Personal Log: Malcolm Adeyemi

[Malcolm Adeyemi]

Personal Log, stardate: 67105.7.

Acclimating here has been difficult. Though my previous training has been rigorous I overcame the physical and mental tests with the grace of God. Being deployed and actually here is a much different story. Up until now I thought I was doing very well. If a man puts good things into the universe he will get good things out of it, my father always said. Never had a reason to doubt that until now.

I don't know who was more foolish to insist I accept an offer aboard a Galaxy class starship as my first assignment. One of the biggest, newest, and most far flung ship in Starfleet, with me on it, away my Laura, Gerald, and the little grape. Laura and I wanted to be surprised as to the sex of the new baby, so for now we're just referring to it as whatever the medical texts compare the fetus to. Oddly, this is always food: a sesame seed, a grape, a plum, an orange, an eggplant. I don't reccomend cannibalizing one's young, either from a spiritual or a medical standpoint.

Still, despite the fact that I miss my family, I am keeping busy. There's not much to do in sickbay so I've been busying myelf with tests and drills on procedure and protocol. I've also been studying the great source of medical texts here on the Gettysburg. Attacking a job with drive is important at first until a man settles into his groove and can coast forward.

Did push-ups at random intervals today and when no one is looking I dash around the passageways to build up leg strength and stamina. Sadly, not many stairs here on the Gettysburg, but then again, why would there be with turbolfits? You can't take those two at a time. Will keep a lookout for a place to do chin ups. Stafford out.

[Malcolm Adeyemi]

Personal log.

Coming to grips with a situation and adapting is taught well in Starfleet. And they need to, with the situations a man is put in.

I'm slowly settling in here on the Gettysburg. Every day seems to go a little better than the one before. Besides the situation of young, Academy bound hotshots and their big heads, that is. I don't think that problem will ever go away.

Received a message today from Starfleet Medical stating that officers should always be inoculated. It didn't say agains what, particularly, but only that officers are resistant to inoculation and some creativity is required to ensure their health. If an officer isn't inclined to be injected for any reason the medic is encouraged to invent a scorching case of "realspace whooping cough" and get the job done.

Push ups today, more dashing around the p-ways for aerobic exercise. If I don't find a place for chin ups I may have to break down and visit the holodeck.

I have faith in the grace of God that my family is doing well and I will be back with them as soon as I possibly can. Stafford out.

[Malcolm Adeyemi]

=/\=Personal log.

I've been doing a lot of inventory in sickbay. I have to say the Gettysburg is especially well equipped. This shouldn't be surprising, however, seeing as how this is her maiden voyage.

I'm still getting used to this ship, and the people on it. Some jock down in Engineering had a suppurating mass of growths he wanted me to check out. As I was mopping and stitching I asked him if there's any place in engineering for a man to do chin ups. So he thinks he's an authority and tried to tell me that pull-ups are a better exercise. Right off the bat I listed the muscles that chin ups engage and then the comparatively fewer ones that pull-ups engage. Had him sputtering a bit. Then he tried to tell me that chin-ups are easier. I said, "They're easier because they engage more muscles and therefore give a man a better work out. Did you want to keep reviewing or go on to the next lesson?" Some people. As I had competently healed his grievous growths he got up to leave so I said, "Add in a squat thrust with a pushup for a full body workout after a set of chin ups, friend." Sickbay 1, Engineering 0.

[Malcolm Adeyemi]

=/\=Personal log.

As harsh is this may sound, I am starting to get accustomed to life without my family. I miss Laura, Gerald, and the grape terribly, but we do converse often so it is not as if I never hear their voices or see their faces, thank God. I'm starting to come up with other diversions besides my exercises.

There is, of course, reading, a sociable drink, or music to occupy a man's mind, but I've always been a notorious prankster. I still remember how angry our father got when my brother and I  synthesized a highly adhesive epoxy and glued his tools to the ceiling. Mad as he was my father was a man who believed in reciprocity and was not without humor himself, either. For our birthdays (us being born 4 years apart but both in August) that year he presented us each with a fabulously big present. Inside the fancy wrapping paper and box was a bunch of smelly old anchovy.

With that proud family tradition in mind I have set my sights on the Gettysburg.

I'm a quiet person by nature and do not like to attract attention. My fierce wit is only unsheathed when aroused (my anger, not me). But when it is, it is implacable.

