Doctor Rass Dorrin walked up to him holding a hypospray. "I'm glad I finally get to hear something other than crying and moaning coming from you, Captain," he said flatly. He held up the hypospray. "This ought to help with the hangover."
"Hangover?" Bolerov was still groggy. He didn't remember drinking at all, let alone to excess. Besides, he never drank anything but vodka... and he could handle vodka. His old classmates used to tease him saying his mother weaned him on that instead of milk. "I couldn't have been drunk..."
"Like hell you weren't," Rass interrupted. He thrust the hypospray into the captain's neck, probably a bit harder than he should have. The impact made Bolerov wince in pain. Within moments, pain relieving fluid began coursing through the captain's bloodstream at the atomic level. "I have recordings of some of your ramblings while you've been here, if you'd like to hear them."
Bolerov tried to sit himself up, then, feeling a bit woozy, decided to take it more slowly and simply scooted himself further up his pillow. For the life of him, he couldn't remember anything. His last memory was of sitting on his couch with a glass of vodka and listening to Mozart. "I just don't remember any of what you're saying. I was in my room..."
"Captain," Rass interrupted thoughtfully, "you had a blood-alchohol ratio of point three eight. Most humans would have been unconscious with that." Rass had initially been quite irritated with the captain for allowing himself to get into such a condition and then actually take command of what was probably the most powerful weapon in Starfleet. It wasn't until several hours later, in a withdrawl induced stupor, that Bolerov inadvertently revealed some details of the final flight of the USS Valiant. Although he still didn't know all the details, he now knew enough to understand why this situation had sent Bolerov over the edge. Doctor Rass' main concern now was if the captain would ever be capable of returning to his command. Dorrin certainly didn't like the notion of permenantly retiring two starship captains in less than a year.
Andrei looked at the doctor incredulously. "I don't believe it..." but he did. Part of him did. The part of his mind that had been fighting the losing battle of his memories of the Dominion War knew it was true. He had been so tired for so long struggling to repress the memories he thought he had beaten. He turned his head to look at the ceiling. "What did I do?" He asked slowly.
Rass swallowed. Personally, he didn't want to admit what had happened. Professionall, he had to. It would, hopefully, go a long way towards convincing the captain to not fight his relief of duties. "Apparently... during an encounter with some Dominion ships, you attempted to announce to the crew we should abandon ship, then tried to take over the navigation console to fly our ship into one of them."
Oh, no, he thought. That was what he did aboard the Vigilant before... Those were the memories that took six months of counseling to repress. He turned back to the doctor. "What happened after that?"
"Well," Rass would have to tread lightly on this one. "it seems that Colonel Prichard slugged you to keep you from getting at the navigation controls."
Bolerov rubbed his chin. No wonder his mouth was sore. He would have to properly thank Prichard for that, but he wasn't sure whether to slug him back or shake his hand. "Then what?"
Rass shrugged. "Commander Kirk had you transported down here. He destroyed one ship and chased the other one off. I know we went back to Cardassia briefly, then we flew away. That's all I know. I've been slowly pumping alchohol out of your system for the past couple of hours."
"My god," Bolerov exclaimed. "How long have I been out?"
"You've been in and out of consciousness for the past five hours," Rass admitted with a gentle smile.
Bolerov slowly moved his legs to the side of the bed. "I have to get to the bridge and find out what's going on."
The doctor raised his hand towards him, forcing the captain to stop before he could sit up. "I'm afraid I can't let you do that, Sir."
Despite lingering weakness and pain, he slapped away the doctor's hand, then sat up. "What do you mean you can't let me do that?"
Rass took a deep breath. He figured Bolerov would take the news of his confinement a bit worse than Captain Velasquez. "Please, just sit back down. I haven't released you yet."
"I'm releasing myself, Doctor," Bolerov commanded, irritated. Just then, two marines walked into the room from the front office. Their looks were quite stern as they placed their hands on their weapons. The gesture instinctively made the captain sit back down. "What's going on?"
Rass looked down. "You've been relieved of command, Captain."
Bolerov couldn't believe what he was hearing. His first thought was to Kirk. They had never gotten along. From the beginning, he knew Stephen had been critical of his age. "By whose authority?" He asked angrily, waiting for Kirk's name to be mentioned.
"Mine," Doctor Rass replied flatly. Bolerov looked deflated as Rass walked over to the table behind the marines and returned with a data PADD. He thrust it at the captain. "and Fleet Admiral Kanegawa." Reading the official order on the PADD deflated Bolerov the rest of the way. His shoulders slumped in defeat. "Once I release you from here, you can go back to your quarters, but that's it. You're not to set foot on the bridge or engineering." Rass stated.
Bolerov looked up gruffly. "I can read the order, Doctor," he huffed. "Just release me so I can go back to my quarters."
"I will shortly," Rass countered. "But just so you know... I've already ordered the removal of the vodka from your quarters."
Andrei's eyes grew wide. The gall! "That is my property! You have no authority to do that!"
Rass got in his face and pointed to his chest. "Yes I do, and I did." Realizing he couldn't win, Bolerov sat back on the bed a bit. Rass took a step back and lowered his hand. "It's well within my authority as ship's doctor to have harmful, or potentially harmful substances removed from the ship. Now, just lay down and let me perform a few more tests. Then, you can go back to your quarters."
With one last look of defiance, Bolerov relented. "Fine."