Ensign Roy Bancroft - Earn Enough Pips, and Death is Just a Temporary Inconvenience
Carter Schimpff
(( Primary Sickbay – Deck 7, USS Artemis-A ))
Bancroft: Must be freeing, in a way – getting a second life. I’m sure it’s more complicated than that for Kobali, but still… ::wryly:: As far as I know, I’ve only got the one shot to sort myself out. ::thoughtfully:: I think you have to be senior staff before they start offering backup copies in the transporter buffer.
Vhysa’lia: ::playfully:: Don’t expect anything from me, Doctor. I think both the Federation and the Kobali Medical Corps would have my neck if I did any rogue reanimation in this quadrant.
He held his hands up in mock surrender, grinning.
Bancroft: ::chuckling:: No no, I wouldn’t expect anything like that from you, Lieutenant. Can you imagine?
He lifted his arms in a jerky pantomime, elbows loose and wrists limp like a puppet on strings.
Bancroft: ::pantomime:: Hi, I’m Roy. You just watched me die, but I’m already on my comeback tour. Bend over and cough, please.
He let the moment hang for half a beat, long enough to register the potential trajectory of what he’d just said and to whom he’d just said it.
He was, once again, dancing the familiar line between playful camaraderie and something that might require a signed apology. A tightrope he was, regrettably, very familiar with.
Best to pivot before the Lieutenant had time to issue a verdict.
Bancroft: ::lightly:: Anyway – what does the reanimation process feel like? I mean, I don’t remember being born, obviously – but I was also a baby. You were ‘reborn,’ if I understand it, as an adult.
The question lingered for a second too long, and Roy wondered whether he’d overstepped. It wasn’t morbid curiosity, not really – just a desire to better understand someone through the lens of their own story. Formative experiences shaped people, and being reborn as an adult had to rank fairly high on the scale of ‘formative.’
Vhysa’lia: I don’t remember anything from the process, actually. Just waking up for the first time, decently confused. ::shrug:: I made out far easier than some of my peers.
That, he took as a boundary. Not a hard line – more of a gentle nudge to steer elsewhere for now. Which suited him just fine. Friendships weren’t built through cross-examination, and trying to speed one along was like trying to microwave a souffle.
Time for another pivot. This time, his usual flavor: self-deprecation, lightly toasted.
Bancroft: ::laughing:: Waking up, decently confused? Sounds like me, every morning during my clinical rotations.
They didn’t laugh, but that wasn’t the point. The rhythm of the conversation had reached that comfortable equilibrium – where words could breathe without needing performative action to back them up.
Vhysa’lia: Enough about me, though. Why are you curious about the mechanics of living again, via transport buffer or otherwise? Is this just medical interest…? ::holding her hands up to stop him from answering the first question:: Wait. Before you answer that, I forgot to ask… is that really something Starfleet does? Save backup copies of their senior officers in a transporter buffer in case of death?
Roy briefly considered leaning in to more humor – some elaborate yarn involving top-secret biotemporal redundancies and a classified Captain Backup Protocol. But there was something sincere in their tone, and sincerity deserved a straight answer. This time, at least.
Bancroft: ::grinning:: No, not really. Not to my knowledge, anyhow. That was just a little hyperbole – if you’ll forgive the creative license.
Vhysa’lia: Response
Bancroft: Oh, there are stories. And they always seem to happen to senior officers – probably because they’re the ones standing closest to whatever explodes.
He began ticking examples off on his fingers.
Bancroft: Leonard McCoy – something about a lance to the chest, way back in the day. Scotty got patched up by a mysterious probe. Spock came back, but that was Vulcan mysticism or something. If the logs are to be believed, Harry Kim died about six times and is somehow still alive. Picard, obviously. And then there’s a Security officer named Shaxs… ::cocking his head:: details are a bit spotty on that one.
Vhysa’lia: Response
TAG/TBC!
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Ensign Roy Bancroft
Medical Officer
USS Artemis-A
A240205RB1