Personal log, Stardate 40932.51

Posted on 09 Aug 2020 @ 8:56am by Lieutenant T'Char Le'el
Edited on 09 Aug 2020 @ 8:58am

There’s a hot flash of orange light, rippling with red arcs like the jets in a solar flare. At the center of the room is a trinary cluster, 40 Eridani. The Vulcan system in miniature. It hurts to look at it, but she can’t move. The heat seems to be pulling her towards the three suns, like the gravity well has a hold on her. Two figures are being pulled in with her, one of them is facing away and the other is smiling at her. It’s too bright to see their faces, but she knows them somehow. She tries to reach out and grab them, to pull them back from the stars but they sink deeper into the gravity well and fade away from view. A solar flare explodes from 40 Eridani A, growing larger and larger with each passing second. It causes the front of her uniform to burst into flames, starting at her gut over her heart, before it gets within a few hundred kilometres. The pain is unbearable, and she opens her mouth to scream, but there’s no air in a vacuum. The lab is replaced by the vastness of space and the flare hits her body like a sandstorm hitting a dead bush.

T’Char opens her eyes and sits up straight in the biobed. Surprisingly, her midriff doesn’t hurt as much as it did when she fell asleep. Which is odd, because she doesn’t remember falling asleep to begin with. She was in sickbay with Doctor H’Rilla and Kyr, and she reluctantly let herself onto the bed- there was a lot of pain in her arms and her stomach- ah. The hypospray. She grabs at her neck instinctively. Obviously there’s nothing there.
She painstakingly turns her body around to hang her feet over the biobed, scanning the console above her head for information. Apparently the plasma conduit overloading at her console had caused her to puncture a lung and suffer internal bruising. Her forearms took the brunt of the debris, at the cost of a series of intense burns. Considerably less damage accosted from the experience, compared to her last close encounter with plasma in places it shouldn’t be. She brushes the console to clear her data, entering her officer-specific code to wipe the biobed memory so she can leave without medical clearance.

Standing up is a bit difficult, and as she does it feels like her heart suddenly leaps into her chest like she was a human; it takes effort not to throw up her last salad. The nausea is powerful, and it makes her lightheaded enough to sit back down on the bed. As soon as she does the Vulcan feels a bit better, and she lets herself take a few deep breaths. It occurs to her that she has no idea how long she was out, so she turns to the console behind her. The results aren’t encouraging.
A few minutes of controlled breathing later and she’s ready to try standing up again. This time the nausea isn’t as bad, and it only makes her a little dizzy. After waiting another moment for her vision to stop wobbling, she starts to make her way slowly to crew quarters, tentatively exiting the medbay.

~
“Begin personal log, stardate 40932 point-” Her voice is hoarse and dry, like somebody who just woke up. T’Char glances at the console on her desk as she sits on her chair, cradling her still mildly aching left arm. Her vision is a bit blurry and she doesn’t care enough to lean forwards to get a better view.
“Nash-veh ri tor fai-tor, very late. I have returned from sickbay following a shameful performance of my duties on the bridge.”

She turns to face her window. “During the events of today, the Boston was assaulted by Orion vessels of unknown origin. Damage to the ship resulted in the bridge Science two console rupturing from a plasma conduit overload while I was stationed there.”

T’Char grimaces and massages her arm.
“My task was to expedite a trace of the molecular compounds in the bio-mimetic gel recovered from Farius Prime, in order to determine a source of the manufacturer. I was damaged, and could not effectively complete my work, no doubt to the disappointment of the Captain.”

The ache doesn’t seem to go away, and her arm just gets sore as she rubs the muscles. It’s hard to resist trying to squeeze it to make it feel better, but she manages. Perhaps she should not have left sickbay so early, the dermal regeneration may not be totally complete. But, that’s irrelevant now.

“As a result of my incapacitation, I was not able to finish the database tracking algorithm. Therefore I do not have the results he requested. In fact-”
The Vulcan leans forwards to stand up, but her nausea returns just as quickly as she began moving. It forces her to lean back and inhale slowly.
“I do not know the status of the research in any capacity. I was unable to monitor the progress of the trace after being admitted for treatment. I can only surmise that the data has been lost or otherwise corrupted by the interruption to the computer system from the detonation. When I am able a few hours from now, I will complete the process and recover whatever information was lost. I should collaborate with Lieutenant Tyler. He has likely done all he can to ensure the success of the analysis. ”

She pinches the bridge of her nose and bites her lip, trying to realign her internal gyroscope so it doesn’t feel like she’s falling off a bridge at 20kph. It doesn’t help much.

“It would seem somewhat… fateful that Kyr was stationed on the bridge at the time of the attack. He has escorted me to sickbay for the second time. No doubt he must think of me as an om'toi duhsu, as evidenced by my behavior around him.”
T’Char squeezes her eyes closed and moves her hand from her nose to her forehead to press on her temple with three fingers. She rubs the center of her brow counterclockwise to massage a pressure point, as a preventative measure against a migraine.

“He would be correct in such an assumption regardless. I should not have allowed myself to become injured. Though I suppose it is fortunate that I am the only one who suffered a critical impairment while at my station. My tolerance for injury is somewhat higher than the Humans… or Andorians that I work with.”
The short massage will have to be enough. She stands up slowly, using her left hand to grip the desk as a crutch while the right holds the arm of the chair to keep it steady. Miraculously the deck doesn’t seem to drop out from underneath her, but her vision still spins slowly.

“During the initial conflict, the ship was apparently boarded by Orion raiders- the assault being a diversionary tactic to put an away team on the lower decks. Thankfully the gel was untouched, as I understand it. The biological sweep will not be complete for some time, so there very well may be traces of Pravum-Ataraxia contaminating the substance yet undiscovered. If such a weapon were to fall into the hands of the Orion Syndicate- well, I believe the logical assumption for the conclusion of that scenario is rather obvious.”

She makes her way to the small replicator on the far wall by the bed, pressing a preset button on the top right to begin the materialization sequence for a hot cup of green tea. A short buzz later and the smell of warm Camellia fills her cabin. The Vulcan finds the odor to have a numbing effect on her acute Vulcan senses, having used it previously to deal with the scent of Humans. However, it also happens to be an excellent form of nausea reduction.

“I had meant to discuss… some things with Kyr today.” She sips her tea, quickly swallowing the scalding liquid so it reaches her malaised tummy as fast as inhumanly possible. If the Vulcan doesn’t do something to assuage her current condition, it occurs to her that she might fall over. And that would just be embarrassing.

“Mainly, the happenstance of Doctor Velires at the site where the gel was retrieved. As I have stated in previous logs, his relationship to her was not positive. I felt tha-” T’Char cuts herself off. She felt? Perhaps if she was ready to admit that, she should put the tea down and head back to sickbay. Om'toi duhsu indeed.

She moves to her bed, easing herself gently under the window to sit with her legs together. The mug is clutched in both hands, as she wafts the steam under her nose to help herself calm down.
“I, considered that he may feel a sense of unease at her appearance. My hope was to offer my support in managing the many emotions he must be experiencing at a time such as this. I can understand the distress that comes with being reminded of a negative experience, all too well.”

The Vulcan sips her tea again, grimacing. “There is certainly a grim irony in the fact that he has spent yet another day helping me with my errant emotions instead. If my weh-rom tevik ko-mekh could see me now, she’d disown me a second time. End log.”

She raises her mug, spitefully toasting the fallen. If she didn’t need this brew so badly she might’ve thrown it against the wall. T’Char thinks she’d better take another sip before she starts behaving like a os-shidik Rihansu.