Reap the Whirlwind

Most of the time Xiong found himself at odds with his commanding officers, but this time he couldn’t have agreed more.

Dr. Jabilo M’Benga toweled his hands dry as he exited the scrub-out room beside the operating theater. He had endured a long day of treating emergency cases. Now the last of his critical patients was on the way to recovery, and M’Benga was free to deal with the mountain of paperwork that had accumulated in his office.

In the past twenty-four hours, M’Benga had seen a variety of cases, each one coming on the heels of the last. A civilian cargo handler had suffered internal injuries after being pi

In other words, a slow day in Vanguard Hospital.

A hot cup of coffee and a warm raspberry croissant were in the forefront of M’Benga’s thoughts as he walked through the parting doors of the ER and into the brightly lit blue-gray corridor outside. He turned right toward the turbolift that would take him back to his office. Before the ER doors closed behind him, the nasal drone of a nurse’s voice squawked over the hospital’s intercom. “Code Two in the ER. Repeat, Code Two.”

M’Benga turned about-face and sprinted back inside. Code Two meant that one of the station’s senior officers was in need of medical assistance. Code One would have meant that Commodore Reyes himself was in distress.

He scrambled past nurses and patients, weaving his way toward the main admissions area for the ER. Despite having been at the far side of the complex when he’d heard the call half a minute earlier, he was still the first doctor to arrive. A nurse and a medical technician had gathered around a crumpled form on the floor, a dark-haired female Vulcan officer in a red minidress. Pushing his way into the circle, M’Benga lifted his medical tricorder and started ru

Martinez continued her own tricorder scan as she answered. “She walked in and collapsed, Doctor. Her pulse, body temperature, and neural activity are all elevated.” The young brunette adjusted her tricorder. “There’s no sign of injury, but synaptic patterns in her somatosensory cortex are consistent with extreme pain.”

The data on M’Benga’s tricorder screen confirmed Martinez’s report. He looked up to see that other members of the hospital’s staff had belatedly joined the huddle around T’Pry

“Stretcher comin’ in,” said Dr. Gonzalo Robles, who was assisted by a fourth-year Andorian medical student named Sherivan sh’Ness. Martinez and the med tech stepped aside while Robles and sh’Ness eased the stretcher under T’Pry

“Nurse,” M’Benga said. “Prep five cc of asinolyathin.” Martinez nodded and moved to a pharmaceutical cabinet to load up a hypospray. Robles and Steinberg hovered on the other side of T’Pry

Robles eyed the cardiac indicator on the display board above the bed. “Look at that,” he said with amazement. “It’s like she’s in the middle of a workout.” He pointed at the pain-level indicator. “Good Lord, her pain reading’s off the chart.”

“Weird,” Steinberg said, folding his arms over his chest. “I’ve never seen a Vulcan have an anxiety reaction like this.”

As he accepted the hypo from Nurse Martinez, M’Benga said to the two physicians, “Her condition is not the result of anxiety. Of that I am quite certain.” He injected the light dosage of analgesic medicine into T’Pry

T’Pry

Before anyone could finish what they were racing to do, T’Pry

In a calm but alarmingly uninflected tone, T’Pry

Still trying to work the burn out of his esophagus, M’Benga found T’Pry

The other doctors and the medical technician left quickly, taking the shocked medical student with them. Nurse Martinez hesitated, but M’Benga gave her a reassuring nod and said, “Close the door.” With obvious reluctance, she did as he asked, and he was alone in the exam room with T’Pry

She sat up and turned to drop her legs over the edge of the bed. He watched her with a clinical eye, seeking any of a number of subtle cues that were particular to Vulcan body language. In addition to a few signs of hidden discomfort, he detected ephemeral micro-expressions that reinforced his suspicion: a tensing near the mandibular joint, a twinge at the corner of her left eye, an inward curl of her upper lip. “You are in profound distress,” he said to her. “Please relate your symptoms to me.”

“I am merely fatigued,” she said, and he knew it was a lie. Stoic prevarications by patients were not uncommon, but in his experience Vulcans were unlikely to tell such naked falsehoods.