The Arguement
Posted on 29 Aug 2026 @ 2:08am by Lieutenant Commander Elias Harlan
2,021 words; about a 10 minute read
Mission:
The Doldrums
Location: Harlan's Quarters
\\ Elias Harlan’s Quarters \\
His fist struck the desktop hard enough to rattle the PADD resting beside the terminal.
The current stardate glowed in the upper right corner of the screen. Elias stared at it for a long moment, the number seeming almost abstract — too large, too distant from the last clear date he could remember. The span of time it represented felt impossible. And yet the computer insisted it was accurate.
His command codes were suspended. Temporarily, according to the system notes, but the effect was absolute. The Chief Engineer billet had already been filled on an interim basis, and the personnel records suggested it was about to be filled again on a more permanent footing. He couldn’t dig deeper into the details; his access no longer reached that far.
Elias’s fingers moved across the interface, forcing another query through. The lower-level engineering logs still answered to him. Ryan Collingway had been covering the department for a stretch before being abruptly reassigned off-ship. Elias didn’t pursue the reasons. That particular mystery could wait.
He pulled up the ship’s current mission status next. Everything looked… fine. Stable. No active crises, no yellow or red alerts. The Arawyn appeared to be operating in a quiet recovery posture — the kind of measured, careful routine a vessel settles into after surviving something significant. Too quiet, almost. As if the ship and crew were deliberately holding still while the last aftershocks settled.
The engineering status reports confirmed it. The major damage from the incident had been fully addressed during the starbase layover. The coolant systems were intact. The plasma transfer conduits were operating within normal parameters. The ship was whole again.
It was stable.
It simply needed its Chief Engineer back — the same Chief Engineer who had been quietly, methodically removed from the equation by a Vulcan doctor who still hadn’t walked through the door.
Elias’s jaw tightened. The spike of rage that followed was clean and cold.
Jorik still hadn’t shown up.
The door chime cut through the silence like a blade.
Elias’s head snapped up just as the doors parted without waiting for permission. Jorik stepped inside with the same quiet, measured stride he always used — already half-turned toward the bedroom alcove out of habit — before he registered that Elias was sitting upright at the desk.
He stopped. One eyebrow rose in mild, precise inquiry.
“You are—”
“What the hell did you do to me?” Elias’s voice was low and raw, the words scraping out of a throat that hadn’t been used for real anger in far too long.
Jorik regarded him for a moment, dark eyes flicking briefly to the discarded neural monitor lying on the desk, then back to Elias’s face. He did not look surprised. If anything, he looked… resigned.
“I prevented a secondary neurological cascade,” he said, voice level and clinical. “The frontal lobe scarring sustained during the engineering incident remained unstable longer than initial projections indicated. You experienced multiple micro-seizure events — most of them subclinical, undetectable to you. The longest lasted 1.4 seconds and produced a transient loss of motor coordination. Had I not intervened with continuous inhibitory support, the probability of a full seizure cluster leading to permanent deficit or death was statistically significant.”
He stepped further into the room, hands folded neatly behind his back.
“The neural monitor was recalibrated to deliver a low-level, targeted suppressant field over the affected region. The side effects — reduced initiative, flattened affect, impaired short-term memory consolidation — were unfortunate but preferable to the alternative. You remained ambulatory. You continued to eat and rest. You did not die.”
Jorik’s gaze was steady, almost gentle in its absolute certainty.
“I acted within the full scope of my medical authority as your attending physician. Every adjustment was logged. Every intervention was medically indicated. You are angry because the treatment was effective enough that you did not realize you were being treated.”
He paused, then added, quieter: “I will not apologize for keeping you alive.”
“And just how long did you plan to keep me like this?” Elias demanded, not backing down an inch.
“As long as necessary,” Jorik replied, voice flat and absolute.
Elias’s hands tightened on the edge of the desk. “You didn’t even consult me. You didn’t ask for permission. You just… decided.”
Jorik’s expression did not change, but something behind his eyes cooled further.
“You were not in a position to give informed consent,” he said. “The residual scarring was producing intermittent disruptions in executive function and short-term memory formation. Any discussion of treatment options would have been compromised by the very neurological instability I was attempting to control. Under Starfleet Medical Directive 47.3, when a patient presents with progressive neurological deterioration and is judged incapable of rational decision-making regarding their own care, the attending physician is authorized to implement life-preserving measures without prior consent.”
He took one deliberate step closer.
“I filed the appropriate notifications with Commander Amberlyn. I documented every adjustment. I remained within the letter of regulation. Had I waited for your full recovery of capacity before intervening, you may not have retained enough neurological function to be sitting here shouting at me.”
Jorik’s voice dropped, quieter but no less certain.
“I will not apologize for prioritizing your continued existence over your temporary autonomy. You are alive. That was the only outcome that mattered.”
“My first instinct is to kill you, you know this right?” Elias said not budging from his position. “You could have told me, or even asked me. But instead you side stepped all of it and did it your way as if my opinion just didn’t matter!”
“Elias.”
Jorik’s voice was low, measured, and carried the weight of absolute certainty.
