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Posted on 14 Mar 2013 @ 7:59am by Petty Officer 2nd Class Jessica Sandywyne & Commander Andreus Kohl & Trija Natyal

4,026 words; about a 20 minute read

Mission: Episode 03 - Frontier
Location: USS Galileo - Primary Sickbay
Timeline: MD 04 - 0813 hours

ON:

Jaeih exited his office, and took away the morning's excitement with her. If Vulcans got excited. Liyar postulated on that while he finished the remainder of his raktajino and deposited it in the reclamator.

He left the room shortly after. The day's work couldn't be done in an office. It could, but there was no space. No time, no - he sighed minutely, stood up, and gathered the fereikek reh hologrid which had become his faithful companion. His body felt heavy as he walked down the hall. Whispers in his mind, shadows darting out from the corners. Mental laughter. Family. Liyar leaned against the wall of the corridor, breathing crashing like waves in his ears, heart rate thundering in his skull. His mind was vibrating in high pitch, ringing in his ears. Loud and unrelenting. The corridor was fuzzy. The hologrid dropped. Rolled on the deck.

Liyar blinked and pressed his hand against the wall as though seeking stability. Voices, snapshots. Some he recognized. Raek. T'Yron. In a mist of green and red, blood, desert, stones. Fire. Meditation alcove. Warmth, easiness. Memories. Fleeting, fracturing. He stumbled. Tried to catch them. It was such a relief, so much easier, to remember this. But they faded. Into new memories, ones he did not recognize at all. They were foreign to him as anything, yet he knew them, as he knew himself. He could see them. Feel them. The sound of wind in trees, leaves falling from the sky, a dance of laughter and affection shared between sisters, spirits, bonded, mixed with cruel rage. Growls. War cries. Klingons. Heavy feet, boots on deck. A circle, skyships, orbital stations. Bombardment. One man, a murderer above them all, seeking redemption. Peace at last. Rest well, brother in arms.

Eventually he made his way to the turbolift, hunched over with the effort. It wasn't just memories, now. So, I heard Stone arrested Pawlak, you know the chef?, I can't wait until these people hurry up and -, We're finally here, yes!, Take care, look after her -, He is kind of cute, you know? - Liyar blinked, eyes wide, as the thoughts and conversations of crewmembers began seeping into him as they passed, stopping to stare at him as he awkwardly walked forward, eyes distracted, body distracted by mind. They were so loud. Too loud. The warmth faded, leaving his mind as it always was, raw, sandpaper, scratching against itself to wound, blister, boil. Blood. Snapshots of various faces, he couldn't recognize. A television switching through channels, it made no sense.

"Sickbay, medical -" he spoke roughly, gripping the turbolift handle. It descended and finally dropped him off at the right deck, and he blindly found his way through the clear doors of the sickbay. He leaned against the nearest biobed, trying to get his mind under control, trying to reel it in, but he could hear them here, too. Kestra, Trija, still here, bouncing around sleepily, Andreus, Pola, Jessicas both, added to the fray, he forced his body to calm, looking normal, almost completely, except for the tension in his face and the poor posture, resting on his hands against the bed, supporting his own weight. Supporting their weight. All of it. He sagged, feeling himself grow too weak to hold all of the thoughts, and hoped that someone would find him shortly. He didn't even have the strength to move, it would shift the thoughts, make them louder. Bury him, crush him under their weight. He had to, stay still, breathe through it, let it go...

Turning at the sound of doors parting, Andreus Kohl only looked away from his work long enough to glance at Liyar. Although his eyes were focused on an biofunction monitor, his mind's eye remained with Liyar. It should have been a little thing: seeing a crewmember lean against a biobed, shifting his body weight onto his hands. In fact, every member of the medical staff had likely taken that posture at one time or another, but there was something unnerving about seeing Liyar in that state. Kohl couldn't claim to know Liyar terribly well, but his first guess would be that if Liyar looked like that, he was probably dying.

"Lieutenant Liyar?" called out Kohl. The Nurse Practitioner turned abruptly towards that biobed near the entrance. Any of the concern displayed in his body language was masked behind an affable tone. Closing the distance between them, Kohl asked, "Is there something I can help you with today?"

