[JP] Cmdr. Genkos Adea & PNPC Gila Sadar - Quality of Mercy, Price of Compassion ( Part III )

[LT Tamio K'Wara]

(( Medical Conference Room 6 - Deck 247, Deep Space 224 ))

Gila entered the conference room, gently massaging the back of her jaw with a furrowed brow. Exercising a muscle you hadn’t been aware you had hurt. Not in the ‘I likely sprained something bad and will hate myself for the next couple of days’-way, but in the ‘that has never hurt before’-way. Presumably that muscle had atrophied decades ago, which explained why it hadn’t worked as intended the previous times this had happened...

Genkos saw Gila walking in, her head down, and he softly shook his head. He knew that emotionally she must be a wreck, and so he endeavoured to be strong for her - overly emotional displays of support tended to backfire, so instead he went for a comfortable professionality.

Adea: Do you need some time, Gila?

She looked up at the Commander, shaking her head slightly.

Sadar: ... N-No. B-But- ::sighs:: D-Did we get any, uhh, workable data?

Genkos gestured at the array of PADDs splayed out in front of him. The amazing thing about the medical holodeck was that it constantly recorded everything from every conceivable metric, and then all that data was available to crosscheck and analyse.

Adea: Lots - almost too much. Take a look.

Gila walked around the table to join the Commander, look at the PADDs he’d brought along. Her X-Ray scans, footage of the Holodeck simulation, the scans of her biological responses under stress- oO It’s not me - pretend it’s someone else. Pretend it’s just a hypothetical case in a paper Oo - and she narrowed her eyes as she watched the biochemical readouts at the time the patient’s appendages got activated.

Sadar: ... This- ::points to adrenal glands:: The flight response triggers, and adrenaline floods m- the patient’s system, but.. These readings indicate an increase in collagen production, and the presence of migratory osteoblasts and myocyte cells.

Adea: Indeed, ::he tried to temper his excitement:: it seems that the reaction to stress is for the patient’s body to physically create new structures, a sort of osteopetrosis.

Sadar: Emergency ossification? The flight response literally grows m- the patient’s bones?

Adea: Indeed it does. If you look here ::a long finger traced over an X-ray of the ramial cavity:: you can watch it as it works. See. ::he activated the recording, and they watched as, after a brief period of extreme ossification, the bones flew out in a second’s notice:: I’ve never seen anything quite like it.

If she removed herself from the situation - saw it as simply another patient with an unheard of alien affliction that she’d never seen before - she could almost get as excited about it as Commander Adea did. But only almost.

Adea: It would explain why the first time it wasn’t as finessed as this last attempt - they develop over time. I suspect if you were to keep using them, they would become more and more refined. ::he waved a hand:: But that’s not all that important - but it does mean, unless we were to remove the patient’s ramial cavity and the bodily organs that create the ossification, we can’t just stop it from happening.

Gila sat down next to the Commander, her eyes never leaving the readings. They had more data, this was true, and yet, it wasn’t enough. If she’d been right, if what they’d found had been real - fact, not propaganda or heresy - then it changed everything.

Genkos saw that Gila’s eyes were darting, taking in all the information they could, and that they were overwhelmed by what they found. He spoke softly to her, and gently placed a hand lightly on her shoulder.

Adea: Gila.

Sadar: Oh, uhh... S-S-Sorry... Next step. ::thinks:: I-Is this process known to be natural to the species, and if not, when and why did it start.

Adea: Well, do we have any data on any other Mizarians that we can easily access?

A year ago, that answer would have been a resounding no. But this wasn’t then, and a face immediately came to Gila.

She took one of the PADDs - hands shaking - and quickly accessed DS224’s internal network and used her guardian status to pull up Kolya’s files. She zipped through the pages - psych evals, public education forms, art exhibition applications - searching for the most recent medical examination he’d undergone after they’d been relocated to DS224.

Sadar: M-My nephew... W-When he joined us on the Artemis, h-he came from Mizabet. He’d never been put in danger before. B-But he was on the Ship when it got attacked by Orion dreadnoughts-

Genkos finished her thought for her, as it was clearly too terrible to behold.

Adea: So maybe the same thing happened to him.

Perhaps - Gila felt sick to her stomach as she thought this, as she didn’t know whether the emotion was hope or fear -, but perhaps she wasn’t a monster, a freak. Or maybe she was, but at least, she wouldn't be alone anymore. And Gila hated herself for thinking that way.

