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A Broken Promise, A Broken Heart

By Xan Steel

With Julyna and Iris being the only ones in Medical, they continued to give Daniel a warm and loving welcome. To finally meet and touch him made their hearts leap with joy, as they shared it with him mentally. He was overwhelmed with their feelings as he returned them, making sure they got equal treatment from him. He gently caressed their cheeks as he looked at them, to him they were the most beautiful creatures he had ever laid eyes on, and was happy beyond words to know them so intimately.

After a time when the excitement slowly relaxed, Mortora came in to update them with information that she had. She turned to look at Daniel, "Welcome to our galaxy Mr. Tavar." She smiled at him, "Thank you Doctor." "So to give you an update. I've removed about thirty percent of your cranial fluid, and it seems as though your new third hemisphere has stopped growing. So the good news is, you're not going to die from cranial pressure, however, the bad news is, if you take a serious enough knock to your head, it will cause brain damage because you lost a lot of that cushion you once had. So be extra careful from now on." Mortora finished as Daniel thanked her. "Also..." She continued, "I need to run a series of tests and I'll need to repair your muscles as you do have atrophy in your arms and legs, so you're not getting out of that bed until I say so. Understood?" "Yes Ma'am." He replied with respect.

The amount of testing that Dr. Mortora put him through lasted a few days. He was getting more and more anxious with wanting to see Maria and the others, but every time he was about to ask if he could see them, Mortora took him off for more testing. Almost as if someone was telling her too. Though none of the tests ever repeated themselves, which would have been a dead give away. He still couldn't help but wonder if that was the case.

By the end of day four, Mortora walked in looking tired and strangely nervous as she came over to him. "Mr. Tavar I need to ask you something if you don't mind?" She asked. "Sure, and please call me Rubicant." He responded. "I would like to take a blood sample. There's more testing I would like to do on your DNA. You don't have to agree if you feel uncomfortable." Under normal conditions he would have agreed, but something nagged at him about this request, and he wasn't quite sure what it was. He really didn't have a reason to deny her request, but something was off. "Under one condition." "Of course, anything." "Do the studies on a computer that is not connected to any type of database that can be accessed from anywhere, leave it disconnected and hand transfer any information you need to it." He said rather strongly. She looked at him for a moment thinking he was being very cautious. While she had no intention of sharing the information with anyone other than the Captain and perhaps Iris. "Of course." He spoke softly "Forgive me, I come from a very private people, and personal privacy is something we take very seriously. Only because we've had other people take our information and do things that were illegal, thus ruining our character." He finished. Now she understood him better and why he made his request. She placed a well trimmed clawed hand on his shoulder gently. "I understand and had really only planned to share it with the Captain and possibly Lady Iris." "They are authorized to know any information about me." She nodded and began to take a sample of his blood.

Iris came in around ten at night by his estimation and greeted him with a warm nuzzle before she began to clean up the area. After a few minutes Daniel spoke up. "Iris?" "Yes?" She said with her back to him straightening up some vials. "When can I see my Te'dar and friends?" At this point Iris dropped a glass vial, it shattered as it hit the floor. She stood still not wanting to answer him, even though she knew he would ask at some point. "Wow, I'm such a klutz." She said as she started to clean up. Daniel came up behind her, and as she turned to take the broken glass to a container, she jumped seeing him stand there, causing the glass to go all over the floor again. She was terrified to answer him he sensed, which lead him to believe something bad had happened.

He carefully and gently took the items she was using and cleaned it up for her. "I'm sorry." She softly said. Daniel dumped the glass into the container before speaking softly with his back to her. "I take it something has happened to them?" He felt her handpaws on his shoulders, which caused him to feel his eyes begin to water up. 'No.' He thought sternly to himself, while fighting back to urge to weep. "Come, I know Dr. Mortora wanted you to stay here until she was ready to release you, but I know how important this is to you." She said taking him by the hand and walking him down to Cargo Bay Three.

