The Doctor Will See You Now

[Prennis Keeoli]

851 ABY - First Order Medical Station, FIMS Mountbatten​

((setting: x, x))​

[member="Mariya Fleischer"]​

​

†††
The Sanctity Physic Dormitories, one of the dozens of medical groups on FIMS station Mountbatten, is, for some reason, in a lull today. Its staff collectively hold their breath; the absence, specifically, of casualties from the front does not make much sense to them--what, with the Order currently pushing into Alliance territory.

Maybe, they all think synchronously, the Order is simply doing well today, and there will be no shortage of new casework tomorrow. Still, the situation seems quite strange, but they hold onto such hope quietly, for maybe they would jinx any streak of military success by the discussion of their theories.

Head Doctor of the Dormitories, Doctor Aes'ona Terrani, is not excepted from the concerns of her staff, but she is currently trying to pretend she is by burying herself in the momentous backlog of half-fished reports.

She sits at the long, meeting table in SPD's back, on-call room. Nursing her caf mug with one hand and absently picking at the food tray that a steward droid recently dropped off for her with a fork in the other, Aes'ona tries yet again to focus on her datapad's screen.

She barely registers the sound of a door swishing open.

"Oh, by every God, Terrani!" It is the voice of one of her coworkers, Nori Calore, but Aes'ona doesn't have time to realize that before the other doctor has closed the space between door and table, and snatched her datapad away.

Aes'ona stands up and takes her pad back. "I'm still on the floor," she argues.

Nori shakes her head. "Nothing's happening right now and those reports can wait another day. Now, pour that stuff out and go to bed."

Aes'ona does as she is told--going over to the lounge kitchenette and pouring her caf down the drain--but mumbles as she does, "Is this how you've always treated your head doctors?"

There is a hint of a smile in Nori's voice when she replies, "Only the ones I care about."

†††
"Terrani?"

Her name pulls her out of her nap immediately--she had become conditioned over the years to sleep lightly.

She sits up and gets out of bed, straightening her white-and-leather uniform, to face another one of her doctors, radiologist Meriet Hass. Upon seeing her, combing out her bed-hair with her fingers, he frowns slightly, apologetic. "Sorry."

"It's your job," she dismisses as she approaches him. "What do we have?"

Mariet hands her a durasheet sensor-image. "Fresh off the press," he says as they walk out into the treatment bullpen. "I can't tell what it is. Thought you might. This way."

He leads her off into one of the private rooms. A human man lays in the bed, apparently sleeping.

 

[Mariya Fleischer]

OOC: Apologies, I have decided to make myself be the patient instead (more fun) after escaping from prison (ongoing thread).

There had been a mix up in the registration regarding the gender of the bed's occupant. The "man" was obviously female with feminine curves. Her long blonde hair was unkempt, with dirty streaks covering her face. The injured person was clad in a prison guard uniform, looking like a part time contract staff hired to look after the IS Reprisal, a mercenary prison ship. The ship housed prisoners from all over the galaxy and was stationed near FIMS Mountbatten when a jailbreak happened.

Mariya survived yet again.

First it was the beating from the guards, coupled with signs of taser on her waist. Then some idiot released Rathtars loose on the ship, which made things worse and better at the same time. Worse because the creatures had enough teeth to eat everyone. Better because it added into the confusion, enough for her to exchange her prison outfit with a dead guard. What happened next was a blur. More deaths. Hasty runs. Heavy breathing. A lash of a Rathtar tentacle on her chest just as the emergency lifepod closed the door and ejected her into space.

Bruises on the face. Electric burns from the taser treatment. Chest pain suggested a fractured rib cage. Left arm immobile, possibly fractured. Gunshot wound from a stray blaster bolt on her leg. She was awake, but her vision was blur. Her eyes could hear mutterings surrounding her as she was wheeled into the hospital.

"She looks not that bad. A couple of broken bones, that's all."

One of the nurses commented in a manner of fact tone. To an outsider, Mariya looked like crap. But to the medical crew, they had seen much worse. Mariya's case was not an emergency, so usually there was no need to alert someone as senior as [member="Dr. Aes'ona Terrani"]. The only explanation was the wee hours and other doctors taking a hard earned rest when the hospital was in a lull period.

 

[Prennis Keeoli]

((No problem! It works. c: And I'm changing my writing tense.))

"Well," Aes'ona began, walking over to a holoboard to clip up the radiogram, "she has at least one complex break. Is she up?"

"Barely," Mariet answered. "We gave her some nyex for the pain, but it made her a little drowsy."

