An Old Acquaintance and a New Boss
Posted on Tue Sep 23, 2025 @ 11:16am by Commander Tayanita 'Tay' Lio'ven & Lieutenant Commander Karzen Son of Arjune, Son of Ragan MD, MPH & Senior Chief Petty Officer Alexander Rylan
4,028 words; about a 20 minute read
Mission:
Things Past
Location: Main Sick Bay
Timeline: Prior to Chicken Run MD001
ON
Lieutenant Commander Karzen, the new ACMO and Chief Flight Surgeon of Deep Space Five entered the main Sick Bay and grinned a feral grin. This sick bay was as impressive as any hospital or clinic in the Vulcan Medical Academy system. He would enjoy working here. Karzen started his career in frontier medicine, making do with whatever he could get, and all that in a war zone. He followed that up with the Federation-Klingon War and the Dominion War, before finally getting to a Starfleet position that included well equipped, well stocked facilities, and then working at the Vulcan Medical Academy as a Clinical Professor. He was prepared to handle scarcity, but he appreciated having at hand what he needed to do the job.
"Doctor Karzen?" came a voice Karzen hadn't heard in quite a while.
"Alex?" Karzen growled, gripping the young man's arms. "Alex Rylan! It is you!"
"Yes," Alex said with a grin. "It's me. It's good to see you sir. I heard you'd caught a case of retirement. I see you've recovered."
"Ha!" Karzen laughed. "It is good to see you, boy! We'll have to crack open a bottle of that applejack you like so much and tell each other tall tales!"
"The taller the better, sir," Alex said. "The taller the better. Is it too much to hope that you're reporting for duty?"
"I am," Karzen said. "Chief Flight Surgeon and Assistant Chief Medical Officer. Have you been stationed here long? What's the Chief like?"
"I only just started recently," Alex said. "But so far, so good. Come on, I'll take you to her." Alex gestured that Karzen should follow him and started walking. Karzen followed.
Karzen had met Alex Rylan on the front lines early in the Dominion War, in a bar. A group of Klingons took exception to a half-caste midget like Karzen drinking in 'Their' Bar (Karzen was 1.78 meters tall, so no midget, but shortest of his antagonizers was almost 2 meters tall). Karzen was ready to take the four very large Klingons on himself, and take the severe beating that would come from such foolhardiness, when what appeared to be a large human but quickly proved to be what Karzen thought was Vulcan but turned out to Zami, jumped in and helped him. Together, they wiped the floor with the Klingons, without Karzen having to draw his Nyberrite Back Talon. Everyone went home with bruises. Thankfully no one died. Alex and Karzen closed many a bar together through that war and remained friends. They eventually drifted apart but amicably. It was good to see the young man again.
They found the doctor observing a resident. "Doctor Lio'van?" Alex said. "When you have a moment, Doctor Karzen would like to say hello. He's your ACMO."
Tayanita finished a quiet aside to the resident—“Good catch. Close your loop with a four-hour follow-up and note it on the chart”—then turned at the sound of her name.
“Doctor Karzen,” she said, stepping forward with an easy smile and an offered hand. “Welcome to Deep Space Five. I’m Doctor Tayanita Lio’ven—Tay, if you prefer. And thank you, Senior Chief.” She shot Alex a friendly look. “It’s Lio’ven, not Lio’van. Happens a lot.”
Alex chuckled. "I'll get it down," he said. "I swear. I'll leave you to it. I've got a few more paitents to attend to this morning and then it's off to the exciting world of food sanitation inspections!" And with that, Alex made his way to his next patient.
Her tone stayed warm and simple. “I’m glad you’re here. Your background in flight and space medicine will be a real asset for our pilots and EVA teams.”
She gestured toward a quieter corner of the office area. “If you’ve got a minute, I can get your access codes synced and show you the essentials—trauma, pharmacy, imaging, your desk. After I clear two items on the board, we’ll sit down properly and talk about how you like to run things.”
A small, genuine smile. “No rush today. Settle in, find your feet. And when you’re ready, there's coffee.”
