JL | COM Ivanova, Cmdr Archer - "The Art of Necromancy"

Posted on Sun Jan 3rd, 2016 @ 12:11pm by Admiral Rochelle Ivanova & Commander James Archer

1,786 words; about a 9 minute read

Mission: Resurgere

The line between life and death was frail, thin, and ever so easily crossed. Gilded as it was, the fragility of it was what gave it value. More precious than any golden trinket, more beautiful than any faceted stone; life was a gift that entirely way too many had chosen to take for granted and misuse for a variety of follies.

Rochelle Ivanova, perhaps, among those ranks.

She knew, however, the value of all things tethered to her - and while she may have so very easily discarded that which was her own, she simply couldn't ignore the cries of those around her... Those that valued and cherished every breath she drew. While Rochelle would have died for them, they would deny her that right in just the same blink of an eye out of... Selfishness? Greed? No... The tether that they'd thrown tight around her psyche belonged more to love than any of the sins the foolishly short sighted could, and would, try to brand their sentiments with.

Even through the heavy haze of her dreams, the beautiful and daunting landscape her mind had allowed them all to escape to in the aftermath of her injuries, she could feel them... Feel reality... Tugging her back through the thick, watery fog of the world in between. The touch against her skin was firm and yet gentle, tender, and caring. The voice that called her given name more familiar than she'd have liked to admit. It had been there, begging and pleading before, and now insisting that she return - that she open her eyes, squeeze a hand, lend them some inspiration that their efforts hadn't been in vain.

The light, however, burned as it pierced and broke through the lush forest of her eyelashes and seared a path through swollen slit-like lids. It was bright, hot as fire against pupils that refused to focus under the demands of the climate she'd been thrust into. It was sterile. Smelled of cleaning fluid and the adhesive on the back of medical tape. Something smelled faintly of smoke, of charred... Flesh? Plastic? She couldn't quite pick between the organic and synthetic substances that wafted just beneath the greater scent of cleanliness - but it was there. And so was the wavering silhouette of a man peering over her.

Remembering where he'd put his Gods damned med-kit had proven to be a bigger challenge than he'd anticipated. It wasn't every day that James found himself needing more than a quick bandaid for whatever boo boo he managed to sustain during a mission or, more often than not, beating a hasty retreat from said mission. Rochelle, required greater care than a simple slap with a gauze pad and some Hello Kitty tape. Panicking wasn't an option he'd allow himself to even think of considering as he dug through a storage drawer and finally came up hot handed with what suddenly felt like the Holy Grail in his hands.

And then he saw her, or rather it; the glint of light off her barely open eyes. She was conscious or at least somewhat responsive and able to open and blink - a sign of hope if ever there was one.

Preparing a hypo of Melorazine became priority number one as her fingers began to twitch, working to curl into the fabric of the Bio-bed beneath her and he could practically feel her anxiety beginning to rise. "Hey..." James shushed her, coming up alongside the bed and gently working to peel blood encrusted hair away from the skin along her neck, "You're ok, you're safe, just breathe and try to relax." he added, his voice drowning out the soft hiss of the hypo as he pressed it to her flesh.

Out of everything, the blurry sight of James, and the smooth, rolling sound of his voice, became the only sources of comfort the ailing Commodore was able to discern - and she clung to them. Tightly. Nothing seemed right. They were on a ship of some sort, the thrum of the engines and cold aesthetics immediately gave that much away and it was a far cry from the deep, rich, warm stone and beam work found in the Atlantean palace they'd only just been at moments ago. Or had they? The grey she remembered in his hair was gone, once again replaced by the rich umber of youth and his eyes lacked the crows-feet brought about by age and a life spent in politics more so than Intelligence. "Where are..." Rochelle's voice cracked heavily, rough and sooty as it threatened to choke the air from her lungs and denied her the chance to complete the question she so desperately wanted to ask. She was hurting. Sensations of burning, stinging, stabbing, aching, searing pain were slowly beginning to filter their way along her awakening neural receptors and bringing back messages of cruelty to her foggy brain. No... This wasn't Atlantis... This was Hell.

