Medical Mystery - part 5

Posted on Tue Feb 17th, 2026 @ 2:54am by Captain Rhenora Kaylen & Lieutenant JG Rowan Hale & Lieutenant JG Olivia Voight

2,217 words; about a 11 minute read

Mission: Beholder
Location: Sickbay

It was the next morning when Captain Kaylen strode into sickbay, the plan to trap the Vezda in the Moebius loop already taking shape. She was here to address the one unknown left in the equation, time. The only person who had any idea how much time they had was recovering in sickbay after nearly two centuries being a guardian.

The Bajoran looked for the CMO as she entered, seeing the lights dimmed and Batel's eyes closed. She spied Rowan in his office and headed there, keeping her footsteps as quiet as possible. She knocked gently on the doorframe.

"How is your patient?" A simple question that asked so many more at the same time.

Rowan looked up when Kaylen appeared at the doorway. The lights in Sickbay were still in low-cycle mode. Beyond the glass, Batel rested, biobed fields faintly luminated.

“She slept,” he said first. It wasn't just a status update. It was reassurance.

He set the PADD down and rose, stepping closer to the threshold so they wouldn’t have to speak across the room.

“Neural activity stabilized overnight. No arrhythmic spikes. She’s orienting coherently. We introduced temporal displacement in general terms only. No quantification.” He paused briefly. “She’s integrating rather than fragmenting. That’s promising.”

His gaze held hers. “I assume you wouldn’t be here this early without a plan forming.”

He studied the Captain’s face, measuring urgency.

“How time-sensitive is this conversation?”

"I need to understand if we have hours, days, or longer to execute this plan of action. It will possibly affect the quality of the containment we use" she admitted, leaning against the doorway. She shifted, rotating 180 degrees to see the woman out of time itself. "Does she remember anything?" She asked quietly, if the answer was no the conversation with Batel would be moot.

Rowan followed her gaze.

Batel hadn’t moved. The biobed monitors traced their soft, steady rhythms. For someone who had carried centuries alone, she looked impossibly still.

“She remembers,” Rowan said quietly. "There’s anticipatory activity in her neural patterns. She may not be consciously framing it, but her system is."

He folded his arms loosely, not defensive, just grounding himself in the facts. “She knows something is coming. She doesn’t know when. Or if ‘when’ even applies the way we think it does.”

A beat.

“If you’re asking whether we have a countdown, Captain… we don’t. If you’re asking whether she believes the loop can tighten without warning?”

He didn’t soften it.

“Yes.”

A quiet shift of footsteps sounded from the main ward.

Olivia paused just inside the threshold of Sickbay, having clearly arrived moments earlier than either of them realized. She took in the dim lighting, the captain’s posture, Rowan’s tone. Her eyes moved instinctively to Batel’s biobed.

“Am I interrupting?” she asked gently, though she didn’t retreat.

She stepped further in anyway, hands clasped loosely at her front. “She was asking for water earlier. Her voice is stronger today.”

Her gaze flicked briefly between Rowan and Kaylen.

“And she asked what day it was.”

Rowan exhaled almost imperceptibly.

“She’s anchoring,” he explained. “Testing continuity.”

Olivia looked back at Batel again. Rowan returned his attention to Kaylen.

“If you need to speak with her, you can. But carefully. No numbers. No absolutes. If we introduce a fixed endpoint into her perception of time, it could destabilize the very cognitive scaffolding she’s building.”

He let that settle.

“So whatever you’re planning, Captain… we should assume the window is elastic.”

Not infinite. Not fixed. Elastic.

Rhenora paused, considering her options. "Does she know how many years have passed?" It was a simple question, but implied more. Rhenora was Bajoran, from her nose ridges to the ornate earing hanging from one ear. Bajoran's hadn't been part of the Federation in Batel's time, hadn't even been contacted the Vulcans until years after the Vadia IX incident. To show her face may cause confusion, or unravel progress.

Rowan glanced at Batel's readings, as if the monitors might offer a more objective response than he could.

“No,” he said at last. “She understands displacement. Not duration.”