There is a piece of flotsam on board named Stanley Back. He's a smart kid, going places, but he has the same big head every other pilot in Starfleet has (and in every organization that needs pilots, according to my research.)

I suppose I could have gone skulking to his quarters to do the old whipped cream and feather trick but Security doesn't look very kindly to that. No, my father told me that a man has to do the best with what God gave him. And I have the ship's medical records.

That was actually a roadblock at first. Stanley Back is an extremely healthy kid: no debilitating diseases, no embarrassing midnight visits to shady doctors, no objects having to be removed from anywhere they were inserted. Dismayed but resolute I plowed forward.

No past medical history of any diseases or embarrassing accidents. Social and family history normal. No mental illness or addiction.

Vaccinations all up to date. Well, until now that is.

It's been standard procedure in any military organization (according to my research) for sailors and soldiers of yore to be thoroughly vaccinated. Failure to do is a serious disciplinary infraction and dangerous. Standard Starfleet procedure in this matter is to have the patient inoculated thoroughly (a process taking hours) if he or she is found to be not up to date.

Talarian plague. Andorrian shingles. Spacesickness. Vertigo. The common cold. Realspace whooping cough. Brain parasites. Tuberculosis. Dysentery, for that Oregon trail feel.

It took me hours to research and change all of the vaccinations and add items to the medical records, but a man has to be dedicated to his craft. The tricky part was ensuring a list of maladies that would be far beyond a simple sickbay on a starship; a full clinic, maybe even a hospital, would be needed. And no matter that some of these diseases and ailments had been cured hundreds of years ago, or that some of them would never even require a shot even if he had had them. The nurse administering them would come up with something to shoot into Back. If it's one thing a medic loves it's to inject a patient!

The next time we docked at a starbase Back would be spending his shore leave a little differently than I.

[Malcolm Adeyemi]

=/\=Personal log.

I've never been one for regimented prayer. But I also think its wrong only to pray in times of need. With that in mind I try to make all I do on the Gettysburg a prayer. Nothing else will get me home sooner.

With little regard for the lives of my children, woman and not to mention the crew we are studying some odd space object with ancient writing on it. Never mind the fact that no good can come from any of that. We're going to scan and probe and investigate until that thing sucks is into it or blows up. And then eveyone will he down in sickbay when they're short a limb and in need of me. So I'll keep praying, that's for sure.

I feel guilty being away from my son. He's at a point in his life where he is learning the most he will ever. Toddlerhood is a time where a child will grow by leaps and bounds. He has his mother and his great extended family but not his father. Nothing can replace a father for a son or time lost between the two.

Didn't have the will to exercise today. Why bother when I may be smashed to atoms or dissected  by this old alien pinball anyway? The only thing that keeps me going is the love for my family, God, and my equal faith in this new crew. They're a little foolhardy but despite my being so morose I truly feel we're ready for whatever this thing has planned for us.

[Malcolm Adeyemi]

Personal log.

I found a place to do chin ups! Despite that lunk with the growths and his attitude I was able to find out that there is a low bar in one of the shuttle bats that can used for just that purpose. It's a secluded little spot and required a great deal of snooping and research on my part.

I was having a drink (whiskey, rocks) in Ten Forward right after the first shift had finished up. The place was packed and I had had to share a table with two riffraff from operations. They were chattering on about loading up some shuttle today and one of them was complaining about a headache after he'd bumped his head. The man kept saying it and glancing at me as if I was morally obligated to heal his wounds right then and there. Not when I'm not on duty, crewman. My God, my two year old at home whines less. Riffraff.

I tossed off the rest of my synthehol and was ready to leave when I noticed the crewman with the headache was taller than was nessecary. He was pushing two meters, so for him to bump his head was quite a feat.

I dashed from Ten Forward to the nearest turbolift and shot down to deck 4. A quick recon of the three main shuttlebays did reveal that one had an oddly out of place bar hanging from the wall, perfect for chin ups. Must have been an error at the shipyards.

The only problem is that there was a gaggle of three mustard suited crewmen moving around cargo. They were led by a grizzled old PO1 who looked as if he had a confirmed kill with a shovel in the Earth-Romulan War. He was serving me an entree of glare with a side order of stink eye so I left.

Despite that set back, the place for chin ups has been found. Anything to help pass the time until I can be reunited with my family will help.