Pulling up a blank patient profile and taking a stylus out of her jacket's inner pocket, the doctor began to record this information. "As is its typical effect," commented Aes'ona.

The nurse added, "We've held off on bacta. We haven't been able to ask her what types she's allergic to."

Aes'ona nodded before tucking the pen behind her right ear. "Good. I'll take it from here," she assured them. "Get some sleep with the others. I will let you know when I need help."

[member="Mariya Fleischer"] ((EDIT: Haha, oops, forgot to @mention))

 

[Mariya Fleischer]

"We've held off on bacta. We haven't been able to ask her what types she's allergic to."

The mercenary had no exact idea what allergies she had, even if she had been able to respond. In the past, her medical records would probably be able to tell a Republican doctor all the information needed to treat her injuries. That was years ago. Later on in the underworld cartel? One would make do with whatever was available, as long as it worked.

"Ar...gh..."

Words were difficult to form, each breath still painful. Her eyes fluttered open briefly, the nyex obviously taking effect from her slow reaction. The world was a blur, the lights were too bright and everything looked white. Voices were barely audible as her consciousness slipped away, the drug coaxing her to relax.

All she could do was to let the professional do her job.

 

[Prennis Keeoli]

After dismissing her junior doctor and nurses, Aes'ona got to work, and, just a few minutes into it, she felt at peace. For the first time today, she was not hounded by worries of the front. No--rather, all her focus was on her unnamed patient.

First, she cut off and carefully removed the guard's uniform, before attaching a note to it--requesting for someone to pinpoint where it came from--and sending it down the laundry chute.

Next, the doctor cleaned Mariya's various wounds, and bandaged the open sores. She settled for a Metho-bacta spray: there had never been a case of this type causing an allergic reaction in any Near-Human, but it tended not to be as effective of a healing agent. Thus, it normally would not be Aes'ona's first choice, but she was no underworld medic; she wasn't one to play Corellian Roulette and gamble on a patient's allergies. She preferred to know for sure rather than react to a bad pairing.

On the taser marks, she applied an ocher burn salve.

Whenever [member="Mariya Fleischer"] next awoke, Aes'ona was standing at the holoboard again, swiping on the screen with her fingers this time. Her face was partially scrunched in confusion. She held up the radiogram periodically for a compassion to whatever was displayed on-screen.

 

[Mariya Fleischer]

Her footsteps carried her through the familiar streets of Nar Shaddaa, trying to escape the wrath of the shopkeeper. She was cuddling a box of food on her chest, his loud voice shouting behind her back. All she needed was another few steps to disappear among the crowd... but a arm grabbed the collar of her shirt. She yelled, swinging her fist at the shopkeeper, who had called on the assistance of several prison guards. As her right fist met the face of the nearest guard, he returned the favour with his baton.

She attempted to follow up with her left, but it was somehow grabbed by another guard.

"Let... me... go!"

Mariya opened her eyes suddenly, finding herself staring at the ceiling of the medical center.

Her left arm had been immobilised by the medical staff and her wounds were bandaged up neatly. Her gaze felt upon a certain redhead dressed in white standing a few feet away, presumably the doctor. Emerald eyes met with the pair of hazels staring down at her. The blonde suddenly felt embarrassed by the stare, realising that she had somehow caused a commotion. But the embarrassment was swiftly replaced by a more urgent question.

"Doctor... Terrani...? Where... am... I..."

The name was engraved on a silver tag clinging on the breast pocket of [member="Dr. Aes'ona Terrani"]'s coat, with a coat of arms that reminded her of military. Her mind raced, trying her best to figure out where did the coat of arms was from. It was a medical symbol, no doubt about it. But which military hospital had she landed up in?

The last thing she needed was to find herself being trapped in a hostile faction that had a bounty posted on her head.

 

[Prennis Keeoli]

Aes'ona clipped the radiogram back up and stepped away from the holoboard. "You're at Sanctity Physic Dormitories aboard FMIS Mountbatten." Once she realized that the acronym would probably be unknown to a civilian, she elaborated, "On a First Order medstation."

As she approached [member="Mariya Fleischer"], walking around her bed, she stooped slightly to pick up her charts. Taking her stylus from behind her ear, she asked, with the intention of testing for concussion-related memory loss, "Do you remember what happened to you?"

