Zeva system
Peretal, Zeva V

Dr. Alex Kellogg stood just outside the sterile surgical field, his brow furrowed in concern as he watched Dr. Abbey Paris operate, her patient's chest splayed open, a surgical magnifier between her eyes and the dark blue heart she was operating on, an angioregenerator in her left hand and a deep tissue regenerator in her right. He wasn't concerned about her surgical technique; although he had watched her operate for the first time only a couple of days before, he knew she was more than competent, much more comfortable with her surgical tools than the average recent medical school graduate. His concerns were about the surgeon, not the patient.

"How's Colbee?" Paris asked, her eyes not leaving the minute muscle repairs she was making.

"We just finished," Kellogg replied, her question bringing him back to the present. "She's stable. We think she's going to make it, thanks to you." Paris murmured something unintelligible in reply, again focused on the surgery. "You're about half an hour away from Dr. Jackson's twenty-four hour restriction," he told her, which was really the reason he came over.

"Which means I have four and a half hours until my MOT," she replied, her eyes flickering from her patient to her colleague for a brief second.

"I can take over from here, if you want."

She shook her head slowly, her eyes not leaving the small area of ischemic heart tissue she was repairing. "No, thanks," she replied. "I should be done before my MOT is up. Did you know that before tissue regenerators, this type of repair wasn't even possible? If there was ischemic cardiac tissue, the only thing the doctors could do was give medications to reduce the afterload, monitor the patient, and hope they didn't perforate through the weak muscular wall."

"Thanks for the history lesson, Paris," Kellogg said, not even bothering to hide his smile. It was nice to see that, even with everything else, she was still able keep it light. "I still have ten hours of my MOT, it's really no problem taking over."

"I know Dr. Jackson said to try to keep it at less than twenty-four hours, but there is absolutely no reason for that," Paris argued. "Working within maximum operating times is evidence-based medicine; if anything, they're too conservative. Human doctors, especially military doctors at war, used to work thirty to forty hours without a recovery period. The only reason Dr. Jackson wants me to work less than my MOT is because he views twenty-eight hours as an exceptionally long MOT and because I'm such a recent graduate. You can assist if you want, Kellogg, but I'm not leaving this surgical field until either my patient is stable or my MOT is up."

Kellogg sighed, knowing an argument would be a waste of his time and her attention. "Okay, Paris, that's your choice. I'll go see to the other patients. I'll be back in four hours if you're still working. If you finish before that, come find me to check out."

"Thanks," she replied, glancing up to shoot him a quick grin before her eyes returned to Saime's heart and the delicate fiber-by-fiber repairs required.

Two hours after her conversation with Dr. Kellogg, Paris was finally convinced that the Zevian's heart, while not quite in perfect condition, was as good as she or anyone else would be able to get it. She carefully deactivated the stasis field, watching as the blood began pumping through the heart again. "No leaks," she said with a satisfied nod, sharing a relieved grin with the nurse who had been assisting her. "Let's close him up." After everything they had done for the Zevian, returning his ribs to the proper position and using the dermal regenerator to erase any sign that they had been there seemed like everyday work. "Transfer him to post-op observation. I'm going to go check out to Dr. Kellogg; if anything happens until I'm back on duty, contact him."

"Sure," the nurse replied, punching commands into the biobed controls. "Good job, Dr. Paris." Abbey nodded in acknowledgement and went out to find Dr. Kellogg.

"I'm going to round on my patients, then I'll be back to check out," she said after she tracked him down in the ambulatory care area, repairing a medic's lacerated hand.

"Hold on a sec," he replied as he finished the dermal regeneration. "Why don't we round together and check out as we're going?"

She smiled thinly. "You really are eager to get me out of here, aren't you?"

He didn't return the smile. "You've had a pretty rough twenty-six hours." He gestured for her to lead the way. She scowled briefly at the reminder, but didn't say anything as she punched a few commands into her PADD and headed back to the recovery area to see her patients.

With the time she had spent going through the wreckage and operating on Anuj Saime Peretal, she hadn't had much time to pick up new patients, so rounds and check-out went fairly quickly. As she finished giving her final instructions to Dr. Kellogg, Dr. Jackson wandered over to the small lounge where they were sitting. "Recovery time, Dr. Paris?" he asked conversationally as he requested a mug of coffee from the replicator.

"I was just about to head out," Paris replied, trying not to let her annoyance at his stringent work hours restriction work into her voice.

"Get a little bit more sleep. Take a six hour recovery," he said. There was no hint as to it being an order in his voice, but Paris knew better than to think it was a suggestion. That didn't mean she was happy with it.

"Sir, I'm fine," she protested. "My MOT recovery is only four hours."

"I know," he replied. "But we're not as swamped as we were. Most of the cases we're getting now are non-critical, so there's no need to work ourselves to exhaustion. Besides, you've earned it. You did some good work today."

