Chapter 2 #2
That admission hung in the air. My friends knew my history, the patient I'd lost early in my career, the young Zandovian who'd died because I'd missed a crucial diagnostic indicator.
How I'd buried myself in work afterward, convincing myself that if I just worked hard enough, learned enough, I could prevent every future death.
It had taken years to learn that healing required accepting the losses, not denying them.
Bea was walking the same path I had. And I couldn't watch her suffer through it without trying to help.
"So what's your plan?" Er'dox asked.
"Intervention. Subtle at first. Mandatory rest periods. Enforced meal breaks. Counseling sessions with Dr. Senna. She's the human psychologist, best equipped to handle human trauma."
"Bea will resist," Vaxon predicted.
"Absolutely. She'll deflect, argue, insist she's fine. Classic trauma response." I straightened in my seat. "Which is why I'll frame it as medical protocol. Non-negotiable. If she refuses, I'll remove her from active duty."
Er'dox whistled low. "That'll go over well."
"She'll hate me for it," I agreed. "But better she hates me and gets help than continues destroying herself with my complicit silence."
"And if she reports you for overstepping?" Zor'go asked carefully.
"Then I'll face those consequences. But I won't stand by and watch someone suffer when I have the training and authority to intervene." I looked at each of them. "You all took that risk with your humans. Pushed when pushing was uncomfortable. Cared when caring was complicated."
"True," Er'dox admitted. "Dana nearly killed me when I forced her to rest after the sabotage incident. Called me controlling, overprotective, and several Earth insults I had to look up."
"But she forgave you," I observed.
"Eventually. After she admitted I was right." Er'dox's expression softened. "And after she realized I wasn't trying to control her. I was trying to care for her."
"That's the challenge," Zor'go said. "Making them see the difference. Humans are independent. Stubborn. They interpret care as condescension sometimes."
"Especially," Vaxon added, "when they've spent their lives proving their competence. Elena fights me on safety protocols because she thinks I doubt her skills. Doesn't understand I trust her abilities completely. I just don't trust the universe not to kill her."
I understood that perfectly. Bea was capable. Brilliant. Skilled beyond measure. But capability didn't make someone invulnerable. And brilliance didn't heal trauma.
"I'll proceed carefully," I said. "Document everything. Maintain professional protocols where possible. But I won't watch her burn out."
"Good." Er'dox reached across the table, clasped my forearm in the traditional Zandovian gesture of support. "And if you need backup, someone to confirm you're not insane for caring about your subordinate's wellbeing, call any of us."
Zor'go and Vaxon both nodded agreement.
The weight in my chest eased slightly. Not gone, wouldn't be gone until Bea was healing—but lighter for having allies who understood the complexity.
We finished the meal discussing safer topics. Zor'go's expansion project. Dana's communication buoy research. Elena's latest near-electrocution. The comfortable rhythm of males who'd found their purpose in caring for beings who challenged them.
But my mind stayed on Bea. On gray-blue eyes that held too much pain. On competent hands that trembled with exhaustion. On a brilliant physician who treated everyone except herself.
After the meal, I returned to my office in the medical wing.
The space was organized with careful precision with medical texts on crystalline shelves, holographic displays showing current patient vitals, a desk cluttered with research notes and treatment protocols.
The viewport showed stars streaming past as Mothership traveled through space at speeds that would have seemed impossible to beings from less advanced species.
I pulled up Bea's personnel file again. Not the medical data, I'd reviewed that exhaustively. The personal information. The details that made her a being, not just a physician.
Bea Santos. Age thirty-four Earth years. Born in a place called California. Medical degree from a prestigious Earth institution. Twelve years practicing trauma surgery before joining the Liberty expedition. No surviving family on Earth, parents deceased, no siblings, no romantic partner.
She'd left nothing behind except a career she was running from.
The file included a single personal item recovered from the Liberty crash: a photograph.
I expanded the image. Bea standing with three other humans, all wearing medical scrubs, all smiling.
Her colleagues from her Earth hospital, presumably.
The Bea in the photograph looked different, softer, unguarded, the smile reaching her eyes.
When had I last seen her smile like that?
Never. Not in two months of working together.
I closed the file and stood, moving to the viewport. Mothership hummed around me, a living city flying through space. Somewhere on this ship, Bea was probably still in the medical bay, reviewing patient charts or studying xenobiology texts or finding any excuse not to rest.
Tomorrow, I'd begin the intervention. Start enforcing mandatory breaks. Schedule her counseling sessions. Document the medical necessity of every action so she couldn't accuse me of overstepping without cause.
