“He’s alive!” spoke Doctor Uknare with a friendly smile as she finished her scan via her tricorder.

Slowly, gradually, steadily, Jarata opened his eyes and attempted to take in his surroundings. Appearing dazed by what he found, Jarata was unsure how he got there. He was lying on a bed in sickbay with the chief medical officer hovering above him. Jarata didn’t remember coming to sickbay, then he remembered. The helm console exploded in his face; Jarata was flung across the bridge and landed hard on the deck flooring. He vaguely remembers hearing the captain screaming for him and then him being carried. The rest was a blank. 

“I take it I’m still in one piece?” He asked the Haliian doctor.

She nodded and smiled. Uknare looked exhausted and dishevelled. Obviously, whatever had hit the ship and caused a lot of the crew to be injured. She must haven’t stopped working in patching everyone back together. “Thanks to Commander Thaustin,” She added. 

“Thaustin?” Jarata crocked as he tried to sit up slowly. Uknare placed her hands to support him as he sat up. He still felt dizzy and a bit nauseous. 

“He gave you the kiss of life,” Uknare explained, “and kept your heart going with his bare hands until you came back around. He then carried you down here.”

“Wow, looks like I owe him a few drinks,” Jarata said.

“You do, and you can buy me one, too,” Uknare added. “You had severe burns across your face and chest from the helm console explosion, several cracked ribs and a broken hip.”

“Ouch,” Jarata said, “but thanks, doctor. I almost feel brand new.”

“Thanks to the marvel of modern medicine!” She replied and passed him a PADD. “The captain said, knowing you, you would want to return to duty the moment you woke up. As a compromise, here are the latest scans of the region that we are in.”

Appreciating the captain had anticipated what he was like, Jarata nodded. “What do you mean by the region we are in?”

“That lovely subspace anomaly, or whatever it was, pulled us across the quadrant by three thousand light years.” 

“Three thousand light years? Wow!” Jarata looked down at the PADD at the information it contained. “Any ideas in what direction?”

“Sensors and the navigational array are still playing up, but Belire thinks we are closer to the shared border of Delta and Gamma quadrants. The captain has halted her plans to launch a probe or a shuttle to make a better determination. He wants the ship in a better state before we start moving,” Uknare briefed him, “However, a nearby star system could provide us with some shelter while we make repairs. The captain wants you to plot an appropriate course that doesn’t attract any attention to any spacefaring races interested in taking the Constitution.”

“That’s sensible and logical,” Jarata nodded and got to work on the captain’s request.

Uknare shook her head. “Just don’t overdo it, and if you feel ill or anything, call me or someone on my staff over.”

Half an hour later, Jarata started getting antsy about lying on the biobed and being unable to move and do much. Though it was late, he couldn’t sleep. It may have been the pain relief medication that Uknare had pumped into him earlier, but he struggled to close his eyes and nod off. 

“Hey, sleepy head,” spoke a masculine voice approaching him.

Looking up, Jarata was surprised to see Commander Thaustin coming towards him. Thaustin had his jacket undone and sleeves rolled up. His usual neat, curly, golden hair was like Uknare’s – scruffy. Thaustin smirked at catching Jarata’s attention. 

“Here comes my saviour!” Jarata said, trying to sit up a bit more. 

“How are you feeling, Rubon?” Thaustin asked as he carefully plopped himself down on the edge of the bed, avoiding the pilot.

“My head’s a bit fuzzy, but I want to return to duty as soon as the doctor allows me,” Jarata responded. “Thanks for saving me.”

Thaustin shrugged his shoulders. “It was nothing, and I can’t have you lying at my feet on the bridge, sleeping on the job!”

Both men laughed at that. 

“Is it as bad as the doctor made out to me earlier?” Jarata asked. 

Thaustin sighed and nodded. “We’re operating on emergency power, repairs are taking their time, and we have no idea where we are.”

“Well, I hope this helps,” Jarata said, pulling the PADD from the side cabinet and handing it to the Xindi first officer. “I plotted a course to avoid anything and hopefully get us to that nearby system in one piece.”

Taking the PADD, Thaustin nodded. “I’m sure the captain appreciates it, but the engines aren’t operating at the moment. The focus is on other systems like life support and shields.”

“Damn,” Jarata whispered. “Do we have any more idea what precisely grabbed us?”

Thaustin confirmed what they thought the anomaly was. “The working theory is the high level of neutrinos somehow trapped us in folded subspace and brought us here. We think that you moving us away at impulse and Ethav’s attempt at transferring all the power to the shields and deflectors may have disrupted or delayed the anomaly long enough to drop us here in the middle of nowhere.”

