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[Sickbay]

The sedative was enough to stop the seizure and put her out for a moment, but not for long. Slowly she came back to and realized just where she was and what the gravity of the situation was. "W-what going on?" She asked in a concerned tone. "What...what happened?"

[Sickbay]

Since Ashley was the only patient requiring priority treatment at that point in sickbay, Zero had remained close to her biobed so as to keep an eye on the readings.  If something went wrong, she wanted to be on hand to deal with it.  As such, as the ensign started to come round, the pale woman only had to take two steps to be at her side.

"You experienced a seizure," Zero replied directly, glancing up at the readings to see if they were still within tolerance limits.  "I would recommend that you do not make any excess movements."

Picking herself up off the deck plates, Zero brushed off her uniform, trying to make it seem as if she was unruffled by what had just happened, but her usual 'ice princess' persona was far harder to carry off when she appeared to be an officer known for his puppy-like enthusiasm rather than the pale, cold-hearted medic.

"I am a geneticist, not a scientist," she corrected him coolly, trying not to feel disconcerted at looking at her own face.  "This is not within my realm of expertise, and I would imagine that it does not fall under the umbrella of Engineering."  Her body felt so slow to respond to her, her senses dulled.  It was almost as if she was trying to live underwater.

[Sickbay]

"Sssslight sssstroke," Kintiss replied, "focussssed on the Parietal Lobe. Possssible light damage to the language centre." True, it wasn't a fatal stroke, but nobody went through a stroke and came out as fresh as linen. There was going to be some long-term damage. What precisely it was, he couldn't know, but he knew Ensign Weir would struggle with it for a while until he could fix it.

This one was on him, and he knew it. When he'd agreed to help treat Ensign Weir's hearing problem, he'd discovered there was a slight risk with the procedure. He'd gone ahead with it anyway, since it was the slightest of slight risks.

Bad luck, that's what it was. Just a case of the worst luck.

"On my way,"=/\= Kintiss replied as he handed the medical tricorder over to Alpha. "I'll leave thissss one with you. I'll want a full report when I get back." His confidence in her personally may have been shaken, but he reckoned she was still one heck of a medic. He could always trust her with a patient. Packing a field kit, he left Sickbay, feeling sick to his stomach.

So far, today was not a good day.

[Sickbay]

"Understood," Zero replied, both to his diagnosis, which was consistent with the reading she was getting from the biobed scanners, and to the fact that he had been requested to depart to join the away team heading down to the planet.  As usual, she had refused the offer of shore leave out of preference for staying on the ship, but perhaps Jiseth would take Callion down.  It would do them good to spend time together.

Turning her attention back to the patient, she found a PADD, writing down a few notes to add to the file later before calling up that same file so as to get a more accurate idea of her history.  For now, the ensign had been stabilised, but she would need more information before she could continue with a treatment.

[Jefferies Tubes]

Several years ago, it wouldn't have been abnormal for Zero to wake up with a raging headache, but at this point in her life, when everything had to be so tightly controlled to keep from either being discovered or breaking the stringent rules placed around her life, she was extremely disconcerted to be waking up with the sensation that a rather enthusiastic Klingon was using her skull as a drum kit.

Pushing herself up onto her knees didn't help as her head clanged off something hard and unforgiving.  Lying down again, she rubbed the sore spot, squinting around.  Her vision was suddenly so... unfocused?  It was what she would have expected of a normal human, not the augmented senses she had.  She rubbed her eyes in the futile hope that it would somehow resolve the issue, blinking and squinting as she tried to figure out exactly where she was.  The maintenance crawlways?  Why would I have come to such a place?

Scrambling through the Jefferies tubes to the nearest exit hatch, banging elbows and knees repeatedly in the process as she cursed her sudden lack of agility.  Perhaps her secretive ballet workout the night before had been too vigorous?  Her muscles and joints didn't feel sore, but they were certainly less responsive than usual, and didn't have the same range of motion that she was used to.

