Jai's Anatomy, Part 5
Posted on Tue May 30th, 2017 @ 7:16pm by Lieutenant JG Jai
Edited on on Tue May 30th, 2017 @ 7:28pm
Mission:
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Timeline: 2388
Tags: Jai
1005 words - 2 OF Standard Post Measure
Gently from the wall
A shadow still remaining
See the churches fall
In mighty arcs of sound
And all that they're containing
Yet all the ragged souls
Of all the ragged men
Looking for their lost homes
Shuffle to the ruins
From the levelled plain
To search among the tombstones
When the angels fall"
- Sting
"Computer, access tissue sample... one-one-seven-nine, and run genitronic simulation delta-four, please."
[ Analysis will take three hours, seventeen minutes, and twelve seconds to complete. ]
The Nova-class starship was an advanced planetary explorer, a modern update to the Oberth-class of the preceding decade. It was a ship of science, not war. It wasn't heavily armed. It wasn't particularly fast, but the ship's top speed of Warp Eight meant that they were hurdling toward Bajor at a velocity more than one thousand times the speed of light. At that speed, the Discovery could cross a span of twenty lightyears in a week.
And it would still take the ship ninety-eight years to traverse the United Federation of Planet's vast expanse of ten thousand lightyears.
Emerging out of the 2360's, the development of the genitronic replicator and the Russel-Crusher technique for organ tissue replacement had made possible medical miracles that had been utterly beyond human reach in every century before.
But, there were always margins of error -- ghosts in the machine -- no matter how marvelous the technology of man or medicine's best work.
The boy stood on a step stool, the short boost giving him the reach he needed to adequately reach up and across the modern display recessed into the wall of the medical laboratory. He had a padd tucked under one arm and a small set of prayer beads in one hand. The set were usually worn on his wrist, now both absently and anxiously kneaded through his fingers as the ship's computer ran samples through a variety of simulations.
The frustrating thing of it all was that this wasn't a particularly arduous medical challenge. Orkett's Disease had been studied back to Bajoran antiquity, but for the fact that Mika's attending physicians were a Betazoid and his Miran medical student the diagnosis might have come sooner. There were effective treatments available for management of the disease. There was even a cure.
Replication of many of the components for those, however, was not an exact science. There were many quantifiable qualities of living bio-matter that no matter of technology could perfectly reproduce. Even genetically cloned organisms, particularly ones as complex as humanoids, were identifiable. Not by any subtle errors, but rather by the lack of them. Computer-aided technologies tended to make symmetrical, perfect forms. Cellular structures developed organically were far less structured, and a tad more random than was otherwise convenient for anyone.
So knowledge of the disease wasn't a limiting factor on medical care. The ability to travel to the Bajoran system wasn't a limiting factor. The ability to try and harvest Mika's own tissues to develop the treatments that they needed to manage the progress of her disease was not a limiting factor.
Time was a limiting factor.
The time to arrive at a proper diagnosis.
The time to get to the Bajoran System.
The time for the computer to analyze, simulate, and synthesize new tissues.
Jai walked through Sickbay every day, and every day he was watching a little Bajoran waste away on a biobed. Not for want of doctors or knowledge or technology... but for lack of time.
And there was no prescription for that. No order that he could put into a replicator to make this any better.
Except for painkillers.
They'd started Mika on a lydocaine patch to numb the pain.
The padd that Jai was holding contained new orders from Doctor Amaen. On the surface, nothing would appear to change. Mika was their patient, they would treat her. But the strategy -- the strategy for that care -- would be managed very differently.
The orders said that Mika would now be treated as a hospice patient.
She was dying. That little girl on the biobed that he saw every day. She was dying and there was nothing that Jai could do to prevent it.
That didn't mean he wasn't going to try.
[ Analysis complete. ]
The boy found himself just staring at the display. He opened his mouth, but he was afraid to ask the question that had brought him here. The prayer beads kneaded through the fingers at a quickened pace, as he tried to speak and wondered if he was prepared for the answer. "Computer, display results of last bone marrow synthesis, please."
The statistical data popped up before the computer verbalized the summary. But, he didn't need the auditory aid. The numbers told him even before the words reached his ears.
[ Bone marrow synthesis failure. ]
Lurching forward, the boy's fist clenched around the prayer beads -- felt them bite painfully into the flesh as he gripped down on them hard -- and then lashed out with the fist to pound against the slick black display. A red hot anger coursed through the boy's veins as a well of frustration began to mount. Then he slumped forward, as all of the strength and anger seemed to leave him. His forehead rested against the display, as he closed his eyes and let out a slow breath.
After several moments, he lifted his head back up. Stepping down from the step stool, the small monk began pacing in the lab. Running a hand over his shorn head, the boy stopped and turned back to look at the display -- as though he might make the information there change through force of will.
Sample non-viable. Projected rejection rate: 97.375%
Jai turned around. Before he'd realized it, his foot lashed out. A sea of padds spilled across the floor as the medical cart came crashing down.
