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Captain's Ready room

Posted Nov. 26, 2022, 5:25 a.m. by Major Stanley Wong (Professor of Psychiatric Medicine) (Bob Spicer)

Posted by Captain John Tiberius Glen (Captain) in Captain’s Ready room
[snip}

It seemed to Stanley that he had come full circle finally. Here he was at the captain’s office again. “All things move in circles.” Stanley muttered to himself before he buzzed the door to the office. Stanley Dressed in a red baseball cap, a white tee-shirt, black jogging pants and white tennis shoes stood there waiting as he contentedly whistled Beethoven’s Ode to Joy.

“Please come in and take a seat,” Glen said.

“I expect, after our previous meetings, that you are wondering why I’ve asked you here again? …well, I guess you could say that I may have actually had a slight change of heart. I’ve realised that keeping secrets is never going to end this… But, we’ll come to that in a moment. Before we get to that, I do need yo ask you about a couple of other things, and just have them cleared up first.”

“Well, they both concern your treatment of Doctor Miriam Cross. Can I ask you, professionally, how do you think that is going?”

Glen nodded his head as Stanley replied.

Stanley listened to Glen and was sorely tempted to remind him that Glen had told him to make an appointment with the Yeoman the next time he saw him, but he politely kept quiet. Still at the memory Stanley couldn’t help but to let a small smile creep across his face for a second. It was the Mention of Cross’s treatment that caught Stanley by surprise.

Stanley scowled at first then reconsidered what he was about to say to Glenn. He did however put a very serious look on his face and spoke in a voice that let Glen know that he had very little in the way of wiggle room here. “Captain be very clear. I can in my opinion give you an opinion about the Lieutenant’s treatment. Whether it is good or bad. But please keep in mind that you may not ask any specifics which will violate the rights of Lieutenant Cross.” He looked down then at his hands to consider his reply then back up to Glenn and spoke. saying. I have only had two true meetings with the Lieutenant. The only real one was one in which chatted quite amicably. After I deduced what might be wrong with her after an initial consult i gave her some simple things that she should try in her life before we pursued the much too often used chemical methods. I attempted to get her to come back for a standard follow up to see how she was. I never have gotten a second good appointment. At this point I closed her file. I have seen her of course waling about the halls and in sick bay. She appears to be doing somewhat better than she was, but this is all I can give you is a guess. To give you an answer to your question our one session may have done her some good and that’s all I can say.”

“I have heard from various officers that they think Doctor Cross has improved in both her health and general wellbeing. I’m very pleased if that is the case. However, I need to tell you that earlier today, Doctor Cross called me and made certain allegations about you. Specifically, she said that she has never consented to any treatment by you, but that you made an unauthorised medical emergency site-to-site transport into her quarters, while she was naked in the shower, then injected her with a hypo-spray of some sedative, and then left her sitting on the floor. She also says that you are compiling a dossier of secrets and are ready to leave the ship with it.”

Glen continued, “Now, I am well aware that Doctor Cross has a vivid imagination, and I think I can quickly dismiss most of what she said, but these allegations are so serious that I do need to ask you to tell me you side of the story. I have not been made aware that Doctor Cross required such emergency treatment and I haven’t authorised it, and the covert administration of medicine to a CMO would also require sign off by myself or someone even more senior. Even if you have such permission, I can’t have you gallivanting about my ship without informing me what you are up to first. I am still the Captain of this ship.”

Glen continued, “And the second thing was that Verity Aphelion overheard what Cross said to me. She swore to me to keep what she heard a secret and I ordered her to do so, but I then discovered you were just at her quarters thirty minutes ago, and wondered if that had anything to do with it? I don’t want her spreading this as gossip, even if any of it were true. The idea that there might be a sexual reason for visiting Cross, or that you have an ulterior motive to compile some secret dossier, this kind of gossip must not be spread.”

Stanley listened to Glen go on at length about such things as permissions, doctors and captains for a moment before he clasped his hands together on his lip looked at them and too a long slow sigh. And as Glenn paused this time Stanley said simply in a slow and level voice.” Captain let me make one thing perfectly clear. I had a patient which needed medical help. Having my medical bags with me and not being able to access the patients’ quarters I followed all protocol required of me. I went to the transporter officer on duty and requested access to private quarters for a medical emergency. And I will continue in this manner until you lock me up or I die as it is my sworn duty as a physician, and I need no one’s permission to treat a person in distress.