She frowned, knowing she was being mollified, but didn't say anything, just nodded tightly as she turned and walked out of the physician's lounge toward the rest tent, where she immediately kicked off her field boots and threw her uniform—including Ensign Riker's uniform top, which she had forgotten she was wearing—into the refresher. Still feeling the grime of her several hours working through the rubble, she stepped into the sonic shower for a cycle before replicating a PT uniform to sleep in. Any concerns she may have had about the horrors of her day keeping her awake were quickly alleviated; she was asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow.

---

Thirty hour day-night cycles, inconsistent work with frequent breaks to tend to his injuries, and food being available whenever he wanted it were wreaking havoc on Ensign Andrew Riker's circadian rhythms; he had no idea if it was supposed to be day or night, if he was supposed to be sleeping or walking around, and no one was giving him any straight answers. When he asked Dr. Kellogg about it, the flight surgeon had smiled and told the pilot to do whatever his body felt like doing; if he thought he should be sleeping, he should take a nap; if he thought he should be eating, he should eat.

In other words, Dr. Kellogg had no idea, either.

Figuring that the medical personnel were all working on schedules that had nothing to do with sunrises or sunsets—or with each other's schedules, for that matter—Riker wasn't terribly surprised when he saw the slight form of Dr. Abbey Paris leaning against the trunk of a tree, a steaming cup of some likely-caffeinated drink at her side, attacking a plate of food balanced on her knees with gusto. Judging from her scrubbed-clean appearance and fresh uniform, she had recently woken up and was preparing for another day of work.

"I take it this is morning for you?" he asked lightly as he stood over her.

Distracted by her thoughts, she hadn't heard him approach, and jumped slightly at the sound, barely catching her plate before her food tumbled to the ground. "Something like that," she finally said. "Morning, mid-afternoon, it really makes no difference when you spend all your time up to your elbows in blood and gore."

"That's a pleasant meal-time thought," he said, making a face. She only shrugged and took a sip from her mug, which now that he was closer, could identify by the smell alone as raktajino. "What meal is this, anyway?"

"Breakfast," she replied, taking a bite and squinting over at him. "As you said, this is morning for me."

"Ah," he replied. "I thought you docs were all living off ration packs, the way I've seen you guys munching on those bars between surgeries."

"I woke up a bit early and didn't want Dr. Jackson to scold me about working too hard, so I decided to splurge on real food for the first time in however long I've been on this god-forsaken planet."

"And what is it?"

She took another bite of her food, chewed, and swallowed. "Chocolate chip waffle with peanut butter on top."

He made a face. "That's disgusting."

"Hey, don't knock it until you've tried it."

He chuckled as she took another bite of her breakfast. A few hours of sleep, clean uniform, and some real food, and she was like a whole different person, which he pointed out. "You seem to be in a better mood this morning."

She raised an eyebrow and glanced at him sideways, her ridges shifting with the motion. "Is that what your Betazoid quarter is telling you?"

He grinned back. Yeah, definitely in a better mood. "Is that your Klingon quarter asking?" he shot back. She rolled her eyes and returned her attention to her waffle, but he thought he saw the barest hint of a smile there.

They sat in silence for a few minutes as she continued to eat her breakfast and drink her raktajino before she turned toward him again, "By the way, your uniform top is in the physicians rest tent."

He nodded, remembering that he wasn't wearing it, still not feeling chilled despite the fact he was still only wearing the short-sleeved black undershirt. "Okay, I'll try to go by and pick it up. I'm fine without it, though," he added. "When I help out with the engineering crews, they give me coveralls to wear, and the rest of the time, this is fine. Besides," he added, shooting her a wide grin, "you might need it again, and it looks better on you than it does on me."

She snorted and rolled her eyes as she took the last bite of her waffle, right before her tricorder beeped. "Time for me to get back to work," she announced. "Speaking of which, how's that head of yours?" Without waiting for a response, she removed the wand from the top of her tricorder, using it to scan around the circumference of his head before snapping the instrument closed. "Everything looks good. The swelling is down, and there's barely any hint of injury. If only you had a working shuttle, I'd clear you to fly."

"Guess you're stuck with me a little bit longer, then," he replied with a grin. "So, what does it take for a lowly pilot like me to get a surgeon's attention?"

"You did a pretty good job of it a few days ago," she said wryly as she recycled her dishes and utensils. Activating her PADD, she glanced up at him briefly. "Raktajino helps, extra strong to help me get through a twenty-four shift." She shot him a very quick grin before ducking inside the walls of the field hospital to start another day.

"Raktajino," Riker muttered to himself. "That, I can do." A passing crewman glanced at him curiously as he walked away, whistling a nonsense little tune to himself. Brain damage and all, I like this little planet. A mug of Klingon coffee in the middle of long hospital shift was hardly a date, but like he told her the night before, he was nothing if not persistent.