Last Boarding Physical To Be Done

Posted on Wed Nov 6th, 2024 @ 9:10pm by Captain Dr. Nairut Noxi & Lieutenant Byron Baker & Lieutenant JG Rose Andrake & Lieutenant Dr. Katherine Peck PhD

0 words; about a 1 minute read

Mission: To Boldly Go...
Location: Sickbay

Byron checked the computer to see if he actually finished the boarding physicals. But, at the bottom of the list, a new name appeared.

"Will Lieutenant JG Rose Andrake report to sickbay immediately." He closed the channel and waited.

Rose had been shamming, working on menial tasks better suited for lower decks rather than simply doing what little paperwork she had been assigned or taking the time to get properly moved in or meditate. But as she heard the comm call, she gave a deep sigh, passed a spanner to her working partner, and dipped out, claiming that "duty calls."

It took her a mere five minutes to get to the Medical bay, short cutting through maintenance panels and Jeffries tubes to cut her time down before straightening her uniform and casually breezing in. Tall, well muscled, with the grace and catlike stride that spoke of an upbringing where even gravity was unreliable. Red hair framing her face and barely perceptible scars lining her sharp and angular features. "Junior Grade Andrake reporting!"

"Thank you coming so quickly, lieutenant." Baker turned to the woman standing next to him. "This is Dr. Katherine Peck, ship's counselor."

Peck moved closer to Rose. "Pleasure to meet you, Lieutenant."

Baker moved to a biobed and looked at Rose. "I asked the counselor to join us, if you don't mind."

"Fair," Rose nodded as she approached the biobed, her expression unreadable. She hopped up with practiced ease, the biobed groaning slightly under her weight. A hint of a smirk played on her lips as she glanced between the doctor and the counselor. If these two were going to be poking and prodding her, they might as well get used to her brand of humor. "So, we doing this spacer style or Fleet? How naked do you want me?"

There was a beat of silence before she continued, her tone casual but laced with an edge of warning. "And just so we’re clear, if either of you are telepathic, do not go digging in my head. You will regret it."

"First, Lieutenant," Baker was answering her, and his tone was not a friendly one. "You do not have to be in any stage of undress for this, and second, we do not appreciate your threatening tone. An attitude like that will have you end up facing a summery court martial. Am I understood?"

Peck listened to the CMO admonish the junior officer. "Lieutenant, neither of us are telepathic, but the doctor is right, you can't say things like that, even in jest. Now, I am here because in your file it says that you won't use the transporter. Is that correct?"

Baker started running his scans.

"Didn't mean for it to sound threatening. I have a psychic parasite and I can't promise it's dead, only that it's contained. Treatment was the severing and destruction of my telepathic potential." Rose didn't seem to care about the threatening response she got to her warning, relaxing into the scans. "As far as the transporter mess, I have transporter sickness. I don't like them cause I can feel it and it makes me throw up. I don't want to puke on the Captain's boots. Or worse. Besides. I'm a cartographer. If I'm getting transported, things are beyond bad. Only reason I'd be on an away team is if you need someone who speaks fluent Romulan or reads enough Klingon to pull mapping data."

Byron, upon hearing that, started scanning for the alleged psychic parasite. But so far, he couldn't find it.

Katherine nodded. "So, if the away mission called for someone who speaks fluent Romulan, you would go?"

"Yeah. But you guys have those fancy comm badges that make it so nobody even needs to learn Standard anymore. I speak Standard, Romulan, some Andorian and Vulcan, enough Klingon and Nausicaan to fight and flirt. I grew up on freighters. We didn't have a translator." Rose gave a shrug, considering as she looked at the counselor. I was court marshaled already this year. Already lost my Lt. Commander pips and any shot to ever captain a ship again, Starfleet or civvie. What're you gonna do, doc? Her thoughts rang clear as a bell against the inside of her skull, knowing full well they stopped there. If they weren't telepaths, she didn't have to worry about it. So she could keep her thoughts to herself. "Try adjusting your scanner to detect wisps. Mother's side of the family had one get stuck."

Baker looked at the monitor. "You had a broken arm when you were younger, probably had a cast. I'm also detecting some radiation exposure, probably from a faulty seal in your ship's shielding, and heavy scarring. Was that also from the radiation leakage?" He paused. "I'm seeing some neural reprogramming. Not a good job because the programming wasn't permanent, correct? And there's the wisp." He pointed at it on the monitor. "So, you were a telepath at one point. That's not in your file."

