In Starfleet days drift into weeks drift into months drift into years the longer you remain on a single assignment. Drake had been on the Ogawa long enough to see a change of Commanding Officers. He felt distant from the person he had been when he arrived. He wasn’t sure if the new person he had become was better or worse. Standing in Primary Sickbay, he reached up and touched the hollow third pip on his uniform.

The doors crashed open. A patient was gurneyed in by two nurses. The first one through the door shouted “Code purple! Code purple!” Emergency- not a cardiac arrest. Drake was moving before he knew it. A medical tricorder unfolded in his left hand, his right seizing the scanner. He scanned the patient. Human Female. Fusiform Aneurysm. “Put her in a surgical suite. Now.” The nurse nodded and Drake walked off to don surgical scrubs.

-Lt Cmdr Drake Marshall, M.D.

End Part 1