A Matter Of Time
Posted on Apr 30, 2015 @ 1:50am by Captain Kassandra Thytos
Mission: Limbo
"A matter of time"
(cont "Bloody lucky")
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"Healing is a matter of time, but it also sometimes a matter of opportunity." - Hippocrates
Location: USS PHOENIX
Stardate: 2.15.0429.2123
Scene: Sickbay
“Everythin’ feels like lemons taste, my mouth tastes like the smell of summer rain and this place smells like C sharp,” Kassandra intoned to Cade as he set her down on the sickbay bed. “And Aerdan and Thomas sound like blue and red respectively, and I swear that’s not racist because I don’t see color.”
“Settle down, Major Pain,” Cade muttered as he cut away the oversized shirt that Kassandra was wearing. A vast improvement over the outfit she was wearing for the fight. He’d have to make fun of her for the teensy tiny hat, although it was interesting to know that she could look like a girl if she wanted to. Up until she started (inevitably) beating the shit out of someone. “You’re in no position to complain, you’re the one who decided it would be a brilliant idea to start a fight with a Klingon. You do understand the concept of maximal strength being relative to size, right? Ergo, big Klingon smash puny Human.”
“Puny human run circles around lumbering Klingon, kicks Klingon butt, idiot human turns back on Klingon to deal with homicidal maniac, forgets stupid-ass Klingon honor,” Kassandra muttered, rolling onto her side so he could look at the wound. “Can you stop poking that? It makes me taste habaneros, also: ouch.”
“If you’d shut up, I could concentrate just that much better,” Cade said as he scanned the wound.
“Caaaaaaan’t help it!” Kassandra said in a singsong voice. “I’m on riatine, joy dust, and lourkain, and whatever the hell it is that’s causing the synesthesia, I have no idea what that is, don’t think I’ve ever taken it. I was causing me to not say words that I wanted to say earlier. I don’t like it. Blerrrrrgh. My mouth tastes like stinky camembert miasma now.”
Cade looked at the readout. Kalenda’s blade had laid flesh open to the bone and scored the bone on several ribs before finally sliding into the soft spot of her side and slicing though kidneys and liver, puncturing the lung. On top of it, she must have been rolling around on the floor somewhere in Limbo because she was a veritable petri dish of exotic bacteriums and infections. Not to mention the myriad of scrapes and bruises, though those could heal naturally as long as they were cleaned properly. He was mulling over it when the Marine’s words sunk in.
“Wait, what?” He looked back down at the woman, and blinked.
“Camembert, my mouth smells like camembert, you know, the stinky cheese?” Kassandra said impatiently. “You know, I really remember taking drugs bein’ a lot more fun than this. Course, the last person who got me high was more fun to be around than Commander Serious as a Rock over there. Like, you know him. Does he ever have fun? He’s just all ‘no Major, despite how much fun it would be, you can’t go starting fights, and are you sure you know what you’re doing? No Major, that would be irresponsible, I suggest we do this a different way that’s much less fun than the way you suggested because it’s safe No Major, I never smile, why do you ask? For fun? I go to work, and if I’m wild and crazy I sometimes stay up past 8 reading medical journals.’ And then he drugs me up with some of the good stuff, *so* unfair. Not to mention his condescending antennae! ”
Her soft lisping imitation of Aerdan Jos was surprisingly dead on, if somewhat unflattering.
A huge grin began to spread across Cade’s face. This was like Christmas and his birthday all in one. Truth serums, suggestibility, and lowered inhibitions? It was time to have some well earned fun with the Major.
He looked at the readouts again. It was going to be a slightly longer process than normal. The Marine’s tissues were in the process of becoming slow to react to dermal regeneration, the telomeres were getting too short, causing the rate of cell replication to slow and mutated cells to become more common.
It was a commonly seen phenomenon when tissues were repeatedly healed using medical devices, and explained the amount of scar tissue and naturally healed wounds on the woman’s body. Fighters and those with dangerous occupations often eschewed dermal regeneration once their tissues began to show signs of resisting treatment, instead leaving non life threatening injuries to heal naturally and deal with the side effects, so that modern medicine would remain effective for life or death injuries
.