[Malcolm Adeyemi]

Personal log

The command staff has decided to send an away mission to the strange object we've been scanning. They require a sample for carbon dating. Such away missions almost always include medical personnel, as away teams are apt about getting injured or infected with something. I really want to go with them. I'm no bloodthirsty adventurer but whatever that thing is it sounds infinitely preferable to rotting away in sickbay for another few hours. If I'm going to die in a supernova or become brainwashed or whatever this thing has in store for us I want at least a fighting chance.

Speaking of fighting, a message from Laura back on Earth has indicated that our son was involved in a little scrape at his school. A "fight" amongst two year olds, imagine that. I'm willing to bet the entire thing was blown out of proportion. Laura is more concerned about our son fighting but I don't think this thing has to be a negative experience. Despite all of our technological superiority fights, can, do, and will happen. A man should experience this type of thing if he has to deal with it.

What a man emphatically does not have to deal with is a giant floating space artifact foretelling doom and then investigating it for some reason instead of just flying away. Unless you're me, of course. In that case you do have to deal with a red-shirted madman getting you killed for just that reason.

For all these reasons I continue to offer prayers and beseech to God.

[Malcolm Adeyemi]

=/\=Personal log=/\=

Although I have always been dedicated to seeking peaceful resolutions to any conflict a man has to be prepared for when others are not so refined. I was inspired by a recent humiliating episode on the holodeck.

LT CMDR Kirok was showing me through some bat'leth moves. He's not a bad fellow, for a Vulcan. We were having a perfectly good time fighting holographic opponents until that Cardassian showed up.

First of all, what's a Cardassian doing in Starfleet? Everyone knows how vicious and warlike they are. Just the sight of those scales and the cold, mocking lizard eyes was enough to set me off. Maybe that's unfair of me to say but I feel like the Federation conditions us for that response to Cardassians.

To top it off the lizard pulled a dirty trick and set the difficulty higher on me. Before a man could say "freeze program" I was on my heels dodging cuts this far from my head. If I had hair I would have lost some, it came that close.

You would have thought Kirok would have chided the man for his underhanded jape but no, he just welcomed him to the fight and invited him to join us!

I was able to dispatch two more opponents before I realized I was swinging myself out and excused myself from further training that day. But I did like the bat'leth and now I have two somebodies to prove myself to. With some work in my off hours I'll show both of them.

Unfortunately, this does mean I am dropping my former "no holodeck" policy but it's a necessity. Never be afraid to challenge your own beliefs, my father always said, and maybe that's exactly what I need here on the Gettysburg to shake things up.

[Malcolm Adeyemi]

=/\=Personal log=/\=

I officially was pronounced a nursing technician apprentice today. Other than that, I believe I have finally come to the keystone of my spiritual foundation.

I have a body holding me. One I take care of and that takes up a great deal of my time but merely a body. Being out here in space has made me realize that I cannot be consumed by the corporeal anymore. There is all manner of life in the universe; the only thing that unites all in the end is energy. Spiritual energy, in my case.

My father lived for his family and taught me to do the same. I now know that by seeking to nourish my spiritual self first I am benefitting myself and my family at the same time. When a man is happy the happiness trickles down, my father always said.

[Malcolm Adeyemi]

=/\=Personal log=/\=

More news from the homefront: my little boy is resisting all attempts at potty training or sleeping in his own bed. As parents our (Laura's, as I'm sitting here in my quarters, not on Earth) usual response is desperate resistance is futile but my son is as stubborn and inexorable as any Borg drone. Might be time to ease off the little guy for a bit. He does have a lot to adjust to: my being away and he's about to be a big brother.

I really miss him and told him so the other day. It's amusing, Laura says we're more like brothers than father and son. Sometimes it really seems like it'd be easier to be a toddler than have to be here on the Gettysburg.

Oh, I shouldn't say so. Things have been getting easier. Everyone is starting to get used to one another, except for the new medical officer.

Ensign XoranÁ¢â,¬"excuse me, Trisha, as she prefers to be calledÁ¢â,¬"is the most unusual officer I've ever met in my career. Some part of her reminds me of my wife. She's very sweet, eager, but also very troubled and I think a bit insane. I'm talking more than your average Starfleet officer, by the way. Sometimes she looks a little glazed and will come to a moment later, looking very dazed. This is also something she has in common with my wife.

I will never understand why some officers go through the Academy and then insist on being addressed by their minions as if they were playing billiards. Oh well, it takes all kinds I suppose...

