“Commander Vaughn,” she said as she entered the exam room. “What an unexpected pleasure this is. How nice of you to drop by.”
Keeping his arms tightly folded over his exam tunic, Vaughn said, “Spare me the sarcasm, if you please, Doctor, and let’s get this over with. I have duties awaiting me.”
Girani snorted as she prepped a mobile standing console near the biobed. “Now, Commander, you’re not suggesting yourduties should interfere with the execution of mine, are you?”
Vaughn smiled at her appreciatively, and she knew she’d scored a hit. “Where would you like to begin?”
“The usual way. Just lie back on the biobed and breathe normally while the medical scanners take a read.”
Vaughn complied. Girani keyed the exam program to commence, and the ceiling-mounted diagnostic array hummed to life. A narrow stripe of blue light slowly crept back and forth over Vaughn’s body. While he lay staring up at the array, he said, “I understand you’re leaving us.”
“That’s right.”
“If it isn’t too forward of me…may I ask why?”
Girani shrugged. “I’ve been thinking about it for some time. And with the station becoming all-Starfleet, it seemed like a good time to make a clean break.”
“Have you considered staying aboard—joining Starfleet?” Vaughn asked. “I know you’ve been an asset to the station since before I joined the crew. Everyone here thinks very highly of you, especially Dr. Bashir. Your application would likely sail through.”
Girani blinked. This was the last thing she expected. “That’s kind of you to say, Commander,” she told him.
“Is it something you’d be open to?”
Girani hesitated. “I hope you won’t take this the wrong way…but joining Starfleet simply doesn’t interest me. I find my service in the Militia very fulfilling, and I want to continue it. I can still do that on Bajor. Besides, with so many of my people switching over as it is, the Militia needs experienced officers now more than ever.”
A frown crossed the commander’s features. “Does it concern you? The migration of so many Militia personnel?”
“Concern me?” Girani shook her head. “No, it’s the logical evolution of Bajor’s relationship to the Federation. It only stands to reason that some Bajorans will welcome the opportunity to serve in Starfleet, while others choose to stay with the home guard. Both are important to Bajor, after all.”
Vaughn seemed to appreciate hearing her take on the subject. She wondered if he was encountering some bitterness about the changeover down on the planet.
Girani began to check the current scans against Vaughn’s medical file, displayed on a nearby monitor. “Oh, before I forget…happy birthday, Commander.”
Vaughn closed his eyes, leading Girani to suspect the topic was unwelcome. Oh, well….
“Thank you,” he said quietly. “But I think it’s only fair to tell you that I stopped celebrating my birthday about forty years ago.”
“Really?” Girani said, genuinely surprised. “That seems like a waste. Not even your hundredth?”
Vaughn shrugged. “It’s just a number. Besides, where I was that day, another birthday was the last thing on my mind.”
Girani decided not to pursue the matter. A few minutes later, the medical scanners emitted a low chime signaling that their sweep of Vaughn’s body was complete. “Good. Now sit up and strip to the waist, please.”
“Is this really necessary? The scanners—”
“Every doctor has her own unique style, Commander. This is mine. I’ll study the results of the master scan later. Now kindly shed your tunic and face away from me, please.”
After a moment’s hesitation, Vaughn did as instructed, shrugging out of the exam tunic and baring his back for Girani. Holding an active medical tricorder in one hand, she used the other to examine Vaughn’s upper body directly. Her attention shifted back and forth from the display to her patient: some scarring all across Vaughn’s back that had obviously never been subjected to a dermal regenerator; a few areas of increased epidermal pigmentation associated with the elderly—what humans called senile lentigines, or “liver spots.” There was also some settling of muscle tone.
She found a large bruise on his left side, over the rib cage. He flinched when she touched it. The tricorder revealed a hairline fracture.
“You’re showing another two percent decrease in bone density.”
Vaughn’s response was immediate: “I’ve been on a regimen of Ostenex-D for the last twelve years.”
Girani sighed. “Ostenex doesn’t prevent your bones from becoming brittle, Commander. It only slows the process down. And after a while, it stops working for some people.”
Silence. According to her tricorder, Vaughn’s heart rate was spiking, but his voice remained even as he asked, “Can you prescribe something else?”
Girani hesitated. “There’s a newer version of the drug you might try, but I can’t promise you it’ll work any better.” She reached for her osteo-regenerator, switched it on, and pressed it gently against Vaughn’s ribs for several minutes. When at last it beeped, signalling that the bone had been mended, Girani put the device away and resumed her tricorder scan.
Girani then noticed a raised line of flesh that started on the side of the commander’s neck and disappeared into the white hair behind his left ear. With his uniform on, she realized, it would hardly be noticeable at all. Upon close examination, however, it was quite obviously the telltale sign of an old and serious injury. “Where’d you get this scar?”
“Back home,” Vaughn answered, shrugging. “When I was a kid.”
Girani held the tricorder up to the scar. “There are traces of foreign DNA under the skin, but I’m not finding a match in the medical database.”
“Expand the search to include class-Q life-forms,” Vaughn suggested, “and you’ll find it belongs to the species Draco berengarius.”
Girani’s eyebrows shot up at that. “The original wound was quite deep, though,” she said, noting that her tricorder was showing a re-fused skull and indications of slight damage to the left hemisphere of the brain. “It looks to me as if you were lucky to have survived. You’ve never experienced any side effects?”
“No.”
Strange as the wound was, if Vaughn had gone this long without suffering any ill effects from it, it was unlikely to make any difference now. Girani redirected her tricorder at Vaughn’s heart. “How often do you exercise?”
“I go swimming for half an hour every morning before my shift. And before you ask, yes, I’m watching my diet.”
“According to your medical file, you had a cardiac episode six years ago.”
“A mild one. Nothing since.”
“What about your energy level?”
Vaughn didn’t answer.
“Commander? I said—”
“I get tired more quickly these days,” Vaughn snapped. “I’m a little slower getting up in the morning. Are you satisfied, Doctor?”
Unfazed, Girani said, “That depends. Are you experiencing any other symptoms Starfleet should know about?”
That’s when he turned and looked at her directly. “I’m old,Doctor. And I’m getting older all the time. Starfleet knows that. Putting a microscope on every creaking bone, every aching muscle, won’t tell them anything they aren’t already aware of.”
“And that means what, exactly? I should simply give you a clean bill of health?”
Vaughn’s eyes narrowed. “Is there any reason you wouldn’t?”
Girani set down the tricorder and came around the biobed to face Vaughn directly. She pulled up a chair and straddled it. “Commander, you’re a hundred and two years old. You’re more than two-thirds of the way to the end of your natural life, and while you’re in good health for a human male of your years, it’s still an age when most of your kind has retired.”
“If you check, you’ll see that many centenarian humans are still on active duty in Starfleet.”