 

[Mariya Fleischer]

She caught the location name from the doctor, the FMIS Mountbatten. A First Order medstation. She had nothing to do with the First Order, a faction that seemed to reminded her of the Empire but under different leadership. She could figure out where she was later. The more pressing matter was the questioning from the doctor. It appeared that she would need to give an account to [member="Dr. Aes'ona Terrani"] that would hide her original identity as a prisoner. Who knew what would happen if she was discovered to have broken free.

"I remember that someone, or a bunch of people were trying to break into the prison," she paused, gathering her thoughts. "All hell broke loose. Prisoners broke free and I fought with some. Then someone let loose the rathtars."

She had no idea why there were even rathtars on board a prison ship, but she was not going to dwell on that.

"I was chased by a rathtar and somehow hopped into an escape pod. Was thinking that's the end of me, but the door..."

Her hand reached out for her chest, which was still painful. The tentacle lash would have been lethal blow, ending her existence if not for the escape pod door in front of her, bearing most of the impact. Even so, the force was sufficient to knock her unconscious. She spent the rest of the time unconscious until she was found.

"... that pod door took the lashing in my place."

Her voice stopped, her face wearing an expression of relief. She had escaped from the jaws of death and was alive. She had also conveniently left out the details of her exchanging clothes with a dead guard, but everything else remained the truth. At least, that was what she could remember.

 

[Prennis Keeoli]

As she checked a box and added some abbreviated notes, Aes'ona looked up and gave the blonde a small, comforting smile. "That was quite the stroke of luck," she said. "That and ejecting so close to a hospital. Security pointed you out and picked you up soon after."

Then she sighed. "But, that doesn't mean you lack serious injury." She glanced down at the charts and read, "A dozen first-degree burns, three fractured ribs, a complex fracture in your left arm, a bolt wound grazing your right calf, and that chest gash. We did all we could before you woke up. We need your go-ahead for any further treatment, if you want it."

Noticing [member="Mariya Fleischer"] touch her chest, Aes'ona's eyebrows rose in concern. "Is the pain back?" It was a bit of a rhetorical question--an instinct to ask--as, if she was now awake, the nyex was mostly if not completely metabolized.

 

[Mariya Fleischer]

The nyex had definitely been wearing off. Mariya could feel the pain echoing from her chest, the gash that had been treated by bacta was nothing compared to the constant throbbing pain internally. Each breath was like needles sticking onto her skin, but bearable. She knew that some bones had been broken, but probably not as severe as the complex one on her left arm. If any organs were injured, she would have already been dying from internal bleeding instead of happily chatting with the doctor. With luck, she might just need an operation on her limb instead of her chest.

"Three fractured ribs. Ouch... but I assume it's not complex or punctured any important stuff, else I would have already been wheeled into an operation room for emergency treatment."

Mariya was not good in first aid, but she knew the basics. She also knew that her arm might be complicated. But luckily it was her left arm. Her trigger happy right was still fine.

"Well, go ahead with whatever you need to do. If I were wrong with my assumptions, let me know as well."

She had yet to see any X rays done on her bones. Maybe she had not taken them yet. But she assumed [member="Dr. Aes'ona Terrani"] would make the right calls if it was needed. She never really trusted anyone easily, but the doctor seemed professional enough. Or perhaps she had no other option anyway. Running away from the medstation would be silly.

 

[Prennis Keeoli]

Shaking her head, Aes'ona confirmed [member="Mariya Fleischer"]'s suspicions: "Why, you're very astute, Ms..." She somewhat awkwardly trailed off, suddenly realizing that none of the staff had gotten the chance to record her name, first or last.

"Well, in any case, my radiologist took scans of the affected areas from a handheld soon after security brought you in." She nodded. "Good news, there's no sign of rib complications, although it is important you continue to breathe normally to avoid developing pneumonia." She paused; many patients needed mental digesting time to keep up with her diluted, albeit still technical, jargon. "If it is too painful to breathe deeply, I can inject some long-lasting Nullicaine around your rib cage to help make it easier," she offered.

Continuing right on, Aes'ona added, "Your arm requires surgical internal fixation with a rod, possibly a screw. Are you allergic to any metals or alloys that you know of?"

 

[Mariya Fleischer]

Mariya noticed that her name was not mentioned. Right, she was wearing the guard's uniform, which she made sure to remove the name tag. She pondered for a moment, wondering what should she do. Mentioning her name did not seem like a wise choice for now. It was not like she did not trust the doctor, but she was just careful by nature. Suspicious even, slow to trust in her line of work.

"Right... my name is Mary Rehcsel."

