Zou No Ku

Consciousness slowly crept back to her as she lay sedate on the bed. Prying her eyes open she found herself surprisingly alert; and in a place unfamiliar to her. She tried to sit up but an unbearable bolt of agony shot from her right side, up her neck and to the temples. She cried out, drawing the attention of two nearby males, presumably medical personnel going by their attire, and and a black man and white woman stood stiffly at the door looking stern and suspicious of their visitor. ‘Armed security… Where am I?’ she asked herself, trying to make sense of her surroundings. The pain interrupted her again, forcing the strength out of her supporting arm. She lowered herself with the whisper of a groan. The fatigue set in again; her eyes pushed hard to close themselves but her curiosity wanted to know where this place was. It was certainly a medical facility but one unlike any she had ever seen. But her eyes were too heavy. She wanted to rest, felt a need to sleep. Her eyes gradually won the battle as they drifted shut and her mind wavered. The medics made their way to her bedside.
“Give her the shot.” one of them ordered.
‘Shot? Shot of what?” her mind asked but her body was unable to vocalise. She felt a hand take a firm grip of her left arm and instinctively she resisted.
“No…” she managed to breathe “…no.”
“Don’t worry please,” came a soothing, professional voice, “We’re trained medical specialists. This is to help you.”
She rolled her head to the right to find a face for the voice. He was an older man, probable some ten years her senior she imagined, in his forties or so, with deep, forlorn looking green eyes, a receding line of black fuzz atop his head and a clean, somewhat familiar-looking face which was preoccupied with a concerned expression. She looked into his eyes, at his face and agreed with a faint nod. He looked over her to his colleague and nodded, “Do it!”
The doctor’s colleague pressed a cylindrical device to the woman’s bicep, a briefly smarting sting pecked at the her as the it hissed almost inaudibly and the chemicals bought her fully round to the conscious world. She attempted to sit upright but was once again thwarted by the pain.
“Arrgghh!”
“Please, take it slowly” the doctor insisted gently, “You have multiple lacerations, fractured ribs and a concussion. The shot should ease the latter but we’re still working on treating your other injuries. Lie down, you’ll be more comfortable.”
She nodded in agreement; her eyes wide with disbelief over the extent of her misfortune.
“Whe… where am I? What is this place?” she asked quietly, still scouting the room for some identifying feature.
“I’m sorry,” the doctor replied with a remorse-ridden look, “but I’m under strict orders not to divulge any information to you until we can, err, until we can..” he looked uneasy, clearly reluctant to finish the sentence.”
“Until what?” she asked, her suspicion rising.
A second voice answered her. Younger, firmer and less emotional.
“Until we can discern that you are no credible threat to this ship or it’s compliment, ma’am.”
“Ensign Martin!” the doctor scolded.
“Yes, sir?”
“This is a very sensitive issue. Please, hone your bedside manner if you wish to remain a member of my primary team.”
“With all due respect, sir, there is no need to tiptoe around this matter.”
“You’re relieved, Ensign! Get out of my medbay.”
“Certainly, sir!” came the barbed response. The discourse hinted at a pre-existing disagreement the two had already discussed at length and Martin’s departure seemed all too late-coming for the young Ensign’s liking. Their patient looked but only caught a glimpse of his back as the security stepped aside to let him through then resumed their blockade as the door silently slid to.
“I apologise for my… colleague’s behaviour,” the doctor sighed, shaking his head at the door, “he’s a little tactless at times. I am Doctor Stark…”
“What did he mean?” the patient interrupted. “When he said… by… I mean, am I considered a threat? To what? To whom? I’m just a pilot!”
“Personally, I don’t, but ship protocol isn’t ran on personal feelings and protocol says that any unknown personnel are to be treated with suspicion until their identity and motives are made clear. It’s quite barbaric, I know, before you tell me so, but that is all I can tell you at the moment.” he looked at her, his eyes didn’t betray him. She believed him.