“You nearly died. You would have died had I not been present at the Deck 16 medical annex when the injury occurred. I carried you out of main engineering with a fragment of conduit embedded in your frontal lobe. I performed the emergency extraction and stabilization that kept you alive long enough for transport to the primary surgical suite. Every decision that followed was made with full knowledge of how close the margin had been.”
He took a single step closer, posture still rigid, hands folded behind his back.
“I was not going to permit your pride, or your compulsive need to return to duty, to compromise what remained of that recovery. Residual neurological instability is not a matter of willpower. It is a medical reality. I acted accordingly.”
Jorik’s dark eyes held Elias’s without flinching. For a moment the clinical mask slipped — just enough for something raw and unguarded to surface beneath it.
“Be angry if you must,” he said, quieter now. “But every action I have taken has been in service of your continued existence. I did it for you.”
“And my prognosis?” Elias asked, some of the heat finally draining from his voice.
“The structural damage was fully repaired during the initial surgeries,” Jorik replied. “I have been monitoring residual neural activity for the past three days to confirm that the micro-seizure cascades have not resumed. Once consecutive scans demonstrated sustained stability across the affected pathways, I intended to remove the inhibitory monitor.” He lifted the tricorder in his hand. “If you wish, I can perform a full diagnostic now. Pending the results, your return to duty could be imminent.”
Elias let out a short, humorless breath. “If the Captain will still have me.”
Jorik regarded him for a moment with an expression that, on a human, would have read as pure incredulity.
“The Captain has remained fully informed of your status,” he said evenly. “She requested regular updates. I have provided them.”
Elias said nothing. He stayed seated as Jorik stepped closer, activated the tricorder, and began a silent, methodical scan.
After a few seconds Elias spoke again, voice quieter but still edged.
“I’m surprised you kept me on board. Part of me expected you to have me transferred to the starbase medical facility the moment we docked.”
Jorik’s eyes remained on the tricorder readings.
“I considered that option,” he admitted. “However, I was aware of how you would have interpreted such an action — removal from your post without your knowledge or consent. I did not wish to inflict that particular injury if it could be avoided. After consultation with the Captain and Commander Amberlyn, it was determined that placing you on extended medical leave while remaining aboard was the least disruptive course.”
He glanced up briefly, dark eyes unreadable.
“You remained under my direct supervision. That was… preferable.”
“I’m still mad at you,” Elias said, quieter now but no less firm. “I could have handled a simple conversation without my neural pathways melting.”
Jorik paused mid-scan. For a moment the only sound in the room was the soft hum of the tricorder. Then he exhaled — a short, almost inaudible breath that, coming from him, carried more weight than any raised voice.
“I understand and accept that,” he said. “However, the memory of that day remains… complicated for me. It is possible that residual emotional interference affected the severity of my precautions. That possibility does not, in my assessment, invalidate the necessity of the interventions themselves. I did not wish to watch you die. Nor did I wish to see permanent neurological deficit become the price of your recovery. Your anger is noted. Your continued existence was the higher priority.”
He resumed the scan, eyes fixed on the readings.
Elias sat with that for a long moment, the last of the white-hot fury slowly banked down into something heavier and more complicated. The part of him that still wanted to shout was losing ground to the part that remembered the look on Jorik’s face when he had woken up in sickbay the first time after the initial surgeries— and the quiet, absolute certainty in the Vulcan’s voice when he said I did it for you.
He wasn’t ready to forgive. Not yet.
But the urge to keep swinging had finally started to fade.
“Okay,” Elias breathed, the last of the rigid tension finally easing from his shoulders.
“My scans are complete,” Jorik said, closing the tricorder with a soft click. “I will cross-reference them against the previous data sets and should have a definitive assessment for you later today.”
He paused, dark eyes studying Elias with quiet intensity.
“How are you feeling otherwise?”
Elias blinked, then gave a short, dry huff. “I feel fine. No aches. No residual pain. Just… a little out of the loop.”
“That is expected,” Jorik replied. “I did not intend for the inhibitory field to remain active for as long as it did. I am lifting the dietary restrictions effective immediately. You are free to resume your habitual caffeine intake if you must.” A faint, almost imperceptible pause. “I will return later with the full results, if that is acceptable.”
Elias considered it. Part of him still wanted to stay angry — to keep the distance. But Jorik was asking, not assuming. That small distinction mattered more than he wanted to admit.
He nodded once. “Yeah. Come back when you can. I’m going to send a note to the Captain letting her know I’m awake and available if she wants to talk.”
“Of course.” Jorik inclined his head. “I shall take my leave.”
As he turned to go, his hand settled briefly on Elias’s shoulder — a rare, deliberate contact that lingered just long enough to be felt. Then he was gone, the doors whispering shut behind him.
Elias sat in the quiet that followed, staring out at the stars beyond the viewport. There was still a conversation waiting between them — a real one, without medical justifications or suppressed neural pathways. But that could wait until the official evaluations were finished.
Right now he was awake.
He was aware.
And, most importantly, he was still alive to feel the quiet weight of both those facts
—
Lieutenant Commander Elias Harlan
Chief Engineering Officer
USS Arawyn
&
Lieutenant Jorik
Medical Officer
USS Arawyn
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