Leonard had nothing other than the sensation of consciousness. He couldn’t hear, see, or feel anything; instead, he seemed to float in a vast, empty sea, each limb supported but stationary. Similarly, he couldn’t tell whether he had the power to move his limbs or not; without the sense of touch, he didn’t perceive movement or resistance. He was just floating, alone in the dark. For the first few minutes (or at least what felt like the first few minutes) it was soothing; then, however, he began to think. Where was he, anyway? And why couldn’t he feel anything?

He started thinking himself in circles, coming up with various explanations for his situation. None of them seemed right. Then, he tried to move his arms and legs. He still didn’t feel anything, and as such wasn’t certain whether he could actually move them or not. Chalking it up as a failure, he then tried to piece together what had happened. He’d been on the bridge, he remembered. Something about a sphere?

Then, he became aware of a blinding light above him. It looked like the sun, but without the familiar warmth associated with it. He tried to avert his eyes, but he instead found it getting brighter. Then he started to hear something, a steady hissing rhythm that seemed to resonate from everywhere around him. After a minute, he realized that it was probably his own breathing.

“He’s waking up,” he heard someone say. Their voice was muffled, but it sounded like nurse Chisari. Meanwhile, the light was growing brighter. After a minute, the rest of the world came into focus.

“Welcome back to the universe, captain,” Denys said, his coal-black eyes staring down at Casillo. “How are you feeling?”

Leonard tried to say I’m alright, but what he ended up saying was closer to the sound someone makes when they gargle mouthwash. Denys nodded like he understood it, and gestured for something outside the captain’s field of view.

Casillo felt a pinching sensation in his arm; his vision and hearing sharpened as it subsided. Encouraged by this, he tried to sit up, but was stopped by a searing pain in his chest.

“Easy, easy,” Denys said, guiding the captain back down. “You just got out of surgery; wait a few minutes before trying to run a marathon.”

“How’s the ship?” Leonard asked. Denys didn’t answer, instead chewing his lip and grabbing something from a storage closet. Leonard’s brow furrowed as he tried to piece together what had happened before this. Bridge, sphere, then what? He remembered collapsing, the lights closing in on him…

“The only way you are going anywhere in the next few days is in that,” Denys said, gesturing to the hover-chair. It looked like it’d been carved from a solid block of steel, with a bright yellow joystick and buttons on either armrest. Not dissimilar from the captain’s chair, Leonard realized.

“Fine,” he grumbled, sliding off the table and into the chair. After putting on his uniform (no easy feat, he realized), he allowed Denys to guide him out of the medbay. He wanted to try moving himself, but the joysticks and buttons intimidated him. He didn’t want to run himself into a wall or hit anyone. Denys, on the other hand, pushed the chair with a steady grip and gave any passers-by a wide berth.

“What’s happened?” he asked once they were in the turbolift. Denys sighed.

“Asadi led the away team as planned, but her lander was shot down,” he explained. “She is alive and within an alien facility, stranded with another human. They seem to be in trouble with a sect of the aliens, and Polk is working on a plan to get them out.”

“Polk’s been in command?” Casillo asked, his eyebrows rising in surprise.

“He is faring about as well as you first did,” Denys replied, giving a small shrug. “He will be relieved to return to the helm.”

Casillo took a deep breath but didn’t respond. The familiar bile of anxiety was building in his stomach once again. This time, however, he felt that it was justified. Almost on cue, Denys pulled out a small respirator, attached to a canister about the size of a thermos.

“It’s extra oxygen,” the doctor explained. “If you are having difficulty breathing, use it. I would advise against overuse, however, since we both know how bad oxygen poisoning can be.”

“Of course,” Casillo replied.

The turbolift doors hissed open, revealing a short hallway that opened out into the bridge. The captain licked his lips, nodded to himself, then gestured for Denys to back off. He was already in a hover-chair; being pushed onto the bridge would add insult to injury. He glanced down at the controls on either armrest, then grasped one of the bright yellow joysticks.

However, Denys’s clawed hand caught his at the last moment and pulled it back, preventing the chair from moving forward. When Casillo turned around, Denys’s face was grim.

“Captain, approximately when did you notice you had cancer?” he asked. Casillo expected his immediate reaction to be one of panic; instead it was resignation. He didn’t know why he thought he’d be able to hide it, especially after the coughing-up-blood incident.