“Wait…” she realised something he had just said didn’t sit right. “…did you say ship protocol?”
“Yes, of course,” his tone couldn’t help but carry some patronisation with it, “what else did you expect?”
“It can’t be…” she said herself more-so than him, “…it just can’t…”
“What can’t be?” the doctor began to wonder if the concussion was more serious than his first diagnosis. ‘Delirium, maybe? Perhaps short-term memory loss?’
“What kind of ship?” she asked, sitting upright through the agony of her injuries. Stark became baffled.
“Please, lie down… your injuries may be…”
“What kind of ship?!” the patient cried, calling the security detail to stand to, “What kind of ship? Answer me!”
Stark stood dumbfounded for a moment.
“A starship, of course. What did you expect? A sea ship?” he laughed uncomfortably, “Earth hasn’t seen a sea-faring vessel in nearly seventy years now. Not since the integration of transcontinental shuttle-craft…” he led off, half hoping the brief history lesson would help, half fearing his patient maybe scold him for being so condescending but as he looked at her bloodied face, messy red head and deep into her bloodshot, tearful, lost blue eyes he realised there was no amnesia. No delirious state. The room fell silent.
“That’s… impossible…” she uttered at first. “Not poss-i-ble!” She grasped her head in her hands.
“H… how is it?” Stark asked in a shaky voice.
“Because!” she cried, “I only piloted Earth’s first manned deep-space vessel last week!”
The room fell silent again aside from the woman’s desperate gasps for oxygen. Stark stood, rooted to the spot. ‘How can that be?’ he kept asking himself as hysteria claimed his victim.
“Doctor,” the female security officer started, “Doctor!” she exclaimed louder.
Stark shook himself free of his thoughts.
“Yes, what is it?”
“Your patient,” she cried in disbelief. “Help her!”
“Oh, right. Yes, of course…” he clumsily picked up another auto-syringe and mixed a concoction.
“Here, this should help you,” he reassured his patient as the syringe hissed its cocktail into her bloodstream. The hysteria started to subside and her breathing normalised.
“How… is this possible?” she asked through gasps and sobs, “Just… how?”
Stark placed a shaky hand on his patient’s shoulder and she fell into him.
“I don’t know,” he said, staring into nothing, “but I think now is good a time as any to let the Captain know this.”
He turned to the exit, the security guards straightened up.
“From a professional point of view I’d say this young lady is less than a threat to even me, let alone this entire ship, wouldn’t you agree Lieutenant?”
“Certainly, Mr. Stark,” the male guard responded, “I’ll finish my report and get it to Captain Toriko immediately.”
“Good,” Stark said with authority, “because I for one want to find out who my patient is and where… or even when she is from.” the Doctor finished, the thought still sitting uneasily with him.
“As do I, Mr. Stark” the guarded eyed their visitor with lingering suspicions, “the Captain will contact you in due time.”
“Very well. In the meantime I’ll see what I can do to treat these injuries and make our guest comfortable.”
The guard nodded respectively, turned heel and left with his colleague in tow. Doctor Stark found himself feeling unusually timid and lost around his patient despite his initial desire to be alone with her throughout the drama that had unfolded. Deciding it was no good time for questions, and figuring that Captain Toriko would be asking plenty of his own, he walked across the medbay to a cabinet and pulled out another, bigger silver cylindrical device with one pointed end and various buttons and dials on the other and returned calmly to the now relatively collected patient.
“What is that?” she asked, tilting her eyes towards the instrument.
“It’s a medical instrument designed to help accelerate the regeneration of damaged tissues. Aptly named a Tissue Dressing Laser, or a TDL for short.” he smiled reassuringly as his patient relaxed and lay back.
“Well Mr. Stark, it looks as though you’ve got your work cut out for you…”
The doctor grinned, it wasn’t every day he got a patient who could find light in their situations. The TDL hummed into life, a small laser protruding from the pointed end which the doctor passed over the woman’s lacerations in his best attempt to make her acceptable for an audience with the Captain.