[Malcolm Adeyemi]

=/\=Personal log=/\=

I'm not the only one getting promoted. Laura just sent me a message: what we had recently interpreted as a 7-9 week pregnancy is actually at 13 and a half weeks! Our baby has gone from a grape to a peach. A peach is a popular hand fruit so I am even more disconcerted by the food comparison. For example, the other day I saw a lunk from Engineering happily munching on a peach in the mess. Soon, however, the baby will be the size of a lemon and people eat those less often.

Speaking of the mess, you'd think those people have never heard of a man needing a decent meal. Back home we usually ate as a family and Laura does not require as much food as I do, so I ate less. Here on the Gettysburg, however, there is no one to stop me from eating my fill and I've been busily tucking in whenever I have the time: mounds of eggs, bacon, and carafes of coffee for breakfast, a healthful salad with plenty of seafood or chicken for lunch, and of course steaks, chops, and roasts for dinner. Being an asocial lifeform I usually dine alone in my quarters but once a week I go to the mess to remind the riffraff who is in charge.

So one of the flotsam who serves food, a humanoid female of indeterminate species, glides up to me and takes my order and comes back with my synthahol whiskey on the rocks. She then stood there and waited, looking at me.

Such people have to be kept in their place. I owed her no requisite conversation besides giving her my order so I let her stand there. Seconds stretched in to minutes, and still she waited, tray held against her body, looking at me intently while I drank and ignored her.

When my drink was done she prompted, "Another?" I wondered if this was some new level of service Starfleet is providing, to have a person wait on someone one on one. I fixed her with a look, as if to say, Do you DESERVE to fetch me another drink? but I just nodded.

"You must have wanted to know why I was standing here?" She asked.

I gave her a noncommittal shrug.

"You order the same thing, week in and week out. We have access to the replicator records, as well. You eat meat, meat, meat, vegetables, vegetables, vegetables. Occasionally a piece of fruit. Never a sweet. Never a drink besides water and a bit of hard stuff. That means Á¢â,¬Ëœsynthahol."

I was about to tell her I grew up in rural Pennsylvania and knew what hard stuff really was, not synthahol, but I still didn't speak. I wondered if snooping into someone's dining habits was against the regulations somehow.

"My people do not consume animals, only plants."

How fascinating. I continued to stare at her, looking through her, really, past the bulkheads, the hulls, and through space and infinity, right to earth, to where my woman and babies were, not here in this starship having to deal with this nonsense.

"I said Á¢â,¬Ëœrocks.' That means ice." I held the glass out. "Now go fetch it and cease your witless prattle, you preachy piece of flotsam."

She snatched it from my hand with a level of violence bordering on a violation of regulations and stalked off behind the bar. I saw her talking to the head bartender, a tough old man, civilian but resembling a great big vicious ape that had learned how to mix with polite society. When he began to move toward me I stood to as if to leave.

The ape quickened his pace to intercept  me and as he moved closer and closer I spotted a couple of engineering lunks ahead of me sharing an enormous platter of crabs. Always hated the things-

Timing it perfectly, when the ape was almost to me and opened his mouth I adroitly swiveled a hip as if to turn to face him-

I had meant to only hit the platter of crabs but I miscalculated and bumped the table with my hip, knocking the platter, some drinks, utensils to the ground-

One of the lunks stood, angrily cursing-

The other was flinging away steamy hot crab juice from her hair-

The ape, propelling himself forward with his bold old gait, stepped on a crab and slipped, acrobatically whipping a leg up in the air-

A sharp jab from my shoulder into the chest of the standing engineer crewman as I dodged away from the slipping ape was all it took. The lunk fell into the table and his female companion and all of them fell to the floor in a tangled mess of limbs and stinking shellfish-

I ambled out of the mess like I owned the place. Everyone glared at me as I left but what were they going to do, throw me in the brig for spilling some crabs? It must have looked suspicious but to hell with that riffraff.

I returned to my quarters stinking but feeling triumphant.

[Malcolm Adeyemi]

=/\=Personal Log=/\=

For the tenure of my duty here I've been the whipping boy for every security crewman, officer, and others for my department's alleged lack of manly mortal combat. Medical is also mocked for our trade being so cleanly and cerebral. In my mind this is not a bad thing. If a man wants to spend his days dodging phasers and fists so be it. I'll just go home to my family at the end of the day.

On a related note, confirmation that most complaints from patients are merely psychosomatic or whininess was confirmed today. I should say again confirmed as it has been proven to me in the past but today was especially noteworthy.