Liyar winced visibly as Andreus approached, concernstrangedeathdeathwhat? How? What's wro-- "Not, so loud," Liyar murmured, bowing his head. Andreus's voice melded into a hundred others, bursting forward and retreating, like waves on an ocean, a tendril spreading out. Need what. Think what. He did the only thing he could fathom with his own consciousness fighting for dominance in his skull, and shoved his hand forward, displaying the psionic monitoring device clamped around his wrist. "Not working. Too much. Too many thoughts. Linked, to Trija. Kestra. Heard them all."

Jessica had been sterilising one of the bio-beds as things started to kick off. Letting the bed finish by itself she started towards the two, looking as sullen as normal.

Moving towards Liyar, Kohl picked up a tricorder and left a respectful distance between them. He wasn't sure how much physical proximity might affect the loudness of his thoughts, and he took one step back. In low tones, Kohl said, "Liyar, can you tell me more about your symptoms?"

The Vulcan gathered himself silently, and it seemed as though he didn't even hear Andreus as he practically ignored the request. It was only after several moments that he recognized the outside voice was speaking to him. In front of him. "Lieutenant Kohl," he said, as though the awareness had only hit him then. Symptoms. "Crew thoughts. Very, loud. And, very much." He realized he only really repeated what he had just stated. How else could he explain? He could hardly think in his own voice, let alone put together something coherent, to explain something as vast as this. "I was linked. To Kestra. And Trija. She awoke." The whirlwind in his brain kicked up again and he leaned forward on his hands. Hundreds of minds, but it felt like thousands. He wasn't designed for this. "Kestra awoke. So many voices." He had some vague idea that he wasn't being very helpful, but he couldn't come up with anything more concrete.

Kohl laid one hand flat on the pad of the biobed in case his words became lost in the apparent tumult. "Sit here," Kohl instructed firmly. "I need to see inside your brain."

What? Liyar blinked and turned himself awkwardly back against the biobed. Sit? Where? Andreus was too close. Thoughts blended into words. There were threads, here. Closer. Not thoughts. Real. He half-sat on the bed, slow to respond. "My brain?" he frowned visibly. What about his brain? Liyar focused on lifting himself up on the bed. The physical world was hard to navigate, even now.

Swiping his finger tips across the controls of a slim tricorder, Kohl initiated the sensor devices in the tricorder and the biobed both. Raw sensor data began to populate the bulkhead-mounted biofunction monitor in colourful blips and blobs. Glancing over at the nurse, Kohl asked, "What do you see, Sandywyne?", and he returned his gaze to the sensor data.

"It doesn't look like anyone has stolen it," Jessica tilted her head, "There are wide fluctuations in his brain's bioelectric field, I don't know what could cause them." If the voices in his head were the problem then they could block them, but that might drive him insane. Maybe it would be an idea to get a doctor?

"No, no doctor, just quiet," Liyar muttered under his breath, bowed forward, resting his elbows on his knees, head in his hands. "Quiet," he repeated softly.

"Liyar..." said Kohl, "You shouldn't be able to hear my thoughts with the psi clamp on you..." Kohl's brows knit concentration and he took another step back. He suspected the distance would be like taking one drop out of an ocean, but he hoped the intention would communicate. Studying the biofunction monitor, Kohl said, "Sandywyne, can you check the serial number on the psionic monitoring device. Replicate a new one, in case it's malfunctioning."

"Not malfunctioning, I'm malfunctioning," he said, the contraction bizarre coming from him. He knitted his own eyebrows together and stared at Andreus, mirroring the man's expression without conscious will.

"Barriers are going to be imprecise," Kohl said. The timbre of his voice was abstract, almost faraway. He was thinking aloud now, since Liyar could hear his thoughts anyway. "A psi clamp is crude. Last line of defense. ...Better to snuff the source. ...Dampen the psilosynine transmitters. Do we, uhm..." Kohl trailed off and his eyes dropped to his tricorder. He toggled through diagnosis menus searching for confirmation of the correct prescription. "Do we have lexorin in stock?"

Liyar blinked again a few times. Lexorin? He took Lexorin. Not enough of it. But it helped. When he took it. It made things more peaceful, inside. "Yes," he answered the question meant for the nurse. He had a prescription for it, after all.

