A Matter of Trust, Part III: Vitals
Posted on Tue Apr 14th, 2026 @ 1:45pm by Lieutenant JG Malcolm Beckett M.D. & Lieutenant Alexandra Blackstone MD/DSAPM & Lieutenant JG Jezra Siv MD
Edited on on Tue Apr 14th, 2026 @ 1:47pm
1,674 words; about a 8 minute read
Mission:
Peril at the Unification Accords
Location: Sickbay
Timeline: MD 11, 1200 Hours (After Part 2)
continued from: A Matter of Trust, Part II: Unease
Dr. Beckett arrived quickly from another part of Sickbay already wearling scrubs. He assessed the situation quickly, noting that Dr. Blackstone was already providing care, and that it was the Chief Medical Officer who was their patient and their vital signs were erratic.
"Doctor, where do you need me?" He asked steadily, his Scottish lilt a subtle note of calm in the urgency of the trauma unit.
"I need you to focus on the host bodies vitals, get them stable and keep them there..." Alex' gaze turned to the monitors again as she watched. "This all feels too familiar..."
Solae swallowed as he cleared away Jezra's uniform and helped Dawes secure the stimulators. It was getting harder to ignore the person on the bed, but he forced down the heavy knot in his throat as he made himself focus on Alex's instructions. As he was attaching the symbiont-geared stimulator to Jezra's abdomen, he felt a tremor course through her body. Was she reacting to something?
Alex felt the tremor under her own hands and swore internally. She did not know what Jezra was responding to but she suspected that the real issue wasn't the host body but the symbiont itself.
"She's experiencing paroxysmal AFib with alternating tachycardia and bradycardia," Beckett announced. "Charlotte --"
Nurse Dawes had been working with Dr. Beckett long enough that she knew what he needed before he asked. Before he finished speaking, Charlotte chimed in, "Patient is hemodynamicaly unstable, Doctor," she stated quickly. "Histamines and Prostglandins are spiking, norepinephrine increase, GABA is decreasing."
"We need to inhibit histamine production first," Beckett stated. "If she rejects the symbiont, we'll lose her."
"On it, Doctor," Charlotte replied.
"Computer," Beckett asked, "Research, has simetriline ever been used on joined Trills?"
The computer's steady, feminine voice responded, "No information recorded."
"Begin running simulations," Beckett ordered. "Use Jezra Siv's current bioreadings, and give me likely outcomes, probably of success in stabilizing heart rate and CNS."
"Beginning simulations," the computer replied. "Intitial results will be available in three hours."
"Three hours... in this status that is going to be entirely too long." Alex' voice had picked up the slightest note of stress and tension, something out of the norm for her. "I leave it up to you on that front Beckett... but we may have to play fast and loose with the rules here."
"Aye," Beckett agree. "I dunnae ken how the symbiont commission would feel about 'fast and loose,' but it may be our only option. We need to be cautious. Joined Trill's are sensitive to medications."
"Agreed; I will leave that detail in your more than capable hands, Doctor. I am glad to have you on hand." Alex replied, her words rapid but sincere as she redirected her attention solely to the Neurological front.
"Aye," Malcolm muttered under his breath as he set work starting with already approved medications. "I'll be signing up for an extension course through the commission once this is over," Malcolm's muttering continued as he focused on Jezra's vitals and keeping her stabilized.
The lingering situational awareness had Jezra instinctively try again to reach for the memories of the prior hosts to reference their respective medical expertise, but there was... there was nothing to grab. The attempted memory recall brought a pain sharp enough to force her eyes completely shut. Her body tensed. A quiet noise of discomfort escaped Jezra as she tried to ride it out. Maybe it wasn't so quiet; Jezra couldn't tell. All she knew was that her throat suddenly hurt and her mind was eerily quiet.
Where was Siv?
Alex listened closely as the pieces of the puzzle began to settle into place; as they did so a foreboding feeling settled into her gut. "We might be treading on dangerous ground here, people."
"This would be easier to treat if her symptoms were less erratic, Doctor," Beckett agreed. "She's alternating between Brachy/Tachy and I've got to be careful of what I give her so we don't harm the symbiont in the process."
"Can we get the Symbiont exposed for stimulators and medicine to be administered directly without severing the two from each other?" The inquiry was quick and sharper than intended but only went to show that Alex had not expected to be in such a similar situation as quickly.
