“Captain. You should probably get that checked out.” Mayvilis pointed to the clotted wound on his head, which was somewhat swollen and egg-shaped now. She had a genuine expression of concern and was respectful in using a low voice to maintain privacy between them in their shared seating area on the bridge. 

Raiem’s initial instinct was to immediately decline the suggestion, but there was a part of him that knew there was merit in completing a quick examination, if nothing, to prevent symptoms of concussion. 

“Listen. It shouldn’t take any more than a few minutes, really. I’ll oversee things up here. There’s not much we can do at the moment besides continuing with repairs and attempts to understand where we are exactly.” Mayvilis continued as she noticed the hesitation from the Captain. 

“Very well, Commander. The Bridge is yours. Please let me know if anything changes.” Raiem gave her a thankful nod and slowly rose from his command chair, taking care as he made his way to the turbolift. 

“Administer twenty-five milligrams of bircaridine, please” The soft voice of Doctor Caade instructed one of the nurses at the main surgical biobed area. A young lieutenant junior grade officer from engineering was the guest of honour and had been screaming in discomfort upon arrival. He was stable but had an aggressive femur fracture from a fall sustained in the rough turbulence Calistoga had endured earlier. 

The familiar hiss of the hyposray sounded and the lieutenant’s painful cries subsided rather quickly, replaced with softer and more shallow breaths. 

“Apply the osteo-regenerator and administer zero-point-seven-five milligrams per kilogram of anetrizine for the next twenty minutes while it is as work. Repeat the bircaridine in another ten minutes.” Caade, who was at the head of the surgical bed, lightly touched the young engineer’s shoulder and gave him a soft reassuring smile. 

“You’re going to be just fine, lieutenant. You should be feeling sleepy any moment. Just rest, and we will see you shortly.” Caade took note of a decreased respiratory effort and monitored the biometrics closely. “Decrease the anetrizine by zero-point-two-five…. Perfect.”

Satisfied with the tremnd of where the lieutenant’s vital signs were, Caade passed over care to his capable Nurse for monitoring. As he stepped away from the primary surgical biobed area, he noticed the captain enter Sickbay. 

“Captain. Over here.” Caade gestured to an empty bench along the wall that had been set up for triage.

Raiem had entered Sickbay, and a part of him immediately felt at home. Certainly – he did not enjoy seeing it full of crew members being tended to, but there was a visceral comfort that the space brought back for him. He nodded to Doctor Caade and swiftly took a seat on the bench. 

“Please. Don’t worry about me doctor, if there are other people that need your attention more.” Raiem added.

Caade waved that comment away as he flipped his tricorder order and quickly scanned the apparent area of concern. “Everyone is doing just fine here, captain. This should only take a moment.” He tapped a couple of buttons on the tricorder, acknowledged some beeping noises and then quickly holstered it once more. “You lucked out. Almost enough damage to cause a subdural injury but the area is intact. I suspect it looks and feels worse than it is. We will get you fixed up quickly.”

“I don’t want anything that…” Raiem started to add his own comments, but Caade quickly interjected. 

“That will impair your ability to command us out of this situation we’re in. Yes. I know, captain. We’ll give you a mild analgesic as part of the cocktail and something to calm down the inflammatory process too. You’ll still be in fine shape to do your commanding.” Doctor Caade grinned and reached for a few tools. He activated a dermal regenerator and waved it over the affected area, he then grabbed a second device and waved it over the area too. 

Raiem chuckled to himself as his senior staff member made way to one of the medication preparation areas. The man was quickly on his feet and clearly knew what he was doing. It did provide a sense of reassurance to him, being a fellow member of the profession. 

“I’m giving you a mild analgesic as discussed, an anti-inflammatory and twenty-five milligrams of furozemitidine that should help prevent any chance of concussion symptoms.” Caade listed off what he was going to administer and then as Raiem nodded in agreement, he pressed the hypostray to Raiem’s neck and injected.

Raiem instinctively rubbed his neck post-hypospray, not that it hurt. “Doctor Caade. Curious about something. You used furozemitidine. Wouldn’t it be better to have used erithylodiazemine?” 

“If it were two years ago, maybe.” Caade grinned. “There have been multiple studies out these past few years on the greater efficacy of furozemitidine in the prevention and maintenance of concussion symptoms. Showed a twenty percent better prevention rate, so best practice on that changed.” He explained in a very non-confrontational tone, not wanting to spite his commanding officer, who was a little out of practice. It would happen to anyone who got out of the field for more than a year with how things continued to advance.

“Oh. I see.” Raiem nodded in a reflectionary way. 

“You’re free to go, captain. Please still monitor yourself for any signs of concussion – I don’t need to lecture you on what that is. The risk of such at this point is practically negligible but not impossible. I’ll be staying a silent prayer to the prohpets to get us out of this situation…” 

Raiem nodded in thanks but seemed a bit awkward in his reply to the ending comment that Caade had made. “Yes… You feel free to do that.” 

Caade eyed him strangely for a moment but quickly gave his captain a friendly couple taps on the shoulder in dismissal before he moved on to check on the other customers in Sickbay.

“Commander Mayvilis… I’ve got some sensory capacity back now. I still can’t ascertain exactly where we are at present. Lieutenant Yuzar from astrometrics is trying to figure that out for us but…” Nahl announced with some hesitation and clearly was perplexed by something as well. 

“I need a bit more than a ‘but’ on that one lieutenant.” Mayvilis stood from the command chair and made her way over to Nahl’s station. She looked intently over her shoulder at the readings on her screen. 

“There is an object approximately two hundred fifty-five thousand kilometres off our starboard bow and closer to the event horizon. It’s emitting a massive energy signal.” Nahl continued to move her hands across her console rigorously, compensating for gravimetric interference from the black hole and the limited power to sensor pallets that Calistoga currently had. 

“Is… Is that a planet, lieutenant?” Mayvilis’ expression appeared just as perplexed now as Nahl’s.

“It is… But it’s a planet in what appears to be in stationary orbit of this back hole… It’s resisting the gravitational pull of the black hole somehow. Commander – there is also no life signs either.” Nahl confirmed the readings her console was sharing, and was double checking with Yuzar from astrometrics as well. 

Mayvilis stood back up as she noticed Raiem re-enter the bridge. “Captain. You’re going to want to take a look at this.” She pointed at Nahl’s station. 

Raiem joined the two of them and looked at the readings, which showed what Nahl had reported to Mayvilis moments before. “Is that a planet?” He asked out loud. 

“It is, sir…. As if this day couldn’t have gotten any weirder…” Nahl confirmed and added her own comment. 

“Perhaps weirder, but I think this is just what we needed… Commander Mayvilis, rally the senior staff for a meeting in fifteen minutes in the conference room. Nahl – bring everything you have on this mystery planet.”

“Prayers and prophets….” Raiem muttered to himself as he returned to his command chair to review some situational updates from departments that had come in during his trip to Sickbay.