Jayme returned to SB901 thirty-six hours after they left to answer the mayday one parsec from the Mullurans neutral zone.
Jayme had dismissed her team and grabbed her own gear and walked to HQ where she stopped at the Gunny's desk and found a young fresh scrubbed Corporal, "Like to see the Colonel." She said and waited while he called on the private line. He turned back to her, "Ma'am, you are cleared to enter."
She ditched her gear outside his door, entered, and came to attention. "At ease Captain and have a seat." She took the chair. His eyes hadn't left her from the time she'd entered, he sat silent for a minute, then said, "You should have just written up your report and forwarded it captain." He growled with a frown on his face, taping a stylet lightly with his left hand.
She nodded as she leaned forward and tossed a isolinier storage chip onto his desk, "couldn't get that through the electronic mail system, so I thought I'd make my verbal report and give you that...it is a copy of the blackbox and Intel system onboard the ship we helped."
"I see." Hi picked up the chip and fingered it a moment before placing it back on his desk. He saw the exhaustion, could still spell the smoke and sweat.
"Sir, we'd arrived to find a mid sized Nausicaan ship with obvious phaser and hard ordinance damage. Our medivac ship circled until we found an external docking port and linked up. When it was pressurized we locked down the ships flight cabin and exited leaving the armed escort to hover and watch our six. Out of the one hundred crew we found sixty dead and another thirty walking wounded. Engineering was a radiation hell, their cargo hold was open to space, and we were drifting into enemy territory. Our two escorts used tractors to pull the ship around so that we would drift further into our own territory instead."
He stood and walked to the repilcator in his office, and ordered "Orange Juice and one cup black coffee." He handed the captain the juice and watched while she took a sip. He sat on the edge of his desk and drank the coffee waiting for her to finish her report. He thought about having her report to the infirmary for some sleep where she could be observed. He was reluctant to do that but if she didn't show good common sense today he had two other 'cards' he could play; that would guarantee, she'd rest and he wouldn't feel bad about calling in the ships counselor or Dr. Fletcher in the least.
"For twenty hours my crew and I worked to treat and keep the thirty alive. Finally, the Nausicaan ship arrived and I sent my pilot to disengage so the Nausicaan ship could dock with the damaged ship. We worked for four hours to transfer the wounded, while they had another crew suited unloading the holds. My ship docked with the undamaged ship, collected Marki and myself. We made our way back here." She took several more swallows of the juice and added, "No one said anything about the fact that we'd downloaded the 'black box.' After we'd turned and headed back we noted an explosion and the damaged ship was gone. The Nausicaan rescue ship headed for Yukon."
He stood and moved backto sit behind his desk, and asked, "How long since you've gotten any sleep?"
She set the empty glass on the edge of the desk, and leaned forward avoiding his eyes and worked her fingers through her hair, "two days--give or take a few hours, sir."
"Dismissed Captain, I don't want to see or hear you've been around for twelve hours, preferably longer."
She stood and grabbed her gear. Jayme walked to the infirmary. There she stopped briefly to requisition a tranq dose, and after making sure everything was ok she walked on to her quarters. There she showered, forced herself to eat a real meal, and debated on calling Nathan--but decided to just send a message to his electronic mail box. She was still running on adrenaline, and debated on going running to burn it out of her system but knew that would be a mistake. She looked over into the corner of her room and saw her gear which needed to be cleaned and restocked, but that two could wait. She pressed the tranq syringe against the fleshy part of her forearm and wrapped herself in the comforter and slid off into the darkness moments later.
Jayme woke with someone shaking her shoulder. She opened her eyes and groaned. She sat up and saw Nathan who handed her a glass of juice. She took a few sips then asked, "What time is it?"
"0900 hours," He said, and he watched while she choked on a sip of OJ. "When you didn't show up for your shift in sickbay and didn't respond to multiple pages by Dr Cherrin--he sent me over to check on you."
"Oh God." She moved to scramble out of bed to get dressed when his arm snagged hers and pulled her back into place. She'd been down for almost twenty-four hours. "Nathan, move." She said as she made shue'ing motions with her hands.
He smiled and shook his head. "Dr. Cherrin removed you from the duty roster. Now, is this why you were dead to the universe?" He asked holding up the tranq syringe?
"Yes." She drank some more of her juice, then added, "I was hyped on adrenaline from my mission and knew from the looks the colonel gave me while making my report that if I reported for duty within twelve hours I was going to be in hot water."
"So you tranqed yourself. How much?"
"The whole dose--5ml's (100mgs) of Morpazine." She saw him shake his head.
"As a medical officer and someone who cares for you--don't you ever self medicate like this again! Call me, and I'll give you something. What you just did was dangerous and incredibly stupid." He watched as she leaned back against the pillows and he heard her say, "Sorry."
"I love you." He leaned in and kissed her. He could see now that she wasn't worried about her shift she was fighting to stay awake. "Go back to sleep. I'll wake you for lunch."