“So, you think Commander Jos is no fun? What must you think of the Captain?” Cade asked with a devilish twinkle in his eye he saw Captain Kane entering the sickbay to talk to their captured psycho. He began to bring the bed’s genetic splicers on board and programmed in a telomere sequence. He hadn’t worked on anyone with dermal regenerator resistance recently, but he was fairly certain that if he just elongated the telomeres on the cells on either side of the wound that he would likely be able to regenerate the tissues at the normal speed. It would take some time, but he’d need that time to root out all those nasty little bugs she’d picked up. At least analyzing them would be interesting. Perhaps there were even some that hadn’t been described in medical journals yet.
“Oh, the Captain just needs laid. That’d probably take care of the giant stick up his ass. And I don’t get why he hates Marines. I never did anythin’ to him. I’m nice as pie. Yessir, no sir, anythin' you like sir and don’t you look very handsome in that haircut sir. And what do I get in return? Oh Kassandra, ‘tis nice that ya saved me ship, and I realize that we’ve got not a soul on baird that can hit the broad side of a barn, but I don’t like yer Marines, and ye all are blunt instruments I got no intention a’ using, even though my only other option is to try usin’ a fecking frying pan tied to a rubber chicken,” Kassandra’s voice was loud as she exaggerated the Irish Captain’s brogue. Kane’s head swiveled towards them and he raised an eyebrow at Cade. Cade shrugged innocently.
“Don’t get me wrong, the Commander and the Captain are solid, but they need to have a little fun. Like, maybe we should be taking them to Risa, and like, I dunno, going to a strip club or something.”
“Go to a lot of those?” Cade turned on the splicers and began to prep a blood scrubber. The scrubber had a miniature transporter in it, blood from the patient would enter one cell, and then blood and plasma would be transported out of the first cell into a second where it would be pumped back into the patient, while foreign cells and viruses remained contained in the first cell. Kassandra squirmed a bit as the gene splicers began their work.
“Pre blindness, yeah, post? Well it just ain’t very interesting to watch people take off stuff when you know exactly what’s underneath. Kinda kills the fun of getting someone new into bed too, if I’m honest,” Kassandra said with a sigh.
She lapsed into humming old earth ballads to herself tunelessly, and muttering about the effects of synesthesia.
The door to the sickbay opened, and Cindy Rochemonte entered, a sour look on her face. Cade remembered the shouting match Kassandra and Cindy had in sickbay once before, and decided that this would be the perfect chance to keep things interesting.
“Well, that Cindy Rochemonte should be here soon to take a look at that processing unit of yours,” Cade said with a barely concealed look of glee on his face. Aerdan looked up from where he was working on Evangeline Montoya, glanced at Cindy, and gave Cade a look of reproof.
“Noooo,” Kass frowned. “Not her! Cindy Fuckin’ Rochemonte drives me nuts. She’s gonna talk my ear off, and right now, that’s the only organ I’ve got functionin’ properly. Can’t Jake come instead? I mean, she’s a very smart girl, but she’s as annoyin’ as hell. Like ‘ooh, I am so, how you say, adorkable, with my glasses, even zo we have cured poor vision, so I have no idea why ze fuck I wear zem, since zey cannot be of any use to me whatsoever! I am very smart, but you would never know it because I am so damn klutzy, and oh! Do you think I am pretty Jake? Why won’t you leave zat bitch wife of yours so that-“
Cindy was over the bed and slapped Kassandra hard in the face. Kassandra made a spluttering noise and Cade had to turn on the immobilization field to keep her from slithering off the bed.
“For the record, that wasn’t me,” Cade said cheerfully.
“No, that was me!” Cindy snapped. “And if I were you I would be more respectful of someone who is going to be fixing a key component of your sensor net system. How dare you judge me, salope! You’re the one who they call the Butcher, we all saw the promotions. If it were up to me, I would let you sit in the dark forever.”