"I'm ready when you are," Karzen said. "I thought I'd wait to bring any personal office items in until I knew where my office was so I have nothing to settle. If the next two items are patients, I would be happy to accompany you."
Tayanita’s mouth tipped into an easy smile. “Good—then let’s put you to work.”
She palmed her PADD and led him the few steps out to triage, stopping beside a biobed where a young Trill in Engineering yellow sat braced with her eyes closed, breathing carefully.
“Lieutenant Belan,” Tay said, gentle. “I’m Doctor Lio’ven. This is Doctor Karzen, our new assistant chief. We’ll keep this simple.”
To Karzen, low and matter-of-fact: “Acute vertigo and nystagmus after an EVA drill by the Dyson gantries. Joined Trill—so anything that dips isoboramine is out.”
She ran a quick scan, eyes skimming the readout. “No infection, no perilymph leak. Looks like canaliths—positional. We could do a standard repositioning sequence and a Trill-safe vestibular microdose.”
Tay glanced across to him, openly inviting. “You want to take point? We can skip mecladin; I’m thinking a light thydazine dose, then a modified Epley with an inertial assist from the bed. Or if you’d rather adjust the sequence for her EVA profile, I’m happy to follow your lead.”
Karzen grinned. "Coincidence?" he said. "Or did you pick a space malady just for me?" he asked. "Well played, Doctor, well played." Karzen turned to the Trill patient. "Hello, Lieutenant," he said in his gravely but strangely kind voice. "As Doctor Lio'ven said, I'm Doctor Karzen. You're very fortunate today. Not only do you have the very experienced and very skilled Doctor Lio'ven, but you also have me. In addition to regular medical duties, I'm also a Flight Surgeon. You have an EVA problem, and aerospace medicine is very much in my wheelhouse. Now, believe it or not, all of those letters Doctor Lio'ven strung together do form real words with real meanings. What's going on is that tiny calcium carbonate crystals that are normally found in your inner ear have dislodged from their intended location and are now in the semi-circular canals of your ear. While this may sound horrifying, it's fairly easy to treat. We're going to move you around and then we're going move your head around and then we're going to give you some antibiotics. How does that sound?"
Lieutenant Belan cracked one eye open, her expression wary but trusting. “If it gets me back on my feet without the room spinning, you can stand me on my head for all I care,” she murmured, voice thin but steady.
"Good," Karzen said. "Doctor Lio'ven, unless you have an objection, I'd like to start with a purely manual Epley, and if that doesn't do the trick, then we can try the Semont maneuver. I've performed both maneuvers with patients quite often. With your permission, and the Lieutenant's consent, I could do it now. Then we could follow up with the microdose and get the lieutenant on their way."
Tayanita’s lips curved faintly at that, and she gave the Trill a small nod of reassurance before turning back to Karzen. “No objections here. You’ve got the hands-on experience—go ahead. I’ll monitor vitals and be ready with the microdose if it’s needed.”
She stepped lightly to the console, giving him space but keeping her eyes attentive. “Let’s see your flight surgeon touch at work.”
Karzen gently sat the patient up and had a corpsman clear away the diagnostic panel. Positioning the patient so they were sitting at the center of the bed end to end, able to lower their torso to the bed in each direction, Karzen led the Trill through the Epley maneuvers. When that didn't do the trick alone, Karzen tried once more, then tried the Semont maneuver, which did work. Karzen lay the patient on his back and moved the biobed panel back over his chest and ran some scans. "Well," he said. "This says you're well on the way to being fine. Feel up to getting up, slowly, and moving around, carefully?"
Lieutenant Belan blinked a few times, then cautiously pushed herself upright. Her expression shifted from guarded to surprised relief. “The spinning’s gone… or close enough I’ll take it,” she said, a slow smile tugging at her lips. “Feels like someone finally switched the station back to one gravity.”
Tayanita stepped back to her side, tricorder in hand, running a quick confirming sweep. “Scans look good—stabilised inner ear function, vitals returning to baseline.” She tapped the readings closed and gave Belan an approving nod. “No climbing into an EVA suit for the next forty-eight hours, but you’re otherwise clear. Hydration and rest will help, and we’ll check in tomorrow just to be sure.”