On the way there she reached out to Julyna. "Captain?" "Ah Iris how can I help you?" "I need you to meet Rubi and I down in Cargo Bay Three, please." There was a short unnerving pause. "I understand. I'll be there shortly." Iris hated what she was doing and how it would effect him, but keeping it from him she felt was also wrong. As they entered Cargo Bay Three, Daniel saw Julyna standing near his ship looking it over. He looked at the ship and saw the extent of the damage for the first time, the only thing left was the main fuselage. The cockpit windows were blown out as well as the main hatch that he exited and entered from when he checked on the EM Drive. There were long black scorch marks that ran the length of its haul, and in some places actually burned through the metal making a hole in it. "Wha, what happened?" He asked in an astonished tone. Julyna turned to look at him. "You entered a Quantum Vortex. It's similar to a Wormhole except it's more turbulent and highly dangerous." She spoke more quietly. "You are the first to ever survive going through one." He looked at her and the sadness in her eyes. "No, no." He said stepping back and shaking his head. "I'm sorry Rubi." She said trying to reach out and pull him into a hug, only he ran off to the hatch and climbed into the ship. As he came around a corner where the stasis units were, he was met with a gruesome scene. All three units had ruptured killing them. As he walked over to Maria's unit and looked in, she was completely unrecognizable. As the lack of a pressurized system caused her body to explode.

He couldn't stop the pain from making him weep uncontrollably, as his anger built up. Outside the ship both Julyna and Iris heard him hit something hard and yell out in anger. "NOOO!" They heard more pounding as they started to move in on him. "YOU! YOU PROMISED ME!!" As they finally entered, they watched him closely as he pounded on a unit with all his strength, repeating the words 'You Promised'. His anger subsided after a few minutes as he broke down. They went to him and pulled him into their arms to try and comfort him. All he could do was wail in pain, for the only family he ever loved had been taken from him. He spoke one last time, "I never got to say 'Goodbye'." As his breathing suddenly became very shallow while a horrified look came over him, as a pain in his chest hit making him grab his chest. Iris leaned back and looked at him. "Rubi what is it?" His breath was to short to answer and just pointed at his chest. Iris gently moved his hand and put hers there to feel his chest. A worried look came over her, "I'm not feeling a heartbeat." She said looking at Julyna.

Julyna pulled out a hand held communicator and hit a few buttons. "Transporter room." "Hyron I need you to transport Iris, Rubicant, and myself to medical pronto." There was a short pause, "Sorry Captain I can't, as there is a type of radiation I've never seen before blocking transport. You'll need to move outside of that ship in cargo bay." Julyna grabbed him and carried him in her arms and started to head to the hatch when Daniel pointed weakly at a nearby handle. He spoke mentally saying to pull it. She had Iris pull the handle as the rear ramp released and slammed into the floor of the Cargo Bay. They ran down the ramp and got about ten meters away from the tiny ship as Hyron transported them to medical.

Julyna put him on a bio-bed as Iris began to run scans on him to find out what was happening to him. They watched as his skin started to turn a light shade of blue as he tried gasping for air, but couldn't breath for some reason. Iris did the only thing she could think of an activated a stasis field around the bed to prevent him from dying right there, as the scanner started its work.

It was at the point Dr. Mortora walked into the room with her arms crossed over her chest and quietly watched Iris work. She was running several different scans at once. A Micro-cellular scan, Cardiovascular scan, and a neurological scan and waited for their findings while moving Daniels body into a more relaxed position. Mortora was also mildly impressed at Iris because of how much she was fighting back her emotions to keep her head clear and focused, but just only so. The only scan she missed was the internal organ scan to make sure there was no damage. Mortora started that one for her and watched the scan come through, and what it showed unfortunately left her speechless. She went over to him and pulled up his shirt only to see a redness covering a good twenty five percent of his chest. Iris lost her composure as the sight of his chest, "What's happening to him, why is his chest red like that?" Mortora ignored her for a moment because he was safe for now in stasis, "You both disobeyed a medical order by allowing him to leave this room." Iris just looked at her confused. "What you didn't think I was watching?" Her voiced raised to show her anger with them. "Dr. can we please..." "NO!" "DOCTOR!" Julyna yelled back. Mortora voice was quieter but still full of anger. "I'm not just the Doctor on this ship, I'm also a psychiatrist. Neither one of you brought him down first before letting him see her. He was completely unprepared, and didn't know how to handle it." She finished breathing angrily. Iris spoke again as her tears slowly rolled down her cheeks, "But we have the means to heal him." "Heal him?" Mortora questioned as she put the image of his heart on a larger screen for them to see. "I CAN'T FIX A BROKEN HEART!" She yelled pointing at the image. They stared at the screen and saw that his heart had started tearing between the right and left atriums through all three layers, the Epicardium, the Myocardium, and the Endocardium. Which was causing internal bleeding that was showing on his chest.