His gaze shifted to Kaylen.  “She asked about temporal stasis in conceptual terms. She has not requested a number.”

He paused briefly. “And I have not provided one.”

He stepped closer to the doorway so his voice wouldn’t carry beyond it.

“If you present yourself as Captain of this vessel, she will register uniform variance, insignia variance, and species variance simultaneously. She is integrating one dislocation at a time. Starfleet first. Continuity of command second. Federation stability third.”

His eyes flicked briefly to Kaylen’s earring - not disrespectful, simply analytical.

“Introducing post-23rd century political evolution at the same moment she is evaluating existential threat containment may overload her processing.”

A beat.

“That said,” he added evenly, “concealment creates a different fracture.”

He didn’t frame it as a warning. Just physics.

“If she perceives we curated what she was allowed to see, trust erosion becomes a variable.”

Silence settled between them. 

“My recommendation, and i think Lt. Commander Vali would agree,” Rowan continued calmly, “is that you speak to her as Captain. Do not explain yourself unless she asks. Let her notice. Let her reconcile.”

He held Kaylen’s gaze. “She was a Starfleet officer before she was a Guardian. Lead with that.” His voice softened,  “If she asks how long… we give context before chronology.”

He stepped back half a pace, leaving the decision in Kaylen’s hands.

Rhenora nodded, processing this hefty weight that had been added to what she already carried. Ask the question - and she may had trauma to an already traumatised patient. Don't ask the question - and that presented a whole other raft of problems.

" Thank you Doctor, I appreciate your counsel." And she honestly did.

Olivia quietly watched the exchange between Rowan and the Captain. She wanted to give them the chance to finish their discussion. "How do you want myself or others to respond should we get asked about Captain Pike?," Olivia asked softly so as not to disturb Batel

As she spoke Batel shifted, the panel indicators moving slightly as she did so. Was she waking? Rhenora paused for a moment and simply watched, waiting.

It was a subtle shift at first. A change in respiratory cadence, a faint fluctuation along the neural trace. Then her eyelids moved, not fully opening, but no longer fully at rest.

Rowan saw it immediately.

He stepped out of his office and into the main ward without haste, adjusting the biobed’s environmental field down another fraction to ease the transition from sleep to wakefulness.

Batel’s fingers flexed against the biobed surface. Her brow tightened briefly, as if surfacing through layers. Rowan moved into her line of sight without crowding it.

“Captain,” he said evenly. “You’re in Sickbay. You rested.”

He didn’t ask questions yet.  Behind him, he could feel Kaylen’s presence in the doorway - waiting, disciplined.

“Lieutenant,” he said calmly, addressing Olivia, “notify Lieutenant Commander Vali that the patient is awake and orienting.”

A beat.

“Ask her to join us.” Clear. Clinical. Non urgent but necessary just the same.

He returned his attention fully to Batel. “Take your time,” he added quietly to her. “No one is rushing you.”

"On it, sir," Olivia said as she stepped away just enough to place the call to Lieutenant Commander Vali.

Rhenora waited, patience was something she could do, to rush here would be detrimental to everyone. She kept slightly concealed by the doorframe, her features in the shadows least Batel saw her as alien before she was ready.

"Sickbay to Lieutenant Commander Vali," Olivia called. "Your presence is requested here in Sickbay."

Batel continued on her journey towards wakefulness, opening sluggish but clear towards the muted ceiling lights. She licked dry lips, pausing for a moment to orientate herself. The doctors were back, voices spoke quietly, and there was another person in the room. Someone deliberate staying out of her line of sight. She could feel confusion bubble within and struggled to sit up.

Olivia caught Batel struggling to sit up out of the corner of her eye and rushed over to her side. "Captain, please," Olivia softly said. "Don't over do it any. If you need something, let me or one of the others know and we can get it for you."

"I want to sit up" Batel said simply, her voice stronger than before. "And I'd kill for a coffee"

Rowan was already adjusting the biobed controls before Batel finished speaking.

“You may sit,” he said evenly. 

