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Day 15 [1148 hrs.] Months Late and a Leg Short

[ Lt Cmdr. Jaru “Janus” Rel | Recovery Ward | Main Sickbay | Deck 11 | Vector 2 | USS Theurgy ] Attn: @Auctor Lucan

They were running through the hills - or limping, in Janus’ case. His leg hurt like a bitch. But for the life of him, he couldn’t remember what he’d done to it. Nor did he dare look down to see, too focused on navigating the rough ground ahead of him, eyes darting frequently towards the sky in search of that cursed shuttle. They must have really pissed the Cardies off today, to be worth sending a shuttle after. They normally gave chase on foot, leaving the shuttles for supply runs. Though there was probably a squad of foot soldiers after them too, using the rolling terrain as cover just like the resistance always did.

“Come on Rel,” Inje urged him, slipping an arm around his shoulder and taking some of his weight to propel him along faster. “They’re right behind us.” He was grateful for the assistance, nearly tripping and falling flat a moment later when realization struck. Inje kept him on his feet again, pulling him along.

“What did you just call me?” He gasped, wishing the pain in his leg would go away so he could focus. Since when did she call him Rel? No one in his resistance cell had ever called him by his Bajoran name, he looked too much like the enemy. They tolerated their friendly Cardassian as long as he was useful, but no one liked him.

“Quickly now,” Inje urged instead, too busy looking over her shoulder to hear the question. Why was she helping him anyway? He’d always assumed that they would have left him behind the moment he’d become a burden. The teenager he’d been would have been overjoyed at this acceptance - but Janus knew better. He couldn’t explain it, the duality that existed within him right now, a child with the knowledge he would gain as a man. Had the Prophets touched his thoughts, providing some insight?

He didn’t have time to figure it out, cresting the next hill to find the shuttle waiting for them, hovering just out of sight. They turned to run, but their pursuers were too close, running to cut them off with weapons at the ready. “We’re surrounded,” he muttered, noting Inje’s nod out of the corner of his eye. Ahun, Koya, and Yuba were raising their hands with similar looks of defeat. They were searched, their weapons taken, then forced to their knees before the shuttle. But nothing prepared Janus for who came out of the shuttle. “Father?” he blurted, in that moment very much a boy again.

It couldn’t be his father. Ghorran Seratt was dead. No, wait. He was still alive, back then. But he wouldn’t be here. The Gul was a man who led from the back, he’d never go into the field. He wouldn’t be standing here looking down with a weapon in hand. He had people to kill for him. Janus had always prided himself on being the opposite, the first wolf to taste blood.

For his words, a guard smacked him in the face with the butt of his disruptor. Janus felt his nose break, mouth filling with blood. But oddly, it still didn’t hurt as much as his leg. “Do not speak to Gul Seratt, terrorist. Like he would ever father Bajoran scum like you.”

The blood probably saved him from another beating, as Janus was too busy spitting it out to respond right away. Was this idiot blind? His heritage couldn’t be more obvious if someone had tattooed ‘Cardassian / Bajoran hybrid’ on his forehead, right above the ridges and between the scales. He would have said just that after wiping the excess from his lips, but he noticed his hand first. Janus’ skin was wrong. The normal gray had been replaced with pinks and tans. In a panic, his fingers traveled further up than intended, settling on his brow. Instead of rough scales, he felt small, soft hairs.

What the fuc-

“Ah,” Janus said, the utterance punctuated by a mad laugh. “It’s a dream.” He tore his gaze away from pink skin, grinning like a lunatic past the barrel of the disruptor and into the face of the man who wasn’t his blood today. There was a look in Gul Seratt’s eyes that he’d only seen once before. Funny, how his brain remembered that expression over two decades later. Then the disruptor fired, and everything turned white.

Apparently, even that last moment realization didn’t stop his body’s reaction to someone trying to kill him. Janus awoke with a jerk, throwing his whole body out of the way to avoid the dreamed attack - and tumbling off the bed and onto the floor. He groaned, flopping over onto his back to take a deep breath. From this new low, he learned a few things very quickly. First, the pain in his leg wasn’t confined to the dream. It really did hurt. Second, he was in sickbay. Figured. What had happened? One moment Ida zh'Wann was coming up to him, then he was waking up in sickbay. Even if they’d had a wild night, he would have expected to remember some of it. Waking up in his own bed would have been a plus too.

He let his fingers travel over his face for a moment, letting the slightly raised scales banish the last remnants of the dream. Then Janus got to work, pulling himself up to sitting and looking for his injury. He was sore, that was for sure. Probably had a few new bruises forming from the fall. But his leg - unfortunately bare and visible for the world to see thanks to the hospital gown he was wearing - looked fine. No blemishes, no bandages, not even a scar. Perfect gray skin. It shouldn’t have been perfect. He had small scars all over his body from his time with the resistance. Janus had to lean forward to finally find a flaw, a straight white line circling his leg beneath the knee. “That can’t be good.” Visual inspection over with, he started poking around, still looking for a wound. It was a strange sensation. The pain was still present, but it didn’t increase when he pressed. The pressure of his fingers was somehow disconnected, an entirely different feeling. Eventually, Janus rapped his knuckles on his shin a few times. That was way too hard to be bone.

Seriously, what had he been up to last night? This was nuts. “Nicander!” he finally yelled, figuring it was the fastest way to get someone’s attention. The CMO would be around somewhere. “The fuck did you do to my leg?”

Re: Day 15 [1148 hrs.] Months Late and a Leg Short

Reply #1 –
[ Ens. Vinata Vojona | Main Sickbay | Recovery Ward | Vector 2 | USS Theurgy ] Attn: @rae
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The chirping alert from Vinata Jovona's PADD had him startled, standing and working at the Nurse duty station as he was. "<Oh, no...>," he whispered in Kreepip, his native tongue, black eyes wide as he saw that the readings from the biobed had flatlined. He was just a few hours into his first shift after his own surgery and a patient in the recovery ward was either dead, or - hopefully - got off the bed prematurely. "<It's the old squad leader!>"

He set off towards the Recovery Ward... but he collided into V-Nine after six mere steps, making them both stumble backwards and fall down and ending up sitting on the deck. The Savi android make more of a ruckus, the metallic thud against the carpet reverberating against the bulkheads. Vinata croaked out a loud groan, clutching his chest with one arm. While Ovri males stored fatty tissue on their chests, being a means of their anatomical set-up to stay hydrated even when not having access to water, their breasts were not supposed to act as cushioning against clumsy corridor collisions. Indeed, even with their evolved lives of abundance with space exploration and full access of food and water - and how they remained a sign of vibrant health in Ovri culture - their size offered poor protection against carelessness.

