A Release

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"In the truest sense, freedom cannot be bestowed; it must be achieved."

Franklin D. Roosevelt

 

 

Personal log. In the last hour I have been returned to duty. I now have my position back and within minutes I shall be in sickbay. For hours I have been sitting, sleeping and dying of tension in the brig, waiting for the chance to take Commander Hawke on in an inevitable face-off. I knew I was guilty of no crime and that the Commander would have to see reason if I pushed it firmly enough in front of her.

 

 

 

Muon told me I was just going to get myself in more trouble. She knows I can be a bit of an upstart when I believe strongly in something the heads disagree with. It was quite kind of the dear to come and talk to me in the lurch like that. The moment I get a free moment I should do something nice, send her some chocolates or something…do women still like getting chocolates? Oh wait she’s also Ferengi, I suppose she’d appreciate latinum more. Oh never mind.

 

 

 

Anyway, I wasn’t stupid enough to try to do something that would jeopardize my chances of getting my job back, so I decided to play it stiff-lipped. The moment the Commander entered the brig I stood up straight, I rarely blinked and I started and ended every sentence with the word “sir”. If I was going to lose this chance at regaining myself, I was determined that the cause would only be my arguments, not my personality.

 

 

 

That’s when things got a little bit weird.

 

 

 

Hawke cut off all the surveillance to the place. Video, sound and sensors were all shut down and I was immediately worried. The only thought going through my head was “what is she up to?”

 

 

 

The Commander told me to drop the act, she told me to lose the sirs, to take my normal posture and to talk to her with ranks aside and so I did. At first I thought it was a chance to speak plainly with her in a relaxed mood and though I was slightly annoyed that it was now at such a late point that she wanted to speak to me like a human being, I was still relieved.

 

 

 

However my relief soon turned to rage. Hawke was not about to hear my side of the kidnapping episode no matter what my posture was. She threatened, actually threatened to invade my mind with her empathic powers and to seek out “the truth”. She said that she’d do it without my permission if it helped her discover what crime or spy ring she suspected I belonged to.

 

 

 

The nerve! If she had requested politely I would probably have agreed to the proposition, but a threat? A threat just makes my blood boil. I said I’d draw charges but she laughed in my face and said she’d play with my memories or something to that extent. Being a medical man, I highly doubt her claims now but when you’re trapped alone in a cell, you don’t think that clearly, especially when you know nobody’s watching.

 

 

 

Our shouting banter continued for some time but in the end I found out what the Commander was really interested in.

 

 

 

It was a situation that occurred several months ago. I was the acting CMO (Sheepy being unwell) and I had prescribed a certain treatment to both her and Captain Ayers when they were suffering damage to certain areas of their brain due to an unknown phenomenon affecting their empathic abilities. Having no licensed empathic healer in place and due to the extreme nature of the damage, I decided to implement a treatment that would cut off their abilities for an unknown time-frame but would definitely allow them to survive. Hawke had been dead against it, but since neither her nor the Captain were what I would consider Copus Mentus at the time I decided that they would be treated under strict and perfectly ethical medical orders.

 

 

 

She still hates me for it I think. I never knew it had bothered her so much but in the cellblock, Commander Hawke was intent on forcing me to make some kind of apology to her. “Apology for what?!” was my opinion. If I were in that same situation today I’d do the same thing I did before. It is the code of any sane physician to always put the life of a patient above almost anything else. Again and again I refused point-blank to do any such thing as to say sorry until she finally gave in.

 

 

 

The Commander came to a compromise. I simply had to promise never to act on my judgment if a patient was against my choice of treatment (or something of the sort, I was quite infuriated and I’m still a bit shaken so the exact words escape me), which was the easiest thing in the world. A patient has every right to refuse medical advice and a doctor must abide unless such said refusal will cause pain or death to others or if a patient is incapable of making a rational decision on their own. Due to this particular case involving various changes to areas of the brain (which may have affected judgment) and because it is well documented that damaged empathic nerves can have dangerous consequences, I found it prudent to make the call that time. I may be pompous about it but that doesn’t mean I’m wrong.

 

 

 

Anyway, after I made my “vow” to Hawke, she deactivated the force field and told me I was free and also reinstated. I was so ruffled and confused I don’t even remember how we parted. I came up to my quarters (luckily still unoccupied though bereft of my belongings), showered, shaved and put on a spanking new uniform. I’m intent on getting back to work immediately; I’ve had plenty of rest in that damned cell and I’m raring to go.

 

 

 

The one thing that scares me though is Commander Hawke. I’ve always thought she was tough and hard for a man like me to get along with but if there’s one thing I could say its that I’ve always respected her tenacious adherence to law, order and a code of ethics (even if that code has often conflicted with my own) but when she tried to put such fear into me with her intimidation in the cellblock, I lost a bit of faith. Perhaps it was all just an act to get me mad enough to speak my mind but even so, I never thought the Commander would use such tactics. I won’t file any report or complaint, I think the score between us is even but I’m just not sure what her opinion of me as a doctor means for my job security.

 

 

 

End log.