"Broken arm was at nine. I was climbing hydroponics towers. Radiation exposure was from my first two years with Starbreaker. We bought her, towed her out of the breaker yard, and I spent my fourteenth and fifteenth year restoring the ship to just functional enough to limp to Utopia Planitia. I took command when I was sixteen with a lotta debt." She thought her childhood was normal enough. "The reprogramming was done by the Lexington, I think... About five years ago, after the Starbreaker died. When they found me, I was... Well, I was a mess. And yeah. I was a telepath. When I was a kid. Started losing my powers at about eighteen? Came with headaches. Blocks of time missing. First I lost clarity, then range started shortening. Got so bad I couldn't feel the forward engineering bay. Then I couldn't feel anyone standing on the bridge with me. So yeah. I was a telepath. But that stopped being true ten years before I joined Starfleet. The scarring... I think it started about six months before I got rescued. I don't remember that time. Between when my brother murdered my husband on my ship and when I woke up in the Lexington's medical bay strapped to a table. Apparently they thought they dragged some old Spacer horror story out of a wrecked K'Tinga they almost ran over. Found out later I was the captain of a freighter lost with all hands thirty light years out of Iconia. I figure most of those scars were what happens when something like that has nowhere to direct its rage but the body it's controlling."

Looking over to the monitor, it felt odd, looking at the creature that was the source of her family's abilities. Or had been. She has always heard of them as these glowing, gaseous things that could take over a man's mind and body. Had a strange obsession with the sensations of normal life, but not actively hostile. Usually relatively benign. "Sorry I didn't mention it when I signed up. Figured the Lexington's docs reported the work. It's not like they just sedated the Hell out of me and the locks restored, right? Like put enough sedatives in me you get me, put stims in me, some deranged telepathic terror... Would be craziness. Like someone took my powers from me to make a weapon. Absolutely ridiculous. I was married with my own ship. Living the dream." But the bitterness in her voice couldn't have been mistaken for laughter.

Baker looked at her. "It's not against regulations to be a telepath. When the Academy finds one, they usually try to get the cadet to switch to counseling." He checked the readouts on the monitor. "Your arm seems to have healed nicely, so no trouble there. The scarring......" he paused.."might be treatable. As far as the wisp is concerned.....it might be removal, but it would take serious surgery." He smiled at her, using he best 'bed side manner' to ease her.

"Might be easier to just sterilize me," she gave a dark chuckle, still looking at the monitor, not recognizing that the scars binding her wisp in its cage were older than the five years she claimed. Fifteen to twenty years would have been more accurate, placed over the course of almost a decade. "It's passed from mothers to our children. Something about long term exposures in utero. I dunno. But it's not worth the risk. If there's any hope of a cure... The wisp was never a curse. I don't know what happened to mine. Thought it had died. But if that abomination can't be cut out, then I'm not putting birthing weapons and I'm not putting them through what it will do to my babies. Straight up... For me, it was just a way of navigating the world. Yeah, my mom taught me how to use it to fight. When we live on the fringe, we use what we can get. But mostly it was good for... Feeling how other parts of the ship are doing. Feeling the crew as an aspect of my own self. Feeling the needs of my crew before they could voice them, or pushing my own thoughts as ideas for them. Skimming meaning off languages I couldn't understand and learning how to speak. Borrowing skills, sharing memories or sensations. The sensations thing was fun with my first few boyfriends. I was never real good at reading specific people and their intent. No better than you would read a face if I'm talking to someone. Something I have trouble with, now. Never could communicate like Betazoids can. I'm not a counselor. Not built for it. Neither is my mom. She's a customs officer. But I can't do any of that, now. The part of me that can is a monster brought about by drugs I never consented to... I think. I know I'm not being real helpful. I... Don't have a lot of the information on what happened."

Baker's computer beeped. "Excuse me." He walked over and read the message, then came back. "I'm sorry. I'm scheduled for an away mission, so I have to go. I will leave you in the capable hands of Dr Peck and the emergency medical holograph. Computer, activate the EMHP."

Rose's brow furrowed as she sat up. "I mean, sure? Have fun? What's the hologram gonna do? Prescribe me a boyfriend? My pasty ass needs some sun, not somebody's son! C'mon, docs, it'd be easy to admit ain't a thing you can do and call it a day. If it has any questions I promise truth." Rose smirked, knowing with comm badges on, it was unlikely they would catch the switch to Romulan, and the choice of word that the computer so rarely translated correctly. She was promising truth. Not honesty.

"The captain needs me on an away mission. And I can't disobey the captain. The holographic doctor will be able to check the computer and see what needs to be done. I'm sorry." Byron said.

"Kay. Something got mistranslated there," Rose switched to her heavily accented Standard. "I wasn't denying you. I was making jokes. Go on your mission and your head shrinker and your holo can take care of it. And you outrank me, I ain' some Earther Karen! Dr. Peck, your analysis?"

Peck looked at her. "You're angry, angry about your wounds and angry towards the doctor. As the only medical officer, he has many duties, and when the captain says he has to go on an away mission, he has to go. And the holo, as you call him, is quite capable."