"Oh, I am so sorry!" the android exclaimed, twisting and turning the limbs of her platform in order to get back on her feet. "Are you hurt?"

"No, I am fine," Vinata said, pushing off the ground and getting his digitgrade legs underneath himself. He put his long-fingered hands over his buttocks and stretched out his back, before brushing his skirt-variant uniform down over his hips. He offered a smile to V-Nine, hoping to ease any guilty conscience on her end. Doing so, he realised that before he joined the Theurgy crew and got to know Thea and V-Nine, he may not have been so quick to take the emotional distress of a machine into account. The two artificial intelligences had since, however, shown themselves more personable and emotional than some of the organic crew.

"Let me run a scan... No, no objections. Stand still," V-Nine insisted, and while Vinata was in a rush to get to the Recovery Ward, he also knew that the android wouldn't be deterred. Since he had been her patient, preforming the corrective surgery to his genitalia at long last, she would want to make sure that none of the regenerated tissues had ruptured. It was, however, mortifying to have his crotch scanned by V-Nine right there in the hallway! They got some funny looks all right, and Vinata put a hand over the mark on his forehead. By Qworthrik...

"Finished?" he chirred in an almost wheezing fashion, the seconds feeling like minutes.

"Yes! Though brand new, it seems your internalised gonads and phallus are quite resilient! So, there were no damages to your reproductiveness, even this soon after your corrective surgery," V-Nine said in a jovial manner, her scanning fingers returning to normal. "You should have no issues impregnating some lovely Ovri female one day!" She tilted her cranial unit and - to Vinata's great chagrin - she gave him a Earthen 'thumbs-up', or so he believed the gesture was called.

"V-Nine!" he trilled at the android in alarm, looking around and hearing the way some passing medical officers choked on barely contained laughter. As if it hadn't been enough to have his first scheduled surgery interrupted by some drunk fighter pilots, now the state of his private parts might as well have been broadcast over the ship's intercom! "One of t-the patients in the Recovery Ward h-has woken up... or so I hope. Excuse me!"

With a brisk pace, cheeks flushing dark blue, Vinata smoothed his skirt nervously and made his way into the ward at long last, leaving V-Nine behind. When the sliding doors parted for him, he saw how the biobed was empty, and for a moment, the Ovri feared that the patient had escaped from sickbay prematurely. The poor hybrid officer would likely be confused, stumbling the corridors, delirious from post-surgery sedatives and...

“Nicander! The fuck did you do to my leg?”

Oh, Vinata thought, realising that the biobed was merely obscuring his view. With tentative steps, he walked up to the biobed and leaned out to see patient on the floor. "Umm... Hello? I'm Ensign Vojona, Head Nurse," he chirred, and then rounded the corner of the biobed to stand in front of the patient. He debated his priorities for a moment, deciding that answers would have to wait. "Just... let me help you up. Are you in any pain?"

Stepping around Commander Jaru, Vinata bent down and put his hands underneath the fighter pilots armpits, pushing his chest against his back and meaning to use his strong legs to help push the man back on his feet. Next, he would help him sit on the edge of the biobed. While he did so, he considered how the old squad leader had been in stasis since the Theurgy visited the Mahéwa System, and didn't know what had happened to Lucan. Or rather, the old Chief Medical Officer's true nature.

Four months. By Dejino, this will be a difficult conversation...

OOC: FYI, the Head Nurse, as far as Jaru would remember, ought to be Jovela.

Re: Day 15 [1148 hrs.] Months Late and a Leg Short

Reply #2 –
[ Lt Cmdr. Jaru “Janus” Rel | Recovery Ward | Main Sickbay | Deck 11 | Vector 2 | USS Theurgy ] Attn: @Auctor Lucan

Give sickbay some credit. He’d assumed the shouting - along with whatever sensor monitored the bed… while he’d been in the bed - would get someone’s attention fast enough. But he hadn’t expected a nurse to appear almost instantly. Janus had no idea who she was, or even what species. It was hard to miss that vivid blue skin, with stripes of burnt orange and spots trailing down her head and limbs. The brightness was what really enthralled him. That was something one tended to notice when his own genetics had cursed him to live in grayscale.

It was a shame he hadn’t gotten Nicander though. This one looked a bit nervous, which really took all the fun out of berating her for cutting a man’s leg off while he was too drunk to protest. Though his memory was still frustratingly blank, his quick examination had left him reasonably certain about the fate of his limb. It would have been nice if this nurse could offer a different explanation… but honestly, he'd never been that lucky. He’d seen prosthetic limbs before, during the last war. Federation technology could do amazing things, most people wouldn’t have to question whether they’d lost a leg or not. But no matter how real it looked or felt, the bone would still be made of metal. Strength outweighed the realism there. Though they’d clearly screwed the synthetic nervous system up. The upside to this should have been never feeling pain in his leg again.

“What happened to-” Shit. He’d just gotten out of sickbay yesterday - he had to stop ending up here, even by fighter pilots' standards two days in a row was embarrassing - but somehow the name was still escaping him. The head nurse had been a Risian. Gentle hands, but she had a mouth on her. Took all the banter he had to give and threw it right back. “Jovela?” Once the name escaped his lips, Janus felt like an idiot for forgetting.

The new nurse was strong, he noted as she disappeared behind him then hauled him to his feet. Once standing, Janus sat on the bed for a mere second before testing his strength again, grimacing as he put weight on his leg. He leaned back to let the bed take his weight, then rocked forward again for another go. “My leg hurts. Tell your boss that I’m going to repay him for this by cutting his off, see how he likes it.” Honestly, he wasn’t overly fussed that it was gone. Janus was already a hybrid, bringing some synthetic parts to the party didn’t change much. In fact, it actually meant he was a little less Cardassian than he’d been yesterday, which would always be considered a win in his books. Janus was much more annoyed that he didn’t have the slightest inkling about what had happened. Even wasted, there should have been something left, a scrap of memory floating around his head to give him direction.