She pulled out a watch-like object, and slapped it on the bed next to Kassandra’s head. Kassandra winced slightly and murmured something about ginger and gasoline. Cindy ignored her, pointedly avoiding looking at her. A rather silly gesture considering Kassandra couldn’t even tell she was being snubbed.
“Doctor Foster, please remove the damaged component, and put this on her wrist. I’d tell her how to use it, but I wouldn’t want to inflict myself on her any more than I already have.”
Cindy snatched the processor from Cade’s hand and spun on her heel, fairly flouncing out of the room. Kassandra remained quiet, and Cade felt guilty. Just a little.
A very little.
Cade continued to work, and an hour later, he had fixed her injuries to his satisfaction. She was beginning to come off of the drugs that had been in Montoya’s blood, and he could tell that she was in some pain.
“Now, you’ll need to stay off of that for at least a few days, the new tissue is still weak and will be until the collagen sets and the cells bulk up to normal size- I don’t want you tearing or traumatizing it, you aren’t going to enjoy it one bit if you end up with scar tissue, you’ll be stiff and I’ll have to re-heal you, and I hate having my work ruined. Now that wound is going to hurt like hell until the neurons have finished making all their connections and growing to sufficient size to accommodate all the receptors, but I can give you something for that.”
Kassandra waved him off.
“Thanks Doctor, but I think I’ll pass on anythin’ else,” Kassandra said prodding her side and wincing. “I think it’s probably better for me if I remember how awful the crash is after the high. I used to be over fond of takin’ some of whatever Miss Montoya was on, so I’ll just skip on anythin’ that’ll make me feel better. I’d prefer to remember how absolutely rotten the aftermath is.”
Now Cade felt very guilty.
“And, it may just be the remainder of the drugs talkin’, but I want to apologize for breakin’ your nose. I was hurtin’, you provided me a good excuse to lash out. So. Sorry, and I hope we can reach some sorta entente,” Kassandra added extending her hand and twisting the knife further.
“Not necessary. Let me get engineering to beam you to your quarters, you probably want to maintain your dignity and not walk around in a sickbay gown,” Cade felt supremely uncomfortable now. It had been much easier to mess with her when he thought she was a bit of a bitch, rather than when you actually saw them as a fully fledged human being. The redhead nodded wanly and gave a small smile as she vanished in the blue of the transporter.
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Scene: Marine Quarters
Kassandra materialized in her quarters, her knees wobbling slightly. She wasn’t feeling very well. It was a familiar feeling, the aftermath of an endorphin crash and the depletion of serotonin in the brain. In the past her solution had always been to go back to the hair of the dog that bit her, but that wasn’t really a viable option right now, though she supposed some of the refugees might have a little illicit something on them. But then again, she had something now that she didn’t have then: self respect and a purpose in life.
She took a few steps forward, and the device on her wrist beeped. Kassandra stopped and frowned at her wrist and took another step, promptly tumbling over the ottoman of her chair. She cursed, and her wrist beeped again as she hopped around and slammed her hip into the edge of the table. She paused, and moved back towards the table.
Beep.
She slid her hand forward and touched the edge of the table, and stepped back, then forward again.
Beep.
A proximity detector. It would warn her before she bumped into anything. She supposed that would be useful. She visualized the layout of her small room, and turned in the direction she thought her closet was. She walked forward until she heard the beep, and put her hands out to open up the door. Her hands darted in and out of the closet until she’d found an outfit which felt like it would be easy to put on.
She pulled it on, and hoped that it wasn’t ridiculous looking. Since most of her own clothes had been destroyed on the DISCOVERY, she had mostly only the items that the Twins had bought for her, since there hadn’t been enough resources for her to replicate her usual cargo pants and tank top ensemble. That significantly upped the chances that whatever she’d pulled out would be a disaster.
She walked towards the door, feeling the slick smoothness of the deckplates beneath her feet, and the distant thrumming of the engines. The band around her arm chimed, and a computer voice spoke.
[[It appears you are leaving your current location. What is your destination?]] The computer said tinnily.