It just so happened that the nearest exit hatch sent her spilling out into a very familiar lab, with an equally familiar face sitting at one of the consoles.  From her position, lying half in and half out of the tube, it was an extremely disconcerting thing, to see yourself at one of the consoles as if nothing was wrong.

"I am not certain that I comprehend..." she said, unaware that it had actually been said rather than remaining within the confines of her mind.

[Sickbay]

The sight of a hypospray was usually alarming to the young woman. However this time it was a strangly welcomed relief. As soon as it was administered she felt her body relax and her MI d quickly followed.

[Sickbay]

Once Kintiss had gotten their patient situated on the biobed, Zero moved forward and set up the various monitoring devices to start taking readings.  The more information they could get about what was happening to the ensign, the better.

"What is your initial diagnosis?" she enquired of the Selay, deferring to him as the primary physician on the case.

"Kintissss to ssssickbay, prepare biobed and neural sssstimulatorssss,"=/\= he said as he tapped his combadge. "Enssssign Weir hasss ssssuffered a minor sssseizure."=/\= Scooping her up in a fireman's lift, he carried the Ensign out of the mess hall and back to the turbolift.

[Sickbay]

Just as she had located the chief medical officer and had been about to bring him the cup of Klingon coffee she had replicated for him, the Selay left his office, responding to a call that had come up from the mess hall to report a medical emergency.  At least he was responding to it and not her.  Too many irritating hangers on, and an individual requiring assistance in the mess hall could usually have avoided needing that assistance if only they had chosen to employ a little of the intelligence they all claimed to have.

Hearing another call coming through, this one to prepare equipment for an impending arrival, Zero deposited the coffee on an equipment trolley and set to work getting the biobed up to receive a patient suffering from seizures.

As soon as Kintiss arrived with one of their crewmates around his shoulders, she stepped back, allowing him access to the biobed she had prepared and picked up the neural stimulators, getting ready to apply them.

[Sickbay]

With the three casualties from the derelict ship dropped off at a starbase, all still with pulses, Zero had been quite content to get them off her hands.  Emergency medicine wasn't something she was particularly interested in.  It was nothing like the complex and intricate nature of genetics.  It was just unfortunate that, as a Star Fleet medic, she was required to do more than just what interested her.

Her transfer back to the Phoenix along with Jiseth was still a relatively new thing but one that she was happy with.  She trusted Commander T'Koris and had at least a handful of acquaintances on the ship, one of whom was the Selay who was now her chief medical officer.

Thinking of Kintiss, she asked the sickbay's replicator for an iced raktajino, which she assumed to be something of an acquired taste given that he was the only one she knew of who drank the foul concoctions, and went in search of the scaled medic, offering in hand.

[Sickbay]

As the Vulcan patient drifted off to sleep, Kintiss raised a scaled eyebrow. Vulcans, by and large, didn't complain about medical procedures unless they were criticising the doctor (something he found they did a lot). What cause could he have to resist being treated? It had to be important, or he wouldn't have tried to resist the sedative. Good thing the dosage was specially increased for Vulcan physiology, or he would have probably had to deal with a barrage of criticism while he tried to concentrate. He'd had enough of that at the Academy.

As he applied the hyposprays to the Vulcan, the patient's breathing became regular. That would probably, he reckoned, make it easier for Alpha to do her work. He left her to work on the Vulcan and examined the Bolian. While not as badly injured as the Vulcan, the Bolian also carried third-degree burns and their arm was at an odd angle. They all needed a lot of work done.

[Sickbay]

Zero wasn't having the same thoughts of concern as Kintiss about their patient, more concerned with the repairs of the internal lacerations before the Vulcan bled out.  As far as she was concerned, all humanoids acted strangely.  She still had problems figuring out what was normal for them and what wasn't.

The vascular regenerator made quick work of healing the Vulcan, but she still ran a tricorder scan over him once more to ensure that she hadn't missed anything.  Vital signs were regular, although blood pressure was low and the heart rate was high, but she expected to see that after a haemorrage.  Keying a few commands in to the biobed, she set up the automatic scanners to take continuous readings and sound an alarm should they vary from her specific parametres.

Moving over to Kintiss and the Bolian, she asked:  "Do you require assistance?"