The head of the biobed elevated in a smooth, controlled motion rather than allowing her to strain.
He watched her pupils as the angle changed. “Slowly,” he added. 

At the mention of coffee, something almost imperceptible shifted at the corner of his mouth.

“Coffee still exists,” he said. “That has not been lost to history.”

He adjusted the environmental field another fraction, then stepped slightly aside, not retreating, but widening the space.
Only then did he speak again.

Entering Sickbay Aurora made her way across to Rhenora offering a warm smile as she stood alongside her.

“There is someone here who would like to speak with you.” He did not look toward the doorway. “You set the pace,” he told Batel. “We will follow.”

Batel nodded and looked towards the figure in the doorway shrouded in shadow and mystery.

Rhenora stepped forward, caution in her movement but not hesitation.

"My name is Rhenora Kaylen, I'm the Captain of the Sunfire" Rhenora introduced herself, changing the traditional order of her name to keep things simple. "We share a love of coffee it seems" she drew closer to the bed, not intruding, but no longer lingering in the distance. "I'll get you some when the Doc allows it, the good stuff." She caught herself before mentioning replicators.

Batel scrutinised her apperance, her features, her uniform, and her language silently.

"I've not seen your kind before" she replied honestly.

"I am Bajoran, we are friends of the Federation." Kaylen kept things simple again. "What matters is that you are safe, and we are here to help you. I need to ask you some questions when you feel up to it, about the Vezda"

Batel's heartrate spiked, and she drew a breath to consciously steady herself.

Aurora stood watching the interaction, ready to assist if the need called for it.

"The Vezda," she repeated, grounding herself in the word instead of the century she had lost. "Status."

There was no panic in her voice. It was prioritization. Her gaze sharpened on Kaylen. “Containment held?”

Rowan watched the monitor rather than her face. “Cardiac response within acceptable range,” he said quietly, more to Kaylen than to Batel. “Proceed.”

Batel’s attention flicked once to Rowan at the phrasing, then returned to the Captain.

“You’re not a task force uniform,” she observed. “Which means this isn’t a localized breach.” There was a faint tightening at the corner of her eyes. “What stage is containment in?”

"They are still in the well, there appears to be a seal over it, however it appears to be weakening. We have a solution grounded in theoretical physics, but I need to know how long we have. In the meantime our weapons are trained on the gateway and the people of Skygowan are evacuating the local area as a precaution. " Rhenora laid her cards on the proverbial table.

Aurora moved closer simply taking her place at Rhenora’s side, there to offer some reassurance.

Batel held Kaylen's gaze without blinking. "The seal is weakening," she repeated. "Then you're not in Phase One."

Her fingers tightened slightly against the biobed's edge, but her voice remained steady.

“Phase One was containment stabilisation. Phase Two was harmonic correction. If you’re discussing theoretical physics solutions, then you’ve escalated.”

Her eyes sharpened further. “Have they begun synchronising?”

Rowan’s eyes flicked to the monitor again at the subtle increase in cardiac rhythm.

“Within acceptable limits,” he murmured quietly, tracking the exchange.

Aurora stepped closer, not intruding but allowing her presence to register in Batel’s peripheral awareness.

Batel's breathing steadied by a fraction as she looked back to Kaylen.

“The Vezda doesn’t weaken seals randomly,” she continued. “If it’s testing the boundary, then it’s mapping your response.” She paused. “Which means it’s aware.”

Her gaze flicked briefly toward Rowan, then Aurora, then returned to the Captain.

“How long has it been since the first instability?”

Rowan noted she hadn't asked how long she was gone or even how long since the century turned. Instead, she asked about mission time.

“If you intend to loop it,” she said quietly, “you will get one clean attempt. After that, it will adapt.”

Batel's eyes tightened again. “And if it adapts inside the well…”

She didn’t need to finish the sentence.

Rhenora's expression changed, very subtly, from open curiousity to 'the world may end sooner than we thought'. " So we're working against a ticking clock. In your experience, how long do we have?" She didn't want to push, but the timeline had just been accelerated.

TBC

 

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