Captain Vir lay flat on his back on the operating table one arm lifted over his head per Krill's instructions giving the small doctor better access to the wound on his side. It was only moderately deep, and had managed to stop bleeding on its own before becoming a problem.

Krill finished up the last stitch with his surgical precision and floated back from the table, "Finished, how are you feeling, Captain?"

Captain Vir sat with painful slowness looking down at his newly stitched wound, "I'm alright." He leaned forward rubbing the heel of his hands against his temples, "Just a little headache is all....." He squeezed his eyes closed, "Low oxygen is a bitch."

Krill moved forward as the Captian lifted his head examining each of his eyes, "Are you sure you didn't hit your head?" Captain Vir waved him away, "I'm alright, I promise."

Krill wasn't so sure, "Captain.... If you hit your head it might explain...."

"It might explain what I saw?" The captain cut in, "Krill, there is a 0% chance that I hallucinated that entire thing. I passed out, yeah, but if they hadn't come to help me, I would have died. I would have dropped my hand from the hole and my blood would have boiled out of my ears. If they hadn't stopped me, I would have continued to spin until I eventually spun into the sun. And lastly, it doesn't explain how I ended up floating back the other way, unless we are going to completely ignore Newton's 1st law of motion."

Krill went silent then before tentatively, "Captain.... There has never been any evidence of sentient life that can survive in a vacuum. We went back to the spot that you talked about, and there was nothing there."

"They can fucking fly, Krill, of course they wouldn't have stuck around." He rubbed his hand against his head some more eyes squinted shut, "Damn.... I think I may be getting a migraine." He shut his eyes against the lights, "Can we argue about this later, I think I may be dying."

Krill sighed but nodded, "I'll give you something for the headache. In the meantime, I want to keep you here for observation just in case it IS head injury related." He held up all four of his hands to cut the Captain off, "You said you passed out, it could have happened then. I just want to make sure you're ok."

The man rolled his eyes and then winced, "Alright, Alright, you won't find a damn thing, but ok." Reaching over, he slid off the metal operating table and onto the floor pulling his shirt over his head with a grimace and following Krill back into the hospital bay where a row of at least twenty beds were lined up ten on one side and then on the other. Krill motioned him to one of the beds, and he sat, as the small surgeon ordered the lights down and handed the captain a set of pills and a cup of water.

"Where is everyone?" He wondered glancing towards the door, "Thought they would at least be interested in hearing about the strange aliens, even if you say they were a hallucination."

Krill scuttled over to his place and inflated the hydrogen sack so he was floating comfortably in front of one of the holographic projection stations, "I told them on pain of death that if they didn't leave you to heal up, than I was going to send in a petition to the admiral to redo ALL of their medical reports. Another thing you humans and Drev have in common, you don't like doctors.... Now, get some sleep or I will smother you with that pillow."

The captain gave a weak grin, "So violent of you." But he did as told resting back on the bed and adjusting the pillow to cradle his aching head. If he could just lay still enough, than maybe it would go away.

***

He woke up in the middle of the night like he had been shocked. An electoral current seemed to run through his body and he bolted straight upright looking around in the near darkness, "hello?" he asked, "Is someone there?" But there was no sound, Krill had obviously stepped out of the room for a few minutes to speak with one of the crewmen. He could hear the sound of distant voices through the walls of the ship. He couldn't tell what they were saying as they were separated half a foot of steel.

The medical bay was silent. He lay back against the bed closed his eyes, which was weird, he would have sworn he heard something. Must have been in a dream. He rolled onto his side, one arm under his head and began drifting back to sleep, but he jolted awake a moment later rolling onto his side and staring towards the dark corners of the hospital room. He KNEW he had heard someone that time.

"Alright very funny, now cut it out.".... nothing

"Captain"

He rocketed from his bed turning to face the voice right at his left ear expecting to see the grinning face of one of the crewmen ready to laugh at him, but again, there was nothing there. This time he stood throwing aside one of the curtains and then kneeling down to look under the bed. It wasn't like anyone could fit under there, but he knew he had heard SOMETHING.