[Sickbay]

For a moment, Kintiss was happy to see a familiar face. He was glad to see that Alpha was still alive, if nothing else. Then the anger came back. The anger at her for not telling him what she was, and a bit of anger at himself for not doing anything about it. Now, however, was not the time to let the personal override the professional. He had a job to do.

"You may be right. Wouldn't want them to be hiding sssssomething important, now, would we?" he replied, giving the Vulcan a quick once-over with a medical tricorder.

"Third degree plasssma burnssss, fractured ribssss, minor dehydration," he read as the tricorder picked them up. "ssslight tearing of...damn! Thissss one hasss an internal hemorrhage!" Setting the tricorder down, he grabbed a hypospray and sedated the Vulcan. "Get me twenty CCs of dermaline and bicaridine!"

[Sickbay]

There was no time to catch up, assuming that Zero even knew what 'catching up' meant.  The casualties from the other ship were their main priority and must take precedence over any kind of idle chit chat.  When a patient was close to crashing, any chatter outside of orders being given for drugs or recussitation had no place what so ever.

Without a word, Zero grabbed the two hyposprays, a glance indicating that the dosage on them was correct before she handed them to Kintiss before reaching for a tricorder of her own and the vascular regenerator, scanning the Vulcan in search of the source of the internal bleeding.

"I am detecting lacerations to the liver and spleen," she reported, switching on the regenerator and setting to work.

The sound of Alpha's voice made him do a double-take. So, the Augment was back on the ship. It only now occurred to him that he had never told Alpha that he knew what she was. She'd left before he had a chance. Maybe, when the opportunity presented itself, he would let her know, but right now he had to focus on the incoming patients.

"Acknowledged, Alpha,"=/\= Kintiss replied as he and two other medical crewmen began to program biobeds for the patients, taking particular care to increase the sensitivity of the bio-scanners. He wanted them to pick up any sort of anomaly, including any trace of Earth First's viral agent, since the patients were apparently non-human.

[Sickbay]

The transporter chief had acted quickly, beaming all three casualties and the doctor to sickbay where the patients were directed to biobeds and helped to lie down.  Looking around for the medical officer on duty, Zero's grey eyes fell upon Kintiss.  A very familiar face, and one that she considered to be a friend after the amount of time he had spent putting her back together following her stay with a terrorist group.  She nodded to him, acknowledging his presence and authority.

"I have observed primarily burns and major fractures, although there may be more that I have not observed."

Before they were beamed to Sickbay, the Vulcan tried to tell Zero something.  "Dis..ess ..all" he whispered.  His voices dry due to lack of hydration.  "Disco" he added before he disappeared.
[Sickbay]

"vered" he finished.  He looked around to see he was in a new place.  "Graveyard" he said.

Looking at the Vulcan being helped onto a bed by one of the nursing staff, Zero raised an eyebrow.  "Perhaps it would be wise to count concussion amongst the list of possibilities also."

"Kintissss to medical, I need anyone available down in Transsssporter Room one to receive incoming patientssss."=/\=

[Quarters]

Despite not yet being on duty, the summoning of medical personnel still came hrough on Zero's commbadge, rousing her from the fascinating process of painstakingly alphabetising her collection of journals and textbooks.  With Callion still fast asleep and Ghost watching over her, the Augment brushed off the knees of her uniforms from the invisible dust that must have collected in the fabric while she had been kneeling on the deck, and tapped her commbadge.

=^= "Alpha to Kintiss.  I will report to the transporter room and inform you of the situation," =^= she said, pausing for a moment to pick her medkit out of one of the boxes before leaving her quarters.

The Sec/Tac Officer arrived just minutes before the three non-human Star Fleet personal beamed aboard.  All three looked like they had survived quite a lot - even the Vulcan seems disheveled.  One of the three collapsed to the floor when the transporter process was complete.  =/\=Main Transporter to Sickbay.  Medical emergency.  We need someone here right away=/\= he said after tapping his combadge.