"We do but what else is he on?" Jessica knew there had been some issues with their Vulcan mascot but not what they were. Placing one hand on her hip she peered closer at him, "You don't want his brain to drip out of his ears, right?"

He couldn't be sure if he went visibly flushed, but Kohl's face felt hot all of a sudden. Building on his uncertainty since beaming aboard Galileo, Jessica's question struck him as criticism of his abilities as a nurse practitioner. He tried to sound professional but his words came out haltingly. "You, uhm," Kohl said, "Prepare the Lexorin hypospray. I'll review his chart and interview to assess for drug interactions."

"No pharm-" Liyar's eyes narrowed as he tried to stuff the word in his mouth awkwardly, "Pharmaceutical," what? He stared emptily at them both as whatever he was trying to say dropped off. The ridiculous thing is that I'm pretty smart -, whoever drew this -, survive the jump -, I don't - reroute the additional power through the impulse - criticism? wh- what does that even mea- prepare - drug interactions - "No interactions," he blinked a couple of times, "Rerouting power will -" wait, wrong, no, sickbay. "Kinetic..."

"No doctors, no drugs, you could punch him out and I can leech him?" Jessica wasn't amused with the shards and how barmy this officer was acting. Still she prepared the hypo spray as asked and waited for an order.

"Kinetic energy can be harnessed from the directed energy stores," Liyar finished lowly. "I am not barmy. I am not insane." He met her eyes across the room, nearly glaring at her. He wasn't insane. Not this time. Not now. "You are loud," he accused. "Do not be loud. Then I will not be broken," he pressed his hand against the bed and dug his fingers into the mattress. The other went to his head, and he fell silent again.

Gathering what he needed to know from the tricorder display, Kohl put it aside. He said nothing more. Kohl took the hypospray from Jessica's hand and set the dosage with the control tabs. In a fluid, forceful movement, Kohl reached his arm out and pushed the hypo against Liyar's upper arm. He pressed the applicator and waited for the satisfying hiss. As Kohl stepped back from the biobed, he watched Liyar's face, watched Liyar's eyes, for any sign of a change.

Liyar watched them, unseeing. The Lexorin he felt like a distant diver, splashing through, breaking the surface. Down and holding oxygen, but it quickly struggled inside of him, broke the surface, lost in the torrent of waves and voices. He jerked back after the hypospray was empty, and his expression cleared into its usual neutrality. "I apologize, I appear to be, highly affected by," he gestured two fingers at his head quickly. Migraine. He breathed through it. His pain suppression system was out of his reach, he'd experienced that before, wasn't reduced beyond a mild wince, gritting his teeth. Headaches. Common now. Since the - he blinked, thoughts were coming back, a little. Headaches were a good thing. He made several shifts in his expression as he processed that out internally. "I am on a rather high dose already, I require - it needs, to be more quiet. To stop the pain."

Offering a nod to Liyar, Kohl hoped he communicated acknowledgement, if not outright understanding. He cast a glance over to the biofunction monitor again, trying to make sense of the Vulcan's fluctuating neurological vitals. Then he met Liyar's eyes. Clearly at a loss, Kohl asked, "Does... that... mean... the external thoughts are growing quieter?"

Liyar nodded. "Affirmative." The pain was a token pole, a way to return back, so he focused on it. When he did, the biofunction monitor indicated a return to consciousness. He didn't understand how someone could concentrate with this magnitude of perception. He had grown more still, neutral, more reminiscent of a Vulcan, but he didn't offer any further information.

At first, Kohl only nodded at Liyar's confirmation. As his own panic levels began to subside, Kohl eyed the biofunction monitor warily, as if he didn't entirely believe the Vulcan was recovering. Stepping back a couple steps, Kohl stumbled slightly as he bumped into the next biobed. Instead of righting himself, Kohl took the opportunity to perch himself on the edge of the bed. He took a deep breath in and then he spoke with careful consideration. "Lieutenant Liyar," Kohl asked, "What more can you tell me about... what just happened?"

