Lieutenant JG Roy Bancroft - Let's make sure that this is all hellos, no goodbyes if you please.
Carter Schimpff
(( Intensive Care Unit, Primary Sickbay, Deck 7 – USS Artemis-A ))
Lorana: Doctor Jaran :: nods :: and Doctor Bancroft, it's nice to meet you again.
Roy had been told she was coming, of course. Briefed, even. The name had crossed his console in clean, clinical type – Luxa Lorana – filed neatly among incoming personnel and expected competencies. It had registered in the way such things did: acknowledged, categorized, and set aside beneath more immediate concerns.
And yet, the reality of her – of this woman, standing once again in his field of view – arrived with a quiet, unanticipated weight.
Recognition, certainly. But not the clean, immediate sort. This was something slower, more layered, like stepping into a room you hadn’t visited in years and realizing, all at once, that your body remembered it before your mind did. A posture. A tone. A particular stillness that spoke of command without ever needing to assert it.
And trailing close behind it, unwelcome and vividly intact, came the memory of himself the last time they’d been together.
Younger. Louder, in ways he hadn’t recognized at the time. Possessed of that uniquely dangerous blend of competence and certainty that only the inexperienced could carry so confidently. He recalled, with an internal wince, several distinct missteps – his first steps among them – and knew, with uncomfortable clarity, that they could not possibly be the sum of it.
Somehow, that made the memory worse: the certainty that there had been many more, some of which even now lay beyond his ability to recognize, all carried out with the unshakable conviction that he had been doing quite well.
A flicker of something – not quite embarrassment, not quite regret – passed through him and was gone just as quickly, filed away with the efficiency of long practice.
He stepped forward in quiet synchrony with Jaran, posture settling into something more deliberate, more measured. Whatever ghost of that cadet remained, it would not be the one to greet her.
His smile, when it came, was warm but tempered – professional, but friendly. Earned, rather than performed.
He did not look at Meyers immediately. That, too, was deliberate.
Bancroft: The pleasure is mine, Comman– er, ma’am. Though I confess I’d have preferred a reunion that did not involve an ICU.
The line landed lightly, but not carelessly – an acknowledgment of circumstance without presuming familiarity.
Only then did his gaze shift, almost as an afterthought, to the officer beside Luxa.
Meyers.
There were, Roy reflected, many things in the galaxy one did not get to choose – posting assignments, away missions, the occasional ethically fraught nightmare wrapped in a diplomatic directive. Lieutenant Yesfir Meyers, it seemed, had quietly joined that list somewhere along the way.
His expression did not change.
Bancroft: Lieutenant Meyers… Greetings.
Jaran: Response
Lorana: The Captain asked me to assist. For the last year I've been developing treatment for rare genetic disorders or abnormalities brought on by exposure to high levels of radiation. Which has had a certain degree of success. We were hoping that the treatment may be adapted for use with these patients :: pause :: Doctor Jaran? I was under the impression that you'd be on one of the biobeds yourself?
The voice was a familiar one, and Roy felt his attention pulled—almost involuntarily—toward one of the biobeds, where Lieutenant JG Imril lay in a state that could only by the most generous of definitions be described as resting.
Imril: I’m happy for any help I can get. I might also be a little bit jealous of you two still being able to stand upright.
Roy’s mouth curved – not quite a smile, not quite anything so indulgent.
He had learned, early and at some cost, that certainty was a currency best spent sparingly in medicine. Patients did not need promises. They needed honesty, clarity… and, when possible, hope that did not collapse under scrutiny.
Even so, there was a small, insistent part of him that wanted – just for a moment – to give Imril something firmer than that.
He did not.
Bancroft: ::to Imril:: We’ve got some very smart minds in this room.
Also, Meyers is here.
Bancroft: ::grinning:: You’ll be back to fixing what the rest of us break in no time.
Jaran: Response
Meyers adopted a distinctly disgruntled affect – which, in her case, required very little adjustment from baseline.