"I had two final scans that I needed to run with him active, NOT in stasis! Those scans would have allowed me to build the medical equipment I would need, one being a Vascular Regenerator!" She calmed her voice again before speaking. "There are twenty two species on this ship and each one has their own vascular regenerator. I can't use the one for Derlenians even if his DNA is a close match. The risk is to high with not having all the information I need to care for him. I can't even put you two on report for this, because he's a special case." She finished.

Julyna had managed to keep her composure throughout Mortora's tantrum as she sat in a nearby chair. "Why haven't these scans been done yet?" She asked only because she didn't know. "These scans are reserved for new species and each one takes ten hours to complete as they completely map out the species cellular structure and brain wave patterns. I had planned to do the first one in the morning, and have Iris with me to learn how to do them." Mortora said looking back at Iris and seeing that she had gone over to a sink to clean herself up. They both watched Iris go over to the cabinet and with shaky handpaws take out the Derlenian regenerator. She started to speak out loud but softly to herself. "If I set the output to its lowest level it should work, even if it takes a while." Her handpaws were shaking so badly that she couldn't adjust the settings, only causing more of her tears to flow as she tried to blink them away still trying desperately to hold herself together.

Mortora watched her trying to do anything, and realized she had been defeated with her emotional determination. She watched her fumble with the device and sighed inwardly as she slowly walked over to her and gently took Iris's handpaws in hers and removed the device. She then gently turned Iris's head and had her look at her, as her emotions started getting to her. "You're going to be a great doctor one day Iris. I know you're hurting and trying to not let it get to you, but this patient is to close to home for you." Iris nodded softly. "You did the right thing putting him in stasis, so for now he's safe. Now I want you to go to your quarters and have a good cry, and then clean up and come back here so we can figure this out together. Okay?" Iris nodded and was about to leave when Julyna fell out of the chair she was sitting in onto the floor crying out in pain. "Captain?!?" They both said and went to her. Julyna cried out to someone to stop their, what felt like an assault on her mind, but after a few second she began to realize she was being shown something important. "Slower, slower please." She said. Mortora questioned who she was talking to. "I don't know, but there's something important on his ship. Dammit, go slower!" Iris touched her head to comfort her only to feel a thin layer of frost. "Julyna your head is freezing!" She said excitedly. "I know and it hurts... Wait, yes, that's it, slowly. I, I think I understand now." Julyna grabbed her communicator. "Feros!" "Yes Captain?" "Where are you?" "I was just about to enter cargo bay three with my engineering team to try and get this ship powered up and see if there's any data we can retrieve. Is there something you need?" "Yes, I need you to retrieve an item and bring it to medical for me." He agree as she explained step by step where to find this item. Feros finally reached where she wanted him to be. "Alright I'm at the desk in question in the medical room. There appears to be a drawer. Attempting to open it." A short pause. "Hmm it appears to be sealed, wait, there's a small lever to the side of the handle." They heard a popping sound. "Aaah now that's clever. Ok drawer is open and there is a number of objects in here." Julyna spoke up, "Ok what you're looking for is a device that looks like a small energy pistol, with a small screen, and what looks like a crystalline cone on the front." "Well that was easy enough, that's the only device in here that looks like that. I'll bring it to you now." He said as he closed the communication channel.

The frost on Julyna's head began to melt as her head warmed up. "Glad that's over." She said slowly sitting up as Mortora was running a diagnostic scanner over her head. "Well the good news is there's no permanent damage and the temperature is rising again, but I wonder what caused that to happen, and where you got all that information from." "I don't know, but the implied importance of it was overwhelming strong. Something about how you would understand when you saw it." Julyna said to Mortora.

It didn't take long for Feros to get to medical and hand over the device in question. Feros is the chief Engineering officer on the Kestrel and his species is Amarok. Something akin to a wolf like species. He was of medium build and grey in fur color, with piercing silver like eyes, and his head and neck fur was thick and long, like a mane. He then left to return to his work. Mortora looked it over and then compared it to the Derlenian Regenerator. "Well now this is interesting. This may every well be a primitive vascular regenerator. I need to study it thoroughly to make sure though. Iris return here in two hours time please." Iris nodded as she helped Julyna up off the floor. Julyna went to Iris's quarters wanting to spend some alone time with her, because of how close they were to losing Rubicant due to their own carelessness.

