Wakey Wakey

Posted on Mon Dec 6th, 2021 @ 5:46am by Captain Calypso Skyie & Lieutenant Syrial J'naii

Mission: The Dexic Negotiations
Location: Sickbay

The horse was jumping over cotton candy clouds, but Calypso had no problem staying on despite them moving really, really fast. There was one swerve that she had to hang onto the licorice mane hard before dragging herself back into the saddle, but even then she didn't feel like she was out of control.

Then suddenly, she was back on the ground, rolling over the road on a motorcycle, something she'd never ridden in her life, but seemed natural. She sat upright as she eased off the accelerator, wondering at the change of scenery, noticing a few scantily clad women waving at her eagerly before the scene changed again.

This time, it was a house on fire, the flames leaping high into the air and she twitched, both in her dream and on the biobed, as she felt the heat reach out, then withdraw. And something fell into place as she shied away from the once again expanding flames. This was familiar, this heat, but not from a house... No, there was something else that was on the tip of her mind, eluding her.

Again, the scene changed to a frigid wasteland and she brought her arms up to hug herself as the wind chilled her to the bone. There was something soothing about the cold, but she just couldn't get warm and she longed for that fire again, despite that her instinct told her it would be a bad thing.

Syrial, exhausted, had turned to cleaning out the sickbay. Most of the patients were stable; some still had a nurse attending to them. But none of them still quite needed the care of a doctor. As much as Syrial had wanted to just go back to their room and sleep, there was work to be done. They were cleaning up some of the blood and rags. This was probably something they could have asked somebody else in their department to do, but everybody was probably just as tired as they were.

When the doctor glanced over at Calypso, they noticed that her readings had changed a bit. She was no longer in that dreamless state of unconsciousness, but rather in sleep. Normally Syrial would have just let the woman rest, but they needed their Captain - and besides, this didn't look like a particularly comforting dream based on those readings.

"Good morning," Syrial stepped over towards their captain, placing a hand on her (uninjured) shoulder, trying to wake her. If that didn't work, they could pull out a hypospray, try something more forceful.

Fire again blossomed, despite Syrial’s gentleness, it was the pressure that cause it and Calypso jerked unconsciously. In her dream, something tugged at her leg, followed by the whip-crack that sounded like a bullwhip. A solid kick to her gut followed by another crack, that sounded like a pistol and then her shoulder burned as yet another shot, clearly a gun this time, sounded. In her dream, it felt like minutes, hours as she fell, fell into darkness, seeing the ground coming up to meet her once again.

Syrial removed their hand for a moment as Calypso moved, then replace it, gentle. The woman seemed to have noticed their touch, at least. She was likely waking up now.

Just as the ground came up to meet her, Calypso’s eyes finally opened wide as her system shook her out of sleep and she tried to sit up suddenly, but was held down on the bed as she inhaled sharply and looked around in panic. “Whadfcheppnd?” She said, completely unintelligible, again trying to sit up, again denied.

"Gentle," Syrial cautioned with a partial smile. "You shouldn't be moving yet."

“Nnnnnnn.” Cally shook her head, swallowing hard, but her mouth was sticky and didn’t really want to work properly, “Shouldn’t, hell.” She got out, trying once again to sit up, this time with her bad arm, stopping almost instantly with a gasp of pain and laying back down, “Perhaps I shouldn’t be moving just yet.” She corrected herself, giving a shameful look at the doctor before realizing that she was most definitely out of uniform under the blanket, her face growing still, “How bad?”

"I do believe you've got a good prognosis. It will just take time to heal. I saved the bullet fragments, though, if you want a souvenir," the doctor gave an amused smile. They were obviously not happy, but they were attempting to add what little light they could to the situation. "As for the mission, I can't say that it's doing great." The J'naii had served on nine other Starfleet ships before this one. They had no problems making a quick assessment of the mission. Their concerns had been founded after all. As much as Syrial would obviously side with their crew and their Captain, they could sympathize with the Dexicans who had done this. Their government had backed them into a corner with this one, and a cornered animal was likely to fight.

"Is there someone that can give me a brief on the situation? Or is the Exec available?" Cally knew she could trust Tyler to handle things, he was probably already on top of the situation.

"Tyler was wounded as well. He's being treated," Syrial responded. "Frankly, I've been too busy here in the sickbay to keep track of the situation. I believe that Lieutenant Vianelli is handling the bridge. But honestly, Captain - you should rest. Nobody makes good decisions right after waking up from surgery."

“I need a uniform.” Cally said firmly, closing her eyes in concentration, having set up all her mental barriers again, “I know I had one when I came in, at least, I’m pretty sure I did.” She smiled towards where Syrial was.

"You had one, yes. But that uniform is not, well, not exactly usable any longer. What with all the blood and holes in it." The doctor thought for a moment. "I suppose we could send somebody to get a new one from your quarters. Though as to whether you should be up and about..."

“Should I be up and around?” Cally asked with a pained chuckle, “No, probably not. But I need to be on the bridge. Look, doc, Syrial, I’ll make you a deal… Give me something else to make me feel like I can actually survive, a uniform and a bit of assistance to get to the bridge. I promise, word of honor, that after this situation gets dealt with, I’ll come right back here and you can keep me out of trouble. I’ll even throw in a bonus, after I’m all recovered, I’ll willingly come in for my physical exam. No fussing, maybe a little complaining, but you can poke and prod me to your J’naii’s hearts content, okay?”

"I can give you something to dull it a little, but walking is still probably a no go. A uniform, I can probably do. But with that leg and shoulder, you're beyond crutches. You'd either need a buff guy to carry you to the bridge or a hover chair, and I don't know how you run the place but I can't say I've personally seen a Captain do either." The doctor picked up a nearby PADD and did put in the request for the uniform and medicine, though. "And as for the exam; we'll be seeing plenty of each other in there coming days." They grinned. "You have a lot of follow up appointments scheduled, after that."

"I'll accept the uniform and the hover chair." Calypso grimaced at the thought of being back here again... And again, "And all of the appointments, not like I have a choice on those. If I didn't say it before, thank you, Syrial, thank you for saving my life. I'll try to dodge the bullets next time."

"It's my job," the J'naii shrugged, but they did smile. "As for the appointments; well, I suppose you do have a choice of not showing up. If you don't care about keeping the nerves in your arm, that is." They grinned at the joke. Their humor was perhaps a bit dark but after being a doctor for a couple decades, they had dark humor. "And for dodging bullets... well..." They shrugged again. "We knew this was a dangerous mission from the get go." The J'naii didn't bring up the fact that they had told the Captain this was a bad idea beforehand. It's not like she could have changed how things went, after all. "They're bringing the uniform and chair now."

"And the meds?" Calypso asked, exhaling with a sigh, then reached out a hand, "And a bit of a hand to get myself up a bit? I get this feeling that this is going to hurt..."

Syrial grabbed the Captain's hand to help her up. The doctor gave a weak smile. "We're getting the medicine ready now. Just don't work yourself too hard."

"I'll try not to." Cally promised as she grimaced at the sharp poke of pain the sitting up caused, "I'll really try."