Mariya was one of the variants of the name Mary, so technically she was not lying. It just meant that people would have a harder time looking for her. But with luck, agents from the Collective would be more than capable of figuring out that one of their newest agents was in a First Order medstation and not missing. If they failed to even notice a similarity between the names, then surely the Collective was nothing more than a bunch of spy wannabes who knew nothing about the trade. She needed some visibility to inform her faction, but also to remain hidden. It was a tough thing to do, but the risks were necessary. As long as her name landed in the medical records, the Collective would know eventually.

"Breathe normally. Okay. Don't need nullicaine. I..."

She was from the military, so she knew what to do. As for more drugs, she decided not to use it. She did not want to introduce her body to new drugs unnecessarily, just in case she got addicted to it. There were cases of drug addicts switching from one source to another, so there was always a slim chance of her addiction to spice relapsing into a new form. She decided to deal with the pain which was still bearable. And no, [member="Dr. Aes'ona Terrani"] would not need to know about it yet.

Until she could trust the doctor.

"... and I am not allergic to any alloys. I'm assuming I will always set off a metal detector for the rest of my life then."

That was something she could manage. If she needed to do infiltration work, her whole body would be clad with equipment anyway and she would never walk by a metal detector to send alarms ringing.

 

[Prennis Keeoli]

Nodding, she corrected herself, "Ms. Rehcsel," and added the name to her treatment records.

She then looked back up at 'Mary'. "Likely, yes. It normally takes ten weeks, give or take, for a complex fracture of the ulna to heal, after which time it may be possible to remove the support--but it is often advised against." Aes'ona sighed, and appeared to lower her head slightly, almost in an apologetic way. "I'm sorry for any inconvenience that may cause."

"I am going to order the surgery, then," she continued. "Myself and my surgeon assistant will be taking care of you. You'll need to be put under general anesthesia, but you'll be back to the land of the waking before you know it."

†††
After the successful surgery, [member="Mariya Fleischer"] lay in the same patient room again, but with a new forearm cast. A sling was neatly folded on the endtable, on top of her cleaned prison uniform, back from the laundry and repaired as best as they could manage. Beside them sat a plain-looking plastisteel vase containing a single, yellow-colored flower.

The doctor herself was nowhere to be seen, although her male assistant was sat in a nearby chair.

 

[Mariya Fleischer]

"Ten weeks. Alright..."

Mariya was glad to know that her arm was going to recover. No major operation at the chest was another thing worth celebrating. She was not exactly a vain person, but getting a scar across her chest due to an operation certainly was not her idea of beautifying herself. In any case, she resigned herself to be stuck in the medstation for a period of time. She laid back on the bed, and soon found herself being wheeled out into the operation room. [member="Dr. Aes'ona Terrani"] seemed to have taken in her name as "Mary", so she better get used to people calling her that while she was recovering. It was an annoying thing to adapt to, but she figured that she would pull it off.

The last thing she remembered was feeling a needle poking her skin to give her a good dose of anesthesia. Her eyes soon closed as the surgery went on successfully.

***
A while later, she was sleeping soundly back in the same room, the anesthesia taking some time to get off. When she finally awoke, she found herself with a cast on her left arm. She wondered in amusement the difficulty she would encounter if she ever wanted to scratch herself while the cast was on. A valid concern, but with no solution. She saw the prison guard uniform folded neatly on the table, together with a sling and a single yellow flower. She assumed the flower was given by the medical staff or the doctor. Yellow was a good pick. The colour cheered up the white room and it also symbolised joy and friendship. Mariya did know about a thing or two about flowers.

"Hello. I guess you are Doctor Terrani's assistant. Thanks for your help with the operation."

"Mary" gave the person sitting on the chair a friendly smile.

 

[Prennis Keeoli]

The brunette man looked up from his datapad and smiled back. "Nice to see you awake, Mary," he said genuinely. "I'm Doctor Lauderslaug. The surgery went down without any hiccups. Doctor Terrani's down at the cafeteria fetching you some lunch, as all our steward bots seem to have been swept off to maintenance due to the current station-wide lull, and I--" he held up his datapad-- "I am trying to get in contact with your employer. IS Reprisal, was it?" He stood up, shaking his head. "They seem to still be offline from whatever happened to you. I hope there were more survivors..."

Pulling himself out of his forlorn moment, Launderslaug asked, "Anyway, this might be a stupid question, but how do you feel?"

[member="Mariya Fleischer"]

 

[Mariya Fleischer]

"Oh okay, that's very nice of her to do so."