"Adam!"

He spun again, the voice had been RIGHT BEHIND HIM there was no mistaking it, but still, there was nothing there. He looked up quickly thinking that something might be off. There wasn't anything there either. Ok.... Now he was starting to freak out just a little. The room seemed a lot darker than it had been earlier. He spun in tight circles just daring something to try and sneak up on him again. His skin had gone cold now, and his heart was racing in his chest. He was almost beginning to think he was freaking out about nothing when the whispering began.

They came from everywhere and nowhere all at once, some of them even seemed to come from inside his head. His skin grew icy cold, and he raced form the room. Fuck that!

He raced into the hallway and nearly tripped over Krill, running straight into Sunny's chest.

She looked down at him with her bright golden eyes taking in the look on his face, "Captain, are you alright. I thought you were supposed to be sleeping?"

"Do you guys hear that?" He asked nervously glancing back at the infirmary.

Krill looked at him, "Hear what, Captain."

"The voices krill the whispering and shit. I swear if one of the crewmembers is screwing with me it's not funny and they need to stop because it's really freaking me out." He was shaking now, he hadn't realized he started to shake.

Sunny looked on in worry, "Captain.... Do you want me to go get Waffles? You look pale." The thought of his dog made him feel a little better, that must be it, must be his PTSD acting up or something. It had never done this before, honestly he wasn't even sure that PTSD could do something like this, but it was the only explanation. He nodded, and Sunny hurried off.

Krill led him back into the infirmary despite his protests and sat him down on one of the beds closer to the door. He took a look at Captain Vir's eyes again looking for any sign of head trauma, a blown pupil, excessive dilation in one verses the other, but there appeared to be nothing.

"Are you still hearing the voices, Captain?"

They had died away a little at this point. Vir was beginning to wonder if it hadn't just been his overactive imagination spurred on by a little bit of shock from earlier. Now, standing with other people, he was feeling better and his fear seemed irrational. He took a deep breath, "No.... I.... No," He shuffled awkwardly with his feet, "Maybe it was just my imagination."

He rubbed the back of his neck trying to release the tension from his body. The sides of his head were starting to ache a little, probably due to the stress. He sighed dropping his head a little and closing his eyes, he didn't know what was wrong with him. He had never felt like this after a mission before, and he had had plenty of near death experiences.

It was just then that Sunny walked back into the room trailed by waffles, who had been left in the Captain's cabin earlier. She trotted over to him and rested her head on his leg, and he began to run a hand through her soft fur. He was already feeling better.

"Adam."

His movement was fast and aggressive. He turned, knocking into the side table and sending a cascade of small metal tools to the floor. There was nothing there.

The whispering hit him harder than it had before, growing up in his head from all directions. It swelled around him growing and growing in volume. Off to the side, Waffles began to bark frantically. Captain Vir covered his ears drowning, overwhelmed by the noise. It roared through his head growing louder, and louder and louder.

He was on his knees now with his hands over his ears trying to block out the swelling noise, a crowd of voices inside his head.

He grew suddenly dizzy, lightheaded, the room around him spun, he felt like he was falling, and then.... He blacked out.

***

Krill looked on in horror as the human suddenly jerked around responding to a stimuli that just wasn't there. His eyes were wide and wild with fear and confusion. His hands flew to his ears and he staggered to his knees. His mouth opened in a silent scream that turned into a soft keening noise, like he couldn't force himself to make noise, and then he collapsed.

The dog was barking more frantically than ever, and then the human did something that krill had never seen before, only heard about. He began to cease violently, the body and muscles contracted and released aggressively and methodically. Krill called Sunny for help and the two of them threw themselves to the floor next to him. Sunny was ordered to turn the man onto his side and make sure he didn't roll back cradling his head with one of her hands to keep it out of contact with the ground. Krill desperately tried to establish if the man was breathing. The breath sounds, when they happened, were definitely restricted.

The saliva that trickled form the side of his mouth was tinted red.

