The Good Doctor?

Posted on Sun Dec 15th, 2024 @ 11:15pm by Captain Dr. Nairut Noxi

1,091 words; about a 5 minute read

Mission: To Boldly Go...
Location: Noxi's Quarters
Timeline: MD-07ish

Room 4-13 looked like a low-budget space horror gore holo- the type that was a recent production fad out of Freecloud, Nimbus III or Tulia Prime. Its layout was virtually the same as any Officers' quarters: rectangular living space, dining table for four, chairs, a couch. To the left of the door was the door to the washing room. Across the small living space were two doors that led into two-person dormitories. It was a step up from the "shelf community" that was the sleeping cubicle hall of the Enlisted. And it spoke definitively of the Deliverance's tight living spaces.

The lights flickered from above, the only source of window light and streaking stars was above from the skylight-type slotted windows. There was an unnerving arcing buzz coming from a bulkhead that was visibly dented. That dent had damaged controls- and possibly power conduits- leading to the source of the buzz- the replicator. Its LCARS panel was wildly cycling through controls stuck in a glow of reds and whites. It hadn't gotten the message that the intruder alert was over with.

The panel blinked with an error and then went back to trying to cycle through the LCARS. A discarded weapon, smelling of burnt metal and ceramic, laid on the soaked carpet. It resembled something like a portable flamethrower. The wall nearby was heavily scorched and carbonized, and the pitted marks and large blast craters of a phaser nearly exposed the right-side dormitory to the common room. Its doors had been knocked off their guides.

Then there was the odor. Blood, coppery and sick. There were several small concentrations of it: one where the flame thrower sat, the other near the dented bulkhead. But the reel reek was something wholly alien. At first its smell was sweet and sickly, like rotten citrus. It had a plasticky reek, and the odor of charred bones and crispy marrow.

The body was at the heart of the reek- if one could call it a body. It more resembled a misshapened lump of melted reddish-purple plastic, its edges carbonized black and made crumbly. Bits of the same material had exploded and pelted every wall and every piece of furniture within three meters. Strange, glassy barbs resembling wicked harpoons were embedded in the bulkheads near the door, near the replicator and in the ground near the flamethrower.

An alarming pop and sizzle came from the right-side dormitory, a flickering blue light within.
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Noxi had been the first to answer the call-she had been close by, on the way to her own quarters. She was also armed, having just come from the holodeck, where she had been practicing firearms quals. She was still as good a shot as she had been at fifteen, when she joined the militia-better, really. At least now she had the surety of time and maturity, something she lacked back then.

The sight that greeted her was...alarming. A mass of green...oozey, like Ectoplasm from those old Earth movies-Ghostbusters-but shaped like an octopus was the only way she could describe it. She had raised her phaser, cocked it quickly, and fired. A tentacled arm fell off, but regenerated a small version of the larger creature as it hit the floor. She was over her head-this she recognized, and she hollered out for extra help. A bunch of security people, who'd already been en route, arrived next.

One was gathered up into the beings' tentacles-a brave soul who'd ventured forward. Noxi's guerrilla training kicked in, and she moved forward. She trained her phaser onto the light panel, until it caught fire. It was the fire that seemed to work; the being whimpered in fear. and Noxi moved forward still. She took a nearby candle, and lit it, placing it into one of the being's tentacles. It writhed, and slapped, and grabbed. A Marine had figured out what Noxi was doing, and stepped into assist, as the others sent in chemicals and hand grenades.

Finally.

The being succumbed to the powerful attack, and let the now-deceased man go. Noxi, for her efforts, had been rewarded with pustules and marks from the tentacles and venom of the once-Dr. Byron Baker. She let out a breath.

"Thank you," she said quietly to the team assembled. They all just nodded in shock.

"Report to medical," she said. "I'll be there myself, in a minute," she said. She needed to regroup a moment. And report this to Starfleet.

Crap. How was she going to explain this? Yes, Admiral Albion? My CMO turned out to be some kind of alien monster. Nah, he's dead, I had to kill him-you see, he attacked one of my Marines. No, no, they're dead, too, but the others are ok... yeah, right. She'd be sent to Psych and stripped of her PiPS. She'd figure out something.

She finished the short trip to her quarters, placed her phaser in its safety lock, and changed into some clean sweats and a tank top. She made her way to medical, ignoring the stares of the people she passed in the Turbolifts. On the way, she radioed out to Engineering, Ops, and Maintenance. They promised she'd have a clean CMO's quarters within two days. They also promised to send their most conscientious staffers-while it wasn't a secret, it wasn't EXACTLY something to be discussed over mess.

She entered medical, and nodded at the EMH.

"I am ok," she said. "Please attend to the others first," she said. She sighed, but settled back on the biobed.

Where had things gone wrong? How had she MISSED this?

Oh, well. She wouldn't miss HIM-he struck her as creepy, and speciest, and frankly...like he was better than everyone else. Well. Now he was dead. A bit later, the EMH had released the Marines/security, and was working on her own wounds. She had told him what happened. He agreed that it was best to be honest with Command, and to let the chips fall where they might.

But also that he might make a call himself to a "friend" in Section 31, to see what they could do about disappearing Dr. Baker. She was reticent, but agreed that what the computer did on its own time was not her business. She was released, and went straight to her quarters to pour out a glass of spring wine, and drank it in bed, ruminating on the evening's activities. She knew she'd be just fine the next day.

A Mission Post by:

Capt. Dr. Nairut Noxi
Commanding Officer
USS Deliverance

 

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