Stanley plowed on then saying, “As for Lieutenant Aphelion I was sitting quite contentedly on the floor of the aft lounge meditating. Somehow from the beginning of what would pass as a semi normal conversation she asked me to look at her dress. ” Shaking his head he said, “Captain look at me height! Consider Lt. Aphelion’s great height over me! I am sitting on the carpet, and she stands beside me. And she’s telling me to look at her ridiculously short uniform dress! I simply made sure that she understood I was not interested in either her or her dress. It was quite embarrassing!”

“As long as we understand each other, that I must be informed and agree to any… er, unusual, nonstandard undertakings aboard my ship, then I’ll close that particular door. Now, the real reason that I called you here was that I am actually impressed with the progress made by Doctor Cross since you arrived. You seem to be able to see the person rather than the patient, and you have observed my requests not to ask about, or to divulge any secrets missions we took part it, and… well quite frankly, I’d like you to treat me too!”

At this news Stanley’s jaw literally dropped open. He found it was not going to shut on its own, so he had to do it manually.

“Now that I am certain that you will keep whatever you are told as confidential, then I am prepared to open up to you a little more. I have been getting treatment from Doctor Cross for the physical symptoms of what happened to me, but I have never had treatment for the mental scars. Those will not heal with some painkillers, and I now don’t believe that they will just get better on their own. I fear that many in this crew are broken people, myself included. Just earlier today, I thought that I remembered that a doppelganger of one of our doctors, a Doctor Kim, came aboard the ship and impersonated him. But that event never took place. I imagined it just like Doctor Cross imagines things. What happened was that a security officer was a spy, but we… well, I accused the perfectly innocent Doctor Kim instead.”

“It is all related, Doctor Wong, the headaches and the missing memories, and the implanted memories of things that never occurred. You see, …an alien creature, let’s call it a Wyrm, entered inside my head and lived there, attached to my brain. It controlled me for a period, making me do things I didn’t want to do, some of them, unspeakable acts of depravity and cruelty. I was tortured, and I tortured others, and I was forced to watch others tortured. And I have great regrets about not being able to do enough to prevent some of the atrocious things that happened under my watch. This is what I carry around every day, and I find it hard to deal with it, especially when I am forbidden to talk about it with most other people. This is why Miriam Cross is so important to me, she knows it all and was subject to worse, and she also saved me, even though I couldn’t… Ah! Well, you get the picture?”

By the time Glenn had stopped speaking Stanley’s worst enemies his curiosity and his need to help people had pushed him into listening. As Glenn finished speaking Stanley leaned back in the chair in which he sat and began to laugh. “Well, this is beautiful timing!” He continued to laugh for an instant before he could stop. “Captain, you present me with some difficulties. It seems that I only a few hours ago in which I said that most people encountered here were secretive, hostile, and quite possibly unable to carry on a civilized conversation. I recommended that the Counselors program should not be considered, I also recommended that all your officers should be split up given therapy and placed on other ships away from the others.” Stanley looked off at a wall and bit his knuckle as he said, “Bah Admiral Baxter is angry at me anyway. Captain, I will make you a deal. I will send the admiral a message saying I’ve had a breakthrough with some patients. I will do this and request more time if you be a captain and let me do my job.”

“I will make that deal with you,” Glen replied, “and see if you can’t be moved out of the broom cupboard into a larger treatment room.”

Stanley nodded and frowned thinking. “A good treatment room would be wonderful. Also does this mean Doctor Cross will be coming back to see me. Also, if you wish I could make you up the same thing I injected Cross with. It’s just a brew of melatonin and magnesium things our bodies make anyway. Both of which do nothing but help you to sleep. I understand if your schedule would keep you from seeing me so I could make you up some until you can get around to us talking. hat is if you’d like to sleep a bit better. The stuff only makes you drowsy naturally it doesn’t make you pass out.”

Dr. Stanley Wong

“Yes, it would be good to get a good nights sleep.,” Glen replied. “And I will attempt to persuade Doctor Cross to come back to see you… Now, as you say, my schedule is always busy and I need to see off our landing party to this possibly hostile planet, so I’ll have to excuse myself.”

-Glen, CO

Stahley nodded and said, “I thank you captain for giving me the pleasure or treating yourself and your crew. I shall mix you up a liquid version and add a fruit flavor to it so that it doesn’t taste so bad. ” Standing then Stanley said to the captain, “Farewell then and good luck to us all.”

Dr. Stanley Wong


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