Two hours later, Iris returned to medical as Mortora had ordered her too. She entered and saw Mortora looking over Rubicant, and it appeared she was running some tests. Mortora turned and looked at Iris with a smile. "Oh good right on time. Go ahead and prep for surgery." She said as Iris went and did so, by getting cleaned up and putting on a set of sterile gloves as she went over to help Mortora get started.

"Alright, this is the tool I needed to repair his heart, and having studied the damage for all scans I can safely say it's not as bad as I had originally thought. The tear is roughly twenty centimeters so we should be able to bring it back together and then restart his heart." Iris nodded and watched how Mortora moved her hand with the device over his chest and the results on the screen. After which Mortora handed her the device and had her take over. "Now remember, slow sweeping strokes over his chest." Iris nodded and continued while watching her handpaw and the screen to make sure she was doing it right. Mortora went and got another device that Iris had never seen before. "What's that?" "This device is call a blood transfuser. I'm going to slowly remove all the blood, and plasma from the surrounding area and store it until we can wake him, and then put it back in him." Mortora answered.

An hour had gone by, and progress was slow but good as the tear had decreased by three centimeters and the red on his chest was down by twenty five percent. Iris had started humming a tune that Mortora had never heard. It was quite pretty she thought. "Iris?" "Yes Doctor." She replied usually happy. "That tune your humming is quite pretty, where did you hear it?" She didn't answer right away only continued to hum, as Mortora noticed her concentration was rather strong on what she was doing. She finally answered. "I don't know, it just seem to pop into my head." Mortora found it odd, and decided to scan her while she worked. She grabbed the medical scanner off a nearby table and began to scan Daniel and slowly moved around to his other side and started to scan Iris. This is when she noticed a layer of frost on the back of her head, and the scanner revealed something disturbing. Aurorian Radiation. Mortora stepped back stunned, but she now saw that Iris had changed the motion of the regenerator to a crisscrossing pattern, and she was looking at the tiny screen on the device only now. She stepped around to the side to watch her more closely.

The screen on the device had been turned on by her and it was showing the tear in red. Even the part that they started healing, but the crisscrossing pattern that Iris started using was slowly removing the red and showing the cells in the area becoming more tightly packed. Mortora recognized it as a stitching pattern that was used in the old days, when they sewed up large gashes in skin with a needle and thread. She was completely baffled as to where Iris would even get this knowledge.

After another hour passed both the blood transfuser and Iris had finished. Which surprised Mortora, because she was expecting this operation to take much longer. But looking over the work she did and her scans, show no signs that a tear had ever existed. Iris then stepped back and collapsed to the floor. "Ow my head!" Mortora went to her and got her to sit up, this is when she noticed a good few centimeters of ice on the back of her head. Iris reached back there to feel and was suddenly scared. "Why is there ice on my head?" "I don't know, but you were also humming a tune you had never heard before." Iris touch the ice and tried to remove it, only to have it break and fall off. Mortora took some of the ice and put it in cold storage for study later, as Iris started to feel better. Mortora also hummed a part of the tune to Iris to see if she remembered it, only she didn't.

After a short moment to recover, they finished up their work and shut down the stasis field. Daniel's heart wasn't pumping so they applied a small device called a cardio-stimulator to his chest. After two jolts his heart started pumping again, as he took a deep breath and began to breathe again. He slowly opened his eyes and looked at Iris and Mortora standing over him. "I'm not dead?" He asked as Mortora replied in a snarky tone showing her long pointy teeth while she leaned in. "Oh no Mr. Tavar. You are very much alive." He replied in a scared tone "For how long?" As he reached for Iris causing her to stifle a laugh. "Iris?" "Yes Ma'am?" "Would you report to the good Captain that he's going to make a full recovery." "Yes Ma'am." She started to turn as Daniel held on to her. "Um can I go with you?" He asked. "I'm afraid not Mr. Tavar as you and I need to have a talk, and they can come visit you later." Mortora finished still baring her teeth at him. Iris left the room and did not envy him at all, as she heard Mortora lay into him about following orders as the door closed behind her.