“Story time, Nurse Vojona.” As the frustration with his memory outweighed the problem with his leg, Janus quit messing around and finally sat back on the bed, leaning back on his arms to give her his full attention. “Did I party my way into sickbay, or did Starfleet find this safe haven of ours and start shooting?” Another attack would have made sense. The ship had been hit, he’d been knocked out in some explosion. It would explain why they had a new head nurse as well. “Should I be embarrassed or angry?” It would probably be good to know if he owed Ida an apology too. His head turned as he did a quick scan of the room, searching the other beds for the andorian security officer. Aside from Vojona, there was no blue skin in sight. “Where’s Lieutenant zh’Wann? I was with her when - whatever happened - happened.”


OCC: I read Jovela's personality profile to get Janus' opinion of her. Tell me if something needs changing!

Re: Day 15 [1148 hrs.] Months Late and a Leg Short

Reply #3 –
[ Ens. Vinata Vojona | Main Sickbay | Recovery Ward | Vector 2 | USS Theurgy ] Attn: @rae
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After having helped the patient sit on the edge of the biobed, Vinata had quickly picked up a medical tricorder and began to run a through scan of the hybrid, looking for signs that the blood transfusions might be rejected. He wasn't overly concerned about the leg, since that would just be a matter of calibrating the synth-flesh intra-nervous system and the sensor mapping software to work in a way that the patient was comfortable - and familiar - with. As it were, the factory settings were applied and likely needed a lot of fine-tuning. While he scanned, his black eyes quickly darted to Commander Jaru's when he asked about Jovela - Vinata's predecessor.

"I am afraid Nurse Jovela is no longer with us," he chirred quietly, omitting how and when she had passed since that would be an awkward angle by which to approach the lapse of six months since the SAC was last conscious. Before addressing that, Vinata rifled through the settings of his tricorder to make sure there were no complications with the intra-stasis blood replication and transfusion procedure that V-Nine had utilised. Only then did he crouch down in front of the patient to scan the leg, and while self-conscious about sitting eye-level with the patient's barely concealed crotch, Vinata quickly averted his eyes - swallowing down any inane comments that would only exacerbate an already inappropriate situation.

"Well..." he trilled tentatively, not answering the comment about the leg until he asked for a 'story time', focusing very hard on what the tricorder was telling him, and not on the way his skirt uniform had hitched up his thighs when he had crouched down. "No one here in sickbay removed your leg, Commander. It was already missing, and Lieutenant Tyreke Okafor designed your prosthetic leg. Its software needs to be tuned to your nervous system, that's all, and then the pain will go away. Cases of phantom pains are extremely rare since modern medicine can mimic the sensory input of the real thing. By the time you are released, you will not be in discomfort."

With that explanation out of the way, Vinata realised it was time for the more difficult things Jaru had inquired about. He stood up in front of the patient, and quickly brushed down his skirt over his hips so that he wasn't showing his crotch area to the patient. It was bad enough that he'd been distracted and didn't wish to expose himself to the patient in turn. Nervously, he put the tricorder aside and thought about how, since V-Nine had begun to find treatments for those in long-term stasis aboard the Theurgy, it wasn't the first time he'd had to give someone the news about the ordeals the Theurgy had faced.

“Deputy zh'Wann is alive and well," he started to chirr, realising that if the last thing Jaru remembered, the Andorian had been the one that infected the patient with the virus during the Niga Incident. Perhaps that was the best way to continue, starting at a familiar point in time. It was from before Vinata and his sister - Hylota - had come aboard, but given the long lasting repercussions and rumours from the Niga Incident, he had taken his time to familiarise himself with all the available reports. He cocked a hip, putting a hand on it and running the other over his smooth head in thought. "You likely remember the Theurgy orbiting the planet N9GA Majoris, also called Niga. An uncharted and uninhabited M-Class planet in the Mahéwa System. See, a research team was sent down to the planet's surface, accompanied by a security team. Deputy zh'Wann was leading the security officers down there, yet at an unwary moment, she was compromised by flora on the planet."

Vinata detailed, as respectfully as he could, how the female Andorian Deputy, ThanIda zh'Wann, was raped by a tentacled plant whilst on the planet, and infected with its pollen. The female Vulcan Ensign by the name Cir'Cie was also raped by the same kind of plant and after they both regained consciousness, they were under the thrall of the pollen. With the collected seed pods being their excuse to override the biofilters of the transporters, they had beamed up to the Theurgy. Vinata went on to explain how those infected by the pollen became vectors for a parasitic virus - spreading of the infectious flora. The plant used its parasitic pollen to propagate itself within the vector's body - spreading itself through the vector's bodily fluids to new vectors. During the night, the infected pollinated the ship by sexual means, their minds compromised by the plants.

"The ship was all but lost when the USS Relativity came to the Theurgy's aid, injecting everyone with the antidote that Doctor Nicander developed during the ordeal. The reason you don't remember anything about this ordeal - now called the Niga Incident - is that the antidote also worked on the memory engrams you formed during the time you were infected. You don't remember the strife aboard, when the crew defended themselves against the infected, and the way you lost your leg. Speaking from experience, talking with other survivors of the same incident..."

Vinata cleared his throat, looking Jaru in the eyes and stressing the point he was about to make. "...I think you should be relieved by the lack of memories from the ordeal, both in regard to what happened to you, and what you may have done to others when your mind wasn't your own. My advise is to adhere to Captain Ives' edict in regard to the incident, and not hold yourself or anyone else involved responsible for what happened. You were all victims, Deputy zh'Wann included."

Pausing there, Vinata let Jaru process what he'd just been told, while he walked over to one of the HUDs on the biobed and powered up the sensory mapping software of the patient's leg, starting the calibrations wherein he'd match the misfiring nerve-inputs with that of the awakened patient's organic nervous system. He glanced towards the patient now and then, to make sure he wasn't too traumatised by what he'd just been told.

Re: Day 15 [1148 hrs.] Months Late and a Leg Short

Reply #4 –
[ Lt Cmdr. Jaru “Janus” Rel | Recovery Ward | Main Sickbay | Deck 11 | Vector 2 | USS Theurgy ] Attn: @Auctor Lucan

At Vojona’s succinct and diplomatic answer regarding Jovela, Janus’ only response was a look that very clearly relayed ‘well duh.’ They had lost so many people these past months, he had already figured that given the fact that she’d been replaced. He’d wanted some details, but clearly he wasn’t getting those. The Theurgy was going to run out of crew, and it wasn’t like Starfleet was sending them any replacements. The wolves couldn’t even fly the whole squadron, even with the pilots they’d plucked from conn for retraining.

