Untitled Hawkens - 21104.01

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By Korbon Hawkens

“There are just way too many choices. . .”

A cool, intermittent breeze whisked by providing an occasional respite from the warm summer’s day. The outdoor café had few patrons at this time of day; too late for lunch, and too early for afternoon tea. At a small circular table covered with a tablecloth adorned with red and white checks, Korbon sipped at a cup of Andorian mint tea while watching his sister, Kayla, pore over the list of majors offered by Starfleet Academy. Her brow furrowed in frustration as she stared at the PADD on the table before her.

“How does anyone pick from so many different choices,” the jet haired girl asked.

She had asked Korbon to take her to the café under the guise of getting a cup of tea and spending some quality time together. However, she knew his shore leave was ending soon and she did not want to miss the opportunity to pick his brain. Both of the Hawkens boys had already graduated from the Academy, each choosing a different path. Quentin, Korbon’s older brother, had majored in Engineering and was currently performing starship maintenance on Starbase Alpha. Korbon, on the other hand, had chosen a major in the medical field and was now the Chief Medical Officer aboard the USS Dauntless.

“I mean,” she continued, her jade eyes studying her brother carefully, “I like doing all of this stuff; it’s hard to pick just one. Which one do you think I should choose?”

Korbon took a long sip of his tea, and then sighed as he placed the cup on the table. “I don’t think I can answer that for you. It’s something you have to figure out for yourself.”

Kayla leaned back, crossed her arms and pouted her lips, looking somewhat like a toddler who did not get her way. The elder Hawkens could not help but smile and chuckle to himself, which only further infuriated her. Seeing that she was becoming upset, he finally relented.

“Look, I’m the worst person to ask this kind of advice from. I never really had to make this decision, since I knew what I wanted to major in years before I went to the Academy.”

The angry expression on Kayla’s face melted into one of frustration. It was obvious that he was not going to be of much help. Seeing the look on her face, Korbon decided that he should explain himself further. . .

  • * * * * * *

When I was a teenager, I could not wait to get out of the house. Like any other kid that age, I thought I knew everything; I had my whole life planned out. My next stop was Starfleet Academy, where I would follow in Quentin’s footsteps and become an engineer.

As far back as I can remember, I always looked up to Quentin. I idolized my older brother, so when he went off to join Starfleet, I wanted to follow. His letters home were a constant source of inspiration. As a result, there was little mom and dad could do to keep me from dismantling things around the house as I pursued my dream. Replicators, dad’s medical equipment, mom’s blender; you name it, I took it apart to figure out how it worked. I was going to become a great engineer someday.

At the time, however, there was a great deal of opposition to my plan. I’m sure dad had his reasons, but I never really understood them. If I even mentioned Starfleet, dad would burst out in rage, telling me how joining would be throwing my life away to mediocrity. Doing good in the universe, he insisted, required distancing oneself from an organization that, from his perspective, spent more time fighting than living up to its own creed. He also used to say that the only place Starfleet was boldly going was straight to hell. Just not so nicely.

This just fueled my dream even more, bringing out my rebellious side. To her credit, mom did try her best to keep the peace, but it was hard to keep the two of us from arguing. Our rows were often explosive in nature and came without any warning. I knew the buttons to press and when to press them to get a reaction from dad, and I pressed them all the time. I was much too self-centered to see it at the time, but in hindsight, it probably took all of dad’s self-control to keep from strangling me all those years ago.

Luckily for both of us, you came along. You were a peacekeeper, of sorts. Dad and I formed an unspoken truce because of your presence and kept our fights to a minimum. We just stopped talking to each other at that point. I spent a lot of time out of the house, mostly over at Vyali’s. We were dating at the time and her parents were quite welcoming. To be honest, I think they felt sorry for me. Word tends to get around in a community as small as the one we group up in and my problems at home were most likely known throughout the entire neighborhood.

Anyhow, I think I was about 17 when the even that changed my life took place. Mom and dad had left for the evening and were not planning to return until the next day. Being without parental supervision, I took the opportunity to invite Vyali over. The two of us had a wonderful time, at least at first. We were part way through a rather heavy make-out session. . .I know it’s gross to think about, but bear with me. . .when the doorbell rang. After a quick check to make sure I did not look too disheveled, I scrambled over to the door and opened it.

The woman on the other side of the door was in a state of panic. She was a cradling a girl in her arms who could not have been more than two years old. Blood completely covered the child’s face and she was screaming at the top of her lungs. The woman asked for dad, but I had to tell her that he was gone on business. She said it was an emergency. One look at the little girl would have told anyone that was an understatement. I let the woman and child in and took them through the house to the clinic, unsure of what to do when I got them there.

Vyali had joined us by that point, so I had her take the woman to one of dad’s examination rooms. While she did that, I tried to call dad on the off chance that he could actually get back in time. Unfortunately, there was no response. By the time I made it to the examination room, they had lifted the toddler onto the examination bed. We were on our own and I did not have any medical experience to fall back on. Still, I had to try something.

