At The Sharp End - Part 3

Posted on 10 Dec 2023 @ 12:37pm by Lieutenant Commander Raviran Dattek-Winters

985 words; about a 5 minute read

Mission: Shoreleave
Location: Ravi's Quarters - Planetside
Timeline: one day after Part 2

Ravi woke with a headache like the worst hangover she could have ever imagined it was possible to have. She was trying to remember something really important. At least that was what her head was telling her.

She sat up but had to lay down again immediately as the pain in her head was excruciating. Slowly, one small move at a time, she managed to ease herself off the side of her bed and slid to the floor. She felt very nauseous and twice tried to stand up, both times being sick onto the floor as a reward for her efforts.

Holding her own forehead and closing her eyes, she felt the room spin, so she opened them again, urgently. She managed to stagger, one step at a time to the sink and swallowed a small amount of water. She was instantly sick again and began to wonder if she was in a bad way..... an ever worse way than she'd first thought?

Opening the door with a lot of trouble and taking a long time to achieve this, Ravi went out into the street. She tried to work out which way she needed to head but the morning light was too bright for her pain filled eyes. Groping her way along the walls of the building, Ravi finally managed to wander from building to building, supporting herself against the walls of each as she stumbled her way to the Centre.

She didn't know how she had got there, more specifically, how she had known which way it was but she made it with dozens of stops to rest and regroup. She asked a horrified staff Antiocian for the Tashi. The Staff looked at the state of the alien in front of him and had serious doubts about letting this messed up, apparently drunk? He didn't know what else could be causing her to sway like that and slur her words.

"I HAVE to see the Tashi, it's a matter of life and death." Ravi tried to convince the tall Antiocian. "Please..... If you'd just tell her I'm here. I'm one of the medics from the Cygnus." she went on, putting her hand on his large forearm and pleading with him.

Part of her mind was threatening to fog over again and she had a distinct feeling she wasn't going to last upright for much longer.

"I have to tell her........ I'm a doctor, I should have known sooner what was happening..... " Her words began to quicken as she'd begun to try to get what she needed to say out while she still remembered what she was here for.

"I'm willing to take responsibility for what happened here. For a lot of the lives lost. I want her to punish me and let the rest of the Cygnus crew go on their way. I will stay here willingly..... I volunteer..... I'm a bit battered right now, but I when I'm better, I'll answer to any court or Inquiry. I'll plead Guilty. I need her to listen and understand....... " The shadows grew again and the fog started to push away her new found clarity - such as it was.....

The Antiocian man decided he needed to detain this strange person until she could be sobered up and he took her deeper into the centre, supporting her as he legs refused to respond properly.

He put her into a holding cell and locked it.

"Are you fetching the Tashi?" Ravi asked.

"lay down before you fall down, Alien" he said angrily.

He walked away and Ravi tried to call after him.

Once outside the room, the Staff, whose name was Strade, gave more thought to the incident and decided he would inform the tashi of this incident, but he still thought he ought to let the idiot sleep off whatever she'd been drinking and he gave the Alien no further thought for several hours.

Ravi drifted in and out of consciousness, finally realising that she was barking up the wrong tree and that she could, and should, approach the Tashi when she was better but for now she wasn't actually in any state to follow that line any further right now, as she clearly needed medical help first.

~Why hadn't that occurred to me earlier? a moment of lucidity asked herself with disbelief.

However, this long overdue lightbulb moment did Ravi no good as Strade didn't return so she couldn't change what she had been asking for and demand to see a doctor first.

The fog, the darkness and the pain all came back and Ravi was left to wonder bitterly about why she'd been so out of her mind crazy not to call on her own professional common sense, experience and diagnostic skills. She didn't regret asking to see the Tashi or sending the message she had given to that member of the Tashi's Staff, but what was the value in presenting the Leader with a corpse that couldn't explain, reason or atone?

Her last conscious thoughts were of Lisald. Why had she forgotten what he had said to her. What was she thinking when she decided he couldn't have ever been serious about her? She wished she could tell him what a fool she'd been and that she'd never really forgotten everything that mattered like that, it was just that she'd been a bit concussed..... well, a lot actually. Why wouldn't that shadow get out of her head......... she could get up and get a pen and write Vaat a note.... all she had to do was to just lift her leg like this and ........ It went black yet again. Why wouldn't it stop doing this...... Someone was coming.... She MUST get up... she must... just one leg... push....PUSH!!

She hit the floor hard..... ~No! Not the head!!! .... not agai...!~

tbc

Lieutenant Raviren Dattek-Winters
Assistant Chief Medical Officer
USS Cygnus

 

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