Pardon Our Dust
Posted on Sat Apr 8th, 2023 @ 2:44am by Lieutenant Heather Honey & Commander Irene Vincent "Rally"
2,106 words; about a 11 minute read
Mission:
Season 1, Episode 1: Wanted: A Few Brave Men
Location: Deep Space K-9
Timeline: Prior to "Dancin' With Company"
Sickbay hadn't been touched since the last time the station had been disassembled and put back together, and now it was a dark and dirty place. Not literally dirty, but it was cluttered with piles of circuitry on the medibeds and tools scattered around. But even so, it was pretty much exactly what Heather Anne Honey expected when she had read the mission profile when she had been assigned to the station. So after checking on sickbay she made a beeline for the Commanding Officer's Office.
She arrived at the office some time later having gotten lost, been given directions, gotten lost again, and finally stumbled upon a map on the wall which at least let her know she was on the right deck. With a heavy sigh she pressed the door chime and waited.
"Just a sec!" Someone on the other side called out.
a few seconds passed before one of the heavy steel doors slid aside, revealing a tall, dark-skinned officer standing on the other side.
"What can I get for you, Lieutenant?" she began, dusting off her hands.
Heather smiled brightly, she was always thrilled to meet new people, but her expression came crashing down when she remembered what she had come all this way to talk to the commanding officer about. "Ya, well, I just got int' sickbay and it is a mess down there," she said crossing her arms. "An' that don't even go into the supply situation."
"Well, you're hardly the first person to make that clear to me, Lieutenant," the CO admitted to her straightforwardly. "But what's say we have a seat and we can go over this in detail? I take it you're the Chief Of Medical I was expecting today?"
"Yea, I'm yer new Medical Chief," Heather said taking a seat and holding her hands in her lap instinctively, the result was to make her look even smaller than she already was. Yet when she looked up at her CO, her eyes shone with a joyful brightness. "It looks like it was either abandon'd halfway through takin' it apart or puttin' back it together, either way the job is far from complete."
"The years since the Tarsus IV facility was completed have not been kind to this station, I'll give you that much," the CO sighed. "Couple that with the fact we've had to completely rethink how the medical deck's laid out to accomodate both science labs and an embassy for the Eifie diplomats, and you've got a logistical headache and a half..."
"I can understand yer problems, but I also need t' get Sickbay in some kinda working order," Heather replied earnestly. "But that ain't the half of it, I ain't got no supplies. I don't know who was here before me, but they clearly didn't requisition supplies right." She shook her head for emphasis. "And that don't even go into the issues with the medi-computer."
"Unfortunately, you're probably the first long-term CMO this station has seen in nearly two decades," the CO sighed as she pulled out her PADD. "Anyhow, if you have a list of what you'll be needing, I can see about putting a requisition through with the ship's quartermaster, and we should have a shipment here in the next couple of days."
"I can get the list t' you later today, but it would be much faster if I had access to the medi-computer, but I don't," Heather replied with a heavy sigh. "None of the terminals in Sickbay can access the medi-computer. Ain't nothing synced together anymore."
"I'll see if engineering can look into it," the CO explained. "Unfortunately, we've got our attention divided between half a dozen other things that require our attention right now, so our resources are stretched pretty thin."
"I can understand that, but this is Sickbay has got to be a priority, I mean it's Sickbay," Heather replied flailing her arms. She signed and crossed her arms again. "If anything goes wrong an' Sickbay stays a mess then I ain't gonna be able to treat nobody."
the CO looked up at Heather and grinned.
"That's the kind of commitment I like to hear," she remarked as she pulled out her communicator and flipped it open.
=Vincent to Engineering; come in, Engineering.=
=This is engineering,= Came the reply. =Go ahead, Commander.=
=Could you send a team up to Deck 18, please?= the CO- likely Commander Vincent, if Heather was putting two and two together- requested. =Our Chief Of Medical reports some issues with the medi-computer being out of sync.=
=Copy that, Commander; we'll have a team run a diagnostic and send you a report of what they manage to find; engineering out.=
"Well, this ought to take them a few minutes to look over," Commander Vincent sighed as she reattached the communicator to her belt. "In the meantime, Lieutenant, can I get you a beverage? I imagine it was a long flight."
"I could use something to, as is said, wet my whistle," Heather replied with a beaming smile. She tapped her chin in thought as she tried to think of a drink to ask for. "Something bubbly perhaps? Can your synthesizer make me a cola?"
Nodding, Commander Vincent got up and made her way over to the food synthesizer on the far end of the room; keying a few variable commands into the main interface, she stood there for a few seconds and watched as the synthesizer generated a small mug with the requested beverage.
"Here you are," she began, taking the mug and handing it off to Heather. "One cola, extra carbonation."
Taking the mug, Heather smiled and said a polite, "thank you," before taking a long sip from the mug. "Ah~ That's the stuff~"
Commander Vincent moved back around to her seat. "Well, while we've got some time to kill, I suppose we could review your qualifications? I mean, no offense to your capabilities, but it certainly helps to know who's sticking needles in me..."
