Captain Seth proceeded towards the doors of the holodeck. He cradled his dislocated left arm, which now hung out of its socket. The pain seemed sharper now, now that his adrenalin was subsiding. I guess now’s a time as good as any to meet the new doctor, the captain thought to himself. He couldn’t help but feel a certain sense of humiliation and anger. What right did the Security Officer have put his captain through this? He could have thrown him into the brig for that stunt. But then again, who was going to make him? No one on the ship could take him on, except, maybe himself. Maybe Darren was just angry that he had lost. Ensign Ester insisted that she come along, if only to show him where sickbay was.
“Wait here, I’ll go in myself,” he instructed.
The sickbay was huge. It carried nearly fifty patient beds. It was filled with technological wonders, like mechanical arms for surgical procedures, a biochemical laboratory, a tissue and organ regeneration center, and a rehabilitation center. It certainly fit with idea that the Aegis-class ship was supposed to be a defense and emergency vehicle. But he was in too much pain to really notice everything that was there. One of the nurses walked up to him.
“Please, Captain, have a seat on that bed,” she said to him. “I know you’re in pain, but I’m just going to quickly take your vitals.”
“Where is the doctor?”
“Dr. Edward Min is in the other room performing surgery. Some young ensign was severely injured while on one of those holodecks. Poor guy. Turned the safety protocols off for the thrill and broke most of his rib cage as he plummeted off of a holographic cliff. Nearly permanently damaged some of his major internal organs. Unbelievable. Completely reckless.”
Seth wasn’t entirely sure if the nurse knew that he was in fact just at a holodeck. “Umm…sure. Idiots.”
Seth was starting to sweat a little from the pain. He tried to look strong for the nurse, but he wasn’t sure why. “Here, let me give you a little something to help with the pain. The doctor will be with you shortly.”
“Thank you, nurse.”
From his seat Seth could actually see Dr. Min in the other room through the glass window, working on his surgical procedure. There were a number of robotic mechanical arms surrounding the surgical bed that moved gracefully around the patient as they performed the intricate surgery. Dr. Min stood by the control, tapping a large nearby console that controlled the robotic arms with all ten fingers, like a pianist on a concert grand.
Dr. Min was a tall, slender, young Korean man. Although the inner layers of what he wore appeared to be a standard blue uniform, he wore a doctor’s white coat over the uniform. As he was doing the surgical procedure, he wore dark, round, blue shades that Seth could only have guessed he had on because of the extremely bright light that poured onto the naked patient. It was somewhat of an unusual sight to see Dr. Min. These days, it was a rarity to see an Asian doctor.
Dr. Min appeared to be finishing up his procedure. Although Seth couldn’t hear him, it looked like Dr. Min was giving the nurses instructions on the final touch-ups on his patient. Seth could see one of the nurses pointing at him while she was talking, probably to let him know that he was next in line needing attention. The doctor left the room, removed his gloves, and walked towards the captain as he sat there rather impatiently on one of the beds.
“It’s a dislocated shoulder,” Seth said.
Dr. Min gave him an unforgiving glare for having pointed out the obvious. “I can see that.” He was scanning the injury with his medical tricorder, which looked more like a small PADD. A skeletal image of his dislocated arm showed up on the tricorder. It also identified all of the specific injuries on Darren’s body, including his bruised and bleeding lip. “Is this the first time you’ve dislocated your left shoulder?”
“No, probably the third or fourth time.”
“It’s a complete dislocation, but there are no fractures. Do you want to tell me how you did this?”
“It was on the holodeck. It was just…a combat simulation.”
“Let me guess: you turned the safety protocols off. It’s a good thing that you didn’t end up like Mr. Lagndon over there.”
Tell that to Thorn, Seth thought. He was embarrassed to tell him that the safety protocols had nothing to do with the injury. He fell. “Yeah, lucky, I guess. So, can you fix it?”
“Of course I can fix it,” he snarled, not even looking at the captain once while he was talking.
Seth was a little taken aback by his attitude. In the few moments that they had exchanged words, Seth noticed a few other things about the doctor. His back was very straight and walked around with utmost professionalism. Seth could tell that Dr. Min was likely a very competent doctor, but he also carried an air of extreme arrogance. And the way he raised his eyebrow was eerily familiar. “Your calm, your sarcasm…you sound almost…Vulcan,” observed Seth.
“Very good, Captain,” the doctor said with a sneer, “That was quicker than the others. I am human, but I spent a good deal of my younger life on Vulcan.”
“So you were still born on Earth?”
“Seoul, actually.”
“So you’re not green-blooded, you just act like you are.”
“Indeed, but it didn’t take long for me to fit in. One could argue that of all of the cultures in human society, the Asian culture is most like the Vulcan one.”
“Or the Romulan one,” the captain said dryly, almost as if trying to arouse an emotional response from him.
“I take that as a compliment,” he countered.
