Part II: The Paperwork

"My head, it hurts," Hoshi muttered as her vision began to clear. Her feet seemed to be taking her to Sickbay.

"I know, we're almost there," came a soothing voice.

It was true. The Sickbay doors opened before her.

Crewman Randall appeared out of no where and stuck a flashlight in front of her eyes.

"OW!" she yelled, waving the light away. It was too late, the headache was coming back in full force. And it was the reason she almost dropped the clipboard that was shoved into her hand by Randall.

"Please have a seat and fill this out. Return it to me and Dr. Phlox will be with you thereafter."

Then Randall disappeared as quickly as she appeared.

"Hey! No, she needs to see Phlox right away. She fainted in her room...wait..."

The soothing voice went away somewhere. Hoshi stared at the forms in her hand, blinking slowly as snippets of understanding flowed into her brain.

In an effort to concentrate Starfleet resources on defense capabilities following the Xindi attack on Earth, Starfleet has outsourced its medical insurance division of United States citizens to a private conglomerate named the Stellar Healthcare Insurance Triumvirate. The private company had many procedures and Hoshi remembered being awed at the sheer volume of paperwork being delivered back and forth through the comm channels. It was even more than the science findings and reports that were being filed with Starfleet. Phlox even had to add new medical assistants to help him with the forms.

Hoshi remembered filling out the initial S.H.I.T registration. They had some very odd questions.

Was there at anytime a gap in the coverage of your medical insurance?

Hoshi had been puzzled at that particular question. Does being on other planets count? Does being in a whole other time line count? What did it matter?

Do you have any pre-existing medical conditions?

Another puzzling question. She had official medical records with Starfleet, they should know it all. She was healthy as far as she knew. Again, she had wondered, why did that matter anyway?

Hoshi continued to stare at the Randall's form without much more comprehension. The words were running off the page and swinging in a blob in front of her eyes. Finally, the headache was too much for her, and once again, Hoshi fell back into blackness.