“About three weeks ago was when I couldn’t ignore it any longer,” he admitted. “Coughing, fatigue, even occasional flashes of chest pain. In isolation they seemed normal enough, but by then I decided to actually figure out what was happening. Is it bad?”

Denys didn’t respond. In fact, he didn’t move at all for a few seconds, his gaze locked on the hover-chair. Then he took a deep breath.

“I don’t know,” he said. “What I do know is that you hid a potentially deadly medical condition from the CMO, you presumably self-diagnosed using my equipment without authorization, and got yourself thrown out of action, which sent the whole ship into disarray.”

“It was my own business,” Casillo murmured, regretting his response instantly.

“The health and safety of this crew is my business,” Denys replied in an icy hiss. “Not only have you prevented me from treating you sooner, your business had a cascade reaction when the sphere scanned us, nearly causing your entire respiratory system to burn out. That left command in the hands of your away team leader, and after that plan went to petach it fell to the helmsman. Stars Leonard, why didn’t you tell me?”

Casillo took a few deep breaths, trying to decide if he was angry or ashamed. A bit of both, he decided. Keeping his gaze locked on the door in front of him, he drew himself up.

“I know this doesn’t mean jack, but I’m sorry,” Casillo began, craning his neck to see the sarvolyan behind him. “I thought it’d be a career-ender so I kept quiet, and I know it’ll probably end me now. I’ll take the blame for this when we get back, obviously. For now though,” he added, locking gazes with Denys. “Let me command my ship.”

Denys let go of Casillo’s hand and took a step back.

Apparently the chair was designed with people like Casillo in mind; instead of rocketing forward into the doors, it glided down the hall at a sedate pace at his direction. The doors hissed open, revealing the bridge crew at work as usual.

Polk was manning both the helm and the navigation console, his arms spread out like a spider monkey as he tried to keep the ship on course. When the doors hissed closed behind Casillo, Polk sat up a little straighter, set the controls to autopilot and turned around.

Casillo gave his best attempt at a smile and waved a little. Polk grinned.

“Captain on the bridge,” he called, standing to attention. The rest of the crew followed his lead, striking salutes and smiling with relief. For his part, Polk’s shoulders relaxed and the tension disappeared from his face. All well and good, except that Casillo could feel that weight transferring to him. Holding back a grimace, he drifted over to the captain’s chair and managed to transfer himself to it without assistance.

“Helm, what’s our status?” he asked, trying to blink through the black dots that now clouded his vision. He would not be doing that again. The murderous look he caught from Denys echoed that sentiment.

Polk nodded, oblivious to the captain’s pain.

“Ship’s fine,” he began. “I had us on a course back to the planet. Asadi’s still on the ground, and she says they’ve got an hour or two about thirty minutes ago.”

“What do you have in mind, Lieutenant?” Caillo asked.

“We need to find where they’re launching those missiles before we try sending another shuttle,” Polk began, chewing his lip. “So, we need to give them a target.”

“Our point defense wouldn’t be good enough to stop more than one at a time,” Casillo replied, shaking his head. However, Polk waved the captain’s objections aside, and pointed to the tactical console instead.

“We’ll run at stealth,” he explained. “The target will be an unarmed torpedo that we’re taking to the docking bay. If we’re lucky, it should be a tempting target, and its guidance package could give us some trajectory readings.”

Casillo sat back in his seat, nodding with approval. From the way Denys had described it, he’d expected Polk to be a nervous wreck. He didn’t think that the helmsman would be able to speak complete sentences, let alone give him a usable plan of action. For that matter, he wasn’t sure whether he’d be able to speak in complete sentences, were their positions reversed.

“Very well Mr. Polk,” he acknowledged. “Take us back to the planet, best possible speed.”

Polk took best possible speed a bit too literally; even through the inertial dampeners Casillo felt pressed back into his seat as the ship streaked towards the planet. This made the trip last about two minutes, after which the helmsman showed the Galaxie to a crawl and signaled that he was ready. Casillo gave the relevant orders, causing the ship to go ‘full dark’ once again. Once the bridge was bathed in a dull yellow light that indicated they were concealed, he turned to the helmsman.

“Alright,” Casillo said. “Polk, I’m going to amend your plan a little. Stand by on torpedo tube one. Once we fire, pull some evasive maneuvers with what power you have. We need to get their attention, and I’ve always found that a shot across the bow works wonders on getting attention.”

While tactical armed the torpedo and opened the outer tube doors, Casillo smiled to himself. It was good to be back.