Posted by Lieutenant SEAI (Chief Medical Officer) in Sickbay - Nakuto seeks medical assistance

Posted by Civilian Kara Nakuto (Civilian, Former CO) in Sickbay - Nakuto seeks medical assistance

Posted by Lieutenant SEAI (Chief Medical Officer) in Sickbay - Nakuto seeks medical assistance
Posted by… suppressed (3) by the Post Ghost! 👻
She was broken. Physically, mentally and spiritually. But while her ravaged mind might never fully recover from the horrors she had been subjected to, Nakuto clung to the knowledge that her body, at least, could be healed. Her once proud and noble stride had been contorted into a pathetic shuffle, every step causing her a measure of pain as she fixed her eyes on the corridor ahead and attempted to block out the whispers from all around. The rumour of her return had spread throughout the ship with customary lightning speed. And yet for those unfortunate enough to lay eyes on her, they could be forgiven for mistaking their once-valiant former Captain for nothing more than a shadow-wraith.

Her last appearance in the understocked and understaffed sickbay of the USS Viking had heralded an incident of mass hysteria that almost descended into all-out war. But this time there was no commotion to precede her arrival. She was just one more invalid, desperately seeking a miracle.

Moving over to an empty biobed, its half-illuminated control panel indicating that it was at least somewhat functional, the half-Klingon collapsed onto its cushion-like surface and wrapped the thin blanket around her in the manner of a small and frightened child. Here she would wait for assistance. And until it came, perhaps, she could risk an attempt at sleep.

• Kara Nakuto

The door to the CMO’s office slowly opened, and SEAI strode out, having been notified of the latest arrival. Her eyes widened slightly at the sight of the former Captain, but she quickly set herself to calculating the square root of Pi. After all, it would not do to let her emotions get out of hand in a situation such as this. She set out her medical tools with a practiced precision while her internal tricorder and other sensors started to scan the Captain. While the scans were happening, she decided to see how conscious her patient was, “You know, since the ‘incident’ that occurred, there have been over 342 sightings of your form. Most have turned out to be hallucinations, others have turned out to be practical jokes by those who really wanted some quality time with our favourite security officer. However, I do believe that I cannot have hallucinations, and no one would dare to try and play a joke on me, therefore, you are either real, or think that you are real.”

Lt. SEAI (CMO)

OOC: “quickly set herself to calculating the square root of Pi” haha! I love it! It’s good to see my favourite creepy AI again :P

IC: “Real?” Nakuto responded, her eyes still directed down at her own pathetic frame. “I…I am not entirely sure. I was hoping that a doctor could make that determination for me.”

Her gaze finally rising, Nakuto took in the always-unsettling vision of the Viking’s android doctor. Right now her synthetic form was a far better approximation of ‘normal’ than Kara’s own mangled limbs. And yet still there remained that indefinable something, that fleeting dip into the uncanny valley when one studied SEAI too closely. But the medic had become intrinsically linked to the Viking’s sickbay in the mind of her former Captain. And right now, the familiarity of her presence was the foundation Kara needed more than anything.

“I will require a lot of work, Doctor,” Nakuto apologised. “A lot of healing.” She knew that the medical department was low on resources and felt a good deal of guilt for preparing to consume so many of them. And yet, if she truly had survived then SEAI was the only person who could rebuild her.

---

OOC: So Kara’s readouts will show several things. She is emaciated and massively dehydrated. There is evidence of numerous breaks and fractures over her entire body, most of which have healed or at least begun to heal now, although two fingers on her left hand have taken on a somewhat crooked alignment. Although her condition is not critical, it’s clear she has suffered a massive and prolonged trauma that has left her in a weakened state. Oh and she’s not had a drop of bloodwine for about a year!

But, what SEAI might find the most interesting is that her brain activity appears to have changed from what was recorded on her last physical, particularly around her dopaminergic pathways.

---

IC: Nakuto laid back and watched the Doctor at her work. “It is…good to see you again, SEAI,” she finally admitted. “It is good to know that you survived. I know a significant number of the medical crew did not.”

So much had happened in her final weeks onboard the Viking. And doubtless this unrelenting onslaught of chaos and tragedy had continued to batter the crew in the year she had been away. There was a great deal Nakuto needed to learn on the current state of her former vessel, a great deal she needed to discover from the men and women still onboard.