Mariya was getting used to her new name, but found it more surprising to find [member="Dr. Aes'ona Terrani"] getting lunch for her behalf. It was usually a nurse's job, not a doctor. Maybe things were really slow here or the doctor was just kind. Whatever the case, Mariya was certainly graceful for the patching up. The bandages on her were neatly done, a job which she was usually bad at. She was never someone who could patch up herself as well as she should, an irony considering the kind of work she was usually engaged in.

"IS Reprisal... right. I think the communications were brought down by the jailbreak attempt. Also, ahem... hungry rathtars on the prowl... "

She made a face, remembering how close she was to being eaten up. The teeth and tentacles were definitely haunting her. The odds of people who had remained on board surviving was close to zero.

"I feel... good. I mean, the pain is still there but I think I am okay."

There was no mirror around and she had yet to visit the toilet, so she had no idea how she looked. The bruises on her face were definitely felt though, so she could imagine herself looking like a sad panda with an black eye. The talk of lunch also made her hungry, her stomach rumbling to remind her that the last meal was more than a day ago.

 

[Prennis Keeoli]

“When you put it that way…” Launderslaug trailed off before abruptly clearing his throat. “At any rate, I’ll have someone keep trying. We reported the incident to security already. Planet Defense will take care of it.

“Would you like me to call anyone? Family, perhaps?”

The male sidesteped as the room’s glass door automatically slid open in response to Doctor Terrani’s return. She skirted around his back to approach the endtable on the other side of [member="Mariya Fleischer"]'s bed, and set down the plastic tray she is carrying on the table’s swinging arm.

“Lovely to see you up already,” she commented. Motioning to the sorry assortment of so-called food on the tray (at least the caffe was the real deal), she added, “I hope sustenance sticks are acceptable. It’s all we have left; the last of our real foodstuffs ran out a few days ago and the new shipments were rerouted to the ships active in the Ruusan blockade.”

 

[Mariya Fleischer]

"Please send a message to..."

Mariya wanted to ask the doctor to inform her best friend, [member="Marina DeVoe"] from DeVoe House, Alderaan that she was fine. But after considering the way her friend would respond when told that a certain "Mary Rehcsel" was injured, she decided not to. Her friend was not spy trained and any unusual questioning would probably raise suspicion on her identity. Contacting anyone else directly hired by the Collective would be too dangerous either. She found herself a little stuck at the moment and decided the best answer was...

"... it's okay... I have no family. The rest of my friends are dead on the ship."

A half lie.

She had no family and was no friends to the guards on board the ship either. "Mary" would have been friends with the guards though. Just then, [member="Dr. Aes'ona Terrani"] had returned with a tray of food. Well, sustenance sticks mostly with a cup of stimcaf. Mariya found herself grinning in amusement at the offering, being reminded of her past military days. It appeared that certain things never changed in the military. At least she would boost of having the chance to taste another faction's combat rations.

"I'm so hungry that I could eat a bantha. So it's fine."

The blonde smiled and picked up one which was labelled as "nerf stew". From her experience, she knew that most of the time combat rations tasted like crap. The good thing was that a hot combat ration would taste better, which was what she was given. She passed the stick to her bandaged arm and torn open the top with her right, emptying the contents onto the tray. She struck her cast-plast spoon into the brown goo and took a bite. A few more spoons into her mouth followed, her face not even showing any signs of rejection for the food served, even though she swore it tasted nothing like nerf stew.

"Stimcaf, military style. Hard, black and hot," she took a sip of the stimcaf, glad for some warmth into her body.

 

[Prennis Keeoli]

"I'm gonna track down security," the male doctor announced before disappearing out the door and into the hallway.

Aes'ona smiled. "The cast needs to stay on for a week, and then can come off. Just refrain from bumping it too forcefully; it still will be a little fragile under the ten weeks are up."

[member="Mariya Fleischer"]

 

[Mariya Fleischer]

"Right, I know about the ten weeks. Do I need to stay around for all ten? How about... I don't know... physiotherapy after the cast is removed?"

Mariya tossed out the few burning questions in her mind to [member="Dr. Aes'ona Terrani"] while she somehow finished her plate of combat rations. Her body seemed to be craving for the much needed energy, so she had no problem following up with the questionable looking fruit bar.

"I know, lots of questions. I am just... concerned about my health."

There was also the problem of hospitalisation bill, which would meant that Mariya needed to find some way to fork out the credits. Considering her recent employment and jailbreaking story, there was not much in her account until the payment from the Collective was wired through. She had no doubt it would come, but she had no idea how much time it would take.

"Also... erm... regarding the bill..."

She asked sheepishly, not sure how to bring it up.