There were a few choice words on the tip of his tongue as she leaned over to get a good look at his leg. But he bit them down, leaning back to give her more room and taking a long wandering look at the ceiling instead. This wasn’t the place for it, and Janus really wanted to nail down the results of last night’s sexual escapades before making passes in any other direction. Hospital gowns were revealing, but it certainly wasn’t doing him any favors in terms of attractiveness. A certain nurse, however, did not have that problem. He’d gotten a good look at her skirt riding up before forcing himself to look away. She was working, and he was going to behave. When she straighted up and smoothed her skirt back down, he focused instead on how the light played on that bright skin.

“You’re way too serious,” he replied when yet another jab at Nicander’s expense was given a considered medical response. “I’m not going to have a breakdown if you tell me what actually happened, but my jokes will be more factually correct in the future. I’m more interested in why I have a peg leg, not so much about who made it.” Now, he was certain, Janus was about to get a full lecture on how a prosthetic leg was far superior to a ‘peg leg’ and why he definitely didn’t have one of those.

He was pleasantly surprised when that wasn’t what happened. A feeling that faded rapidly when he finally got the information he’d been looking for. He didn’t regret asking, but the answer was worse than anything he’d been imagining. He’d asked if he should have been embarrassed or angry, but apparently the answer was both.

“So, just to sum up here. We did escape Starfleet, only for everyone to get fucked up — literally — by a horny plant." The final two words came out a bit slow, because he couldn’t believe he was saying them out loud. “That is — we really have the worst luck, don’t we?” He’d always had shitty luck, but even for Janus, this was impressive. He was trying to stay calm, and a little graveyard humor was his first defense against everything. “I would have preferred Starfleet catching up to us,” he continued darkly. Getting taken out in good clean combat was far less… disgusting? Repulsive? Vile?

More than anything, he felt dirty. Sure, he flirted and he played, but he always made sure he had consent. He was often overly focused on that, given how his parents’ relationship had lacked it from every angle. Guls in the Bajoran occupation had taken what they wanted. His mother hadn’t been blameless either, letting it happen for the information given up in bed. Predictably, it had ended horribly. The only real ending for them had been a question of who killed the other first. If Ida hadn’t been coherent, hadn’t been in control — Janus should have noticed that. Instead, everything after she’d come up to him was a fog of carnal desire, a few scraps of memory that had faded into nothing.

Then there was the stuff Vojona wasn’t telling him. Maybe because she didn’t know, or because she didn’t want him to know. He’d been infected. The crew had been defending themselves against him. If he had compromised anyone in turn. How someone had fought back hard enough to take off a leg. She’d barely told him anything, but it was more than enough for his imagination to paint a horrifying picture. He didn’t even notice the nurse leaving, too focused on the tightness of his muscles, the pain in his leg that suddenly felt well deserved, and how firmly clenched his jaw and fists had become.

“I don’t blame her.” When he regained the ability to speak, he wanted to make that clear, before anything else. “I do want to know what happened. I own up to my shit, Nurse Vojona. I don’t pretend it never happened. If you don’t want to tell me, point me towards someone who can.” For the first time since waking up, the pilot was completely and deadly serious. Being relieved with not knowing, in his opinion, was a cowards way out. The truth was what it was. You dealt with it, learned from it, and moved on. But if you ran from it, then it was going to chase you forever, a nagging shadow haunting your steps and slowing you down. And when the truth finally caught up, as it enviably did, history was bound to repeat itself over again.

Re: Day 15 [1148 hrs.] Months Late and a Leg Short

Reply #5 –
[ Ens. Vinata Vojona | Main Sickbay | Recovery Ward | Vector 2 | USS Theurgy ] Attn: @rae
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Hearing, after some rumination, that Commander Jaru wasn't placing any blame on the Deputy was a great start, but when he insisted on knowing what happened whilst he was infected, Vinata supposed it may have been a very valid query unless so much time had passed since then. Which, incidentally, brought the progression of the conversation to what Vinata had yet to tell him.

"I am not entirely certain, but I believe the recordings have been deleted," he chirred with great empathy while he worked on calibrating the runtimes settings in the prosthetic leg. "Revisiting those events would undo the healing the crew has gone through during the time you've been in stasis. A time substantially longer than you may think..."

Pausing with his work by the display next to the biobed to look at his patient, and to step back towards him, Vinata knew there was no easy way to tell the fighter pilot what he needed to hear. Taking a deep breath, he sat down next to Jaru and turned towards him, adjusting his skirt a little so that he could face him without showing more of his legs than was appropriate. Vinata raised his black eyes to look at Jaru and gently placed his hand on his shoulder. "The current Stardate is 57692.07, and you were hurt on Stardate 57442.04. You have been in stasis for well over three months. Three months and ten days, to be exact."

Surely, Jaru needed more context, so Vinata continued to explain while the patient processed what he was hearing. "The reason was that you lost a critical amount of blood before you could be beamed to Sickbay - the transporter systems being compromised at the time. The reason for the complication was that your hybrid blood type is quite unique, even more so since it is mixed with certain Bajoran proteins. The only solution available at the time would be to synthesize blood from what you had left... but if you were brought out of stasis you wouldn't survive the procedure. It was not until a couple of days ago that we discovered a new option, consisting of an intra-stasis procedure. Once you got your blood transfusion, the task of replacing your leg was no great challenge."

Remembering how it all came about, Vinata croaked out a small chuckle and shook his head, looking away. "It was one of the Lone Wolves that insisted on revisiting your case file, quite belligerently so. Lieutenant Evelyn Rawley wrote several messages, begging us to evaluate new options, and to our surprise, a quite recent addition to our medical team did have a suggestion for how it could be done. The intra-stasis procedure was know to her... and here we are."