“Uh. I don’t know. Where are the refugees being sent? I think there was some guy beamed aboard the same time I was, I guess I’d like to go to wherever he was beamed, I think his name was Jacen somethin’ or other.” Kassandra felt a little reassured that she wasn’t going to be completely grounded for as long as it took Cindy Rochemonte to grudgingly repair the processor for her sensor nets. She was still scared of the Darkness, but she’d been scared for so long that it was starting to settle into background noise.
[[Jacen Barnes is in the main cargobay. Please proceed five meters to the door, and make a right.]]
Kassandra moved forward and felt and heard the whoosh of air as the door opened in front of her. The air in the main Marine Barracks was warmer than her quarters, and there was a cheerful energy in the air. From off to her left she heard the rustle of cards and the telltale crinkle of rationpacks being bundled away.
Heavy footsteps that could only belong to Horatio Bellecotte crossed the floor towards her, at a quick pace. She stopped still to allow him to give her his usual hug and worried scolding, and was surprised when she found herself being cuffed hard on the back of the head.
“Hey-“ She said indignantly, blindly turning to face where she thought Harry stood.
“That were for forgetting the first damn thing I taught you when you enrolled! Never turn your back on an opponent unless you know damn well they won’t be getting back up!” Harry bellowed, his hot breath blasting into her face like a second slap. She felt his hands around her shoulders and he shook her hard. “And that’s for worrying the hell out of me.”
Kassandra’s mouth opened wordlessly once or twice, and she felt her ears burning.
“Not in front of the men, Harry,” she hissed at him.
“… Have you been using again?” A giant hand pulled her face around, presumably to examine her more closely.
“Not by choice, my blood donor was loaded,” Kassandra was done with the conversation. “Step off, would you? I nearly died, and if I wanted to be nagged to death every day I would have married you. Get the hell out of my way Gunny, and that’s an ORDER.”
She pushed past him with a sharp elbow, and clomped over to her locker. Horatio muttered something to the three Marines, who studiously went back to playing cards.
Whatever.
She knelt down on the floor and felt past a few pairs of boots until her hands lit on a wooden box. She pulled it out and slid her hands along it lovingly. The wood was fine grained, smooth, and aromatic. Her hands slid along it effortlessly, stirring up the spicy scent of the allspice wood. She could imagine the dark brown bottle and the two glasses snuggled inside it. Hundred year old Jamaican rum. She’d been saving it for some sort of special occasion, and she figured that having survived to fight another day after facing an angry Klingon, Rawyvin Seth, and nearly having bled out on the floor of the arena probably qualified as a one. Not to mention a vague recollection of the scent of bourbon and someone mentioning disinfectant.
If someone had given up good whiskey for to keep her wounds from festering, she definitely owed them.
“I’m going to find the person responsible for saving my life,” Kassandra turned around and gave her most ferocious snarl in the direction she hoped her Marines resided. “While I’m gone you will get a berth ready, you will put together a standard issue bag of gear, minus weapons. When I get back, you will treat him politely, and respectfully. More respectfully than you treat me, at any rate. Now hop to it.”
She walked slowly down the hall, following the tinny instructions of the wrist navigator. The halls were still eerily silent, the newcomers crammed into cargo bays, out of the way of the crew, and out of danger. The whisper of the engines grew more noticeable as she drew towards the cargo area.
The sting of Horatio’s scolding was starting to wear off, but she was still furious. Intellectually she knew he was coming from a place of worry, but emotionally she was hurting. She hadn’t expected babying, but surely he knew her better than to think she’d backslid when carrying out such a critical mission.
Her wrist device beeped, and she stopped.
[[The main cargo bay door requires special permissions to access. Please state name and rank, and authorization codes to open.]]
“Thytos, Kassandra, Captain UFP Marine Corps, authorization code Alpha Tau Omega 13,” Kassandra said brusquely.
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NRPG: Well, there we go? Post, so I don't feel guilty nagging other people to post ;)
Alix Fowler
as
Captain (Major) Kassandra Thytos,
A poor, set upon soul that sometimes acts as MCO (when she's not drinking)
USS PHOENIX
