Chapter 28S - Meanwhile, Back in Callisto Med Bay

[Captain Hawke]

I am in a drug induced coma. It feels like I am aware of my surroundings and hearing people talking, but my body refuses to respond.
"Keep him in this coma until Commander Sheba has a chance to question him." The doctor was saying to his nurse. "Yes doctor."

The spectral form of Count Iblis appeared in front of me, and suddenly I could talk. "Nurse! Help me! Count Iblis is here!!!" I called out. "She can't see me my child. Nor can she hear you. I am in your imagination." he says. "So what do you want?" I asked resigned to my fate. "It is not what I want, my pupil. It's what I demand of you.." "And what is that?" I ask. "For you to kill Sheba and Apollo of course." he says. "I don't think so, you soulless wretch." I say. "I control you. You WILL do what I say!!" he says. "You may control my body but you don't control my mind or soul!!!" I say. "Oh, but I do,you fool. Would you like to re-visit the Cylon Basestar you were a guest at? Witness."
Suddenly I'm in a chair strapped down. "Engage the cortical stimulator." I hear a droning voice say. I turn my head and see a gold centurian looking at me. Suddenly every fiber of my being felt like it was on fire. I scream out. I hear an insane laughing in the background. I try to focus through my pain and try to see who it is. "You!" I manage to say.

Back in the real world, I start screaming. The nurse looks up from what she's doing and calls the doctor. "What happened?" the doctor asks. "I don't know, sir. He just started screaming!!!!" Just as the doctor was trying to ascertain why i was screaming I stopped.

Suddenly the pain was gone and I'm back in the Med Bay. "Yes, it was me Hawke." Iblis said. "Why?" I asked. "For someone who's supposedly so intelligent, you certainly are slow to catch on. What was the last thing you remember a secton ago at Pangara Major?" "I was going after a cylon raider and my viper was hit. All power died, and I tried to get power back. the control panel blew up and I tried to cover my face and I was knocked unconscience." "Yes. Then my Cylon bretheren found you and you became our guest. " he said. "And you 'conditioned' me to kill Apollo & Sheba..." I concluded. "Bright boy. I knew if I sthingy fed you enough you'd get it."he says. "Why you sonofadaggit!!!" I try to lunge for him but discover I'm back on the basestar in the chair.

Back in the real world I start screaming again. I have the doctors pouring over me trying to determing what's wrong. "Is he still in his coma?" "Yes doctor." the nurse says. "Then why the frack is he screaming? Stick a gag in his mouth to quiet him!!!" They do so. And I stop screaming.

And then I'm back in the Med Bay. "You see, my boy, I can make you experience the worst tortures in Hades themselves and there is NOTHING you can do about it. Now, we can keep doing this or you can do as I wish. It's your choice." Suddenly I really hated being myself.

[Agelastus]

Some people can't stand being near a med bay. Some people have no trouble at all.

I'm an "in the middle" kind of man. I don't go out of my way to visit them, but I'm not reduced to a stressed out maniac by the mere thought of a physical.

Still, the Callisto's Life Center was not an area of the Callisto I knew particularly well. Which meant, of course, that I didn't know any of the medical personnel very well either.

Which meant, of course, that if Hawke wasn't allowed visitors, I wasn't going to get anywhere near him.

The nurse was understanding, but rigid.

"I'm afraid the captain isn't allowed any visitors."

"Not even for a couple of microns?"

"Not even for a micron. No visitors."

As I said...rigid. The conversation was basically a non-starter. The one bit of information I did manage to extract was that the captain was in a coma. But when I suggested that perhaps a visitor would help, and that medical studies suggested that being talked to helped comatose patients, I got even shorter shrift than before.

I suppose the nurse thought I was questioning her competence. I knew exactly how I would have felt in that respect, so I had a hard time being angry.

And that's how it would have stayed if the screaming hadn't started.

"Again?" was the nurse's response. Her face held more than a hint of incredulity.

And in the confusion, I slipped in behind that nurse as she ran to help.

Which is how I got there in time to see Hawke being gagged. I also couldn't help noticing the anaesthetic drip...the one that contained a drug that I thought I recalled being designed to induce an artificial coma.