But first a more pressing issue demanded attention. An issue already casting a trail of unease throughout her entire being.
“SEAI,” she began, “you said that I had been…seen on the Viking numerous times over the past year. Was I always a hallucination or…was there even a moment when I had substance? Have I truly been away for so long or was I merely on a different plane, walking the same space and breathing the same air…only from a different world?”

Kara Nakuto

At first, the android did not answer, as she was analyzing the results. However, as soon as she finished, she picked up a laser scalpel and started to cut along areas that needed some more close attention, “If I were organic, I would probably give a handful of excuses about what could have happened. However, that is a fools errand, as I am not a scientist, and cannot make a conclusion based on data that I do not have. What I do know is that these injuries are real,” without pausing, she dislocated the ex-captain’s fingers, and started to realign them, “and that many of the crew that I treated for possible hallucinations had no medical issues that could cause them. At least from a medical point of view, they did see you, or at least, something that looked just like you.” After the fingers, she started to reconstruct damaged muscle tissue, “If you want something more concrete, I would speak to the science department, they need something intelligent to do anyways.”

SEAI (CMO)

SEAI. The android had been programmed with the wit of a thousand knives. Kara had missed it and, despite the pain coursing through her body, she could not restrain the wide smile that spread across her lips.
“I see,” she replied, laughing. “Then I shall be sure to deliver them a conundrum of epic proportions once you are done with me.”

Lapsing into silence once more, Nakuto gently flexed her fingers, the joints suddenly pain-free now reset into their correct configurations. Testing her grip it felt strong and confident once again. Like a true Klingon.

The tissue regenerator burned, the heat like a soothing bath for her torn and ruptured muscles. Her mind began to recall those heady days spent in the sauna with Maj…but she was quick to block them out. Too painful still to remember her.

“And you, SEAI,” she continued to make conversation as distraction to her own intrusive thoughts, although the question was no less sincere for its dual-nature. “How have you been?”

Kara Nakuto

OOC: My apologies for the delay

SEAI tilted her head for the a moment, “I have been… decent. It is strange. I left the Viking for a short medical conference, and when I return, almost everything has changed. I can almost equate it to your experience, minus the wounds of course. So many people have left, while others have joined. Is this what life is truly like, to drift from one position to the other?”

SEAI (CMO)

Kara laughed at the android’s peculiar choice of words. ‘Decent’. Perhaps that was all any of them could ask for, cocooned on a vessel such as this one - to be decent.

In response to the CMO’s question, she offered a contemplative shrug.
“Some people are great believers in fate,” she attempted to explain. “They take great comfort in the prospect of their lives - the choices they make, the paths that they find themselves on - being ultimately out of their control. It is…easier for them to trust in a higher power, their every breath already calculated and pre-determined by hands other than their own.”

The half-Klingon shook her head as if to dismiss such a notion from her own cluttered thoughts.

“Others believe that life is merely a presentation of continual possibilities, that every choice we make, every action we perform, vastly alters not only our own lives but the lives of all those within their reach. Maybe even further than that. If a butterfly flaps his wings, does that tiny, almost imperceptible displacement of air magnify and create a hurricane on the opposite side of the quadrant?”

She shrugged. Chaos theory had always appealed to her Klingon sensibilities, the idea that, whether by chance or by design, she could wield a power capable of traversing not only space but time as well. The unspoken downside of such causality, however, was that if she truly could affect those at the far reaches of the universe then they could also affect her and in equal measure.

“There is a saying, SEAI, that humans are rather fond of. “Life is what you make it”. Perhaps you also wish to believe in fate? Perhaps every single step that you will ever take has already been coded and integrated into your core programming.”
She paused to allow the android to consider such a notion.

“It is still a matter for intense debate in some corners of the quadrant - can a machine ever achieve true sentience? Or does the complexity of its programming merely present us with an illusionary approximation of life? What are the fundamental properties with which we signify existence? That we breathe? That we eat and sleep and procreate? Or is it the capacity for independent thought? For empathy and consideration, for…love shared between two separate entities becoming one?”

Nakuto swept out a hand, as if with the gesture she could dissipate those questions, those doubts still shared by so many, even when the technology to refute them stood at their side.

“But it matters not what others believe, SEAI,” Nakuto concluded, rising now to a seated position so that she could observe the CMO directly. “The only thing that matters is what you believe. Do you look to your programming to dictate the path of your life? Or do you possess the courage and the strength to reject that well-worn path and instead cut another entirely of your own design?”

Kara Nakuto