A lunk from security appeared during my shift and requested some treatment for the ringworm on his face. He looked very unsightly anyway and the red mass of rash on his cheek wasn't improving anything. I had him wait while I did some research and sipped at some coffee I wasn't supposed to have at my station.

Ringworm, I learned, is a common ailment amongst athletes and especially wrestlers. Bacteria festers on gym mats and then sweaty men spend long minutes mounting each other and mashing other men's faces onto the bacteria.

My coffee was cool by the time I got back to the patient. "Have you been wrestling?"

He looked at me like they all do, as if it was some kind of fortune telling as opposed to scientific knowledge and applying oneself. Riffraff. "How did you know?" Even his voice was dull and dumb.

"It's a common ailment for wrestling," I explained, palming a dermal regenerator. "Won't take but a moment to fix, but the mats in the gym will have to be replaced."

The lunk winced as the regenerator did its work. "WellÁ¢â,¬"it was in the holodeck, not the gym."

"Impossible," I snorted, turning up the intensity so it would really prickle. The infection was nasty and he deserved it, too. "No real bacteria can exist on holographic gym mats."

I gave the remnants of the rash a final blast. "Don't spend so much time face down on dirty, sweaty surfaces," was my last advice. I ushered him out and thoroughly washed my hands.

Imagine the audacity. Claiming it was the holodeck. Just goes to show you what liars populate other departments, not proper family men like myself. Speaking of, if my son and baby-in-the-belly were on board that lunk would have infected me with his rash and my children might be threatened.

And security liked to say sickbay never saw any danger.

[Malcolm Adeyemi]

=/\=Personal log=/\=

Yet another security crewman in today with a wrestling injury: he claimed someone had him in a hammerlock during training and nearly broke his arm.

This got me to thinking. How many crew members have come in to sickbay lately with combat related injuries? Some preliminary checking revealed that they have been coming in regularly, across all shifts, with a lot of injuries one might see at a high school wrestling meet: bruises, bursitis, muscle strains, ringworm, black eyes, various cuts and scrapes.

What exactly is security up to? This goes way beyond the usual scuffles they have in their drills and training. If someone doesn't keep these lunks in line they'll be in here all the time and I'll have to work overtime.

This bears further investigating, certainly something too trivial for me to bother with. So I set up a simple computer program to cross reference crew members coming in with combat related injuries over the last few weeks. It took me quite a bit, most of my shift, actually, but I didn't trust anyone else to do it.

I'm going to get to the bottom of this.

[Malcolm Adeyemi]

=/\=Personal log=/\=

I don't like to normally mingle with other departments. PO3 Proetheus is a fine fellow, very intelligent and gregarious and between him and "Trisha's" squishy friendliness my limited social needs are about covered on deck 12.

But today I strode into the mess on deck 10 with a mission, and one so unlikely for me that I probably drew more than a few looks.

I wanted to talk to some lunks.

I have a theory about the men in mustard: all of the noxious chemicals in engineering and the energy from phasers and torpedoes in ops and the sweat in security soaks into their brains makes them all dullards. Maybe not technically, stupid, mind you, but stupid all the same.

Take that gold shirted menace Revek, for example. He's undoubtedly fearsomely good at what he does. It's just that what he has to do isn't particularly noteworthy, is all.

It's all about the mindset. Pretending I was scanning the room with a sensor sweep I targeted a trio of likely looking lunks having a quiet conversation over tankards of ale. Probably managed to not have to drink synthahol, knowing their type.

They all glared at me as I stood at their table, and what I saw on their faces besides contempt at someone smarter was all I wanted to see: swollen lips, bruises, black eyes. One was even missing his two front teeth.

"What do you want?" came the friendly greeting from the one with two black eyes.

"Mind if I sit?" I inquired, even though I was already taking a seat.

"What do you want?" repeated the one missing his teeth.

"Take a look at this," I held out the PADD and he snatched it away.

"How you making out?" I asked the lunk who yet to speak, a beauty with a swollen mouth and a broken nose.

"Mmmhm." Was the only sound he made.

Missing Teeth was flipping the PADD around as if it was written in a different language. "I can't make heads or tails of this,"

Hardly surprising, that, but I wasn't there to educate them.

"It's sickbay's patient report for the month, cross-sectioned a few different ways. Diagnosis, treatment, patient's name, department, rank...take a look," I urged Broke Nose. I was ignored.