I'd heard about it during my sojourn on the prison barge, since it had been the drug of choice of a notorious kidnapping ring that had operated in the last couple of yahrens before the Holocaust on Caprica.

One of the medical personnel, not yet having noticed me, asked "Now then - who removed the gag?"...

[Agelastus]

Fruitless visits seemed to be a speciality of mine these days.

I'd not even had a chance to say one word over the supposedly comatose Captain Hawke. The attendants had hustled me straight back out.

Odd to see a man in a coma screaming though...

Still, I had more important matters to attend to.

I checked for any messages using a nearby wall panel. There were two. Text only, of course.

"Subject One. Alpha. Two centars." The time stamp was recent. I had plenty of time. A quick check showed that the man was probably coming in on the Inter-Fleet shuttle from the Rising Star.

"Subject two. No direct contact. Has expressed interest in condiments via channel 3"

Interesting. Very interesting. So Pierce's contacts in the underbelly of the Fleet were not as good as I'd have expected.

This might actually work...

[Captain Hawke]

"Well my child, I have a question for you. Do you remember this?"
My mind wanders toan aley in Caprica City where I recieve a very euphoric feeling. I had felt this so many times before when I was addicted to Falash. Falash was an eyedrop that gave the user the ultimate high. Everything was very pretty when Falash was used. It is also highly addictive. Once in awhile it was used with a hallucinagenic it made the bulkheads melt and doubled the high,if that was possible. But there were more prominent side effects using Falash alone. Violence, cardiac crashes,and occular nerve damage.

Back in the real world, my vital signs start flucuating and notify the nurse of the change. "What in Hades?" she says. "Doctor!!!!" "Now what?" he says. "Look at his vital signs..." "Lords, what the frack is happening to him? Even when he's in a coma he's a pain. we should just pull the plug and get it over with...." the doctor says. "DOCTOR BJK how dare you say that... This man is a patient in need of our services." the nurse says. "I know.... Don't worry, I was venting."

[LucianG]

In the Med Lab, Lieutenant Winnie had arrived just after a doctor and a nurse left the Hawke’s station. Standing to the side, she waited until no Med Lab appeared to be watching. Flashing a single finger to her lips toward the two Fleet Security guards near Hawke's station, Winnie quickly stepped in to the curtained area and looked at Hawke secured in the life support station. Checking his wrist bonds to make sure they were secure before she approached, she stepped up to him and put her hand on the forehead of her former partner and sometime friend. “Hawke, it’s Winnie,” she whispered. “What have you gotten yourself into this time?”

[Amy81]

Lazant emerged from his visit to Brie in the brig, where the warriors Manatee and Grammit waited for him.

"How's the Major doing?" Manatee asked.

"As well as could be expected" Lazant replied, shaking his head. "Seems I've missed a lot since I've been away."

"You being away was half the reason so much went on" Grammit observed.

"So I'm learning" Lazant said, nodding. "Come on boys, back to Medlab".

"Got more aches and pains?" Grammit asked.

"Slipped disc maybe?" Manatee said with a smile. He and Grammit shared a laugh. Lazant just looked at the both of them, then walked off, leaving the two escorting warriors to catch up.

Medlab was less restricted this time when Lazant walked in. He could see a doctor and nurse talking to a cadet through an open doorway. The cadet looked miserable. Lazant looked away. Grammit and Manatee noticed too.

"That's Captain Amy's room, isn't it?" Manatee asked Grammit in a low voice. Grammit nodded but said nothing.

"I need to see the doctor that gave me the check up" he announced to the nurse at the main desk.

"Right behind you" said a voice, and Lazant turned to see the doctor he was looking for standing there. "What can I do for you?"

"I've learned you have a warrior under your care, name of Hawke" Lazant stated.

"Yes" the doctor replied, "Not under my care personally, but he is here."

Lazant pulled out the remaining discs, and the doctor rolled his eyes. "I'll have you know" the doc said, "that those discs are unreadable. They'll be as useful as a three legged daggit in treating Captain Amy."

"I don't understand..." Lazant began. "They contain all of Amy's memories..."