Looking back at Jaru, Vinata lowered his hand from his shoulder. He tilted his head a little and stated some of the obvious. "The reason you don't recognise me is that I came aboard this ship during the time you were in stasis, and I am not the only new crew member that you won't recognise once you are discharged. You will be given reports on what has happened, tactical logs and mission reviews, so that you can take in what you've missed at your own pace. You will likely have to remain here for a couple of hours, and then you can recover in your quarters. Oh, speaking of which... your belongings will have to be brought out of storage, and the Quartermaster will have to assign you new accommodations. Lieutenant Commander Thomas Ravon is the current squad leader for the Lone Wolves, and given time, you'll report to him."

Vinata stood up, and then resumed the task of calibrating the artificual nervous system of the bionic leg. "Do... you have any questions?" he trilled, looking over his shoulder at the poor man who'd just lost months of his life.

Re: Day 15 [1148 hrs.] Months Late and a Leg Short

Reply #6 –
[ Lt Cmdr. Jaru “Janus” Rel | Recovery Ward | Main Sickbay | Deck 11 | Vector 2 | USS Theurgy ] Attn: @Auctor Lucan

“I’ll ask someone who is certain then,” he interrupted before Vojona finished her thoughts. Since the nurse had walked away anyway, he flopped back into the bed, legs still hanging off one side as his head hung from the other. Not the most comfortable by a long shot, but he didn’t feel like spinning ninety degrees to lay properly either. “That person would be you, Stalker.”

Not that he fully expected an answer right now, considering that he’d neglected to use her name, but if anyone had the details on what had gone down, it would be Thea. The ship’s AI could be privy to everything that went on in here if she cared to be — the ultimate stalker. It wasn’t meant in a rude way. He quite liked Thea. In Janus’ estimation, she was the perfect RIO. The only one who’d ever been able to keep up with him, and the only one he was allowed to leave behind while flying. Once they’d calibrated the Mk III’s onboard computer, she’d finally given him the one thing he’d always wanted in his job. The ability to pull stupid stunts without worrying about killing the poor asshole assigned to sit behind him. In recognition of Thea’s efforts, Janus had quickly decided that she needed a callsign of her own, and had started testing them out with any nickname that had come to mind. None of them had ever stuck, so he was still trying.

Admittedly, he hadn’t been fully listening to the rest of Vojona’s talk. The feel of the bed giving slightly next to him alerted him that she’d returned, so he pushed himself back to sitting just in time for a comforting hand on the shoulder. Great. This was sure to be wonderful news. She’d stayed a professional distance away for the last horrifying bit of explanation, so what could possibly be worse than— “Three months?” The words burst out of his mouth without much conscious thought attached, colored by shock and disbelief and no small amount of anger. “It took you guys three months to make a leg? Put a stick on there, give me a crutch! What the fuck took so—” His mouth slammed shut mid rant, upper reasoning finally kicking back in with a bright, flashing, ‘being rude’ sign. Closing his eyes, Janus forced himself to take a breath. In through the nose, out through the mouth. “Sorry. Continue.”

He didn’t interrupt again, aside from a loud groan when she explained the real reason behind his extended nap, because what else would it be besides his hybrid physiology, the cause of everything bad in his life. Even his blood was trying to fuck him over now.

“Don’t take it personally. Ghost — Rawley — is always like that. Don’t suppose she explained the sudden interest while she was badgering you?” Janus decided to start with that, letting operational matters finish off the rush of anger from before. “If she was crying at my bedside, you should send a counselor after her.” While his own mental state was something he was completely happy to ignore, he’d always done his best to keep an eye on his people. Or not his people anymore. Whatever. A talk with Ghost still couldn’t hurt. Anything he learned, he could report to Razor.

That was weird.

After hearing about the extended medical absence, learning that he’d been replaced wasn’t shocking. That was par for the course. It was fine, he told himself firmly. Give him a day, and he would be cool with it. Go Razor. Congrats on the promotion. She’d said it so calmly too, clearly the three months had been enough for Razor to establish himself. There would be no point in shaking everything up now.

He’d get used to it.

“No more questions ma’am.” After his earlier outburst, he’d decided to be polite to make up for it. “Actually, no. How are we getting new crew? Did Starfleet pull their heads out of their asses or something?”

Re: Day 15 [1148 hrs.] Months Late and a Leg Short

Reply #7 –
[ Ens. Vinata Vojona | Main Sickbay | Recovery Ward | Vector 2 | USS Theurgy ] Attn: @rae
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When queried about what motivated Rawley, Vinata had to give it some thought before answering. He ceased calibrating the settings on the Lone Wolf's new leg and ran a hand over his smooth head. He stretched out his back a little too, thinking about the insistent ramblings from the female pilot - sent to them from the brig.

"I... think it might be best if you asked her yourself. From what I recall, there were a lot of superlatives about how the survival of the squad depended on your return," he chirped, realising that there might have been more to it than his initial assumption - that they had lost a lot of Tac CONN officers - but he didn't know what it might be. "She's currently under house arrest, I think, so even if she wanted to visit you here, she couldn't. She sent her messages from the brig a couple of days ago, but if it wasn't for her, there is no telling when we might have realised that we had a treatment method available for you."

Vinata had resumed his calibrations when the second question came, and he could reiterate the large brushstrokes about the mission while he was working. He'd recited the gist of the voyage a couple of times already for other patients that had been thawed from stasis.

"That's... a vivid expression," he trilled with a chuckle, finding the pilot rather entertaining, "though I regret to say that Starfleet is still under the impression that either Thea killed all of the crew, or Captain Ives ordered her to do it, and replaced you all with holograms. It's kept inconclusive, however, so that any surviving crewmembers might be court-martialled for treason or 'suicided' at some point. The support we've gathered is multifaceted, but scarce. We have gathered new crew from starships that have learned the truth, before the ships themselves were destroyed, for example. We have officers from the Harbinger, the Resolve, the Endeavour, the Cayuga, the Dauntless, the Bellerophon, the Oneida and even from a classified starbase called the Black Opal. You will have to look up the details in the mission reports..."

Trailing off for a moment, Vinata finished the calibrations, and then came to stand in front of Jaru. He crouched down, clearing his throat since he had to avert his eyes yet again, but he had to do his duty. "Please put your foot into my hands, Commander," he said, black eyes blinking, before continuing his answer to the question. "We also have an inside source in Starfleet Headquarters. While some in the Senior Staff knows who it is, he is only known by the codename 'King' to the crew. King is working to try and sabotage the plans for the Infested, and has helped us with updated Federation database channels and new recruits. We now have the ear and trust of Chancellor Martok after we helped unify the Klingon Empire, thwarting a puppet usurper that the Infested tried to have replace the Chancellor with, and we even have a hidden alliance with an alien race named the Savi. So, we have made progress while you were in stasis, but Starfleet Command is still calling us traitors."