Her arrival in the transporter room was swift, and it only took a second between Zero laying eyes on the three casualties that had been beamed over from the damaged ship and her making a decision of what to do with them.

"Transport them immediately to sickbay," she told the transporter chief.  =^= "Alpha to Kintiss, I have given orders for the casualties to be beamed to you.  Prepare for their imminent arrival."=^=

[Quarters]

"Currently, but I'll hold out that it's not permanent."

The broccoli and carrots were in small enough pieces that she did not need a knife for those, just for the meat itself which she separated into many blocks with a pinkish hue in the center. One hand held the plate while the other the fork as she left the kitchenette and surveyed their work so far while eating. They had made great progress though that was the benefit of having very few personal items.

One caught her eye in particular. It was a picture they were both quite familiar with, their picnic together, but her focus was not on the smiling Romulan or the confused Augment. It was the former's legs in the background. She looked down at the metal and carbon fiber prosthetic limbs that replaced them wondered just how much farther she was willing to go for her career when it was her family that would have to cope with whatever came back.

She often had thought despair and grief were ways to keep someone from growing conceited, but it was far too late for her. The chip on her shoulder weighed so much she never really could wear heals because it would prevent her from keeping balance. Pulling from her pocket a small PADD handheld, she flicked through the list of current department and mission objectives. They were heading to a sunken ship in an asteroid field and she could only guess who would be called upon to fly a shuttle for the away team.

"...I miss our walks on the beach. I know we can do that again whenever we want on the holodeck, but it's the... The way the sand feels so hot until you get near the water where it's damp and cool. Then the water rushes up to your ankles and splashes up your shins. Just wading in the surf and feeling it move around you. I never really understood how damaging it was to the mind to lose a part of the body, until it happened to me, because there's a part of your life that's gone with it. Something you'll want to feel yet can't."

Jiseth looked over her shoulder to Zero.

"So I thank you for the work you've put in for your research, but know that I have my own to help you as well. It's a partnership after all, is it not?"

[Quarters]

Picking up the tall glass of unappetising grey gruel that was her only source of nutrition, Zero tried not to pull a face as she took a mouthful of the gritty liquid.  Leela and Archangel had worked hard before her brief transfer to the Discovery to get her to eat properly, and she had even managed to eat a human breakfast food caled 'porridge' a few times, but the fear always had her coming back to the supplement Corinth had programmed for her.

As the conversation turned to the largely inadequate prosthetics Jiseth was forced to endure, the Augment actually managed a faint smile.  "I have made progress with my research," she replied.  "I require more time yet, but I have discovered two promising avenues that may yield adequate results."  Another mouthful of supplement was swallowed.  It was always easier to eat/drink it when she was distracted.   

[Quarters]

The Romulan's eyes widened for a second and she hesitated to take a step forward when the vase lost balance, but seeing Zero handle it left her at ease. After moving close to it she looked the plant over and in particular focused on the bulb that had yet to blossom. Much like many things in her life, she would have to wait for it to unfold and reveal the fruit of her labor.

"...Could use more bone meal. And an increase in hydration."

Once finished with her mental notes, the replicator was her next stop. Even with her modestly superior hearing it took Jiseth a moment to figure out what Zero had been saying. Part of her wanted to remove all traces of the gruel her partner had been fed for so long, but it too seemed like a far off goal. Her choice of meal was a steak with vegetables and rice. Simple enough and smelled wonderful which she hoped would coax her partner into perhaps taking a bite.

"You sure you wouldn't want a bite? Otherwise, I can always adjust to have what you normally do."

[Quarters]

Knowing little about plants, Zero had left Jiseth to care for the one she had nearly dropped, instead moving on to a box that contained the various paraphenalia that came with canine ownership, unpacking Ghost's litter tray, basket, and blankets.  At least she couldn't break those.  She looked up again at the Romulan spoke and her expression turned to one of faint shame.

"I would not ask you to submit to the same limitations as I experience, Jiseth," she replied.  "I would not deprive you of what you call 'proper food' when it is one of your pleasures in life simply because I am currently unable to partake of the same."