Krill moved getting to work, and preparing for the worst just as the human grew still. The sound of his breathing starting back up brought a thrill of relief to Krill as the human opened his eyes bleary and rather groggily.

"Captain, Can you hear us?"

The man tilted his head in confusion, "What happened?" He murmured painstakingly reaching his hand up to wipe the blood form his mouth.

***

He was so tired, so very tired. Lying there with "the cage" over his head, all he wanted to do was sleep. MRI CT, and other technology had come a long way in the past few thousand years leading to devices that were portable and used for quick field evaluations of patients. From what he knew the past few hours had let to multiple instances of tonic clonic seizures and more than one instance of a partial focal seizure. It was just then he began to feel nauseous, tingling erupted up the right side of his body, the voices were back..... he was going to either throw up or pass out, but it stopped quickly after, and he relaxed.

Those fucking voices. They always started shortly before the seizure symptoms, the more voices there were, the worse the symptoms.

He heard the machine switch off, and watch as krill walked over examining his eyes as he did, "Are you with us captain."

"Yeah...." The man answered, wanting nothing more than to collapse into sleep

The room was relatively well lit now, still dim for his comfort, and multiple medical officers had been brought in to help. Though Krill was their commanding medical officer, the other humans were more familiar with human ailments. They had a theory that the abnormal electrical activity could be producing the voices that he was hearing, especially the ones accompanied with the partial seizures. That was apparently a possible symptom, hearing things that he shouldn't be hearing.

He didn't agree with them. He felt fine when he started hearing the voices, and one voice was alright, but multiple voices at high volume is when there were problems. It couldn't be the seizures, this was made even worse when they brought in their psychological expert who began asking him about history of schizophrenia in his family. Apparently he was in an age rage where it was possible.

There was no history, his mother had seasonal depression and he had PTSD, other than that, there was nothing. His family was aggressively mentally healthy, and physically healthy, but that was beside the point. He knew he wasn't going crazy. He also knew that's what a crazy person would say.

"The electrical activity started in the superior temporal gyrus and then spread through the brain. The seizures are usually proceeded by activation in the Primary Auditory Cortex and Wernicke's area." The captain wasn't exactly sure what that meant, but he could take a guess.

"Krill, wouldn't those be activated, if I heard something?"

"Well yes."

"Then how can we prove that I DIDN'T hear something."

"Captain," Krill scolded, "I know it must be scary, and you must be really worried, but No one else heard anything."

Captain Vir closed his eyes with a groan. He was so tired, "Yes Krill, I am scared, I am freaking out, and I see your point, but I'm telling you. The seizure didn't cause the voices, the voices CAUSE the seizures."

"Captain..... you have to understand just how illogical that sounds."

"DON'T YOU THINK I KNOW THAT?" The room went quiet, and the captain took a deep breath, "I'm sorry.... I didn't mean to yell. I just.... You won't even consider what I am trying to tell you."

Krill patted him on the arm, "It's alright captain, irritability can be a side effect of seizures. Get some rest if you can, the rest of the medical staff and I will try to figure out what's going on."

He sighed in frustration as Krill walked away. The little doctor had no sense of intuition. If it wasn't logic, it wasn't right, but the captain knew that something was different. People didn't just collapse into hearing voices, and if they did.... Didn't they usually have other problems? Could he be delusional, he couldn't be schizophrenic, that comes with other symptoms doesn't it? But then again, how could he know? he was a soldier and a pilot for crying out loud not a psychologist or a neurologist.

Could he really just have had some kind of psychotic break? Was he slowly going to lose his mind until he was a gibbering mess.

Just to his left, Sunny sat with a worried expression. She patted him on the arm as Krill went to talk to the other doctors, 'Don't worry captain, He'll figure out what's going on."

Poor innocent Sunny, she had no idea what was going on. With all his medical knowledge he might as well have been a wizard to her. The Drev had this "great" method of population control called.... Having no real medicine and encouraging people to off themselves when they were to sick or too injured to be useful anymore. Not really great clearly.

"I'll be right over here if you need me." She said ordering him to rest while she kept an eye out.

He did as told