Once the man's foot was in Vinata's hands, he began to run his bulbous fingertips over the skin, from the top of the foot to the knee. Doing so, Vinata looked up - trying to espy the pilot's reaction to his touch. "Can you feel this? Is this familiar to how you sensed touch before? Your pain ought to be gone now, at least, and you will have access to modify the sensor suite's settings yourself later, of course. I just want to make sure you have a good starting point."

Belatedly, Vinata realised that his touch might be misconstrued as a sensual foot massage, but by that time, it was far too late...

Re: Day 15 [1148 hrs.] Months Late and a Leg Short

Reply #8 –
[ Lt Cmdr. Jaru “Janus” Rel | Recovery Ward | Main Sickbay | Deck 11 | Vector 2 | USS Theurgy ] Attn: @Auctor Lucan

He laughed, a short sharp sound that was gone as quickly as it had started, when she mentioned that all of Ghost’s communications had come from the brig. “That sounds more like it, no need to send a counselor. She’s pushing the drama with the ‘survival of the squad’ bit though.” That didn’t make sense. If they’d survived this long without him, to the point where they hadn’t even realized they had the capability to wake him up, then the Wolves were fine without him. He was inexplicably sad about that, as much as he tried to convince himself that it didn’t matter. ‘No telling when they might have realized,’ as though he’d been tucked away in a corner to gather dust. Arguably, he would have been more insulted had they truly fallen apart without him, which would have meant he’d failed to prepare them. Janus had always planned to go out in a blaze of glory. He’d always viewed his death as something inevitable. His only plan had been to die in a way that would make a difference. That hadn’t worked out too well for him, had it? He’d just vanished during an event so horrible that they’d wiped all records of it. He’d been forgotten.

“Ha!” Janus perked back up when he finally got a good reaction. “She does laugh! I was starting to worry about you.” Unfortunately, the minor accomplishment was short lived, because Vojona’s laugh was followed by another slew of depressing news. Although the idea of Thea replacing them all with holograms had a certain dark humor to it. “And Thea, you naughty girl. I’d be impressed, if it made any sense. Seems like an easy enough theory to disprove. Beam some people down to a planet and shake hands with the locals. See a holoprojector? No? They’re alive!” The plan was announced with no small hint of sarcasm, aided by a roll of his eyes. “No need to explain why that won’t work.” He continued, waving off any further comment. “I’m sure people believe this shit. Idiots. To think the Federation used to wonder how the Obsidian Order got away with it all.”

“King is a terrible callsign, by the way. Seems ostentatious for a hidden source.” Until he learned more about this secret agent, there wasn’t much point in contemplating more about it. And since Razor was the squadron commanding officer, Janus wouldn’t be learning any more about it would he? “Good on the Klingons. At least some things have improved.”

It still hurt, even when she said it wasn’t supposed to. A dull, nagging ache easily relegated to the back of his mind, a far cry from what it had been earlier. He was still leaning back, giving her as much space as possible to work, head tilted down and slightly to the side as he watched. “I used to be ticklish,” he remarked casually to avoid an answer. “It used to make these kind of tests way more fun.” Like when he’d explored the new limb himself, Janus could Vojona’s light touches and careful application of pressure, but it didn’t change the pain. “I’m not sure how to explain it. It’s almost like I have two legs, sharing the same space, but slightly out of sync with each other. You playing around down there doesn’t effect the pain at all. You sure you guys didn’t miss a sensory connection?”

He’d have access to modify the sensor suite himself later. Now that was an opportunity for all manner of chaos. Janus chuckled thinking about it, all the things he could make his leg feel. Did it work in other places too? Then Starfleet would really be working miracles.

Re: Day 15 [1148 hrs.] Months Late and a Leg Short

Reply #9 –
[ Ens. Vinata Vojona | Main Sickbay | Recovery Ward | Vector 2 | USS Theurgy ] Attn: @rae
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When Commander Jaru misgendered Vinata, he didn't just blush and smile at the comment, but he took the mistake in stride, since Ovri were exceedingly rare on Federation ships and it was more common people got it wrong than not. It was a daily occurrence through the Academy and back on the Harbinger, only getting slightly less common on the Theurgy during the past couple of months. Considering the fact that he'd been a biological female since his abduction by the Savi, where they had Corrected him and his sister Hylota to the Progenitor template biology, Vinata had become even more forgiving about the matter. The cultural shock of the Academy's first couple of weeks had left a big imprint on him, and as much as he'd mentally battled with the dimorphism of his own body compared to that of most Federation species, he'd come to take it more in stride.

To whom does it matter most? he thought to himself, I don't care beyond wanting to be the way I was born to be, and as attractive as the Commander is - despite the fact that I can see way too much beneath the hem of that gown - it's not like we're dating. I don't need to warn him about a... surprise he might not fancy at the end of a date.

Meanwhile Vinata pondered this down there on his knee next to the biobed, Thea spoke up over the intercom in the Recovery Ward.

[Understood, Commander. I shan't point out the fallacy of that tactic,] the A.I. said with a warm smile conveyed through her words, [I am pleased to hear your voice again, and I hope you'll make a swift recovery. Oh, and as for 'naughty', I will have you know that I am a very good girl. Well, most of the time, that is. You would have to be a bad, bad boy to see my naughty side, Commander...] Little did Vinata know that Thea had been the one that stunned Jaru unconscious on the Main Bridge, and the rueful banter had a hidden innuendo. As it were, the Ovri nurse merely cleared his throat a little, embarrassed about the banter he was exposed to in the middle of a medical examination.

When the Commander second-guessed the proficiency of the medical team, saying they may have missed a nerve-connection, Vinata shook his head and rose to his feet, unable to completely avoid looking where he wasn't supposed to given the manner in which Jaru leaned back on the biobed. "No, the scans are clear in that regard," he trilled with a nervous smile, smoothing down his skirt once more,  "What you are sensing can only be psychological, and it will likely subside in short order since your body will come to know the new leg as yours. If the issue does persist, despite any further calibrations, we can take another look at it. After all, you need to be at peak physical condition if you are to fly a warp fighter again."

