Flashback Time, part 1, SD9806.09

[Webmaster 20]

Subject: Flashback Time, part 1, SD9806.09

Date: Mon, Jun 8, 1998 10:34 PM

From: LtjJonCohn

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{{Part 1 of a live joint log between me and Ltjg Zera.  Enjoy.}}

*****

Nighttime in Sickbay.  Ordinarily on a Galaxy-class explorer, there'd only be a pair of nurses on duty.  Thanks to recent shift changes, they are joined by Doctor Zera Dar, and thanks to the recent battle, those three are joined by a pair of orderlies.  As the nurses check on the status of the patients and administer medications, the orderlies deliver meal, change linen, and do other odd jobs as the nurses require.  Zera sits in the medical office

filling out reports for all the activity Sickbay has seen lately.

 

Among the patients is Jon Cohn.  He lies on a biobed in Sickbay.  He has recently completed extensive reconstructive surgery and remains sedated.  His entire head, shoulders and right arm are bandaged.  The bandages are clear, but they still hold his eyes and mouth closed.  For the first time in days, he is having enough mental activity to dream.  It was a familiar dream.  At least it started out that way....

 

I run and again it feels like slow motion.  One of them, a Capellan guard stands in my way.  I dive between his legs.  When did I get so small?  I roll, get up and continue running.  I leap through the portal, run up to the bema, stop and look around.  I made it.  Holy ground.  I'm safe.  "I made it," I say.

 

My sigh of relief turns to a gasp as a metallic hand lifts me up by the scruff of the neck.  "Made what?" it asks, mocking me.  It's him.  He's over seven and a half feet tall and has so many cybernetic implants that he looks like a robot, like Darth Vader or Maximilian from "The Black Hole."  He says, "You aren't getting away this time!"

 

"This isn't right," I say, panicking.  I struggle futilely in his grasp.  I say, "You can't do this!  I'm on holy ground!"

 

"That didn't stop you," came a voice next to the monster's.  It was Marak.  I don't understand.  What's he doing here?  "Are the transporters ready?" he asks.

 

"The pattern buffer shorted" I insist to no avail.  Suddenly, instead of being in the Bajoran shrine on Capella Miner, I'm on the Republic, in the Jeffries Tube connecting Transporter Room 2 with TR3.  The monster has me pinned against the JT wall.  How is he fitting in here?  With his free arm, he smashes through a panel and grabs hold of an EPS conduit.  "Say 'ah'," he says with a malevolent grin, which is odd since his head isn't supposed to have

any facial features.  "This isn't fair!" I reply.

 

"Go tell it to Connor MacLeod!" the cyborg says as he pulls out the conduit and spays hot plasma in my face...

 

Jon sat up in bed and tries to scream, but can't.  What came out was a muffled gurgle.  He couldn't see either.  As panic took over, Cohn realized that he didn't know where he was.  He decided he was in his dream, about to be killed by a cyborg monster who cannot die, unless somebody takes his head.

 

Jon rolled off the bed to dodge his imaginary foe, landing on his right shoulder, sending pain shooting throughout his upper body.  Zera jumped up hearing the noise and ran out to the ward.  There she found an orderly approaching the bandaged patient.

 

"Easy, there, Lieutenant," said the orderly, as he reached down to pick up Cohn.

 

Zera saw Jon on the floor and asked the orderly, "What happened?"

 

Cohn felt more pain as his ribs were grabbed.  He then stood up suddenly, head-butting the orderly.  As the orderly cried out and stepped back, a second orderly said, "He muffled something and fell out of bed, sir."  Cohn then threw a wild punch with his good hand, connecting with the first orderly, sending him falling into Zera, whose eyes widened in surprise as she got knocked to the floor.

 

Meanwhile, one of the duty nurses reached into a nearby drawer and pulled out a hypo of Kayolene.  The second orderly stepped between Cohn the first orderly and Zera, saying, "Take it easy, sir."

 

Zera got up quickly and said, "Jon, easy...take it easy...."  Cohn, standing between two biobeds, turned to face the second orderly, then hears Zera's voice and turned toward her.  "Jon," she said, "You're in SB...."  Jon dived over a biobed and smashed into the food tray that the orderlies were using before Jon woke up.  The collision stunned Cohn momentarily.

 

The first duty nurse offered the hypo to Zera as the second nurse said, "Shall I call security?"

 

Zera took the hypo and said, "No not yet, I think we can handle one patient."  She then cautiously moved closer to Jon.  The nurses dutifully backed off and started clearing other patients out of the room as the second orderly jumped over a biobed to confront Cohn.

 

Jon felt around the tray cart for a weapon.  Motioning to the second orderly to be careful, Zera said, "Jon, do you know who I am?"  Zera moved closer to Jon, hoping he hadn't gotten a weapon as they hadn't really covered that in her Mok'bara lessons yet.

 

Alas, Jon grabbed a knife and stood, facing Zera, if not looking at her.

 

Zera sighed, said, "Alright, teach, if we gotta do it the hard way...," and signaled the first orderly, who was now back on his feet, to help the second orderly.  He nodded and took a position opposite the second orderly.

 

Cohn, in the dark and unable to speak, thought he was on Capella Miner, the giant ore-processing and commercial satellite orbiting Capella IV.  He figured something had gone sour in his plot to trap and kill Kenny, the 1,300 year-old boy turned super-powered cyborg, and was now facing multiple opponents, all toying with him.  Cohn, however, refused to quit.  He would cut them back with his dying breath.

They'd pay a high price for their victory.

 

Still watching Jon, Zera made sure the hypo was ready, as she stood ready for him to make a move.  "Jon," she said, "It's Z. You know me...."  She hadn't realized that he wasn't merely disoriented, but delusional as well.

 

As the nurses cleared the last patients out of the ward, Jon looked back and forth between Zera and the two orderlies. "Z?" Jon thought, "Am I in a 'Dreadstar' comic now?  He sure doesn't sound like any Zygotian I'd ever imagine..."

 

"Jon," Zera continued, "Listen to me.  I'm the only Trill you know that makes hot Cocoa the way you like it."  She was clearly stalling as the two orderlies prepared to swarm Cohn.  Cohn heard the movements, but also heard the orderlies.  Zera signaled them to be gentle and said, "Jon, you were injured in the JT on deck 6.  Do you remember any of that?"

 

Jon, remembering that first cup of cocoa that Leigh Hayden bought him on Starbase 427, thought, "Hot cocoa...Leigh?  No...it's a trick."  The orderlies chose that moment to dive for Cohn.  Cohn ducked, causing them to smash into each other.  Cohn then rolled back, rose, and turned to face his three foes at once.

 

{{To be continued....}}

Lieutenant Junior Grade Jonathan A. Cohn, Assistant Engineer USS Republic