I asked Vyali to keep trying to call dad while I worked with the child. The woman had grabbed some cloth and begun wiping the blood off the child’s face. I stood there for a second, wracking my brain for some sort clue as to where to begin. Then it hit me; dad kept his medical equipment on a shelf next to the examination bed and one device on the shelf he always used first. I ran over to the shelf and picked the device out from the lineup.

Managing to find a power switch, I turned the small handheld device on. I had no idea what to expect. The screen on the device lit up and I stared at it for a second. A single blinking line of text appeared that told me the device was awaiting a scan, so I pointed the business end of the device at the girl and pressed the appropriately labeled button. The screen quickly filled with all sorts of numbers and letters, none of which I really understood. Then some big words popped up on the screen; Mild abrasion, contact dermatitis, elevated histamine levels, anaphylaxis. It was like trying to read a foreign language.

I threw the device aside, as it was pretty much useless to me. By this time, the woman had cleaned up the blood enough that I could see a small cut on the child’s forehead. The only other device I had any familiarity with was the dermal regenerator. The rigors of childhood meant that I had witnessed its use on me quite a bit as a child. I knew exactly what it could do, so I ran over and grabbed it off the shelf. It took me a few seconds to figure out how it worked, but once I did, I was able to heal the cut. I know now that superficial wounds on the head can bleed horrifically, making things appear much worse than they actually are. At the time, however, I felt as if I had just performed a relatively difficult surgical procedure. Unfortunately, my self-adulation was short lived, as it was about then that I noticed that the screams had stopped.

The little girl lying on the bed was wheezing, barely able to breathe. The noise she made with each gasp, to this day, I cannot erase from my mind. It was also about this time that I noticed little red bumps on her hands and around her mouth; a rash. Her hands were a darker shade too, a color that I immediately recognized. It was simple for me to come up with a diagnosis; the girl was allergic to uttaberries. We had a whole spate of them out along the back fence. Mom grew them, mostly because they reminded her of home.

In any case, I was beginning to get scared. The young girl’s skin was cold to the touch and had begun to turn a deathly pale color, made even more dramatic by her black hair. Her lips were no longer red, but had taken on a bluish-purple hue and her green eyes had rolled upwards so only the whites were showing. I knew in my heart that I was watching this child die before my very eyes, and there was nothing I could do. Healing a small cut had been easy to figure out, but this allergic reaction was far beyond my skill.

Vyali ran into the room yelling that she had managed to get a hold of dad. I ran over to the console in the examination room and pulled up the call. When dad’s face appeared on the screen, I did not wait for him to speak. I started from the beginning and kept rambling until I had caught him up to speed with what had happened. He was surprisingly calm throughout the whole event. What’s more, his calm demeanor actually helped me calm down.

After I had finished explaining everything, he told me that I had made an accurate diagnosis regarding the rash and its source. To this day, I swear I saw a little bit of pride in his eyes. Quickly and calmly, he directed me to a hypospray, instructed me on loading it with epinephrine, and, shortly thereafter, I gave an injection to my very first patient. It felt like it took forever for the drug to begin to take effect. However, once it did, the wheezing stopped and the little girl began to breathe normally again. All of us let out a sigh of relief.

I spent the entire night awake, just staring at the little girl whose life I had had a hand in saving. Mom and dad cut their trip short and arrived very early the next morning. When dad got home, he did a full workup and made sure she was fine. Later on, he told me that if I had not acted when I did, the girl would have died. I had saved her life. After that, I started helping dad in the clinic more. I learned everything I could about medicine so that little girl, and others like her, would be safe.

  • * * * * * *

“The little girl in the story was me, wasn’t it?” Kayla asked.

“Yes.” Korbon leaned back in his chair and looked Kayla in the eyes. “That one event led me down the path toward medicine. Ever since then, I just knew I wanted to be a doctor.”

Kayla looked at her brother and let out a sarcastic chuckle that cut through the touching moment like a hot knife through butter. “So, let me see if I’ve got this straight. My near death experience as a child led you to have some grand epiphany about becoming a doctor. And that’s supposed to help me choose a major, how?”

“Everyone has a defining moment,” he replied, swirling the last bit of tea around the bottom of his cup, “a moment that sets them on a particular path. It could happen when you are young, or maybe even twenty years from now. You never know.”

“Right,” Kayla said, rolling her eyes. “That just sounds like a load of. . .”

A sudden, blood-curdling scream interrupted Kayla. The Hawkens siblings looked toward the source of the scream to see a young woman crouched over an unconscious form, a look of panic in her eyes.

“A doctor, nurse, someone,” the woman screamed to a gathering crowd of onlookers, “Please help my husband! He’s not breathing!”

Korbon stood up quickly, knocking his chair over in the process. He ran a few steps toward the woman, and then paused. Turning to face a stunned Kayla, he flashed a warm smile and beckoned her to follow. He’d need the help, and maybe, just maybe, it would help her too.