Autopsy

Posted on 26 May 2025 @ 7:15am by Lieutenant Commander Kennedy Monroe M.D. & Commodore Harvey Geisler & Lieutenant T’Mari Rael & Lieutenant Lucas Abrams M.D.

2,268 words; about a 11 minute read

Mission: Bait and Switch
Location: Sickbay
Timeline: June 30, 2390 || 1215 hours

As soon as the squadron was inside the Black Hawk's shield perimeter, the transporter chief was able to transfer the pattern of the recovered corpse from Commander Carter's fighter to the morgue in sickbay. Aside from wounds typically seen from combat like cuts, bruises and plasma burns, the white-tattooed body of the Dosi appeared normal to the untrained eye.

But were there any secrets hiding in the corpse?

T’Mari wasn’t usually involved in such medical matters as autopsies, but in this case she had answered the call to attend. Counsellors were generally medically trained, enough to serve as stand in medics in the case of emergencies. She was glad she had the stomach for this situation, not everyone did.

Kennedy was glad to have the Vulcan counselor with her for this particularly solemn duty. She had plenty of technicians to offer medical assistance, but as the boss, she shared a different dynamic with them. She considered the counselor a friend. Even more than that, however, she knew it was possible the counselor's psychological expertise could provide insight that shed light on circumstances her medical equipment could not.

Programming the bed to begin a series of external scans, Monroe kept one eye on the results, but another kept stealing glances at the tray of tools that would soon be used to expose their deceased's internal secrets to the outside world. She sighed. "I hate this part of the job."

"I'm not sure there are many people out here that like dealing with the darker side of life in space," Lucas said as her approached the to ladies, but his eyes were on the body of the Dosi in front of them. "Where did this unfortunate individual come from? Was he part of the Valcour crew or on G90B?"

“I don’t think it was from the Valcour, I saw no one fitting this description mentioned in the crew manifest of the Valcour when I looked it over.” T’Mari offered.

Kennedy consulted the results of the external scans once more. “Wherever the origin, I’m not seeing injuries that in themselves would’ve been fatal necessarily. Counselor, I’m not sure what we’re going to find here, but just in case, I wanted you here in case anything we find constitutes more of a behavioral or psychological clue as opposed to what I’m used to more regularly. Dr. Abrams, I’m going to be taking some pictures with the holocamera, but afterwards, would you like to do the honors concerning the incision, I would do it myself, butI can’t say that my surgical skills are as homed as yours.”

T’Mari nodded as she looked at Kennedy. “Understood.”

Lucas nodded his head. He'd done a few autopsies in the span of his career. Some definitely worse than others, but hopefully, this one would be pretty routine. "I can do that, Doctor," he said.

A nurse entered the room and delivered a cart of medicines and tools. "Fresh autopsy kit for you, Doctor," she said before nodding and turning to leave.

In the meantime, Kennedy began as she said she would by taking photos of their deceased patient. Of course, modern day scans could reveal a lot, but pictures were also important, and just like autopsies from hundreds of years ago, once a body was open, there wasn’t a way to see it exactly as it looked before it was opened up.

Lucas reached for the scalpel from the autopsy kit after thanking the nurse, then prepared himself to begin. The large man had taken lead on many of these in the past, and had assisted with even more, but not one had ever been the same. He began to make the necessary Y incision, then continued on with the procedure until the body of the Dosi was ready to give up any secrets that were hidden within.

Putting aside how little they knew so far, Kennedy allowed herself to admire Lucas‘s technique as he created the standard incision most associated with autopsies. Of course, it wasn’t an unfamiliar procedure to Kennedy, but she was not the sort of leader who was afraid to let others shine, or in this case, she was not afraid to admit when other people’s skills were better suited for a task than her own. She wasn’t about to contradict her own personality by looking over his shoulder, but she had to admit, with everything so far appearing to be as expected, she was particularly eager to understand what was going on inside the decedent. Kennedy made sure to respect Abrams‘ professional space, but took the first opportunity she could too see things for herself.

Monroe took several moments to process what she was seeing, not wanting to speak hastily. Finally, she frowned, and offered, “Dr. Abrams, does this anatomy look right to you?“

The tall man's brows furrowed. "I can't say that I have performed many autopsies on Dosi before now, but based on what is known, this definitely seems off. Perhaps, further testing will reveal more than what our eyes might not see."

“Agreed,“ Monroe replied. “Nurse Adams, please take samples for a full tissue and complete hematology panel. I don’t want any stone left unturned.“ Granted, their medical information on Dosi was limited, but she couldn’t shake the impression things weren’t as they should be, just enough to create confusion, like coming home and finding personal items moved just an inch or two in the opposite direction. She couldn’t fully explain how she knew things were wrong, except that experience had taught her no matter how different two beings could be anatomically, they could also be similar enough so that an experienced physician would know where to find the landmarks to anchor his or her understanding.

"If it's okay with you, I would like to run the panel myself," the large doctor said before the nurse could take the samples.

"Apologies to you both," Kennedy offered. She didn't mean to speak for Abrams and respected he had his own process. Most important was that they find answers.

"There is no need to apologize, Doctor," Lucas said. "I'm just curious to see what they're going to reveal. Care to join me?"

"Certainly," Kennedy replied politely. "More pairs of eyes given this mystery is a good idea. I just hope we’ll be able to recognize an abnormality when we see it, considering we don’t have much experience with this particular group.“ Monroe gestured for him to take the first sample. She was entirely comfortable following his lead, not at all one of those senior medical practitioners who felt it necessary to throw her weight around.