Unsure what to say next, distracted as he was by the charm of the patient but keeping it as professional as he could, Vinata uoloaded the journal to the medical database, and reprogrammed his PADD to hold the sensor suite setting of the Commander's leg. Then, he handed it over to Jaru. "Here, while you wait for one of the Doctors to clear you for recovery in your quarters, you can make the last calibrations yourself. Keep the PADD if you want to do it later, but as for the mission logs," he chirped and picked up a second PADD next to the biobed, with which he accessed the catalogue of logs that all thawed patients were encouraged to read to learn what they needed about the current mission status, "here you are. It's a lot, but not only will it help kill some time, but you'll need to know what's what before you return to active duty."

Pausing, Vinata glanced towards the deck briefly, running a hand over his smooth forehead. "If... there's nothing else, I will return to check on you later, unless you have been discharged by then."

Re: Day 15 [1148 hrs.] Months Late and a Leg Short

Reply #10 –
[ Lt Cmdr. Jaru “Janus” Rel | Recovery Ward | Main Sickbay | Deck 11 | Vector 2 | USS Theurgy ] Attn: @Auctor Lucan

"So you are listening!” Vojona sounded a bit uncomfortable, but Janus burst out laughing at the AI’s response. “I’ll take that bet! Bring it on. When I get in trouble for doing naughty things, I’ll make sure to blame you for my curiosity.” He was still chuckling, grinning impishly at the thought. Besides the fact that she was his favorite RIO, her holographic avatar was drop dead gorgeous. If the ship’s computer wanted to play dirty games, Janus was down.

And there went his hastily made resolution to behave himself after whatever the hell had happened with Ida. Maybe he should just swear off Andorians instead. That would probably be an easier promise to keep.

He didn’t mean any offense to the nurse, but his attention was was obviously focused elsewhere as she continued to explain his problems, earning herself an annoyed glance at the suggestion that his problem was psychological, which only grew more aggravated as she insinuated that it might ground him. Fuck that. He’d beat this leg into submission through sheer force of will before he let that happen. “I’ll be fine.” He tried for some breezy nonchalance there, but it didn’t work. He practically snatched the offered PADD out of her hand. “It will go away.”

The other PADD was accepted more gently, though it was tossed into the bed next to him in preference to the one controlling his leg. “I’ll read through them later.” Plus anything else he could get his hands on, so he wouldn’t be caught unprepared once he got back into the action. “Thanks for all your help, Vojona. Hope I wasn’t too annoying.”

His gaze wandered to the PADD, thinking about everything he’d missed, then Janus started talking again on the off chance Thea’s attention hadn’t left the room yet. “If you’re still up there Metalmind, want to tell me what happened the day I was knocked out? No need to spare my feelings like Nurse Vojona here keeps trying to do.” In the absence of the hologram, he was talking to the ceiling, tilting his head slightly upwards in the habit of humanoids speaking to disembodied voices. Janus knew it didn’t matter. Thea was the ship, she was everywhere around him. But he was doing it anyway.

His rationale was pretty simple. Vojona said that the recordings had been deleted, but that hadn’t been his question. He’d asked who could tell him what he’d done. As Janus understood it, the AI had her own separate memory banks from the boring routine functions and storage of the main computer. Any deletions wouldn’t have affected her. Also, she was probably exempt from whatever psychological ship-wide trauma was keeping Vojona from telling him. Pretty as she was and lifelike as she sounded, Thea was still a machine. “I’m not planning on accosting anyone with the information, Thea, or messing up their healing or whatever. It’s for me. I want to know what I did. I’d rather live with the truth than whatever half baked story I’ll come up with instead. The truth is part of us, whether we remember it or not. Know it, accept it, then move past it. Letting it sit in the back of my mind forever, it will drag at my footsteps, weigh me down.”

He was a child of Cardassia and Bajor, the unfortunate middle man between his father’s people, who had committed untold horrors on his mother’s. The majority of Cardassians still refused to admit to their crimes on Bajor, hiding behind platitudes that they were helping a poor uncivilized world. In the grand scheme of things, the brutal honestly Janus sought in his life didn’t mean anything. It wouldn’t help the Bajorans move on. It wouldn’t convince the Cardassians to take responsibility for their shit. It was for him, living his life in the least Cardassian way possible.

“I’m not going to pretend something terrible didn’t happen because someone thinks it will make me feel better.”

Re: Day 15 [1148 hrs.] Months Late and a Leg Short

Reply #11 –
[ USS Theurgy "Thea" NX-79854 | Recovery Ward | Main Sickbay | Deck 11 | Vector 2 | USS Theurgy ]
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Since the newly thawed Lone Wolf's prompt had already cued Thea, the transition from the automated C-47 subroutine to her active engagement made her "true" attention remain out of curiosity towards the answer the Commander had given her.  Through her onboard systems, consisting of internal sensors, surveillance and audio, she had passively observed how the Head Nurse excused himself and left his patient.

"Oh, not at all," the Ovri had chirred with a smile and a dismissing gesture with a four-fingered hand, accompanied by an embarrassed laugh, "I wish you well on your recovery, and one of the medical officers will be with you shortly. Good day, Commander."

Next, Jaru Rel had addressed Thea once more, just when she'd been about to shift her attention elsewhere. The query was not alight one, and she decided that it might require her full attention. Therefore she accessed her transporter systems and locked on to her mobile emitter. A couple of seconds later, she materialised in the Recovery Ward, wearing her chameleon body suit in black. She folded her arms underneath her chest while she approached the biobed, a small frown creasing her brow.

"See, Commander, whether or not you can actually keep a secret is no factor, since the events don't just involve you. I am not at liberty to tell you all the things you ask for since they involve other members of the crew whom - unlike you - might wish to preserve their own modesty, and not have anyone revisit the Niga incident," she said quietly, and raised her eyes to look the newly thawed lone wolf in the eye. "This, no matter your intentions regarding the information. There is no telling how you might react either, and whatever promises you make now might end up moot in the face of what really happened. In other words, neither you nor I can quantify your reaction in advance."

That being said, she ran a quick analysis, and she determined that she could tell him something about the incident in which had him end up in stasis, since she had been highly involved, and the injury wasn't related to the virus itself.

