Aberrant: Stargate Universe - Doctor in the House

[Yseult Sierra]

Yseult tucked a loose strand of honey-blond hair behind her ear with a gesture that was growing habitual since she had been forced to trade bodies with a NID agent. Her unusual eyes were locked on a pair of monitors, reading the information displayed with inhuman speed, lips curved into a faint smile of determination. Soon, she would find answer to the toxin the goa'uld symbiotes released, and then the SGC would no longer need to rely on the Tok'ra to remove them from their hosts.

She was examining some promising binding agents when a sudden tone rang through the PA system, indicating an emergency announcement.

"All medical personnel, please report, immediately, to the infirmary," Dr. Janet Frasier requested, her voice urgent, but controlled. "SG team thirteen returning from a mission with severe injuries. I can use all the professional help I can get here, people."

Yseult saved her work, then stood up and almost ran to the infirmary. She scrubbed in then entered the infirmary.

"Janet, what is seeming to be the nature of their... injuries..." The pulchritudinous scientist's cool voice trailed off as she took in the abattoir of blood the infirmary had become, the four men on cots pieced with a multitude of spines and sheathed in vivid red.

[Yseult Sierra]

Yseult took a deep, steadying breath, then got to work, tending to the only woman on the team. The brunette was horrifically conscious despite the copious amount of blood she had lost, tendons in her neck straining with how hard her jaw was clenched. Yseult counted seven quills still piercing the woman, and wounds indicating that there were six more at one time.

The quills were very smooth, sharp edged and triangular in cross-section, pliable yet strong. They were coated in a thin, slick substance, Yseult's sharp eyes noticing the faint, oily film on her gloves. Despite field attempts to staunch the bleeding, there appeared to be no signs of clotting.

"SG thirteen was doing an exploratory survey of PX1-P23," Janet was explained from where she was tending to another member of the team. "The StarGate is located in a jungle, with no signs of inhabitants found yet. From what Colonel Dixon was able to tell me, before his jaw seized up, they were about three miles from the Gate when they stopped so that Doctor Balinsky could study a unique-looking plant." Yseult felt more than saw Dr. Frasier nod toward the woman she was tending to.

"When Balinsky tried to take a cutting for analysis back here, the plant, along with some of the other surrounding vegetation fired these quills at them. They seem to be covered with an anticoagulant toxin that also makes them hyper-sensitive to pain. They made it back to the Gate, realizing only too late that the quills themselves were helping to hold back to the flow of blood. So far, no clotting agent has worked, nor has any anesthetic, local or general. We need so find some way to stop the bleeding, Yse, long enough that we'll have the time needed to analyze whatever the hell these quills have infected SG thirteen with, before they die."

"Understood," Yseult said, her voice back to its habitual professional coolness. Janet barely suppressed a shudder at hearing her tone, the one word Yse had spoken seeming to convey a shocking depth of knowledge.

Yseult's mind considered and discarded ideas with the velocity of a super-computer. Drop body-temperature to reduce blood flow and the spread of the toxin, induce a fever to agitate antibodies into combating the toxin themselves. What they needed was time.

"Dr. Balinsky, I need to suture your wounds to slow blood-loss," Yseult informed her patient, her tone soft, but still coolly in control. "It will hurt, yes, but I will still need you to be still." Her patient was barely able to nod her hurt in assent, and Yseult's mouth tightened. Exerting her telekinetic ability, she removed the remained quills simultaneously while still applying telekinetic pressure to hold the wounds closed until she could suture them.

She was about to start on the first puncture when her uncanny, turquoise eyes narrowed as the medical monitor began beeping as Dr. Balinsky's vital stats began to plummet. She was out of time.

Yseult needed to see, needed to know, exactly what the toxin was doing to her patient, right now! She had to stop the blood-loss! The vivid turquoise of her irises swelled, turning her entire eye the same bright hue, save for the black pin-pricks of her pupils. Need to see, need to stop the bleeding, need, need... Her control over her precise telekinetic touch wavered...

And then she saw.

[Yseult Sierra]

Her telekinetic grasp grew infinitely diffuse, yet intimately discerning, permeating Dr. Balinsky's skin with ethereal ease. She felt muscle tissue, veins and arteries, went deeper, blood vessels and lymphocytes, went finer. Her intuitive sense of dimension and velocity distinguished the size and shape of cells and the molecules that made up those cells, measured their vibrational resonance. Medical comprehension that was beyond human identified those molecules and cells and a hyper-evolved brain correlated all that she observed, presenting it to her in a way that she could comprehend innately.