Meyers: Apologies for cutting this short ::she wasn’t sorry at all:: but we must get to work. The mutations aren’t slowing down, and I don’t believe the Captain is in the market for a new First Officer yet.
Certainly not. Ava Munro was, in Roy’s estimation, everything a First Officer ought to be – decisive without arrogance, composed without distance. She had not been aboard long, and yet the notion of the Artemis without her already felt… structurally unsound.
Now, if the Captain were in the market for a new pharmacologist–
Well.
That was a scenario Roy could explore at length, and with great enthusiasm.
Bancroft: I imagine we can all agree on that. Where do we begin?
Jaran/Imril/Lorana: Response
Meyers: Thus far, we’ve been able to establish a general progression of the mutations. The telepathic link bonding the Callisian Mutants together is the first thing to develop, based on the After-Action Reports submitted by the patients. While it is no true hivemind, it seems to have been a way to share strategy, sensations and knowledge across short distances with a smaller pack.
She looked between Ensign Jaran and Lieutenant Imril for confirmation.
Imril: As I understand it from the after-action reports, the majority of the Callisians had mentally degraded to primal states. Which may mean that, individually, they could only communicate basic sensations and such across the link. The one that spoke through Vitor may have been capable of more.
Bancroft: If there was greater capacity, it remained well hidden. What we observed was… rudimentary at best.
Jaran/Lorana: Response
Meyers: The current hypothesis is that the progression of the remaining mutations - the callouses, the bone deformations and the accelerated follicle growths - is hastened by continued use of the link. Observations made by Captain MacKenzie of both Commander Munro and Ensign Breys are that they seemed affected by the link in a way that was very disruptive to their normal functioning, while Lieutenant K’Wara made no such indication of your performance during the Ship repairs, Lieutenant Imril.
Imril beamed, apparently entirely unbothered by the clinical framing of his condition.
Imril: I’m a stubborn cuss.
Roy raised his eyebrows and nodded at that.
Jaran/Lorana: Response
Imril: But it did, and does, take effort to isolate my mind as much as I’ve been able to. Has anyone considered bringing a trained telepath in to sever the mental link? Or dosing one or more of us with some kind of chemical psionic suppressant?
Bancroft: The concern with a telepath is that, without a clearer understanding of the mechanism, we risk reproducing the problem rather than resolving it – only this time with one additional patient.
Jaran/Lorana/Meyers: Response
Imril: The only other thing I can think of that might be a factor, in my case, would be the Boraxian ritual and what it did to a particular part of my brain. Doctor Jaran could fill the rest of you in on that.
Roy had read the reports – of course he had. Thoroughly, even. But there was a difference between information and ownership, and this was not his ground to claim.
Rather than insert himself where he did not belong, he stepped – subtly, deliberately – out of the moment. A shift of posture. A turn of the hand. The smallest of invitations, offered not in words but in deference.
Bancroft: ::to Jaran:: Doctor – you were primary on that case. Would you walk us through it?
Jaran/Lorana/Meyers: Response
Roy inclined his head slightly at that – not disagreement, exactly, but not concession either. The idea had already begun to take root, and he was not inclined to abandon it simply because it made someone uncomfortable.
Bancroft: Based on that, would we then say this may account—at least in part—for Lieutenant Imril’s ability to communicate with us, where the others cannot? ::turning to Jaran:: For clarity, Doctor – were you subjected to the same intervention?
His gaze drifted then – not idly, but with quiet intention – toward the adjacent biobeds.
Where Imril lay awake, engaged, stubbornly present… the others did not.
Still forms. Silent and waiting.
Jaran/Lorana/Meyers/Imril: Response
Bancroft: That may represent a point of convergence – one we could leverage to deploy Commander Lorana’s therapies more effectively.
Jaran/Lorana/Meyers/Imril: Response
TAG/TBC!
===
Lieutenant JG Roy Bancroft
Medical Officer
USS Artemis-A
A240205RB1