"All I can divulge without breaking the Captain's edict is what happened with your leg," she said, and she hopped up on the biobed right next to Commander Jaru, looking at him across her shoulder. "I will not give you the identity of the shooter, but it was someone who wasn't infected, and whom you hadn't accosted. You were on the bridge by the time it happened, threatening me and the shooter with a phaser rifle. You were..."

Thea cleared her throat, the imagery from her memory banks loaded into her runtime.

They were two, one seated in the Captain's chair and the other bobbing frantically upon his lap - arms around his shoulders. They both were naked, yet the man had the presence of mind to hear the sliding doors and to whip his phaser rifle around - aiming it straight against Lieutenant Kae's face. "Drop it," he said in quiet words - much in contrast with the suddenness of his movement. The woman - Ensign Hannah Slaverton - had yelped and nearly fallen off him, but righted herself with a hand upon the back of the Captain's chair. The eyes Thea saw behind the sights of the rifle was hazy with arousal, yet as unblinking as a reptile. Before infection, he was obviously trained with the lethal instrument that he wielded in one hand - arm not even shaking. It was the SCO of the Lone Wolves Squadron; Lt. Cmdr Jaru Rel. Callsign: 'Janus'.
 
"...distracted by another infected crewmember. That, and a detonation from the battle outside the ship helped the shooter wrench the rifle away from you, and shot you in the leg instead of killing you - the weapon being at the highest setting." Next, Thea told him why he had ended up in stasis. She was part of the reason. She looked towards the deck, the frown having deepened. "You were bleeding, but you also had intel that the uninfected needed. I grabbed a fistful of your hair, twisting it, and demanded to know where one of the infected were, and what they had done. Eventually, we learned what we needed, and as I promised you, I alleviated your pain by stunning you."

She took a deep breath, and then shifted in her seat, facing Jaru more directly on the biobed. "You should know that at the time, I was barred from accessing my primary and secondary systems. I was lucky I could even project myself via the shipwide hologrid so that I could aid my crew. This meant I couldn't issue an emergency medical transport to sickbay. Even if I could... sickbay was long overrun by the infected, and there was no one there to treat you anyway. It wasn't until the USS Relativity came to our aid that the antidote could be widely distributed, and the injured get their treatment. In the commotion, there was neither time nor opportunity to make a tourniquet, so you lost too much blood. Judging by the entries in your medical journal... Vinata told you the rest. I am sorry for contributing to the events in which you ended up in stasis, Commander, though neither the shooter nor I had many other options, given the rare circumstances."

Thea could but hope that the Lone Wolf would accept her apology, and the level of detail at which she could retell those events.

Re: Day 15 [1148 hrs.] Months Late and a Leg Short

Reply #12 –
[ Lt Cmdr. Jaru “Janus” Rel | Recovery Ward | Main Sickbay | Deck 11 | Vector 2 | USS Theurgy ] Attn: @Auctor Lucan

He had waved an idle goodbye to Vojona, but moments later his attention was captured by Thea, who had decided to answer him live and in person. “Want to make me some holoclothes too? I’m flapping in the breeze here.” Janus had asked a serious question, and hoped this meant that she planned on answering him, but couldn’t help but start with a joke. Thea’s programmers had left nothing to the imagination, but right now she was the more modest of the two of them.

Thea looked serious though, so Janus decided to shut up and let her talk. He nearly groaned when she started, leaning back slightly on the biobed again while keeping his eyes trained on her. If she was going to shoot him down, it could have been done over a comm channel. It wasn’t like he was asking to watch the video footage. She could tell him what he’d done while keeping the other person completely anonymous. As for a potential bad reaction on his part, fine, there was a chance of that. But it was his own fucking business. He would handle it. Janus opened his mouth to tell Thea just that, then quickly bit the words back down when she started talking again, relenting enough to give him something. She sat down next to him, and Janus moved accordingly, shifting and turning his head to the side to keep his eyes on her. He waited until she finished, then a few moments more, his face oddly blank as he processed it all. When he did finally speak, there was a hint of incredulity to it all.

“So I got infected with a sex virus and I decided to go to the Bridge instead of a bar? Damn, I’ve been in Starfleet for way too long.” Then again, porn holos were a thing, and there was one location that supposedly featured prominently in starship-based stories. Thea was delicate about it, but what else were two people infected with that virus going to be doing? When the realization struck him, Janus started to laugh. It was far from a happy sound, almost painful in each harsh, halting note that fell from his lips. Releasing stress in the aftermath of insanity. In the worst way possible, he had apparently joined a very elite club. And he could never tell anyone about it. “Fuck.”

“I hope you at least cleaned it before you let the Captain sit down again. Poor Ives.” He shook his head as though to banish the thought from his brain, throat rumbling with a grunt of disgust. The words were as humorous as he could make them, but there was no keeping the dark edge out. He felt dirty, but no more so than before. This was only adding details to what he’d already assumed.

The rest of it, traumatic injury included, did not worry him nearly as much. That was par for the course. Don’t wave phasers at people unless you were prepared to get shot. “This isn’t my native language, but I’m pretty sure that threatening someone with a phaser rifle is the definition of ‘accosted’. Maybe not the common method of the day…” he trailed off, hating even entertaining the idea further, “But still. Don’t apologize for defending the ship against assailants, Lady Death. Sounds like you were perfectly within your rights to kill me. So was your mystery shooter, though I hope you got him some phaser practice afterwards. Should have aimed center mass, then got the information from that other crewmember.”

It wasn’t the answer he’d wanted, but Thea had given him what she could, and he wasn’t going to push. Somewhere, tonight probably, alone in the dark with a bottle of whiskey for company, Janus would actually start processing things. The beginning he remembered, the end Thea had painted for him, and every imagined horror in between. Janus had promised he could handle it, and he would. For now, it would roll off him like water, forced to wait to be let in and dealt with on his own time.

“Thank you for telling me.” Then a final thought came to him, a hint of a grin finding its way back to his face. Janus bumped her on the shoulder playfully. “Hair pulling while I was on my back? Was that this naughty side I’ve been hearing about? No wonder you want to keep it a secret. No warm-blooded person on this ship would be able to contain themselves. But not to worry. Your secret is safe with me. I'm half lizard.”


OOC: I'm so sorry I forgot one!!!
 
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