"Who're you?" The voice was slurred, but the words were recognizable. Lloyd jumped a little at the unexpected question, then turned to examine her patient as she answered him.
"I'm Dr. Lloyd," she said in a low, comforting murmur. "And before you ask, you've just come through surgery." She was pleased that he'd regained consciousness so quickly, pleased and wary. She knew he wasn't capable of even sitting up, much less anything more violent, but he was still a prisoner and rebel, as attested to by the presence of a guard outside the sickbay doors, and it wouldn't do to let down her own guard.
"Head's fuzzy," Blake mumbled, squinting at her through his good eye. "I ache--"
"It's the medication that's making you drowsy," Lloyd explained. "And you're going to ache; you've been shot." No sense pulling any punches; if he didn't remember how he'd got here, Sleer would no doubt be by in the morning to let him know exactly what had happened--and to gloat. Lloyd found herself unwilling to allow anyone, even a convicted criminal and notorious terrorist, to be at more of a disadvantage against Sleer than they had to be. He was already in a pretty poor position; the least she could do was arm him with the truth. "Do you remember what happened?"
He shook his head, then groaned and leaned back against the pillow. "No--yes. Avon shot me, because I was stupid enough to believe he wouldn't. Even though I gave him no reason to trust me." That seemed to distress him more than the actual shots, and Lloyd felt her sympathy for this man growing as he continued to speak, rambling on half to her and half to himself, about the foolish mistakes he'd made with his friend. Her cousin's communiqué had already forced her to face the reality of what the Federation had become, and now Roj Blake, infamous terrorist and alleged child molester, was forcing her to face the fact that he was a human being, not by any rhetoric, but simply by being himself, by being too weak to keep his emotions concealed.
Not, she sensed, that Blake was the type to conceal emotions under any circumstances; the hurt in his voice held no overtones of someone who habitually kept such pain buried inside, away from prying eyes. And she couldn't blame the drugs; they lowered people's inhibitions relative to the amount of reticence normal to that person, and to her trained eyes and ears Blake's emotions were very close to the surface no matter what the situation.
Of course, part of her whispered, if the Federation was capable of doing what her cousin Dio's communiqué said it was, then trumping up charges against a political dissident would be child's play by comparison. She winced at the unintended double entendre, then returned her attention to Blake's ramblings, aware that she was eavesdropping on a man too ill to realize what he was revealing to a stranger, but unable to stop. She felt an urgent need to understand him better before allowing official propaganda to color her opinions, and this would be her only chance to do so.
It took a surprisingly short amount of time for her to make up her mind. Not long after he started talking, Lloyd was firmly convinced, rebel or no, that Blake couldn't possibly be guilty of all the horrific things he'd been alleged to do--especially the supposed reason for his original imprisonment. The regrets that had been pouring out of him, rambling and uneven, were centered around his friends and comrades, the things he'd done for the rebellion he believed so passionately in, the woman he'd driven away, the people who had died directly or indirectly because of him--but none were voiced for the children he'd supposedly harmed before his exile from Earth. She was positive that was because they existed only in the trumped up charges that had been laid against him during the trial she'd watched and wondered about only a few short years ago, a trial that had never struck her as real.
Neither her, nor her skeptical father, who had commented on how staged it all appeared. And now here was the very man they'd watched on official Federation transmissions to their home colony. She wondered what her father would think of him in person; she knew that she could feel the force of his personality in a way that hadn't come across the screen, and had a feeling her father would agree with her assessment of the situation. It was just so much Federation hogwash. Blake was many things; a rebel and terrorist guilty of crimes against the Federation, but a child molester, no. She was rock-certain of that.
Lloyd let him talk for a few minutes more, then reached over with a soothing hand and a damp cloth to wipe away the sheen of perspiration from his brow. "Please, try to rest," she urged him. "Self-recrimination isn't going to do anything for your situation except make you feel worse, which only slows down the healing process."
"Healing process," he repeated, his eye fixed on her face for the first time since he awoke. She thought he was actually seeing her now, no longer lost in his own musings. "Who am I being healed for?"
