Rehabilitative Measures

Posted on Thu Jan 27th, 2011 @ 2:18am by Captain Nathan Cowell MD & Rh'sul i'Kihai

Mission: Hippocratic Hijacking
Location: Sickbay, USS Arizona
Timeline: Directly after 'Out and About'

Captain Cowell and the Romulan patient that had been discovered in the Colonial Administrator's office materialized in the center of the Sickbay. Nathan stood along side the central bed while his patient had been deposited in her same side lying position on the bed. When the Captain no longer felt the tug of the transporter, he began tending to the woman.

"Nurse," Cowell shouted, drawing the figure of a Second Class Petty Officer from across the room, "Where is Doctor Valdor?"

"She's already headed down to the planet to start getting the triage center established, Captain. Shall I call her back up here?" the woman inquired.

"No, get me a medicine dispenser and begin scans on this woman. We need to figure out what is going on and get the fever and blood pressure under control," Nathan said, pulling his tricorder back out and setting it in the cradle that sat on the outer edge of the bed. Once the tricorder was in place, Nathan reached up and pulled the woman on her back, getting her into a position so that the large scanning arch could extend over her without pinching or otherwise doing harm to her arm or side.

"Here you are, sir," the nurse said as she pushed the cart containing the hypo-ampule dispenser up to his side.

"Thank you," Cowell said in a business-like tone as he retrieved the hypo-injector from his pocket and ejected the tranquilizer that had been in it. He loaded a vial of Pescaline the Arizona kept in stock and applied it to the woman's neck. The familiar hiss of the injector sounded and soon Cowell was back to reviewing the scans from the bed. At the introduction of the Pescaline, the Romulan's heart rate began to slow some, which had the desired effect of lowering her blood pressure slightly. That, however, was not the bulk of her problem, the fever she was running was. Given the unknown nature of the virus, Nathan settled on Ryetalyn. The ship had a very limited supply, but if his hunch about her condition paid off, it might do the trick. he selected the appropriate vial and administered the drug before returning to the display.

"Sir, the scans of the viral agent are... baffling... for lack of a better word. It behaves more like a cancer than a virus, but it doesn't metastasize to any of the organs... it just sits in the blood stream and breaks down weak cellular walls along the vessels," one of the male nursing staff reported.

Nathan frowned at hearing that. If it did behave like a cancer, but it was completely mobile, medicines were going to be far less effective than they should have been since they had to target the entire body rather than a specific region or area. With a huff, Nathan pulled out a vial of Corophizine just for good measure and administered it to her before returning to the readout. Whether it was one of the drugs or a combination of all of them, the fever finally broke. Within minutes her neural scans began to show some normalcy and Doc Cowell decided it was time to see just who she was.

Reaching over, Nathan pulled out a vial of Delactovine and gave her just enough to pull her free of her coma-like state, though not so much that he risked raising her blood pressure now that it was under control.

"Good morning," Nathan said in a feigned cheerful tone, "Glad you could join us here among the land of the awake and coherent. Can you remember your name?"

Rh'sul could hear a muffled voice in the darkness, awareness slowly filling her senses. She could taste the metallic Delactovine in her mouth after the hiss of the vial as its strong medicine coursed through her veins. The medicine was like a shock to her nervous system. She felt every fiber in her extremities tingling, her consciousness growing by the second.

Training overcame her instinct, and Rh'sul immediately reached for her side-dagger with a pathetic flail. She groaned loudly when she felt the muscles in her arms failing. "I'm no one... Adam, that sonofabitch betrayed me... where is he?"

"Down on the surface, getting an earful from my 'grandson'..." Cowell scoffed at the notion.

Rh'sul refocused her eyes, the colors in the room becoming more apparent. Something in the way the room was shaped and decorated gave her a tinge of dread. Was she in enemy territory? Where was this?

"Where am I? Who are you?" Rh'sul ignored the weakness in her joints and she reached up to balance herself as she tried to rise. Her back muscles wouldn't work. "I need to catch a transport. I need to get somewhere... somewhere..."

Rh'sul suddenly realized she couldn't remember where she needed to go. The last thing she could recall was Adam standing in front of her as she collapsed to the ground. Buy why was she in Adam's office?

"You're aboard the USS Arizona, and I'm her Captain, Captain Cowell. As for you going anywhere, I'm afraid you're in no condition to do so," Nathan answered her.

As the doctor spoke, Rh'sul suddenly felt tiny fragments of the past few days coming back to her. She was on the Brakken homeworld, in Adam's colony. She remembered a lot of money, for what she didn't know. She knew it was wrong. Somehow, she was wrong. Right, she was Tal Shiar... but was she still Tal Shiar? Rh'sul's dark eyes scanned the room and she did a quick security assessment. She was alone with the doctor and two nurses, idly attending the room.

"Did you find my belongings?" Rh'sul closed her eyes and finally relaxed, quietly confidant she could take out all three in the room if needed.

"No, we just found you moaning pathetically on Mister Parker's couch. Why you were there is another matter entirely," Nathan commented as he made a quick scan of her vital signs.

"I do not recall why I was on the planet- yet," Rh'sul swallowed, the familiar headache returning. "I was... acting alone for something. Adam, he wasn't supposed to get involved."

"Suppositions are irrelevant when faced with cold hard reality, my dear. He has some explaining to do about your relationship, whether it be a working one or a personal one. I wouldn't be too offended if you cared to volunteer a little information on that front," Nathan remarked pointedly.

Rh'sul carefully considered her options. She was a rogue Tal Shiar on a Starfleet vessel. With weapon-trade money. Rh'sul stopped listening to the doctor as she pondered her next words very carefully. Without Starfleet's help, the virus would kill her. With Starfleet's help, she could survive... but what kind of life would she have? She was captive- an experience not too unfamiliar to most Tal Shiar at one point or another. But not as a rogue agent.

Rh'sul kept her eyes closed, speaking slowly. She had nothing to lose but Starfleet didn't have to know that. "I will tell you some parts about me, the parts I remember. I'm... what my previous captors called Rhi. Short for my full name, which I will not yet tell you until I have a guarantee of Federation Common Intelligence Agent Immunity... which I know your Starfleet headquarters may find very attractive for someone of my background."

"Maybe, but Starfleet isn't here right now, I am. And from my vantage point, if you are who you say you are and what you're hinting at being, I'm not all that inclined to just offer up the hand for friendship because you don't want someone to take you out before you have a chance to figure a way out of your situation. I'd need something a little more tangible than having to guess at who you are and what you have to really offer in this little exchange..." Nathan frowned at hearing a request for immunity.

"The common enemy of my enemy is often my friend," Rh'sul smiled critically, fighting the impending pain. "Now, if you'll allow me to return to my coma to heal, I'll gladly tell you what I remember of my time as a Tal Shiar agent."

"I seriously doubt a coma is going to fix what ails you, kid... but a little sleep might put you in better sorts to cough up some info..." Nathan said before reaching for a solution that would counteract the stimulant he'd given her and plunge her back into her recuperative sleep. He pressed the hypo-injector onto her neck and as the hiss of the medicine being administered into her body sounded, the last words she heard before the darkness took her was "Sleep tight, kid, you have a big day tomorrow..."