Medical Mystery - Pt 1

Posted on Thu Feb 12th, 2026 @ 12:20am by Captain Rhenora Kaylen & Commander Jennifer Baldric & Lieutenant Sarah Wilson & Lieutenant JG Olivia Voight & Lieutenant JG Rowan Hale

1,280 words; about a 6 minute read

Mission: Beholder
Location: Sickbay

The away team returned with an additional member, one who hadn't been entirely expected. The Beholder had retaken human form and was currently being supported by the ships mission advisor, Commander Baldric. The two of them had beamed directly to sickbay.

Rowan felt the transport before the pattern resolved.

Not through sensors. Through absence.

The biobeds had already adjusted themselves, anticipatory rather than reactive, inertial fields tightening a fraction too early, as if Sickbay had learned to brace before being told why. Rowan was halfway across the room when the transporter shimmer cut through the air.

Two figures. One supported. One failing to carry herself.

“Biobed one. Now,” Rowan said, sharper than he meant to be.

Commander Baldric did not argue. She half guided, half collapsed Marie Batel onto the bed, hands still locked like she was afraid letting go might undo whatever fragile rule was currently holding.

Rowan’s hands were already moving. Tricorder up. Baselines scrolling. Heart rate present but uneven. Neural activity unstable, not damaged, just… misaligned. As if her brain and body were disagreeing about what century they were supposed to be in.

“Captain Batel,” Rowan said, and then paused. Titles felt uncertain here. “Can you hear me.”

The patient's eyes fluttered. Focus tried and failed. Her lips moved, sound lagging behind intention.

“She’s been a statue,” Baldric said quietly. “For a long time.”

Rowan did not look up. He believed her. The data agreed, in its own reluctant way. Cellular degradation that should not exist, side by side with tissue that had not aged properly. Telomeres confused. Chronological markers arguing with each other.

“Vitals are stable,” he said, mostly for the room. “That’s not the same thing as safe.”

He keyed the console manually when the computer hesitated, irritation flaring. Sickbay was not built for this. Neither was he, not really, but here they were.

Another shimmer at the edge of the room. Thenis. Savar. Both upright. Both alive. Both carrying the quiet, brittle look of people who had been somewhere medicine could not follow.

Rowan glanced once, catalogued them as ambulatory, and filed them for later. One crisis at a time.

Batel’s fingers twitched against the sheet. Her breathing caught, then steadied, like someone remembering how to be physical again.

“Don’t move,” Rowan said, softer now. “Your body’s still negotiating with reality. We’ll let it win on its own terms.”

He injected a mild stabilizer, not because she needed it, but because sometimes ritual mattered. War had taught him that. Give the body something familiar to hold onto while everything else rearranged itself.

Rowan straightened slowly, the room finally catching up.

“This wasn’t containment failure,” he said, voice low, precise. “It was suspension. Active. Sustained. Whatever held her there wasn’t killing her. It was waiting.”

That thought settled badly.

He met Baldric’s eyes at last. “I’ll need time. Full scans. And I want no one touching her without clearance. Not command. Not science. Not curiosity.”

Rowan sighed.

“She’s not a statue that turned back into a woman,” Rowan added. “She’s a woman who’s been forced to remember how to exist.”

Olivia observed from a short distance away as she watched Rowan in action. It was rare for her to keep her distance, but he was her immediate supervisor and in charge of things at the moment. On the rare occasion, Olivia was able to get a new perspective on how to handle certain situations.

After observing a little, Olivia spoke up, "sir, what about ordering something nourishing for the patient to eat when they are able to handle it? I'm sure that it must have been a long time since they have had anything to eat and it might help in their recovery. We could start with something easy and then go from there on what can be tolerated."

Olivia pulled up a few suggestions on the data PADD that she had in her hand and looked them over. After highlighting a few items, she stepped closer but not so close that it would unsettle the patient. "I've highlighted several different options that may be possible options," Olivia said as she held out the data PADD. "We could start with a broth type soup, jello, popsicles, and go from there on slowly adding other items as tolerated."

Commander Baldric had stepped back, watching the medical team in action. She only had a base understanding of the medical markers on the screen but she saw they lingered in the orange zones, neither green nor red. A warning zone almost, something that could go either way.

"I was researching the Enterprise files before we went down to the planet, Captain Batel was infected with gorn eggs, and was treated using Ilurian blood products and chimera blossom to fuse it all together. It's rudimentary but it kept her alive and allowed her to become the Beholder. She needed ongoing treatments to remain stable and may continue to do so." She explained, handing over the medical files she had uncovered from centuries ago. "These guys were the trail blazers of their time"

Rowan accepted the PADD from Baldric without comment, scrolling as the old files resolved into something dangerously familiar. Crude by modern standards. Elegant for their time. Desperate. He recognized the shape of it immediately, the kind of medicine that gets practiced when there are no good options left and someone decides survival is worth the cost.

“Ilurian blood products,” he murmured. “Chimera blossom.” His mouth tightened slightly. “That would explain the cellular coherence. And why her body never finished choosing a state.”

He handed the PADD back, already pulling Batel’s scan forward again, overlaying it with projected outcomes that refused to stabilize cleanly. Nothing was failing. Nothing was resolving either.

Rowan glanced toward Olivia, then nodded once. “Good instinct. Start with clear broth only. Nothing replicated yet, I want it as simple as possible. Small volumes. Warm.” He paused, then added, “And sit with her when she eats. If she eats. Don’t make it clinical.”

Olivia nodded, already moving. “Yes sir.”

Batel stirred again, this time more deliberately. Her brow creased, fingers curling faintly as sensation reasserted itself in uneven pieces. Pain, likely. Confusion, certainly. Rowan resisted the urge to chase the monitors harder than necessary. They were telling him what they could. The rest would take time.

“You’re aboard a Starfleet vessel,” he said quietly, pitching his voice low and steady. “You’re safe. Nothing is expected of you right now. You don’t need to understand anything yet.”

Her eyes opened a fraction, unfocused, then slid shut again. It was enough.

Rowan turned slightly, just enough to address Baldric without leaving the bedside. “Whatever they did to keep her contained wasn’t passive. It required maintenance. Attention. If that stopped, even briefly, it could have killed her.” He exhaled through his nose. “Or worse.”

He didn’t elaborate. He didn’t need to.

From the corner of his vision he clocked Savar and Thenis more carefully now. Both standing, both quiet. Both with vitals that read acceptable but wrong in the way numbers sometimes were after exposure to things that did not respect continuity. He would get to them. Soon.

“For now,” Rowan said, straightening, “she stays here. Continuous monitoring. No more transports unless I authorise them. And I want a medical hold on all historical assumptions. We treat what’s in front of us, not what she was.”

He rested a hand briefly on the edge of the biobed, grounding himself before stepping back. “Whatever role she served down there, that ended the moment she rematerialized.”

TBC

 

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