[Quarters]

"We'll just have to get as much done as we can beforehand then. Maybe a family outing can be made of it? Wouldn't hurt to attach some fond memories with this moving around ship to ship."

From the container, Jiseth retrieved several bottles of various alcohols of Federation and Romulan origins. They were kept in a cabinet far out of reach of their daughter. Next came three ship models, one for each that she had flown, which were placed on top of a small bookshelf near one of the viewports. There was an Intrepid, Sternbach, and Akira-class there and she made sure to keep enough room for the future addition of a Nebula.

The various framed photos found places on small tables and the bookshelves filled with their reading PADD's. Zero's seemed to be mostly medicine and biology texts with a few on dancing. Her own were equally as singular in focus with her many manuals and procedure checklists with a few science fiction works fit in. There was a fresh sense of satisfaction seeing the place come together until her stomach made a rather audible grumble.

"Uh... Hmm. Want me to grab something from the replicator for you as well?"

[Quarters]

Along with Jiseth, Zero started to unpack their belongings, although she concentrated on Callion's affairs, getting them moved in to the tiny room on the other side of the living area to the bedroom that she and Jiseth would occupy.  Although very few people knew about the little girl, and Zero had taken pains to ensure that few people knew of her, Callion had nonetheless received many gifts from that small group.  Picking out a fluffy bear that she seemed to favour, the Augment ducked into the bedroom to tuck it under the blankets with the girl.

Returning to the living area, she had just lifted a potted plant, one of Jiseth's new hobbies, out of its protective travel case when Jiseth asked whether she wanted anything from the replicator.  An expression of sheer panic flashed across her face for a brief moment, during which the plant wobbled dangerously before Zero quickly placed it on one of the tables.

Food.  Yet another of the great barriers put in place by Admiral Corinth in her life.  While Leela and Commander T'Koris had made great efforts to help her break that barrier, she had made little progress.  On the other hand, she hadn't eaten that morning, nor particularly the night before, and she found that she too was becoming hungry.

Not looking up at the Romulan, a faint blush of pink embarrassment creeping up in her cheeks, she murmured something about one of her nutritional supplements being required at that moment in time.

"Well, when I first met T'Koris those two certainly had a lot on their plate with the girls, but they've kept it together pretty well and seemed quite happy. Think they'd get along with Callion okay?"

Jiseth pulled the container into the bedroom and left it between the bed and the closet. One of the packs she managed to slide off her shoulder, but she could not remove the other while still holding the toddler. Luckily the bed was already made for their arrival and with her utmost finesse pulled back the sheets and lowered her daughter onto the mattress, taking care to not wake her.

After she stood fully back up and pulled the sheets up to keep the little one warm, the Romulan took a moment to simply appreciate the beauty of the moment. There lay the embodiment of the legacy that she and Zero would leave behind. With all that had gone on around them on their previous ships it was welcome relief to see her sleep so soundly. She quietly set down the other bag and removed her work PADD from it then moved back to the living room to help unpack without waking the little one.

"It seems T'Koris is going to have Ensign Weir do the flying out of here. Just as well. Any idea who you'll be working with?"

[Quarters]

After taking a drink, Ghost trotted through to the bedroom after the rest of his family and, seeing the little one tucked into the bed, jumped up onto it, curling himself around Callion and resting his head on her shoulder as if to guard her from any possible attacker.  Zero sighed quietly at the sight, as relieved as Jiseth that their daughter was sleeping.  It would no doubt be a long and difficult transition for the little girl to change her biological clock to function on a new ship's time.  It was just as well that Zero didn't need to sleep as much as most humans.

Moving back into the living room, she started to unpack the various boxes that had been beamed over to their quarters from the storage container left behind by the Discovery, beginning to put things away.  She glanced up from a box of her Callion's clothing as Jiseth spoke.

"I believe that Lieutenant Kintiss continues to serve aboard the Phoenix," she replied.  "He was instrumental in my recovery from my experience with the extermist group.  Perhaps, once Callion wakes, it would be prudent to take her to sickbay in order for her to be entered in to the system.  Her immune system is strong, but I do not wish to take chances given her difficult birth."