still would feel better about it." When she returned to the bridge she gave Tuvok instructions to keep someone posted in the infirmary until further notice.
"How is she Captain?" Tom turned from his place at the helm to inquire about her.
"The doctor is going to keep her sedated for now and hope that it's just a matter of time before her memories return."
Janeway walked into the infirmary after being summoned by a very agitated EMH to find Tegan sitting on the side of a bed half-dressed, missing only her shoes, uniform jacket and her biomechanical arm.
"I said give me my arm." Her tone was low and threatening but Janeway had seen worse from both Seven and B'Elanna.
"Captain, I've told her she isn't ready to be up and about but she just won't listen." The EMH hated to be undermined and let his face do his begging for him.
"You can at least give me my arm back." Tegan held her hand out, the demand radiating off her like heat from a plasma conduit.
"Lieutenant." Janeway's voice was commanding.
"Captain." Tegan didn't remove her eyes from the prosthesis the doctor was holding out of her current reach.
"Well at least you know who I am."
Tegan looked at her. "Of course I know who…"
Janeway stepped forward as she took a deep breath and slammed her eyes shut. She heard the security officer behind her pull out his phaser and quickly waved her hand for him to stand down. "Tegan?"
"I'm fine." She tried desperately not to whimper as tears pricked the back of her eye lids. She'd had some bad headaches following attacks by the Goa'uld ribbon device but this one took the cake.
"You are hardly fine." The EMH stated as matter of fact. "Just 24 hours ago you didn't even know who you were."
"That was then." She held her hand against her right eye for a moment until the sharp pain receded enough that she could focus on getting her prosthetic back. "Now if you will so kindly give me my arm back."
Janeway nodded for him to fulfill Tegan's request.
"Thank you." Tegan grunted as she took the proffered device from him and slid it in place. "I am beginning to regret giving you access to it."
"Of course you are." The doctor quipped. "Because you have to be in control of everything."
Tegan glared at him as her arm locked into place. She flared her nostrils and suddenly gasped her eyes lighting up before she could get them closed. She grabbed her head with both hands and curled so her chin was on her chest.
"Doctor can't you do something?" Janeway looked worriedly at Tegan who was obviously in pain.
He picked up a hypospray and walked up to Tegan to administer it but when he reached out she grabbed his wrist and pulled it back. "No."
"No?" He looked at her confused. "You're in pain, this will help."
"No." She repeated and let go of him as he pulled back.
"Suit yourself."
"Tegan."
She straightened up and looked at Janeway. "I'm fine."
"I didn't ask and I don't believe you are." With the mere cadence of her speech Janeway dared her to lie to her.
"It's all relative." Tegan sighed.
Janeway let out an exasperated sigh. "You are worse than B'Elanna."
"But not worse than you." She quirked her brow in question.
"I have no clue what you are talking about."
"Of course not." The EMH mumbled before speaking louder. "You are both equally stubborn, but please don't think of it as a competition. There are no winners and this isn't a game."
"The Doctor has a point." Janeway leaned a hip against the table at the end of the bed Tegan was occupying.
"The doctor always has a point." She narrowed her gaze on the self-righteous man. "But it isn't always the right point."
"I think your electrolytes are out of balance again." He picked up the tricorder and pulled the scanner out.
"Again?" She watched as he ran it over and around her head.
"Yes, again. Your potassium was low enough I had to supplement it after sedating you earlier."
Her mouth formed a large O but no sound came out.
"Your mood can technically be blamed on your current potassium level as it is about point five mili equivalents too low, which means I'm going to have to give you a bolus intravenously." He decided to test her memory. "Can you tell me why I can't give it to you through a hypospray?"
"Because it can damage the tissue and has to be diluted." She grumbled. "My brain is functioning just fine."
"That's debatable." He turned to prepare the IV solution.
Tegan slid off the bed and slipped one foot in her Starfleet regulation heeled boot.
"You need to rest." Janeway watched her step into the other shoe.
"I need to work." Tegan bent to zip the sides of each boot up.
"You haven't completely healed." Janeway tried to reason with her, it was always her first course of action and she felt it was always the best way to handle things when possible.
Tegan straightened up. "That's a matter of opinion."
"And in the Doctor's medical opinion you need more time to recuperate."
"I feel…" She saw the shift in Janeway's eyes as they went from warm and understanding to cold, she knew all she had to say was 'fine' to push them into frigid and hard. "Capable of returning to work."
"Well despite how you feel you are not currently capable." Her eyes stayed right where they were for the moment.
Tegan picked her uniform jacket up and started to step past her Captain. Somewhere in the back of her mind she knew it wasn't a smart move, but her need to find a dark recess in her cabin to curl up in over rode her more logical thinking. She saw the shift from cold to frigid before she felt the steady grasp of Janeway's fingers as they wrapped around her upper arm. She knew she could easily jerk away but the guy in yellow with a stunner still blocked her way out the door and she wasn't sure how fast he could draw and shoot.
"Don't make me throw you in the brig." Janeway's voice was in one of the lowest registers Tegan had ever heard it. She'd be scared if she scared easily.
"The brig?" She decided to go for broke and chuckled lightly.
"I can't take care of her properly in the Brig." The doctor grumbled as he held up the intravenous solution for them both to see.
Janeway squeezed Tegan's arm just hard enough to bring her meaning home but not enough to bruise the ivory skin of her newest doctor. She was not happy it had come to this, she didn't like to manhandle her staff. She just hoped the EMH was right and her mood would change once he regulated her electrolytes. "I will personally restrain you to that bed if I have to, is that understood?"
It took a second for her military training to regain the simple function of speech. "Yes ma'am."
Janeway saw the switch flip and let go of her arm. She pointed to the bed in question with her still hard eyes. "You are to follow the Doctor's orders as if they came directly from me or the consequence will be harsh."
"Aye Captain."
She needed to talk to Tegan about what had happened before, about her eyes and what was behind them. She had so many questions for the enigma wrapped doctor, but right now neither one of them were up for it. She could still see what she thought was pain dancing in the darker swirls in Tegan's eyes. She was also afraid she would end up pushing the currently daring Lieutenant to the point that she would have no other recourse than to throw her in the brig and something told her that right now that was the last thing she wanted to do. She hoped things would look better in a few hours.
Post a/n: I know that Lt. Com. Gary Mitchell in "Where No Man Has Gone Before" ST:TOS had eyes with a silvery appearance after coming in contact with "strange energies" but since Kirk only stated that he died in the line of duty I decided to omit that from this story since it is irrelevant.
