Captain's Log, Supplemental
DDSN-X100 USS Discovery
Captain James Nolan recording
Christening Date plus 16 days (estimated)
Oort Cloud —- repairs ongoing
Dr. Elena Vasquez had seen too much blood in her life to be shocked by it anymore, but the Luna raid still left its mark. The med bay had filled in waves that day—first the station casualties, then Discovery's own. Burns from laser fire, shrapnel wounds, concussions from explosive decompression in the hangar. Henry never reached her table alive; she pronounced him on the deck, pulse gone, eyes fixed on nothing. Victor Cromwell followed soon after—command center crushed, internal injuries too severe.
She worked through the chaos with the steady hands her mother had taught her in the
Ceres clinic, where a hull breach meant minutes, not hours. She stitched arteries under red
emergency lights, set bones while the ship shuddered from distant impacts, and closed eyes when there was nothing left to do. The raid ended as abruptly as it began.
The ship held—scarred, bleeding air in places, but intact.
Marduk fled, his crippled force vanishing into the dark with a ragged gravimetric wake. Three days followed, docked at the battered Lunar station for resupply and refit. The med bay quieted to a murmur—fewer emergencies, more routine care. Most wounds stabilized under her watch: burns grafted, fractures pinned, concussions monitored. The crew rotated short, grim shore leave in Luna's domes—some drank in dim bars with recycled air and synthetic whiskey, some stared at bulkheads in rented cubicles, some came to her quietly for sleeping pills they never took, just holding the bottle like a promise they weren't ready to keep.
Vasquez walked those corridors at night, checking on the lingering cases—a Raptor with cracked ribs breathing shallow, a Marine with laser burns muttering in fever dreams, a tech with concussion headaches clutching his temples. She brought coffee to the ones who couldn't sleep, listened when they needed to talk about Henry's laugh or Victor's steady voice on comms. She gave them the truth—straight, no sugar—and they respected that.
The rift changed everything. The jump had been routine—or as routine as warp ever was. Then the coils screamed. The ship lurched like a living thing in agony. Gravity flipped, bulkheads groaned, and the crew— her crew—were thrown like dolls. Med bay became hell again. Twenty-three new injuries poured in—some the same faces from Luna, worse now.
James the worst—thrown against the bulkhead, skull impact, internal bleeding. She operated under emergency lights again, blood on her gloves, Leanne outside the curtain white as a ghost. Seven days he lay in coma. She watched Leanne sit vigil—sleeping in the chair, waking at every beep, holding his hand like it was the only thing keeping him tethered.
Vasquez brought her coffee. Talked when she could, about the Belt, about losing people, and about how love in this job was a risk you took anyway. The week blurred—triage, sutures, quiet conversations in dim bays. She walked the corridors at night—checking patients, listening to the ship heal. In the hangar, welders sparked against scarred hull plates, Petrov's voice steady as he directed crews.
In engineering, Patel's teams rebuilt coil rings, sparks flying, voices calling measurements in tired but determined tones. The Raptors ran sims—Valkyrie pushing them hard, Kaze quiet but focused, Jack earning his place one run at a time. Reyes' Shadow Company drilled boarding—zero-g, silent, lethal. A.L.I. flickered back—slow, fragmented. Leanne in the core room almost constantly. Vasquez brought her food she barely touched. One night—day five, perhaps—she found Leanne asleep at the console, head on folded arms. A.L.I's avatar dim but present. Vasquez covered her with a blanket. The ship was wounded. But healing.
James woke on day seven. She was there when his eyes opened—Leanne gripping his hand like a lifeline. Relief flooded the room—tangible, warm. The crew felt it—morale lifting like sunrise after endless night. Vasquez stood back, watching husband and wife. She had seen love survive worse.
The ship at sixty-four percent.
One reactor online.
Life support full.
Coils rebuilding.
The black waited.
But they endured.
System Log, closing entry — Interlude 13.2 complete
The healer's watch ends.
The crew endures.
We heal.
Dr. Elena Vasquez, CMO
DDSN-X100 USS Discovery
Oort Cloud