Liyar breathed with Kohl unawares. He wasn't sure how to answer Kohl's question, but thoughts were not necessarily linear at the moment, he didn't even know if he could speak properly. Kohl's panic didn't even bother to impact his shield, heading straight through and making itself at home in his head. His brain, happily in survival mode, had latched onto the nurse in the corner who remained relatively calm throughout the entire thing. It was only after using the outside feelings of calm to placate the otherwise irritating, grating sensation of panic for a long moment that he spoke haltingly. "It is still, happening. I suggest, a sedative, for you." He looked over at Kohl blandly.

Jessica watched rather rather bemused, aliens were weird. When it came to humans there were only so many problems they could suffer. From animal bites to diseases, at least their brains tended not to hear voices. Well at least when they did they weren't real. As for reading her mind, that was fine, they wouldn't dare share her secret passion for caterpillars.

Kohl crossed his arms across his chest. "A sedative won't be necessary," said Kohl, and he sounded like his feelings were chaffed by the recommendation.

"They're linked, well - We're linked." Trija Natyal sauntered over, looking thoroughly less magnificent in hospital scrubs, but her blue hair was styled immaculately as ever and her pitch black eyes were bright with awareness. She approached the Vulcan and scrutinized him. "Stupid boy. Gave her his shield. We told him," she insisted to the nurses. "We can be unlinked but it will take work, and Kes isn't well enough to try. The link is probably helping her stabilize. I don't have a shield or I'd offer it. The problem isn't really information, anyway. It's processing." She sat beside him on the bed. "Who are you?"

Having nodded through Trija's opaque explanations, Kohl opened his mouth to answer her question. For a moment, there was a playful curl to his lips. He wanted to call himself Andreus, but his eyes lingered on her hair... her gown... her eyes... He breathed in and his posture stiffened. "Lieutenant Kohl, Galileo's Assistant Chief Medical Officer," he stated. "You're... with the Federation News Network?"

"You can relax, before you pop something," the Betazoid rolled her eyes upward fondly. "I'm not here in an official capacity. I'm Kestra's cousin. Liyar and I helped her escape the spiritual plane. What you've called a comatose state," the woman explained with a shrug. "Her mind constructed it to keep her safe while she healed, but then they took her away from Galileo and she lost her balance. Like yanking a rug."

"That explains everything," Jessica clapped her hands and cocked her head, "Except the part that should have had medical supervision, control procedures and why the Lieutenant was allowed to wander down here." Then cocking her eyebrow, she waved her arms, "Not that I really care."

Trija shrugged. "It was an accident."

"I want the scan." Liyar interrupted them quietly.

Returning his focus to his patient, Kohl could only echo, "Scan?"

Scan? Liyar stared evenly back at the nurse before realizing he had said that out loud. They were largely a psi-null medical staff, save for one Vulcan and he had decided long ago that he was even less inclined to talk to Varek than he was the rest of them. Naturally he had long been under the impression that they could not help him, which was proving more and more likely. But, they had something now, something he could study himself. He paid little mind to Kohl's fluttery, agitated state of mind, and even less to the downtrodden female off to the side. Instead he spoke directly and calmly as though nothing had happened at all, the frayed nerves pounding in his skull in zaps. "You have taken a reading of my neural patterns. You indicated that you needed to - I believe it was -" Liyar finished dully, "see my brain. I desire a copy of those readings."

"We can study them on the display," Kohl said in offering. He cast a hand towards the large LCARS display set into the opposite bulkhead. Kohl looked down to study the sensor records for himself on his tricorder. "What are you looking for precisely?" he asked.

Liyar gingerly helped himself off the bed, leaning forward and examining the opposite display. He studied it for many moments, making no comment. He recalled Ensign Nicholas's readings. Mentally mapped them side by side, trying to find some semblance of sense. "I do not know," he muttered under his breath, watching the monitor spike and expand. He moved and pulled down the LCARS display unit to shoulder level, pressing his finger against one of the data nodes and pulling it forward and out. The small circular pattern broke into new patterns, new lines. "It is a structural difference. It cannot be reversed." He lifted his hand to display the wristband. "Too high a grade and it is detrimental, too low and it does not work." He didn't wait for their answers, didn't seem to need them. He further accessed the data streams, delving into the surge in psilosynine during his first initial scan upon entrance and the resulting mesiofrontal distress.