"Well, if ya don't mind my saying, ya have my personnel file, ya know my qualifications," Heather replied in her sweet drawl. "Or do ya want to know somethin' pacific? I can tell ya the ship I was on, the positions I held, an' what all, but that would be just going over what ya already know."
"Well, for starters... I take it that you've read up on some of the medical notes that were taken during the Excalibur expedition? Granted, it's about 15 years old now, but seeing as we'll be in regular contact with both the Eifie and the Rheuysians, it's probably the best thing we've got going for us..."
"Medical notes which are stored in the medi-computer," Heather observed meekly and sipped her cola. She of course had intended to go over all of the information pertinent to her duties, but with the way Sickbay was, she didn't really have the option to.
"Damn, I could've sworn I asked them to furnish our new CMO with the notes before they shipped you out here..." Commander Vincent muttered under her breath. "Well, seeing as Starfleet's failed to do so, I'll try and fill you in best I'm able."
Pulling up a set of notes on her PADD, she then proceeded to hand the device off to Heather for review.
"I know it's not much, but until we get the medi-computer up and running, this is probably going to have to suffice; but long story short, in anticipation of our diplomats from both the Eifie Republic and the Rheuysian Reich, it's going to fall on us to learn as much about their respective biologies in the unlikelihood that one of them should suffer a medical emergency. And this'll include a lot of guesswork off the bat, as we're largely going off of some footnotes taken by the Excalibur's CMO 15 years ago, but given you're one of the best medical officers this side of Leonard McCoy I could procure... I take it you should know how to connect the dots?"
Heather quickly skimmed the data on the PADD and dipped at her drink. After a moment she set the PADD in her lap and held her cups with both hands, her face frowning in concentration. "I can't help but be amazed that a race that is using DNA resequencing in such a manner is even eligible to join the Federation," Heather observed after a long moment. "I've never worked on anyone who has been genetically modified. It's a weird thing."
"Given their abysmal male-to-female birth ratios, it was a necessity born out of survival," the CO explained. "Sciences predict that if the Eifie hadn't implemented such measures, they'd be extinct within the next hundred years."
"Understandable, but still surprising," Heather replied thoughtfully. She'd never encountered a race that still engaged in genetic manipulation on a scale like that, but it was reasonable. She glanced down at the PADD again and frowned. "Ain't a lot of information to go off of here, just basic stuff really. I ain't gonna promise nothing when it comes to treatin' 'em in Sickbay. My xenobiology is a bit rusty."
"Unfortunately Lieutenant, you bit the nail on the head," the CO sighed. "As I mentioned earlier, a lot of this will be a "learn as we go" sort of affair."
She shifted in her seat slightly, then grinned. "But guarantee or not, a quick perusal of your medical qualifications seems to indicate you're the right person for the job; out of all the candidates I considered, you had one of the highest patient satisfaction ratings in all of Starfleet; I can't think of a better doctor who can show both the Eifie and the Rheuysians that there's nothing to fear with us."
"Why thank you," Heather said with a bright smile. "I just do what I do an' people like me." She smiled again and opened her mouth to say something, but the comm suddenly chimed.
=Engineering to Commander Vincent; I think we figured out what's wrong with the medi-computer.=
The CO sighed and flipped her communicator open. =This is Commander Vincent; what did you manage to find?=
=The main memory core appears to be have been corrupted, likely a result of several years' exposure to the elements,= The liaison replied. =The product identification number indicates that the current drive was last installed in 2244, and had its last software update in 2253.=
"Doesn't anyone here know how to take care of these fricken' things?" Commander Vincent grumbled to herself, before shifting her attention back to the conversation. =Do you have an estimate as to how long it should take us to recover the data- if it's even recoverable?=
=We reckon about... two days' tops,= the Liaison surmised. =Unless it's needed sooner, we may be able to recompile it in one day if we crunch.=
=Nah, two days should do just fine,= Commander Vincent insisted. =I'll leave you to it, then.=
=Copy that; Engineering out.=
"Well, Lieutenant," Commander Vincent remarked as she closed the communicator back up. "Looks like you've caught yourself a lucky break; if a corrupted memory core is the worst of it, you should have a working medi-computer by the end of the week."
"If that's the worst of it, then we'll count ourselves lucky," Heather said with a nod. She took another long sip from her cup and stiffled belch. " 'scuse me," she said with faint blusb. "An' I ain't gonna believe sickbay is gonna be in ship shape order until I see it myself."
"By all means, Lieutenant," the CO insisted. "I understand cleanliness is a priority when it comes to good hospitality; I will inform Engineering staff that you'll be in and out of sickbay as we work towards getting it completed. Until then, will there be any other requests, or shall I leave you to it?"
"Well, if Sickbay gets cleaned up, then I'm golden," Heather replied with a shrug. "I'm not hard to please, I just don't like my workspace to be filled with someone else's mess."
"We should have it all sorted out in the coming days," the CO assured her, offering Heather her outstretched hand.
"In the meanwhile... welcome to Deep Space K-9."
Posting by (In order of appearance):
Lieutenant Heather Honey
Chief Medical Officer, Deep Space K-9
Commander Irene Vincent
Commanding Officer, Deep Space K-9
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