"It's your choice." Pike slipped off the biobed.
Chapel watched him go, then gestured between herself and La'an. "We're going to have a conversation. You boys just sit back and relax."
She exchanged a look with M'benga, who nodded his assent, before toggling the privacy shield up around the bed.
"I'm not going to change my mind."
"That's not what this is about."
La'an gave her a look, clearly skeptical.
"This is about making sure I have informed consent before doing something that is essentially torture."
"Fine."
"This technique causes cell death and division at an unprecedented rate, affecting skin, fat and muscle tissues without changing nerve pathways. It's never been tried on a patient without sedation, but scans indicate the pain would be extreme. Something like being burned in a open flame."
La'an's face hadn't changed, so Chapel plowed on. "The process lasts about ten minutes. The pain will build steadily, then plateau for a while before dropping off at the end. There won't be any physical injury, but that kind of pain tends to swamp the nervous system. You will probably experience a mild loss of motor control which should pass quickly, and there will likely be echoes. You'll feel pain that isn't there. This can be triggered by any number of events, and the episodes can persist for days, maybe longer. The psychological effects…" Chapel sighed inwardly, watching La'an's blank face. "You're familiar with PTSD."
"Is that it?"
"The sedation won't dull your senses, it only blocks the pain receptors."
"Pain is a sensation."
"Will you accept a lower dose? I can set it so you'll feel what's happening, just not…"
"No sedatives."
"Then let someone else do this. You don't need to go down there. Find another security officer. I'll tell the captain I can't give you this treatment, no questions asked, no stain on your reputation."
"It's not about that."
"Then what?"
"Una, Number One, I owe her a debt. She saved my life. It has to be me."
"It really doesn't."
"Listen, you've given your speech. I want the treatment. Can we just get on with it?"
Chapel held her gaze. She could refuse, probably should refuse, but the clock was ticking on this mission. And La'an was determined. She wasn't going to forgive her if she did. "Ok. Can I at least give you an anti-emetic? You're going to need it."
La'an nodded.
Chapel fetched the vial from the workbench, making sure to snag a box of tissues and a dermal regenerator on the way. "Sharp scratch." She prefaced, pressing the hypospray to her skin. La'an didn't flinch. Chapel switched the vial out for the one containing the electric blue gene therapy and held it up. "Last chance to pull out of this."
"Just do it."
"Ok. Hang in there sister." Chapel pressed the injection home, then changed the vial out again for the red sedatives, making sure La'an could see. "I'm leaving this right here. Any time you change your mind."
La'an's grip was whitening around the edge of the biobed, her face gone tight as it started to morph. Chapel took her hands. "Squeeze as hard as you like. The barrier's completely soundproof. Nothing that happens leaves this room."
The process was excruciating. La'an's head dipped so Chapel couldn't see her face, but her tightening grip on Chapel's hands told her everything she needed to know. When the shaking started she stepped close, allowing La'an's forehead to press against her shoulder.
"There's a forest near where I grew up." Chapel started quietly, letting her voice cover La'an's increasingly raged breathing. "I used to go there when I was little, ride my bike out, just to see. It was always quiet there, peaceful. The trees were so tall. When I stood underneath them and looked up I could barely see the sky through the branches. Just a little bit of green and blue, way up, and clouds sometimes, or the sun, just a glimpse of light, like it was a secret. The trees were pine, all rough, flaking bark and nasty, thin little needles that would scratch your skin if you tried to climb them. And sticky too, the kind of sap that doesn't come off, even with soap and warm water. Just sticks to everything, ruins your clothes. So I never climbed them, just stood there and looked up. I never felt small there, just protected, away from everything under these massive rough old trees that smelled of sap and earth and rain. I would spend all day out there, even if the weather was bad, even if it rained, nasty thin mist that got everywhere, or big fat drops that just soaked through everything. It was so cold sometimes my toes would go numb. There were these mounds of moss that grew out of the forest floor. Up out of all the debris, all the old branches and pine needles and bark. It would crunch under your feet when you walked on it, even when it was wet. But the moss was soft, all springy, and dense, and even in the summer it was always wet. I would press my hands into it. Sometimes it grew these tiny little flowers, almost invisible. You had to put your face right up close to see. And when you dug your nails into it, through all the dense, wet little leaves, there was dirt underneath. It would get in under my nails, stick there, so I'd have to scrub it out with a brush that night at home."
La'an pulled free of her hands and gripped her forearms instead, so hard Chapel knew her fingertips would be leaving bruises. She let her hands curl loosely around La'an's arms, resisting the urge to stroke soothing arcs with her thumbs. The woman's nerve endings were on fire as it was. She glanced up at the clock. "It won't get any worse now. You're almost half way." She wasn't. Not even close.
"There were all kinds of tiny creatures out there. In the moss, in the soil, under the bark. Sometimes I'd pick away at the bark on a fallen tree, try and get it loose to see what was underneath. It would crack and scratch, I'd get splinters under my nails, but underneath it was smooth, and red, velvety under my fingertips. And it smelled sweet." The story was as much for herself as it was for La'an. She pressed deep into the texture of the memories, drawing out how it had felt, how it had sounded, how it had smelt out there, blocking out the reality in front of her. Ten minutes shouldn't take this long.
It was La'an's breathing that told her the process was winding down. Chapel checked the clock. Right on schedule. A few seconds later the death grip on her arms started loosening too. Chapel stepped back just far enough to reach for the medical tricorder.
"Looks good, perfect transformation." She handed La'an a couple of tissues from the box, then busied herself adjusting the dermal regenerator.
"Are we done?"
"I'm just going to fix…" Chapel indicated her own eyes and nose. La'an stilled while she ran the soft red light across her face, fixing broken capillaries. Her breathing was almost normal now, her stiffened posture hiding the remaining tremors of misfiring nerves. "Can you stand?"
"I'm fine." La'an pushed herself off the biobed. She almost was.
Chapel gathered her instruments together and stowed them back on the bench, then turned to take in La'an, top to toe. Right. "I'm going to hug you now. Apart from anything else, it's the single fastest way to reset the human nervous system. Ok?"
She waited for La'an to nod, tight and slightly thrown, before stepping in and wrapping her arms around her. La'an stood stiff for a second, but relaxed as Chapel increased the pressure, her own arms coming around to rest lightly against her back. Chapel tightened her grip slowly until just before the point where it would become hard to breathe, then held, flat hands pressed between La'an's shoulder blades, and counted to ten. There was no resistance as she slowly let go. "Better?"
"Yes."
"Good." Chapel indicated the privacy shield with a tip of her head. La'an nodded.
The captain and Spock were bent over a PADD while M'benga scrutinized their altered genome on the screen above the biobeds.
"Nurse Chapel, these look good." M'benga pointed at the scrawling data. "Though Mr. Spock's is, unusual."
"Nice." Chapel couldn't help but grin at the suddenly alien faces around her. Proof of concept was always such a rush. "I'll take a look at that, but you should be good to go for now."
"Ready lieutenant?" Pike asked, getting up.
"Yes sir."
And she looked it too, Chapel noted as La'an straightened to attention. It was frightening.
"Excellent. Mr. Spock and I have been reading up on the local customs. We'll fill you in on the way."
As M'benga returned to his computer Chapel focused on the anomalous sections of Spock's newly minted DNA and pressed the crumpled tissues further into her pocket, gripping the only evidence that anything unusual had just happened here.
Right now, she needed the proof.