"Processing," Trija yawned from her corner again. She leaned back on the wall and crossed her legs.

Kohl glanced over at Sandywyne briefly, and he found himself saying, "I should probably get a doctor to take a look at this..." Although the words came out, he stayed where he was, studying the readings for himself. He was held back by anxiety at the thought of direct interaction with Pola Ni Dhuinn. He knew he probably shouldn't, but it was still there.

Liyar shook his head. "There is no doctor. I have been examined repetitively." He briefly gestured his hand palm-up in a subtle shrug. "No one knows. I assume it is as Trija has suggested. The link between us responsible for ameliorating Kestra's symptoms has resulted in a feedback loop which will dissipate over time. Or, when the link is dissolved." He continued studying the data in front of him, committing it to memory.

After nodding at Liyar's words, Kohl turned away to look at the LCARS display, even if only to break eye-contact with Liyar. "I can't say I remember 'feedback loops' from my telepathy xenobiology courses at the Academy," Kohl remarked, perhaps too flippantly. That mirth was faded, when he said, "But, on my world, I knew of those few who could make empathic contact. They spoke of such things."

"I imagine so," Liyar nodded. "However, I am not an empath." He glanced at Trija. "I am a telempath, with much weaker empathic abilities than telepathic. Unless I am in a bond, or a link. Which this appears to be. But it has not dissipated. Which means, perhaps, that my brain cannot 'keep up' with the emotional input I am receiving," he tried to explain what was in the forefront of Trija's mind in a way Kohl could understand without going into a lecture on Vulcan neurology. He was, however, still focused on the images in front of him, for much different reasons. This could be the key to understanding why he was this way at all, and he had no intention of letting the opportunity disappear. He mentioned none of it to Kohl, letting the medical staff believe it was a matter of immediacy instead.

"Do you have," Kohl supposed, "mental exercises or meditation techniques to speed the recovery? To break the link or process the input better?"

"Breaking the link at this time is unwise," Liyar said, and his voice took on a bit more severity, making him sound more like himself. "I do not believe that there is anything further which can be done," he finally turned away from the readings and clasped his hands behind him.

Having watched Liyar's transformation, Kohl looked down to his tricorder and began taking notes for the medical log. As he continued to do so, Kohl asked, "Would you consent to wearing a neurocortical monitor until your sensor readings can be fully analyzed by a physician?"

Liyar stared at Andreus blankly. "As you wish, Lieutenant."

Kohl pushed off from the biobed and strode away purposefully. He dug around through a cabinet long enough to find his prize and then he returned directly to Liyar's side. Kohl held up the neurocortical monitor --a metallic disc smaller than a commbadge-- and then applied it to Liyar's neck, just below and behind one ear. Carefully, Kohl avoided making contact between his fingertips and Liyar's skin.

Once Andreus was finished, Liyar smoothed his hair down over the emitter to hide it from view and bowed slightly toward both Andreus and the nurse. "There is nothing further that you require of me?"

After studying his tricorder for the neurocortical monitor's output, and the biofunction monitor to confirm Liyar's vitals, Kohl faced the Vulcan. "For now," Kohl replied, "There is nothing further we require of you for now."

Trija pressed her feet flat on the floor, remaining unusually silent throughout their whole little... thing. "So barbaric," she waved a hand airily toward them all and rolled her eyes. "Cortical things. Psi-clamps."

Liyar glanced back over to Kestra's bed.

"Oh, don't you think in that tone to me." She put her hand on her hip.

The Vulcan blinked.

"Oh, fine." Trija tugged a wayward curl down by her ear and sauntered off, brushing her hand along Kohl's shoulder as she did. "Catch you later."

As soon as she was gone, Liyar bowed his head forward to them both and quickly made his escape.

OFF:

Lieutenant (Junior Grade) Andreus Kohl
Assistant Chief Medical Officer
USS Galileo

Lieutenant (JG) Liyar
Diplomatic Officer, VDF/SDD
USS Galileo

PO2 Jessica Sandywyne
Nurse, SFM
USS Galileo

Trija Natyal
Assistant Producer, FNN
USS Galileo

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