She glanced over at Karzen, warmth in her expression. “Nicely done. Clean and efficient.” Then, to Belan with a gentler tone: “You’ve got good hands looking after you.”
With that, she set the tricorder aside, giving Karzen the space to finish up any last checks while quietly signalling her appreciation for his skill.
Karzen nodded to Tay, then turned to the patient. "Now, in the days of yore on Old Earth," he said. "As Doctor Lio'ven could perhaps attest, doctors would follow those moves up with a microdose of an antibiotic that, in large doses would be toxic to a Human's inner ear. We have less toxic options available these days and, even better, I was just reading a paper in the Federation Journal of Aerospace Medicine on treating positional canaliths in Joined Trill and they've found a few medicines for treatment that they've proven shouldn't disturb your symbiote. So, if this vertigo still plagues you tomorrow or even tonight, have no fear! Return and we shall defeat this vile illness together, and the battle will be glorious! They shall sing songs of our victory in Sto-vo-kor!" Karzen grinned a feral grin at Belan, then winked and laughed out loud. "HA! Had you going for a second there, didn't I? HA! Be well, Lieutenant."
Lieutenant Belan’s eyes went wide at the burst of Klingon bravado, then narrowed before she caught the wink. She let out a short, startled laugh that softened into a grin. “For a second I thought you were serious. Glad I’m not about to star in a battle ballad.”
Tayanita chuckled, low and warm. “You’d be surprised, Lieutenant—back in the ‘days of yore,’ as Doctor Karzen puts it, plenty of patients thought their doctors were fighting wars inside them. Bleeding, purging, leeches—half the time the body healed in spite of the treatment.”
Her smile gentled, a note of old wisdom easing into her tone. “Where I was raised, my people used to say: healing isn’t about fighting what’s wrong, it’s about guiding the body back to balance. Sometimes that’s herbs and rest, sometimes it’s manoeuvres and medicine… and sometimes,” she glanced at Karzen with a glint, “it’s a bit of humour to remind the spirit it’s not alone.”
She nodded to Belan. “You’ve got both today. Not a bad way to start recovery.”
Lieutenant Belan slid off the biobed with care, testing her balance once, then twice. “Feels steady,” she said, relief plain in her voice. “I’ll dodge the EVA roster for a day and check in tomorrow.” She offered them both a grateful nod. “Thank you, Doctors.”
Tayanita watched her go, then turned back to Karzen with an easy, genuine smile. “Good work. Clear explanation, confident hands, and you checked the fix before calling it. Patients remember that.”
She gestured toward the inner corridor. “Come on—I’ll show you your office before someone decides it’s a supply cupboard.” A few steps brought them to a door just off her own. It slid open to a clean, bright space: desk, console, wall display, and a small seating nook.
“It’s close to mine so we can trade notes without playing comm-tag,” she said, keying his access live. “Loadout and templates are yours to tune. If you want specific flight-readiness forms or EVA profiles added to the quick menu, send them my way and I’ll have Ops mirror them across the clinics.”
She glanced over, tone warm but straightforward. “What I saw today tells me a lot—precise, practical, and you keep the person in the room at the centre of the plan. That’s the kind of partner I value.”
A small, wry curve touched her mouth. “And for the record—I appreciate the Klingon theatre paired with Romulan-level caution. It works.”
She stepped back from the console. “Settle in. When you’re ready, we’ll grab that coffee and talk shop.”
Karzen had decided before he came looking for the CMO that he would bring personal items for his office later, so he had none of those to set out at the moment. Instead, the new ACMO took a moment to set up the consoles as he liked them and sent the flight readiness forms and EVA profiles to be added to the quick menu, then went over to his boss's office, rapped his knuckles on the door frame, and waited to be admitted.
“Come in,” Tay called, then smiled and waved him toward the chair. “No console talk for a minute. Sit. Do you take tea? I’ve got a cedar–mint that helps new rooms feel less… new.”
She replicated two mugs without fuss and slid one across. “So, how are you finding the station so far? Be honest. First week on DS5 can feel like living inside a maze someone keeps rearranging.”