“Makes for a lovely bedside manner,” Seth told him. Seth decided to hold back any mention that he once spent years in Japan.
“Lie back,” Min said. Seth did, slowly, and then a bright light was shining over his left arm. Min pulled out an unfamiliar medical device that stood several centimeters away from his shoulder, and lit a blue light over it. “Stay still. I’m going to initiate a series of ‘pushes’ and ‘pulls’ from the force fields around your shoulder that will put your arm back into the glenohumeral joint.”
It felt extremely odd, like an invisible spirit had come and tugged at Seth’s arm. He could hear the ‘creaking’ sound of the humerus bone being put in its place. Just a moment later, as the arm moved back into its socket, the pain dissolved away and a sigh of relief washed over him. Seth was able to move his arm again with nearly full range of motion. “Nicely done, Doctor.”
“We’re not finished yet. I still need to tighten the ligaments around your shoulder.” Seth let out a sigh, almost to tell Dr. Min that he was annoyed at all of this delay. He had work to get back to.
“I’m injecting a solution of nanites that will massage your ligaments until they have been sufficiently tightened.” By ‘injection’, he didn’t mean using a needle or a hypospray. It was a type of ‘mini-transporter’ that allowed for medications to be transported through the skin to the site of injury. This gave a more targeted approach to injections so that they didn’t have to circulate around the whole body before they reached the injury site, where they might do things that were not intended.
“Wait…you’re injecting little machines inside of me?” Seth had never been comfortable with injecting foreign objects inside of his body.
“Only in a manner of speaking. You don’t have to worry. When they are finished, they will dissolve away.” Dr. Min placed the device, which looked like a small metallic pad, on his shoulder, as well as a small and flat glassy vial of the nanite solution. The solution slowly disappeared from the vial as it was transported into his shoulder. Seth swore that he could feel the little things crawling inside of his shoulder, but in reality, they were just doing some simple chemistry to his ligaments.
“What was it like growing up on Vulcan? It couldn’t have been easy, given that as humans we’re so inferior to them, as they so eloquently put it.”
“My assimilation was certainly not easy, but for a human, I was told I performed admirably. The key words there are, ‘for a human.’ It seems like they always need to add that qualification. But growing up on Vulcan did endow me with a certain discipline that I would not have gotten growing up on Earth.”
“So you embrace logic then?”
“I embrace rational and objective thinking through the vigor of the scientific process, if that’s what you’re asking. I rarely use the term ‘logic’ anymore. People once thought that the Earth being round was a silly idea, and that Einstein’s theory of relativity was ludicrous, both deemed as ‘illogical.’ What is logical to one person may not be logical to another. What differs between them is how well-informed they are about a particular subject.”
“True enough. If I remember my history, even after the development of the scientific method it us took centuries before it was properly understood and embraced by everybody.”
“For a long time, it was truly one of Earth’s great embarrassments. We as humans can be so slow to catch onto certain elements of progress, which may be in part what attracted me to Vulcan. I do sympathize with the Vulcan cause, captain. If it were up to me, I would change my blood green and help them. But as fate would have it, I am to remain in this weak, red-blooded body. So be it, I have come to terms with it.”
“Nothing is stopping you from staying here. You can always go back to Vulcan.”
“I have my duties here, and I made an oath to Starfleet. Besides, Admiral Roth gave me an offer that I just couldn’t refuse.”
“Well, to me, I don’t care what you are – red-blooded, green-blooded, or no-blooded – just so long as you perform your duties,” the captain said.
“That,” he said, “we’ll have no problem with. Alright, I’m finished. I’m giving you a series of exercises to do to help with the recovery. But in the meantime, just give it some rest.”
“You’ll get no argument from me.”
“Nice try. I can tell from my scans that you haven’t being keeping up with your rehabilitation exercises from your previous injuries. That’s probably why it came out so easily this time.”
“I get it, I’ll be sure to do it,” Seth assured him. He tested out the range of motion of his arm. “Feels good, Doctor. So what do you do outside of treating patients? It can’t be all that exciting between missions.”
“I work on projects that arouse my interests. I told Starfleet that I would accept this assignment as long as they provide me with a laboratory to do my research, with nearly limitless funding and supplies, of course. As a scientist, how could I refuse?”
“I wouldn’t know. I’m not a scientist.”
“Perhaps not, but I think you would still be interested to know what happens aboard your ship,” he said. “Like the new experimental project that I’m working on with your Chief Engineer.”
Captain Seth’s ears perked.
“You haven’t met him yet? I saw him lugging that monster around earlier this morning with about half a dozen other officers. Damn near scared the hell out of them. Right now, he needs my medical expertise for, well, certain aspects of the project.”
The captain looked at him slyly, with a skeptical but confused look on his face. He couldn’t help but sharpen his tone in response to the odd description that the doctor had just made. He sounded like there was some monstrosity running amuck on his ship. “What project?”