Doctor Abrams adjusted his med-scanner with a practiced hand, the device emitting a rhythmic pulse as it processed the first blood sample extracted from the deceased Dosi. The iridescent hue of the Dosi blood glimmered under the lights of sickbay, its complexity reflecting an unfamiliarity he couldn't quite figure out. "Curious," he muttered, leaning closer to the results on the console before he stepped away to let Kennedy take a look. The molecular lattice exhibited traits of cells he'd never seen before—cells that seemed almost too perfect.

Kennedy stepped up to the scanner and leaning over, peered at the sample underneath, letting the beam of light once again move down and across it. “Something about this is off, I agree,“ Kennedy responded. “I’ve not seen cells this perfect in healthy, young patients, let alone those who are dead. Granted, I know we don’t have much to go on for reference, but even so, this defies medical logic.“

"And there's very little to explain it. We can keep studying these samples, but I don't know that we will ever get those answers," the large man said. "This is your call. What do you want to do?"

“I think we should inform the Captain of what we know so far and I’ll give some more thought to any other medical investigations we can do. I don’t know that there’s anything more we can find out, but I want to be as thorough as we can be. Speaking of,” Kennedy added, turning and smiling apologetically at T’Mari, who had been politely letting them conduct their scans. “Counselor, I know this is a crazy thought, but is there anything you’ve seen that might be useful? Or have you any other observations or suggestions?”

“As far as the autopsy is concerned I’m not usually present at one, so I have very little to offer.” T’Mari paused. “However is it possible that this individual has been altered in some way? Maybe engineered? Hence the differences you’re finding?”

"And tell him what exactly?" Lucas found himself asking. "We don't know anything other than the Dosi is in pristine condition internally, which defies medical logic. I'm not sure a face to face with Commodore Geisler is required in this instance."

“I wasn’t suggesting a face-to-face meeting, just a simple verbal report,“ Kennedy clarified. “You may be right with all we can possibly know,, I just don’t like to leave any stone unturned and wanted to give myself more time to think about what other tests or methods we could use to find out more.“

“It’s a shame we don’t have a live patient, a telepathic probe might have given us some information. There’s not much point in trying to enter a dead mind, if anything it would probably be dangerous.” T’Mari paused. “How long has it been since death? Neural activity might still be present in deeper areas of the brain.”

"He was found floating dead in space according to the report. There was nothing in the way of how long ago he died. Based on conditions of the body, I would say that it couldn't have been all that long ago," Lucas stated. "However, neural activity stops within five to ten minutes after death. He's been in our possession longer than that. Our chances of getting any information that way are slim."

Kennedy nodded, frowning even as she did so. Monroe knew Abrams was likely right. There wasn't anything more the team could discern, but that didn't stop her from feeling dismayed. They had so few leads to go on and she was hoping she and the team could do more. "Agreed," she offered finally exhaling in resignation. "We'lll keep the poor soul here for now in case any of us think of any other tests to run, but for now, I suppose I'll brief the Commodore. Any other thoughts?"

T'Mari shook her head. "None here I'm afraid."

"At the moment, no, but I will do some research," Lucas stated.

Kennedy nodded and met her colleagues' eyes with sincerity. "Thank you for your help. My door is always open."

"Noted, and thank you. If I'm needed further, you will probably be able to find me in the lab," Lucas said just before he departed to do his research.


***

Now back in her office at her desk, Monroe opened a channel to the Commodore. "Monroe to Commodore Geisler. "I've completed the autopsy of the deceased Dosi. I can send you my report, sir, but if you like, I can give you the broad strokes now verbally if you like?"

In Auxiliary Control, just a few minutes before the Black Hawk would drop out of warp in front of a nebula, Harvey sat leaning forward in his command chair. His resolve was steeled, despite the wait. He almost smiled when the comm system chimed, especially since it sounded like someone had some good news for once. "I'll take both the report and the broad strokes," he replied to her. The report would make for good reading, especially once he had time to read it.

"Externally, the team found injuries consistent with combat, but internally, things got a bit a bit more surprising. I know you're aware our knowledge of Dosi anatomy and physiology is limited, so there isn't a logical basis for it, but the team and I agreed there was something off about the anatomy we saw. Cellular analysis further revealed cells too perfect for a live being, let alone a dead one."

"Too perfect?" Harvey asked. He hadn't expected an autopsy to add more questions to their ever growing list. "Any theories on that perfection?"

Kennedy considered the question for a moment before offering, “Perhaps some sort of genetic engineering?“

Harvey drummed his fingers on his armrest as he considered the notion. "Possible," he replied a moment later. "But if genetic engineering is afoot here in the Gamma Quadrant, you'd think the Dominion would be involved. Still, it's something that's worth some further investigation."

"My team and I are not giving up, sir, it's just proving a bit challenging to spot the abnormalities when we don't know what's normal to start with. We'll absolutely keep trying."

The Commodore nodded, even though the Doctor couldn't see it. "Acknowledged, Doctor. I know it doesn't feel like much, but good work. Let me know if there's anything else you can find. Anything else to report?"

"Not right now, sir, but we're here if you need us," Kennedy offered sincerely.

"Copy that, Doctor," Harvey replied. "Geisler out."

Closing the channel, Kennedy knew she could not linger in disappointment. Turning her attention to other matters, big and small, she was soon sufficiently distracted, at least for the moment.

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