"Safe..." He responded, knowingly. "We're safe, and you're going back to sleep for a little bit so I can clean up this mess, ok?" James knew she wouldn't be responding. His hand stroked along her burnt and bloodied cheek as gently as it could while he watched her eyes blink a handful of times before their lids fluttered completely shut and entrapped her back in dreamland. It was safer there, less traumatic... For them both.

He sighed and moved from his position beside her once he was absolutely sure she was completely under the twilight of Melorazine, "Alright..." His tongue soothed over his chapped lower lip and gathered a pair of surgical scissors in his hand, "let's see just how bad this really is." The gown itself was a thing of beauty, a true work of art as it hung, even burnt, tattered, and bloody, to Rochelle's body. Cutting it seemed like a sin, but it had to be done. She had to be freed from the confines of the garment that likely concealed the worst of her bodily injuries - and yet right off the bat James encountered more than a small snare. Pieces of it, some fist sized, were burnt and fused with her flesh in savage, yawning, third degree burns that clung, wantonly, to the gown. There was no removing it from them, not yet, and care was taken to cut around them, leaving patches of carnage across her pale skin. Even freeing her broken arm, compound fracture and all, had been a mundane task compared to the challenge of the worst of her burns.

It was there that he was forced to stop in his task of freeing more than just her upper torso from the gown. The bleeding from the fracture was a must stop, and he was quick to work at it, using compression and immobilizing the arm completely for the time being. It would need to be surgically set, something that would have to come secondary to stabilizing her and killing the other sources of bleeding before all hope was lost. "Couldn't have just gone quietly?" He asked as he reached for his tri-corder, listening to it beep and screech and reading the information it began to provide. "Of course not." He grumbled, wincing as he steadied it around her head and shaking his own. Her skull was fractured, and with it, the orbital socket surrounding her left eye. The gash running from above her hairline down past her eyebrow and onto her coordinating cheek was there to play treasure map, still oozing a sanguine river over the broken bone matter it barely concealed beneath. As luck would have it, though, her neck had been spared and her brain didn't appear to share in the carnage gracing her face. It was swelling in promise of one Hell of a concussion, but it wasn't bleeding. A small miracle if ever there were any to be found.

"And this..." James tutted as he ran the device down the length of her body, pausing briefly over her mid-section, "This just makes things so much easier." Two. The dawning realization that he had two patients laying on the table before him only served to make his temples throb. Rochelle was pregnant, very pregnant and clever enough to conceal her condition by ways of the oldest sort of trickery in the proverbial book. Setting the tri-corder down once he was satisfied, at least for the moment, that there wasn't a budding emergency with the child, he set back to his task of releasing the mother from her gown and the confining girdle-like bandages that had been employed to hide her son's existence from the world of Apsha. The extra layers of compressing fabric had likely been what spared the unborn life within her, and it certainly had taken care to keep that portion of her anatomy from being fried to the same crisp.

His jaw set as he peeled away the final layers of cloth, tossed them, and took in the sight before him. In that brief period of stolen time and respite from his work, his mind tore at him in a series of questions. He knew his own blood pressure was rising, that he was upset... But why? Was it the mere fact that Rochelle was with child? Or was it that she hadn't taken the time to tell him? Had worked to hide it from him.

"Damn it, Rochelle." He cursed, his shoulders slumping. He'd been gone for months. Months And while not exactly easy to trace, he'd have found a way to receive a message, especially from her, especially as urgent as the news of her pregnancy would have, and should have, been. He'd have been back sooner, if only to shove his foot squarely up Landon's ass, and likely been able to thwart the entire rigmarole of fuckery that had transpired. No... He couldn't blame himself. None of this was his fault, but he was there to pick up the pieces nonetheless.

As always.

The rest of his work was done in virtual silence by deft hands that seemed to work on auto-pilot with a sense of care that should have been out of his reach. He wasn't a doctor or an artist, but he employed the same precision when it came to healing what he could, stabilizing what he couldn't, and cleaning up the rest of the mess that was Rochelle Ivanova enough to make her appear both human and alive, compared to the mince meat and burnt hamburger he'd pulled from the wreckage of the Vindicator.

---

Commodore Rochelle Ivanova
Commanding Officer
USS VINDICATOR, NCC 78213-E

Commander James Archer
Chief Intelligence Officer
USS VINDICATOR, NCC 78213-E

 

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