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You slowly awaken, your senses returning as the familiar acoustic hum of a starship prods you back to reality. It’s just background noise, but it’s been so long since you heard it and it seems so much more vivid to you now. You open your eyes to see that you’re in sick bay, lying on the firm padding of a biobed. The lights above you are dimmed, and you’re dressed in a durable, blue-gray patient’s gown, with a thin grey blanket covering your torso and legs.
You take a breath and sit up slowly, looking around the large, pristine room. The bay is sizeable, with several other biobeds arranged throughout, as well as various pieces of equipment and several large viewscreens and monitors. Your gaze lands across the room, on the biochamber. The door to the chamber is closed, and indicators around it show that someone is inside. Your heart quickens as you guess who’s in there.
You swing your legs over the biobed, about to stand up and literally run to your beloved, but a figure emerges from the medical office near your biobed and stops you in your tracks.
“And where do you think you’re going?” asks the gruff voice of a short, older man with wiry white hair and deep scowl lines between his brows. He’s standing in front of you now, blocking you from getting off of the biobed, and you frown back at him, feeling heat rush to your face and you open your mouth, but no words come out. Instead, the sting of frustrated tears burns your eyes, and your expression is one of defeat as you look at the man in front of you.
The man’s expression softens, and he introduces himself as Dr. Thorpe, chief medical officer of the Venaris. He can see you’ve been through hell, and the abrupt manner of the crewmen that brought you in probably hadn’t helped. They were just following orders. You’re an outsider to them, and can’t be trusted just yet, even if you are Starfleet. The details of their mission had been vague yet urgent, and there was plenty of paranoia and suspicion going around Starfleet after you and Captain Pike had disappeared without a trace. You’d soon find out just how convoluted things had gotten in the fleet after you’d vanished.
“Your Captain is going to be alright,” Dr. Thorpe reassures you, and you feel a weight lift from your being, your body relaxing slightly now that you know Chris is going to be okay. “His condition was dire, but we got to him in time. He’s undergoing treatment now. I was just about to check on him.”
“Thank you,” you breathe to the doctor, so relieved that you’re finally talking to someone who isn’t brushing you off. As it turns out, they had beamed the Captain directly to sick bay, and you were to undergo a debriefing with the captain of the Venaris, but you had collapsed. Exhaustion, dehydration, and an electrolyte imbalance had made you weak, and the transport and unfamiliar surroundings had been too much for your body to handle. But now, you’re safe, and so is Chris.
***
The doctor administers another hypospray to the side of your neck and asks you how you feel. You’re tired, still, but you feel more steady. Nothing a hot meal, a good night’s sleep, and a more certain future can’t help. You still don’t know what is going to become of you, Chris, or the Omega particle. Your mind wanders to the landing party, and how they made out disconnecting the containment pod from your improvised power array. You haven’t ceased to exist yet, so you figure they must have been successful. It may even be on board now. The ship doesn’t feel like it’s at warp, so you must still be above the planetoid.
The doctor hands you some civilian garments to change into, snapping you out of your thoughts. You dare not ask him about your “cargo”, not that he would know anything anyway. You dare not even mention Omega to anyone onboard. You don’t know who you can trust here, and the only person you can count on is currently unconscious and incapacitated.
You’re given some privacy and you change out of your sick-bay garb and into the generic civvies you’ve been provided. The boots they gave you are ill-fitting, squeezing your weary feet as you follow the security personnel out of the sick bay, casting one last glance at the biochamber that Chris is recuperating within.
You’re taken down a winding maze of metallic corridors, and you try to remember the way back to sick-bay, just in case, but you’re soon overwhelmed with the size and unfamiliarity of the Venaris. It’s one of the newest in the fleet, and the Constitution-class schematics have changed since the Enterprise was built. You could find your way around the Enterprise with a blindfold on, but here, you’re lost, vulnerable, and alone.
The farther you walk from sick bay, the more you feel it. But you take a breath, filling yourself with renewed resolve. You’re going to get through this. You’re Starfleet, dammit! You can do this!