Facing the future

Posted on Fri Sep 24th, 2010 @ 12:37am by Morgan Pass & Walter Jones & Jan Valentine

839 words; about a 4 minute read

Mission: Session 4: The Humans are Dead...
Location: Med bay
Timeline: After Kyle's death

As Jones lead Jan into the Medbay he saw that the Doctor was already standing by the bead with an array of equipment laid out.

"I heard the gunfire and figured I would be needed soon. You do know I make house calls, right? You don't have to keep dragging every half corpse back to me."

"I'm not dead yet doc." Jan said.

Morgan Harumphed, "not for want of trying, it seems."

He gestured for Jan to sit on the bio bed as he filled a hypo. Bringing it over he placed it on the un injured skin of Jan's neck bellow the burn.

"Local anesthetic. Should take the majority of the sting out while I work, but I wouldn't try drinking for a few hours."

He began to examine the damage of the wound mumbling to himself, a habit he had picked up in his old lab where the voice recorder monitored his notes, "Cellular disruption, consistent with a level 4 disruptor discharge within... 4mm of the dermal layer. Regeneration index of 23 with a .057 micron induction. Duration... to be calibrated. Cauterization suggests negligible blood loss or infection. Secondary infection possibility... let's say 13% if treated in 24 hours."

He pulled a torch and shone it into each of Jan's eyes and then used a second device to look into the damaged one in more detail, "Partial blindness from flash, should pass in a moment, but retinal damage was incurred... wait... retract that it looks like the damage is degenerative and only exacerbated by the heat. Treatment with Tyleptic compound would reduce swelling and damage by heated fluid within the eye. I gauge with the appropriate equipment full ocular re-engineering should be possible, perhaps a 30-40% vision improvement over the pre-injured status."

He stood back and looked at Jan critically again before turning to the Captain, "Alright we have four options. The scaring is severe but not life threatening. I could give the subject minimal treatment and an eye patch his speech would be impaired but he would look the part of a pirate crewman."

"Yeah...no." Jan said.

Morgan glanced back at Jan, "I don't believe I was asking you."

He turned back to Jones, "Secondly I could treat the facial wounds and not the eye. You get the retro-eyepatch look, but he keeps his boyish features."

"Eye patch...no." Jan said.

Morgan ignored the interuption this time, "Third option, I treat the eye as well and return it to the failing organ it was before the fight. He will probably not loose his stereoscopic vision for another two or three years."

"That sounds like a good idea." Jan said.

"Option four, you get me some of the things on my Medical wish list and I retro engineer his eyes so they are opperating at peak efficiency and undo the genetic coding responsible for the degeneration. He would be able to see better than anyone else on the crew and would continue to do so till the rest of his systems failed."

"Sounds expensive." Jan said.

"Which," Morgan said rounding on the engineer, "is the reason I was asking the man who is buying the goods, not the engineer who is wasting our money trying to catch disruptor fire in his teeth."

"Are you familar with the Lagashi doctor?" Jones turned and looked at the man.

Morgan frowned. Was this a threat, or an agreement, "Not particularly. I know they have some biomechanical adaptations."

"I've got favors to pull in with them. If we can patch him up long enough to get him there, then we'll be able to get your wish list plus, and besides, I've seen some of the surgical practices of the Klingons, I doubt you are going to be able to get much there except some blood wine for anesthetic and perhaps a knife that just killed someone."

Morgan understood now, "Of course captain. I will reduce the injuries on the face but leave the eye for now until I can get the proper equipment."

Pass turns back to Jan, "It looks like it will be a patch for you at least for a little while. Do you prefer the cloth strip, the patch on string or the Klingon 'Drilled to the face' method?"

"I'll handle that myself, just patch me up and send me on my way, just like everything else on this ship." Jan said.

"Was anyone else hurt in the fight? Or am I to assume this injury was self inflicted?"

"Har Har. Kyle shot me, so I shot him, a lot." Jan said.

Morgan nodded slowly, "I see. Diplomacy is obviously this ship's strong suit. Do you go through a lot of crew in this manner? I am amazed any of you have managed to reach adulthood."

"Only the ones that try and cross us, Doctor." Jones said.

Pass picked up a dermal re-generator, "I will endeavor to provide you with as little excuse to terminate my employment as possible."

There may even have been a half smile on the stoic man's face.

 

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