She would resist. Would argue, deflect, possibly hate me.
But I'd watched too many beings destroy themselves through avoidance. Had walked that path myself. And I couldn't, wouldn't let Bea follow it to its inevitable conclusion.
Even if helping her meant she'd never look at me with anything except resentment.
Even if the complicated feelings growing in my chest remained forever unacknowledged.
My comm chimed. Emergency alert from the medical bay.
I was moving before conscious thought caught up, years of training taking over. Grabbed my medical kit, activated my neural implant to access the bay's monitoring systems.
Multiple alerts. Critical vitals. Patient in distress.
I ran.
The medical bay was controlled chaos when I arrived. Pel'vix and two other nurses clustered around a bed where—
Where Bea stood performing chest compressions on the Krellian mining accident victim, her face a mask of focused intensity.
"Cardiac arrest," she said without looking up, her voice steady despite the physical exertion. "Sudden onset. No preceding indicators. I've administered three rounds of cardiac stimulants. No response."
I moved to her side, assessing the situation. The Krellian's regeneration field had failed. Systems showed flatline. But Bea kept compressing, kept trying, kept fighting for a life that the monitors said was already gone.
"Bea," I said quietly. "He's—"
"Not dead until I say he's dead." Her jaw was set, her movements mechanical. Compress, release, compress, release. "Come on. Come on."
I placed my hand over hers, gently stopping the compressions. "Bea. Look at the monitors."
She looked. Saw what I saw. No neural activity. No cardiac rhythm. No respiratory function. The Krellian was gone. Had been gone for several minutes before I'd arrived.
Her hands trembled. Just a small tremor, barely visible. But I saw it.
"Time of death," she said, her voice flat. "Twenty-two forty-seven hours."
"Agreed." I moved to input the official notation, giving her a moment to process.
When I looked back, she was staring at the Krellian's body with an expression I recognized.
The one physicians wore when they lost a patient they thought they could save.
When the universe reminded them that medicine had limits, that death was inevitable, that sometimes you did everything right and people still died.
"He was stable," she said quietly. "Oxygen saturation holding. Regeneration progressing normally. There was no indication—"
"Sometimes there isn't." I pulled up the monitoring data, reviewed the timeline. "Catastrophic cardiac failure. Likely genetic predisposition we didn't detect in initial scans. Nothing you could have prevented."
"I should have—"
"Done exactly what you did. Responded immediately. Attempted resuscitation. Fought for his life." I met her eyes. "You did everything correctly, Bea. His death isn't your failure."
She looked away, but not before I saw the grief flash across her face. Raw and immediate and quickly buried beneath professional composure.
"I'll complete the death documentation," she said. "Notify next of kin if any are registered. Prepare the body for—"
"Pel'vix will handle that. You're done for tonight."
"I'm not done. There are still two other patients who need—"
"Who are stable and being monitored by competent staff." I kept my voice gentle but firm. "You've been on shift for sixteen hours. You just lost a patient. You're done."
Her gray-blue eyes met mine, and I saw the argument forming. Saw her preparing to deflect, to insist she was fine, to bury this death under more work.
"That's not a request," I added before she could speak. "That's an order from your supervisor. You're relieved of duty for the next twelve hours. Pel'vix, please note the time for records."
Pel'vix did so without comment, though her lavender features showed approval.
Bea's expression went carefully blank. "Understood, Chief Medical Officer. I'll return to quarters."
The formal title was deliberate. A reminder that I was her superior, not her friend. That this was professional protocol, not personal concern.
It shouldn't have stung. But it did.
I watched her leave the medical bay, her posture rigid with control. Watched her walk away carrying grief she wouldn't acknowledge, trauma she wouldn't process, exhaustion she wouldn't admit.
Tomorrow, I'd enforce the counseling requirement. Would document the medical necessity. Would begin the intervention whether she wanted it or not.
But tonight, I stood in the medical bay beside a being we couldn't save, and wondered how many patients Bea had lost before this one. How many deaths she carried in that carefully controlled exterior.
"She needs help," Pel'vix observed quietly.
"I know."
"Will she accept it?"
I looked at the empty doorway where Bea had disappeared. "Not willingly. But I'll find a way to make her."
Because that's what healers did. We helped people whether they wanted it or not. We forced care on those who'd forgotten how to care for themselves.
Even when it meant becoming the villain in someone else's story.
The Krellian's body lay still on the medical bed, regeneration field dark, monitors silent. Another life lost to the universe's indifference. Another reminder that medicine couldn't save everyone.
But maybe I could save one brilliant, broken human woman from destroying herself.
Even if she hated me for trying.