"Commissioner Sleer," Lloyd replied, brushing a strand of hair away from her face. It had somehow escaped the clasp at the back of her neck, and she spared a moment to pull the errant brunette strands back into place. "You're being taken back to Earth for trial--"
"For execution," he corrected her, and she dropped her eyes, unable to meet that one-eyed gaze any longer. "And it's not Commissioner Sleer for long, if I know her," he mumbled. "If she pulls this off, she'll be back in power in no time." There was defeat in his voice now, and Lloyd forced herself to look at him once again. He'd closed his eye and seemed to be sinking back into sleep, but not before the doctor heard him murmur: "Servalan always manages to land on her feet."
Lloyd sat in stunned silence for several minutes, while Blake drifted back to sleep. "Servalan," she mouthed, once, but dared not say the name aloud. Of course. It all made sense now, the woman's arrogance and high-handed abuse of the ship's personnel and medical staff--her treatment of Captain Tesch, who was only nominally her inferior in rank and her interest in Blake's recovery as well as his anonymity--it all made sense now. Sleer was, herself, one of the Federation's most-wanted.
The question was, what was Sanda Lloyd going to do about it?
>>>
An hour later, she still had no ideas. Blake was asleep, his breathing a bit labored but that was to be expected with such a massive chest wound. As she glanced around the quiet sickbay, wondering why she felt so uneasy, she tried to attribute it to her recent revelations. Unfortunately, the uneasiness she was now feeling seemed completely disconnected from her earlier thoughts; as her eyes lit on the chronometer, she realized what it was. Dr. Ehr was over an hour late; he'd promised to come and relieve her so she could get some desperately needed sleep. Since he'd taken the bulk of the surgery into his more experienced hands, she'd volunteered to take first watch over their patient. But now he was an hour late, a man who hadn't struck Dr. Lloyd as the type to keep anyone waiting--especially not a patient. Something must be wrong...
With a shaky laugh, Lloyd told herself to calm down. Of course there was nothing wrong; Dr. Ehr must have overslept, that was all. The surgery hadn't exactly been a walk in the park. She just needed to page him, to wake him up. Then she would go to her own quarters and try to sleep, although she doubted she'd be able to get much rest. Not with so much on her mind. She headed for the com panel, navigating the darkened room with practiced ease. She reached for the console, tapping in the code for Dr. Ehr's temporary quarters.
There was no response. Frowning, she tried again, ears straining to hear the click of connection or static, but there was nothing. The intercom was dead.
Lloyd stood there for a long moment, stunned into immobility for the third time this evening. Why should communications be interrupted. She couldn't believe it was a coincidence, not so soon after she not only discovered her patient's identity, but that of the mission commander as well. No, it couldn't possibly be a coincidence, and that realization spurred her into immediate action. If Sleer had decided that Lloyd was a threat…neither of her identities seemed the type to waste time once a course of action had been decided on. The question was, who was the intended target? Lloyd, Blake, or both of them? Had Servalan--she refused to think of the duplicitous bitch by her false name any longer--decided her prisoner was too dangerous, in spite of her presumed orders to return Blake to Earth alive? Or had she merely opted to silence the doctor herself? Lloyd cursed herself for not checking to see if any listening devices had been planted in her sickbay when Servalan was here earlier. Had she heard Blake say her name, was that the catalyst, or was it Lloyd's earlier discovery of Blake's identity?
"Stop wasting time, Sanda," she chided herself as she backed away from the console and returned to Blake's bedside. Part of her wanted to do nothing more than run away, find someplace to hide or someone to report her suspicions--no, her certainties--to, but she realized that would only postpone the inevitable. If Servalan wanted her, no one short of the Captain could save her, and that was only if he wasn't part of Servalan's plans. In fact, that would make sense, that Captain Tesch knew everything, including Sleer's true identity. Going to him could be the worst mistake she ever made.
Besides, she couldn't just abandon Blake to Servalan's tender mercies. It went against everything she believed. No, her best bet was to ready herself for whatever was about to happen--and pray she would be able to out-maneuver the merciless "Commissioner."
Before she could do more than turn to look for a weapon of some kind--a sedative hypo, something easily hidden in the folds of her uniform--she heard the sound of the outer sickbay door opening. Gritting her teeth, she finally managed to put her hands on the hypo she wanted, checked briefly to make certain it held a full dose, and hid it as best she could. She wouldn't go without a fight--and neither would her patient.