"If you say so" the doc said. "But none of it can be read with our equipment. It's an alien format. And even if we could read it, it's about as useful as a vid from Amy's 10th novayahren as far as helping her recover goes. We don't have the technology to read the discs, let alone get the information back inside her."

Lazant looked dejected as he sat down heavily in one of the waiting room chairs. He sat in silence, his gaze focused on something a million miles away. The touch of the doc's hand on his shoulder brought him back. "Now" the doc said, "if you know something about Hawke, let's hear it. Maybe you can help him."

Lazant held up the remaining discs. "These discs you'll be able to read. It's just data. No memories. But they detail, among other things, the cylon capture of a certain Lt. Hawke..."

[Amy81]

The doctor took the discs inside to a room filled with medical equipment, lab materials, and monitors. He sat down and inserted the discs. "When we ran through the data on those other discs" he said to Lazant, "there wasn't a bit of readable material."

"What is on them is what's needed to make Captain Amy whole again" Lazant insisted.

"Well, maybe you should have taken care of that before you two left the cold cell area. Because we don't empty minds here. How we can be expected to re-fill one is beyond me."

"First of all" Lazant snapped, "there wasn't time at the time to repair the damage done to Amy. It was all I could do to get the information they'd taken from her. And second, maybe the discs are in the wrong hands if you can't read them. Because what I say is on them IS on them."

"Ah, we have something readable on THESE" the doctor said. Then he fell into silence. Lazant peaked over his shoulder, nodding as they both read. The doctor let out a long sigh. "You are right, the commander is going to want to see this. The names on here..." And again they both read in silence.

"Here we are" the doctor said, coming upon the name of Hawke. "Seems to be a lot of information about his stay with the Cylons..." He frowned. "Seems to be some subfiles that won't open though." He tried several ways but couldn't open these other files. "Uh, thank you Lazant. This is obviously going to take a little while, if you have other business to take care of..." He brushed Lazant aside as he spun around to reach for a comm buzzer. He pressed it. "Nurse, I'm going to need all available doctors to come to the lab right away."

[Captain Hawke]

Iblis just switched from my first falash experience back to the experience on the basestar.
"Alright!!! Stop!!!! Stop frack you,Iblis!!! I'll do what you say. But I need to work my way. No interference from you..." I say. "Alright. You'll have no interference from me. But I warn you, you cross me and I shall strike you down where you stand." he says. "Yes master. I shall kill Commander Apollo and Commander Sheba per your orders." I said.

Little did myself or Iblis know is , what I was saying was being recorded on the outside world.

The nurse that was taking my vital signs at the time heard me say Iblis' name and went to alert the doctor on call.
"Alert Commander Sheba now!!!!" the doctor said.

[LucianG]

A little later, Commander Sheba entered the Med Lab just a little behind Captain Urdea and the Black Shirts escorting Elmer’s body. She asked to speak to Doc BKJ. A short time later, BKJ welcomed Sheba, and escorted her toward the secure room where Hawke was being held.

Moments later, Fallel, the small Frodarian Outlander entered the Med Lab. He approached one of the Med Techs and said, “Greetings, I have been ordered to see the doctor about some data disks with which he or she needs assistance. Please inform the doctor I am here.”

Knowing it might be a while, he took a seat and pulled out a computer pad. He recalled a file and, moments later, the screen was covered with strange text. As he had done many times before, he began studying it once more while he waited to find out what kind of disks. Periodically, he entered data on an overlay file, and watched the resulting changes to the primary file….

[Amy81]

"Fallel" a doctor said, extending his hand in greeting as he approached the Frodarian, "Thank you for coming. I must say your reputation precedes you."

Fallel shook the doctor's hand. "I understand you have some discs that need decoding?"

The doctor nodded. "I have quite a pile" he admitted. "Two different patients, and both seem to be depending a lot on what those discs hold. This way please."

The doctor led Fallel to the lab room where a small med team had been studying the discs with little success. They made room for Fallel when they saw him come in.

"These files here" the doctor said to Fallel, "pertain to a patient named Hawke. Very unusual case. We've learned from the discs that he'd been captured and tortured by the Cylons, but there are some subfiles that we cannot get into."

Fallel nodded, and took a seat in front of the monitor...