Ad Astra :: Star Trek Fanfiction Archive ^{Beam me up, Scotty.}

Chapter Text

The Star Beagle Adventures                                                
Episode 1: Eye of the Beholder
Scene 5: Dr. Tentis Uto

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Dr. Tentis Uto

It was a short, but slow and painful hobble from the transporter junction to the U.S.S. Beagle’s Medical Center. Painful for General Krank and slow for everyone except Captain Skip Howard, who had pranced ahead and was waiting for the tour in Medical, along with a number of doctors. 

“General Krank,” said Howard, “Please allow me to introduce Dr. Tentis Uto.” He indicated the doctor standing next to him - a short, bald, pale man with enormous brown eyes and a thin, greying goatee. “Your part in this tour ends here,” he added as Lt. Cmdr. Senek stepped up behind the ancient klingon and delivered a nerve pinch, then caught the suddenly unconscious general.

“That’s going to hurt when he wakes up,” said Dr. Uto. “It hurts right now.”

“That would be your department, Ten,” Howard replied. “Time to work your magic. I want him fully mobile and ready for a fight.” He turned away and muttered, “Klingon medicine is a disgrace.”

Dr. Uto grunted empathetically as his medical staff collected the unconscious Krank from the beautiful, blonde vulcan and lifted the inert general onto a hover-gurney. 

“And the tour is this way, people!” burbled Captain Howard, leading a stunned Captain Yui Song and her science officer out of the medical center. The friendly, but firm presence of a half-dozen heavily armed U.S. Marines made it eloquently clear that remaining with the doctors and the unconscious klingon would not be an option.

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

“Okay people, I’m going to need him conscious for this,” said Uto. “Wake him up. I’m going to have to feel his pain…”

General Krank woke to see his son breaking his fingers - removing them one by one, shattering them, then re-attaching them - the nerve endings enhanced to deliver mind bending pain that cycled from one finger to the next. As his son was slowly removing the fingers of his other hand, the familiar face gradually transformed into the familiar form of a changeling. 

“Ah, you’re awake again, General,” the changeling said. “Of course, you know that you have been replaced. Would you like to see your son again? Or perhaps your wife?”

Krank said nothing. Only to find that it was his mother that was now cutting directly into his organs. Whatever the Dominion knew about klingon physiology, they definitely understood how to deliver unendurable agony. 

It was this moment, after months of slow torment, periods of recovery only long enough to prevent him from adjusting to the trauma, that Krank finally broke. He cried out. He told them every truth that was in his head. He told them every lie he thought they wanted to hear. There was no attempt at disinformation. His only motive, his only tactic, his only thought was to make it stop. 

So he could finally die the death of a dishonored traitor. 

And they had denied him even that.

If Krank’s arms had been free, he would have throttled the life out of Dr. Uto. 

“What have you done to me?”

“What my captain ordered,” Uto replied. “And we’re not done. You have many painful operations ahead. For now, I’m focused on enabling you to walk without that thing.” The betazoid doctor gestured with his bald head at the general’s heavy, black cane leaning in the corner.

“I CAN walk without the cane!” the klingon croaked loudly.

“Correction,” said Uto. “You can walk without the cane… now. We will work on your voice next. Then your hands. Then your back. Then your internal organs. We have a very long way to go.”

“Why?” Krank asked.

“Because Chancellor Martok wants you ready for a fight. And so does Skip Howard.”

“You like him?” the klingon general asked.

Uto had a serious expression. “He is the best captain I have ever served with.”

“How many captains have you served with?”

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