Dr. Balinsky lay on the gurney, visible as before, yet far more so, her entire corporeal form observable to Yseult as a rainbow of infinite colours, each colour as distinct to her as black was from white. With a glance, she determined her patient's heart-rate, blood type and blood-sugar level, her predisposition to heart disease, and the tibia she had broken when she was nine. She saw the progress the plant's toxin had made and the effects it had on Dr. Balinsky's heart, adrenal glands, and other organs.

And then a thought occurred to her as she beheld this wondrous sight only she could see, blossoming among the lightspeed synapses of her brain. If her telekinetic touch was fine enough to discern the building blocks of life, why couldn't it be deft enough to manipulate them?

[Yseult Sierra]

Yseult reached for the alien fauna's toxin, appearing to her eyes as a sickly puce, tainting Dr. Balinsky's circulatory system. Carefully, tentatively, she extended a telekinetic caress, rigid with strain as she focused it down to infinitesimal precision. She felt the molecules of the poison, determining its composition, mind racing with the speed of a supercomputer, planning how to break it apart into harmless substances.

Sweat popped up on her smooth brow and she took a deep breath, then grasped the molecular structure of the plant venom and twisted. For a moment, the chemical bonds held, then stretched. Yseult added a fraction of force only a high-end digital device could measure and finally the toxin shredded apart in a cascade of harmless organic compounds, easily absorbed by the human body.

Yseult wiped the sweat from her eyes, noticing a faint green glow, barely discernible to human sight, coming from within Br. Balinsky, a side-effect of shattered molecular bonds. She was unaware of the matching glow in her own eyes. It had taken great effort, but in practice, had been surprisingly straight forward to accomplish.

But Yseult wasn't done. The toxin was neutralized, but for Dr. Balinsky, that was no longer enough. She massaged the heart, blood flowing again, changing her focus to the puncture wounds. She thought knitting the flesh together would be as simple as neutralizing the venom had been, but not so. The flesh resisted her, cells refusing to be unnaturally altered. Fists clenched at her sides, Yseult pushed harder, her own body vibrating in sympathetic pain. She embraced the pain, soothing the agony of Dr. Balinsky's torn flesh, blood vessels bursting in the blond doctor's forearms, the black and blue of bruises spreading, as finally, the skin and muscle began to knit with preternatural speed. Dr. Balinsky's vitals stabilized immediately.

She looked up, barely noticing everyone turned her way in shock and awe, her turquoise eyes wide, locking on the brownish-purple serpents snaking through the rest of SG-13. Once again, she reached for them, precision guided telekinesis a pinning fork, severing the heads from poisonous snakes. With each member of SG-13 that she cured, Yseult's breathing grew more laboured, rapid and gasping.

She felt like she had run a marathon with François on her back, her head swimming with unaccountable exhaustion. She rubbed her face, wincing at the pain lancing down her arms, just now noticing the dark mottling on her forearms. She stared at them in surprise, her voice high and faint as she told Dr. Fraiser what she had done.

"Janet.. the plant toxin... it has been - has been neutralized in all... of... them. They will have... elevated levels of several proteins and carbohydrates - there is no concern. Dr. Balinsky, she is needing type A negative blood imm - immediately..."

Then Yseult Dionne-Langlois fainted, the kaleidoscope of life that she saw fading to the black of unconsciousness.

[Yseult Sierra]

Yseult's eyes snapped open as she woke up, instantly aware the she was in the infirmary, laid out on a cot, an intravenous drip attached to her arm, providing her with fluids. She sat up, Janet immediately at her side.

"Oh, God! Yse! How are you feeling?"

"I am... well. My arms and torso, they are feeling perhaps a bit tender. I believe I have suffered mild hemorrhaging. How long am I being unconscious?" Yseult looked at her friend, her inhuman eyes clear and steady.

"Yse, it's been fourteen hours. I - We believe you used your entire store of... energy on doing what you did for SG-13. Do you remember what you did for them?"

"Janet... yes. I was being able to resolve my sight to a unique scale, then precisely control my telekinetic ability to manipulate the molecular structure of the alien flora's toxin, as well as agitate damaged tissue into rapid regeneration for Dr. Balinsky." Yseult's accented soprano managed to somehow be both eerily calm and full of wonder as she described the miracle she had performed. "SG-13, they are doing well? I was able to help them all?"

"Yes, Yse, everyone. They are still recovering from their wounds, but the toxin has been completely negated. Dr. Balinsky is doing particularly well. Though whatever you did to close her wounds and start her heart beating again took a toll on you, though how much is difficult to tell, between that, and the strain you put on your abilities. The StarGate address has also been locked for that planet." Janet studied her friend and collegue intently, glad to see her awake again, but a doctor's speculative light in her eyes as well. "Yse, with this... new development to your abilties, do you know what else you can do?"

Yseult fell back against the pillows with a sigh, staying silent for a long moment. "No. But I am intending to find out, yes?"