The Second Cut [BACKPOST]

Posted on 15 Jun 2014 @ 8:05pm by Commander Andreus Kohl

1,429 words; about a 7 minute read

Previously on The First Cut . . .

Doctor Sefton grimaced at me. She asked, "It hurts where you were injured before?" As she did so, her fingers probed the flesh on the underside of my left forearm. All the while, her eyes examined my face for any signs of pain. Her ministrations made no difference to the dull ache in my arm. I told her, "Yes, ma'am. Same place I took the shrapnel. The pain doesn't feel the same, but it's there. There's pain."

Doctor Sefton sat on the biobed next to mine. She looked down at her knees and she sighed. When she looked at me again, her expression had softened. She almost looked at me with fondness. Almost. "Andreus," she said, "I can find no trace of your injury. I know what to look for, because I performed the treatment myself, and there's absolutely nothing wrong."

And now, the continuation . . .


Timeline: Circa 2389 (Two months before Andreus Kohl's transfer to USS Galileo)
Location: Bactricia - Starfleet Medical Base Camp


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Ensign Andreus Kohl's Personal Log, supplemental entry:

I've been sitting. Sitting here for five minutes now. Sitting here, and listening to the chiming of the biofunction monitor, and trying to find the words to describe my state of mind from this morning. I suppose that's foolish of me. My state of mind isn't what really matters. The biofunction monitor behind my biobed is telling me that; I can hear it throbbing in time with the beating of my heart. It's my state of heart that matters most.

I was unthinking, and yet I was paralyzed by thought. My memory of the Tzekenthi soldier from a couple of months ago filled my mind's eye. I could see the look on his face. I can picture his face clearly, and the emitter crystal of my hand phaser trained on him. I could see that look more clearly than I could see my own hand in front of my face. It must have been basic muscle memory that took me into the medical building this morning, if I was completely lost in thought. Muscle memory only took me so far, because I took a wrong turning. I had expected to be striding through the doors into the infirmary, but I was suddenly aware that I was standing at an LCARS panel.

I raised my hand and pointed a finger at an LCARS panel that was set into a bulkhead. "You're not supposed to be there," I said to it. And then I was looking at my hand, rather than the LCARS panel. The sleeve over my left arm was a ruddier shade of black than the other. I could feel a sticky dampness on my left hand; trails of blood crisscrossing my palm.

From behind me, I heard Darzyn's voice. He asked me if I was okay, and he called me sir. I couldn't remember him ever calling me sir before. I hardly noticed as he approached me slowly. But I did notice something. My whirlwind of thoughts and memories narrowed firmly upon the present. Or rather, the very recent past. In mind head, I repeated the words I'd just said, and this time I could hear the lazy slur in my enunciation. I stayed quiet for the handful of seconds it took to perform a miracle of modern chemistry in my bloodstream. After a moment more, the mild intoxication of synthehol completely dissipated from my system.

I'm sure I sounded far more sure of myself by the time I said to Darzyn, "I'm meant to be in the Infirmary."

"The Infirmary sounds like the right place to me," Darzyn said. I think it was only then that he saw the blood on my hand, and the quantity of blood that was dripping from my sleeve. I think that because he shouted out, "Darzyn to Infirmary. I've got a medical emergency. I'm on my way with Ensign Kohl. He appears to be bleeding badly from his left arm. And he's inebriated."

Darzyn put his hand around my waist, and he took some of my weight, dragging me the rest of the way to the Infirmary. He was shouting something to Doctor Sefton over his combadge, but I told him to relax. I told him, "It's not that bad. It doesn't hurt like it used to."

It's difficult to remember what happened next. As Darzyn eased me back on the biobed, I assumed shock was setting in. It felt an awful lot like what the textbooks describe shock to be like. The synthehol had turned harmless in my system, and that gnawing pain in my left forearm was gone. It was gone for good; I could feel it. That only left shock behind. It had to be shock making me feel like there was a forcefield between my mind and my body. The way Doctor Sefton handled the situation, already calling out orders and examining the gash in my arm, it impressed me. I didn't want to interrupt her emergency protocols.

Doctor Sefton drugged me with something in a hypospray and a nurse brought her a vascular regenerator. She asked me what happened. Gripping my arm roughly, she asked me what kind of weapon caused the cut. All I could think to say was, "Bladed weapon," and I think I sounded like a witness at a trial.

Sarcastically, Doctor Sefton said, "Obviously. What type of bladed weapon was it? I need you to describe the materials of the blade, and the shape of the edge."

I can still hear my voice in my head. I was completely toneless, when I said, "I cut myself shaving."

That's when Doctor Sefton started making demands. She wanted to know more about how I cut myself; wanted to know if this was connected to the pain I was feeling from the healed shrapnel wound. And she started threatening to relieve me of duty. The painkiller was kicking in right about then. It dulled her words in my ears as much as any other pain. All I said to her was, "What do you want me to say? It doesn't hurt anymore. My arm. My arm doesn't hurt the way it used to. Even now, it doesn't hurt."

End log.


*** *** ***


Excerpt from a deleted personal log by Ensign Andreus Kohl:

I haven't told them. I haven't told any of them. Not Doctor Sefton and certainly not the counselor. I mean, they know what happened. They aren't stupid. They even took my shah'fa away.

But.

I.

Haven't.

Told them.

It was the gym bag. It felt as if I had a spiked mace hanging from my left shoulder, but it was only a canvas gym bag. The bag was swinging in time with each step I was taking, and it was thumping against my left arm. I walked faster. I jogged the rest of the way from the sparring session in the gym to my quarters. I didn't slow down at the automated doors; they moved aside with appropriate alacrity and and ran between them. It was only after the doors closed behind me, only once I was hidden from my colleagues and my crewmates, that I hurled the gym bag to the floor.

It was the gym bag, but it wasn't just the gym bag. My left forearm felt like it was on fire, and even the thin material of my athletic uniform was aggravating it like crazy. I tore off my uniform top and stumbled towards the sofa. I fell on it at gracefully as I could muster; making sure not to knock over the side table. That table displayed my shah'fa on its plinth and a half-drunk carafe of synthehol wine. I stretched out my legs and I reached down to remove my shoes, but my left hand wouldn't work at all. My fingers mashed against my shoe uselessly; they wouldn't grip or pinch at all.

I used my right hand, then, to take a long swig from the carafe. And another. And one more for good luck. I wiped my lips with the back of my right hand and then I reached for the hilt of the shah'fa. I raised it from the plinth and I drove the serrated edge of the blade into my useless, aching forearm.

Almost immediately, blood pooled and rose up around the edge of the blade buried in my flesh, but all I could do was sigh in guttural relief.


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