Karzen sat and adjusted his mail baldric, a mostly Klingon affectation, to be more comfortable in a sitting position. The sash had sigils for his mother's Romulan house, his father's Klingon house, his Nyberrite Master Pilot Wings, and his Starfleet Chief Flight Surgeon wings affixed to it.
"I'm getting by at the moment," Karzen said. "Ask me in a few weeks and..." he grinned a feral grin. "I will still not admit defeat. To admit defeat might make visits home awkward. My father would ask me why I didn't defeat my enemy in honorable combat while mother would ask why I didn't weave a complex web of lies and deceit and then stab my enemy in the back." Karzen laughed. "Actually, my parents are remarkably non-judgemental, considering their cultures."
Tay’s laugh slipped out soft and genuine. “Sounds like you were raised with very different definitions of ‘victory.’ No wonder you turned to medicine—you get to win without anyone bleeding out on the floor.”
She lifted her mug, inhaling the cedar–mint steam. “Your father and mother both sound like forces in their own right. I imagine growing up between those two currents gave you more resilience than most.” Her tone was thoughtful but easy, not prying—just inviting him to share if he wanted.
After a sip of tea, her smile tilted wry. “For me, I was raised where the measure of strength was how well you listened, not how hard you struck. My tribe used to say balance wasn’t about who won—it was about whether the circle held.” She added, simply, “The ‘circle’ just means everyone and everything that depends on us—crew, patients, families, the teams around us. If the whole lot is steady and cared for, the circle holds.”
Her eyes softened, meeting his. “Here, on a station this size? Balance matters more than victory. And I think you’ll fit into that just fine.”
She set her mug down with a quiet clink. “Still—if you ever feel like stabbing the duty roster in the back, I’ll keep it between us.”
"I'll keep that in mind," Karzen said. "Actually, I was raised in the Nyberrite Alliance. Every major city and town in the Alliance has one or more neighborhoods designated as a 'Mercenary Quarter'. The Nyberrite military relies heavily on mercenaries. Many, like my parents, are exiles from their nations and their people and don't fit into any one category. And there are a lot of half-caste children and adults who would have no place among their people. So we're all kind of thrown in together. Sure, there are some groupings by culture, but there are many more mixings. And we mix with our Nyberrite employers, to a certain extent, anyway. I digress, but my point is that my parents tried to give me the option of taking what I wanted from each of their cultures, and from others, to make my own identity. I suppose, being as long lived as you are and as can be expected to be, you've done and continue to do something similar."
Tay nodded, a small smile settling in. “That makes sense. I grew up an outsider in some ways too—El Aurian on Earth, raised among the Oneida. I took a lot from both: my people’s way of listening, and the tribe’s sense of community and duty. It gave me roots and a long view at the same time.”
She lifted her mug. “Your Mercenary Quarter sounds like that turned up a notch—everyone building an identity from what fits, not just what’s expected. I like that. And it must have been good to see so many cultures side by side as normal, not a novelty.”
A beat, gentler. “I hope it was kind to your parents as well. Being between worlds can be hard on the first generation. It sounds like they made something whole out of it—and gave you the space to do the same.”
Her mouth tipped wryly. “For what it’s worth, I think that kind of upbringing plays well on a station like this. Mixed crews, mixed histories.
"Yes," Karzen said. "I found it so when I moved to the Federation and went to pursue my education, and it my later service. A full blood Klingon or Romulan, raised in their respective Empires, with their nearly homogeneous populations, would likely have been uncomfortable. For me, it was really nothing new, beyond getting used to the differences between the Nyberrite Alliance and the Federation." Karzen sipped his tea. "Tell me," he said. "How long did you live on Earth? And how did you manage to hide in the human population, aging so slowly as an adult?"
Tay leaned back slightly, cradling the mug between her hands as if the warmth helped summon the memories. Her smile was faint, tinged with something older than the walls around them.
“A long time,” she said softly. “Centuries, if you’re asking for the number. My family arrived in the 1400s on Earth, and for the few hundred years or so we didn’t hide at all. We lived with the Oneida, and they welcomed us. Longevity wasn’t seen as strange—just as wisdom. That was the first way of belonging.”