Soon, she located the correct X-Ray, and she focused the image. And there, contained within his ramial cavity - which she remembered being completely empty when he first came aboard the Artemis-A - was the smallest depiction of a long, elongated bone-formation.

A breath got stuck in Gila’s throat.

Sadar: ... H-He-

Adea: He has it too.

He smiled a very small smile (it didn’t seem appropriate to beam) and put a reassuring arm around her shoulder as they sat together. He left it a moment, for even with his strong telepathic blocks, his empathetic senses were going crazy. A single sympathetic tear even ran down his own cheek, but he ignored it, choosing instead to focus on Gila, and her pain.

Sadar: ::broken voice:: Oh no, what- How- This-

She was elated, for she wasn’t alone. She was anxious, for how would she possibly tell Kolya this? She was terrified, for how would she possibly be able to tell his mother this? She was- So many emotions swirled through her that she didn’t think her language - or any language, for that matter - had the words to describe all of them, nor did she know what to do with them. It was like someone was pouring water into her hands without giving her a container capable of holding it all, and as such, she was just drowning in a slowly growing tide that threatened to drag her away with no lifeline to latch onto.

The one thing grounding her, keeping her from being swept away, was the arm around her shoulder and Gila - desperate to feel like she wasn’t getting lost - grabbed onto it with one hand.

Adea: Doctor, if this is correct, and a natural response to stress, then I doubt you are the first Mizarian to experience it - not to be rude, but with your people’s history of being invaded, it must have come up.

It was like a lightning bolt broke through the dark tide, splitting the waters to push the truth right up in her face. The tablet.

Sadar: It did... I’ve seen this, or at least mentions of it, when I was on digs. But w-we- I mean, th-the council, they-

Adea: ::Raising an eyebrow:: They hid it?

Gila didn’t know. Did she believe the council capable of keeping something like this hidden? Before, absolutely not. She would have thought such blatant deception and purposeful manipulation of the truth reprehensible and not possible by any Mizarian... Time away from home had made her smarter. Her eyes had been opened to complexities and nuances that Mizarian culture didn’t account for, and she’d learned about how certain patterns and realities seemed to resound throughout the stars, across numerous civilizations, and some truths truly were absolute: Power corrupts the weak. And if there was one thing she knew her people to be, it was weak, and quite by design.

By design.

Sadar: By the Wheel… ::covers her face in her hands:: I- I don’t know what to do.

She wasn’t the only one - Genkos hadn’t quite realised the magnificent response this could have in Mizarian society - akin to breaking the Prime Directive with a pre-warp society, this could have huge ramifications, even break the whole social strata of a species.

Adea: By the four, I don’t either.

How was she going to tell him? Did she need to? She shot down that thought immediately; of course she had to, she didn’t want to risk anything happening and him finding out the way she had. He deserved better, he deserved to skip that experience. First, she needed to get him to talk to her though-

Adea: Gila, I know neither of us want to do this, but honestly, I think we need to take this higher...

Gila balked, staring at Commander Adea like he’d grown a second head.

Sadar: What? WHY?

Genkos gave her a surprised look. Even with her chronic levels of Gila-ness, the response surprised him.

Adea: This is more than just you and me, Gila.

Sadar: No, absolutely not. C-Commander, I-I know you have your duties to think of, but, please, d-don’t say anything. I-If the council- if they- If it goes wrong, Kolya, he won’t be allowed to go back. He’ll be in exile, like... ::swallows a lump in her throat:: like me. ::shakes her head:: I-I can’t do that to him, I can’t!

Genkos nodded, once. He understood the care for a loved one, and how this was putting the woman in a difficult position. It was very telling that she wasn’t even thinking of herself, but of Kolya.

Adea: Okay, but then this knowledge, we can’t just sit on it… can we?

Sadar: N-No, I’m not- I-I’m really grateful for your help, Sir, and I understand that this is very important knowledge for the Federation to have in case of any more Mizarian officers, b-but... C-Commander Adea, I-I’m fine with Starfleet knowing, b-but- M-Mizabet can’t. Please.

The End (for now...)

JP Written by:

Cmdr. Genkos Adea

Commanding Officer

USS Eagle

G239502GS0

&

PNPC Gila Sadar

Civilian

DS224

As simmed by

LT Tamio K’Wara

Chief of Ops

USS Artemis-A

A240006GS1