 “That doesn’t narrow the list of what brought us here and how we get back,” Jarata sighed. “I take it we can’t contact Starfleet?”

Shaking his head, Thaustin explained that the entire communication array was offline. “We won’t be speaking to anyone anytime soon.”

“Commander,” Doctor Uknare said as she walked over to the two men, “I hope you’re not disturbing my patient’s sleep.”

“I can’t sleep, doctor,” Jarata said, coming to Thaustin’s defence. 

“I was just seeing if he was awake and how he was doing,” Thaustin added.

Smiling at the act of kindness, Uknare nodded in approval. “Very well,” She looked at Jarata. “I don’t want to give you anything to make you sleep as I’ve given you enough medicine to keep you alive, but is there anything else I can get you to make you comfortable? Another pillow, perhaps? Or something to eat?”

Jarata nodded to the pillow and agreed to eat something. 

“Let me get it, doctor, you’ve been on your feet for ages. Go take a break while I make Mister Jarata comfortable and feed him,” Thaustin insisted.

Relenting to the first officer, Doctor Uknare shared her thanks for the restbite herself while Thaustin dealt with the Risian.

Though he appreciated the effort from the commander, Jarata was a bit confused by it all. The two of them had barely said much to one another since the ship was launched. After Thaustin had retrieved an extra pillow from storage and had helped put it behind him, Jarata spoke up.

“Sir, not that I don’t appreciate everything you’ve done to save me, but you don’t have to wait on me hand and foot,” Jarata said. 

Thaustin paused in helping Jarata sit up. “I know, but I’d hope you’d entertain me in apologising for being a jerk at the senior staff dinner. What I said was wrong, and I need to make it up, especially to you and the others from the Bellerophon.”

Chuckling, Jarata shook his head. “You really didn’t offend me, and I get it. What happened on Frontier Day will give us all nightmares, but you don’t have to be my personal nurse.”

 Thaustin blushed and chortled a bit, “Well, it’s not just that, but it means I get out of having to hear Kazlaf grumble again about the captain putting a pin in her away mission idea.”

The laughter continued between them for a few more seconds before Jarata smiled at Thaustin. “Sir, if we can start over again, I’d love that.”

“I’d love that,” Thaustin said with a nod. “And when it’s just us, you can call me Thaustin.”

“Likewise,” Jarata said as he held out his hand, and the two shook on it.

Their moment was interrupted by the captain arriving in sickbay.

“Ah, there you are,” McCallister said, looking at his first officer. “Tending to our pilot?”

“Healing some old wounds, sir,” Thaustin said with a smirk and a cheeky wink at Jarata.

“How are you doing, Rubon?” McCallister asked his pilot.

Jarata initially nodded. “Okay, thank you, sir.”

“You gave us quite the scare on the bridge, but thanks to Thaustin’s quick thinking and care, at least you’re still around to help us find a way home.”

“Absolutely, sir.” 

Turning back to Thaustin, McCallister updated him further. “So I agreed to Kazlaf’s idea of launching a probe and a shuttle, and you’re not going to believe what the probe has found.”

“What?” Thaustin asked, curious.

“There’s a colony on the only inhabitable planet in that system,” McCallister said. “And the lifeforms read as Sikarian.”

“Sikarian? Who are they?” Jarata asked.

“An advanced humanoid society that lives in the Nacene Reach of the Delta Quadrant,” McCallister answered. “Voyager encountered them in their first year. They’re quite the hosts when it comes to meeting new people.” 

“If memory serves me correctly, their technology includes advanced transporter technology, spatial projector or trajector,” Thaustin added. He turned to the captain. “Do you think they’re to blame for why we are here?”

McCallister shrugged his shoulders. “Who knows, but they may have answers. I think it’s worth the risk heading there.”

“I agree,” Thaustin said as he passed the captain the PADD from Jarata. “And our pilot has chartered us a safe course.”

“Good,” McCallister said, looking at the tablet. “Once repairs to the engines are complete, we’ll get underway.”

“Sir,” Jarata said, stopping both of his superiors from leaving. “If the Sikarians are to blame for bringing us here, then a neutrino trace scan of their star system would tell us. If I can access the probe’s sensors, I can do it from here.”

“Rubon’s right; we should know if they did this to us before we say hello,” Thaustin advised the captain.

“Very good, Number One,” McCallister said. “Have the sensor feed transferred here for him.”

For once, since waking up, Jarata found himself being able to do something.