Missing Teeth was a PO1 and probably had some misguided notion that I shouldn't be speaking to him so brusquely. "You better tell us what you want."

I sighed. I took back the PADD from his knobby hands. "Look, if I organize the report by rank, patient department and diagnosis a man can see that an unusually high number of personnel, all enlisted, all from security, engineering, and operations have all come to sickbay with injuries seemingly related toÁ¢â,¬""

"Come with us!"

I was yanked roughly by my collar from the table and dragged toward the exit.

I am not without physical strength. In fact, I was probably in just a good a shape as any of them. But a lifetime of hulking containers and such gave them a gift for moving unwilling cargo. Plus, there were three of them.

No one seemed to notice me being transported--there's no other wordÁ¢â,¬"out of the mess and hurled by my shoulders and legs into a nearby storage room. There was no chance to cry out, so swiftly did they move.

"Hey!" was all I was able to get out.

Missing Teeth raised a fist the size of a small cannonball.

POW!

The others followed suit and rained down fists and boots on me until, mercifully, I blacked out.

I want to say came to but I was awaken by no less than some dirty water thrown into my face, invading the bruises and cuts. There was a hugely powerful light in my eyes the moment I opened them, blinding me.

"Get him!"

"He's awake!"

I curled up into a tiny, impregnable ball but to no avail, there were simply too many strong hands and arms prying open my defenses.

The communicator badge was ripped from my chest and the top half of my uniform torn off.

They finally allowed me to sit up. At this point I was reduced to a sputtering, angry, cursing, bare-chested mess.

I was slapped resoundingly across the ear.

"Stand down Crewman!" The voice didn't need to shout. It carried more than enough to authority to be obeyed as it was.

There was a monstrous, scarred, grizzled old Chief Petty Officer sitting half in the shadows. He was also stripped to the waist, hunched and powerful, with such a hulking mass of muscle and bulk that my own not-at-all bad body couldn't help but feel inadequate in comparison. He had long gray-blond hair and one of his eyes had been ripped out a long time ago; so long ago that prosthetics were not available. The other was a piercing blue. The scar around the missing eye looked ugly and the empty socket glared.

"This is a place for men," came the voice again, sounding like rocks breaking, brittle but deep. "Enlisted men, not officers. No newbies, either, you got to have at least a pip to be heard and to speak."

"What is this?"

The man smiled like a lizard. "You're an enterprising little medic, aren't you? The first from your department. You're also new...that means only one thing."

I didn't want to know or ask. "What do you do here? Is this why we've been treating so many injuries?"

"Yeah...you've been out for a minute so you probably don't know it's 2330 hours. We gather here once or twice a week and beat the living mud out of each other. It's against the regulations, violent, unsafe, and...oh so fun."

The wild shirtless men all cheered and pumped their fists.

When the din died down the CPO ordered briskly, "Up."

I was on my feet before I could reason with myself why.

"We have rules...nothing that can't be patched up in sickbay, no killing, no eyes, throat or groin attacks. If you can avoid going in to the doctor you avoid it. And not a word in the wrong ear or you suffer the wrath."

There were more savage cheers.

"You've been here and now you have to be initiated. There's no way out except through pain. It's up to you if you come back after this, but remember...not a word."

I had been quaking and my heart was thundering in my ears and chest. "Who do I fight?"

The chief stood and mounds of old warrior's muscle, delts and traps and pecs and biceps, all flexed like something out of a deadly nightmare.

"Guess."

The shouts started up and I raised my hands as the old man rushed me.

[Malcolm Adeyemi]

=/\=Personal log=/\=

A CPO really let me have it last night.

I think because I'm a medic they figured I could take the pain and repair it away if possible. I'd be insulted by such an insinuation if I didn't think every lunk in yellow could repair the warp core or the inertial dampers or the phase inducers or whatever it is.

The injuries I sustained were just short of requiring hospitalization. Lacerations, bruises, head trauma...all done almost surgically to just the right limit.

True to my word, or should I say true to not wanting to take another beating, I didn't say a word to anyone about those crazy people or how or why I was so beat up. I probably fared better than most of them; a little bit of hypospray goes a long way with pain, and I'm an artist with a dermal regenerator.

For now, I'm not going back to that place. But just like the time that Revek bested me in the holodeck I am filled with a sense of purpose. I'm going to show those lunks, all of them.