Her gaze drifted for a moment, not unfocused but far away. “By the 1800s, the world had changed. Colonies became nations, suspicion grew sharper. I had to be more careful. I kept to small communities, changed my name when the years stretched too long, and sometimes stepped aside to let the next generation take my place. It was less about lying, more about… slipping into the cracks where no one was watching too closely.”
She sipped her tea before continuing, voice more grounded now. “And then in the 20th century, with cameras and records everywhere? I learned to move in shorter cycles. Nurse in one war, aid worker in another, village healer in the spaces between. Each life left behind before someone thought to ask why I hadn’t aged. It wasn’t always easy, but it kept me among people, which mattered more to me than vanishing entirely.”
Tay’s silver-flecked eyes met his again, calm and steady. “So to answer you: I hid by weaving lives together. Never just one mask, never the same story twice. And sometimes, when the world was kind enough, by not hiding at all.”
Her lips curved in a faint smile. “That’s the gift and the cost of time. You learn when to stand in the open and when to step into shadow. Both are survival.”
"Well," Karzen said. "I don't have your years, but I've accumulated my own. Enough of them that I've got maybe a century or so left. If I'm really lucky, a century and a half. I'm told my Romulan relatives frequently outlive their friends by two or more decades. One supposedly made it to two hundred and seventy-five years old. One year shy of the oldest Vulcan as far as is known. Nothing compared to fourteen centuries, but I do my best to make the most of what I've got." Karzen sipped his tea. "I've never been in a hurry. Even as a child, and that's not an easy feat for a Klingon. We tend to go through puberty at 8 years old and we're usually the equivalent of a human 18 by 13 or even 12. We have short childhoods. Then, of course, we slow down." Karzen chuckled. "Not that you could tell from my bald head and white beard! Thankfully, other than the hair on my head and face, and perhaps an outward appearance that leans heavily towards what one might graciously call 'grizzled', my trip down the path to decrepitude moves at a leisurely, Romulan pace."
Tay’s smile crooked. “Small correction before the legends start—I’m not fourteen centuries old,” she said, amused. “Nine and a half. The last half tends to do most of the exaggerating.” She lifted her mug in a little toast. “And you still beat most by a long way. Silver, scars, and a steady hand—good mix.”
She set the cup down. “I like how you’re thinking about your years. It’s not the count, it’s the stride. And coming of age at twelve? I’ll keep my slow start—sounds like you earned your patience early.”
She rose, easy and unhurried. “Alright—let’s call this a good first cup. Settle in, learn the corridors, and tomorrow we’ll block an hour to walk through flight med protocols and EVA readiness—your way first, then we’ll align with station ops. My door’s open; if it’s shut, knock anyway.”
"Of course, Commander," Karzen said. "It was an pleasure to meet you." Karzen smirked, an expression that might have looked odd on any other Klingon, but somehow seemed to fit him perfectly. "I look forward to conquering many medical maladies and mysteries at your side for the glory of our department and the honor of Hippocrates!" Having played this line absolutely straight despite the smirk that preceded it, Karzen winked to confirm he was joking. "I think I'll poke around Sick Bay if you don't mind. This one, and whichever else I can work in today, just to get a feel for the places I'll be working and overseeing and meet some of the people. I'll only jump in if I'm asked for help or if I genuinely think someone is in over their head."
Tay huffed a quiet laugh. “Honour of Hippocrates it is. Try not to frighten the interns with that battle cry.”
She nodded toward the corridor. “Go on—have a wander. Ops has your access live, and Nurse Halley on triage can point you at the satellite bays. Jump in if asked, or if someone’s truly out of their depth. Otherwise, just get the feel of the place.”
A Post By:
Senior Chief Hospital Corpsman (HMCS) Alexander Davith Rylan
Independent Duty Corpsman
Deep Space Five
Lieutenant Commander Karzen, MD, MPH
Assistant Chief Medical Officer and Chief Flight Surgeon
Deep Space Five
Commander Tayanita Lio'ven
Chief Medical Officer
Deep Space 5
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