"Interesting question," Beckett replied, pulling Jezra Siv's three-diminensional images up near the head of the biobed. He used his hand to rotate the image and all of the ways the symbiont was integrated to the host. "I don't see how it's possible to keep them separate. We can administer to the symbiont, but the host will receive some affect. I don't see how we avoid it."
"I don't know that we can avoid it. As much as we need to approach both the symbiont and Jezra as different patients... they are intrinsically tied in a way that isn't very well known outside the Trill themselves." Alex nodded as she spoke, searching her mind for any thoughts that might aid the situation but coming up pretty much empty.
"They are one now," Malcolm stated stopping his focus for a moment, Charlotte seamlessly stepping in his place. "What I know is that the host for what it's worth - in my medical opinion, symbiosis commission be damned, is the weaker part of this arrangement. There is no point in trying to save the host if the symbiont doesn't live, the host dies. If the host dies, the symbiont may still live to find another host. Our medical obligation is clear - if we can't save them both, we have to save the symbiont."
Alex nodded, not giving an answer immediately. She had already made her intentions clear. "Indeed; but until it becomes evident that we cannot save both; I intend to do just that"
Going to the place in her mind where Jezra would normally talk to her symbiont was like walking into a void. No, not a void. More like expecting a door and finding a wall. The internal panic of not being able to communicate with her symbiont couldn’t be processed into words coherent enough for Alex to understand. She couldn’t tell if anyone was speaking to her anymore. Sounds were muted. Vertigo clamped down, creating a nauseating tilting sensation. Was she falling?
On the monitor, her vitals flickered erratically. Solae's eyes widened. "Doctor! Neural shock!"
"Beckett, sedate the host body... it's what pulled me out of Neural Shock when I was in contact with the Ambassador... and this looks all too familiar to me."
"Charlie, start with 5 cc's of Axonol," Beckett ordered. "Have more on standby..."
Charlotte moved quickly, passing the hypospray to Dr. Beckett in less than a beat. As the doctor administered the sedative he muttered to himself, "We only want to use as much as we need to..."
Alex was forced to step back for just a moment and wait to see if Jezra herself would stabilize any as the sedative was administered. The brief respite allowed her to catch her breath and steady herself before she stepped back up to the table and watched her colleague carefully with one eye while keeping the other on the Vitals.
The only sign that anything was even administered was a shift of Jezra's brain activity into frequencies often associated with dreaming. Her body remained some tension, as if refusing to let go of something.
Solae watched with confusion. Was Jezra's body rejecting the medication? His eyes were focused on Siv's readings, his mind racing. The symbiont's stress levels were unsustainable for any long term. It was odd that Siv's neural activity also didn't go into the unconscious; being connected to the host body, the sedative would have eventually reached the symbiont.
"Prep a second dose of sedative in case it is needed. I am going to need 5 units of Synaptizine and 3 cc of Acetylcholine to combat the Neurological side of things... direct administer to the Symbiont for the Acetylcholine. Synaptizine can go to the host.
"Wait!" Solae normally wouldn't interrupt a doctor giving orders, but once he saw it, he couldn't unsee it. It was incredibly subtle, but there were deviations in Jezra's biosigns that lined up with stress spikes from Siv. "I think the symbiont is trying to compensate." He rushed around the bed to get to the monitor, where he pointed out the synchronised spikes. "That signal isn't from Jezra, it's from the symbiont."
Now that a low dose of sedative had been administered, the readings started to jog something in Beckett's memory. It was the REM frequencies. She should have been unconcious by now - the sustained neural shock, the sedative. But she wasn't. The anamoly was the erratic vitals, her heartbeat trying to regulate, the hormonal imbalances.
Two patients, unconcious on a table in a matter of days. If Blackstone and Siv were onto something about T'varel's cause of death...
"Computer, show us a visual comparison of Jezra's current neural activity with that of T'Varel's. The earliest readings we have until time of death. Look for any correlation," Beckett directed.
~tbc in Part III~
Lieutenant J.G. Jezra Siv (& NRC Solae)
Chief Medical Officer
USS Astrea
Lieutenant Alexandra Blackstone
Assistant Chief Medical Officer
USS Astrea
Lieutenant JG Malcolm Beckett, MD
Medical Officer
USS Astrea
(NPC of Remy Johansen)
Ensign Charlotte Dawes
Nurse
USS Astrea
(NPC of Remy Johansen)
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