"Why would I be mad at the doctor for finding wounds? Kinda his job, right? Like yes, I am deeply angry about a few of the ways I got hurt, but why would I be mad at someone doing their job? Guy deserves a damn medal treating every scrape and bruise of two hundred stationers and planetborns playing spacer. It ain't my fault shit's getting lost, not like I haven't made myself clear, and if you have questions, ask me! Can't guarantee you'll believe me, but I promised the truth." Rose sat up from the table, letting her eyes settke on Peck. "You've got your scans, you really need me to stick around or you wanna pick my brain like the last three counselors who thought it crazy how well adjusted I am for someone who joined the fleet because it was the only way to stay in space after losing the freighter I captained for fourteen years and any contact with my parents cause they think I'm some scammer pretending to be their dead daughter, or that a telepath could function at all after losing her powers. I'm not mad at this doctor. Not yet. The holo, I just don't know if he's a person yet or just a program."

"The holographic doctor was put on Federation ships for over 100 years. He, though he can be reprogrammed to appear as male or female, Terran or any other species, and can be used if the ship's doctor is killed or injured. He has all the medical knowledge at his disposal from the ship's main computer." Peck responded. "If you want to leave before getting treated, then that is up to you. I'm sure Dr Baker would be slightly annoyed if you don't let the holo doctor treat you."

The EMH, Dr. Roger Harrison, waited patiently, trying his best to not interject. Dr. Peck had this handled. He did, however, adjust his programming, and step out of the bulkhead and into a white jacket. His "human" form was very staid and serious, but he wasn't a serious man. He was modeled after a doctor that had served with the very first Starfleet cadres, and had lost his life in the war between Romulans and Humans. He'd lost his love, Rose, too. So he understood unabashed anger. Interesting that his old partner shared the same name as this woman.

"I ain't opposed to treatment, depending on what's getting treated." Rose shrugged. "Alright, mr. holodoc, do you have any instructions for me and a name you'd prefer? Cause if possible I'd like to know exactly what this reprogramming did to my mind and why I lost my telepathy. Cause it's really hard to read people without it and I can't tell if Dr. Peck thinks I'm crazy or plain stupid, and I can't tell if she's being condescending or actually trying to help. Like am I gonna be just clueless about basic body language for the rest of my life? Be able to fix my tat? What's the plan? Cause I didn't realize any of my bullshit could be treated today, I thought this was just a checkup. Like all the other ships gonna leave the spacer girl to handle her shit alone and then drop her three ranks when she can't manage her symptoms or when someone doses her with something."

"You can call me Dr. Harrison, or just Roger," he said. "My programming says the person I was modeled after was born on Earth, in England, and was a rather quiet fellow," he said. "No instruction. You may lie back or just sit, whichever is more comfortable for you. I am going to ask Lt. Peck to remain, just for an extra set of eyes," he said. Proper procedures and all that. "Please, continue with your story. I'm interested in hearing," he said, obtaining a handheld bioscanner and turning around. He read through Dr. Baker's notes quickly as he listened.

She looked between the pair before giving a soft sigh. "Look, docs, I lost my ship and crew. Last of her class. Single largest class of freighter ever constructed by humanity, and a crew of eighty, and I lost it to two fucking K'Tingas full of filthy pirates. Took one in the fighting, but still lost. You think any freight crew would have taken on a disgraced Captain like that? Starfleet, signing on, was my only chance to stay in space cause I can't hack it without a hull to touch and a hum to let me know my home has a pulse as strong as mine. So do what you have to. Any procedures you deem necessary. Fuck me up. Send it."

Roger chuckled lightly. "I don't think that's necessary, Ms. Andrake. Do you prefer Rose?" He asked. "I am not sure if I can tell you today exactly everything that has happened, but I'll do my best to find out, ok? The first thing I want to do is address the scarring. IF you want to keep them, I understand. Some people do. Ask the Captain to show you hers," he said. He didn't reveal more, but knew the woman bore scars of her time in the Bajoran camps, and later, the militia. "She preferred to keep them because she said they remind her of where she came from and how far she's come. I suspect you might feel the same?" He asked, his tone gentle. "But if you DO want them removed, I can do that now. While I am doing that, I will dive into my databases and see if I can find anything of use for us, as well," he said. He made the internal calculations. If anything of note was found, it would display on the viewscreen.

"Just need my tats repaired and... My powers are maternally passed. Whatever this thing in my mind is will pass to them. With none of the protections." Rose shrugged, leaning back against the biobed's arch as she watched the monitors, not knowing what the data meant. "So either cure me or ensure that this thing dies with me."

Roger nodded. "We can address that shortly. I heard you mention to Dr. Baker that you'd like a hysterectomy. We can discuss that, too," he said. "Hmm, you are correct, there's a hint of some kind of temporal entity," he said. "Dr. Peck, can you please load up 20 CCs of numbing liquid?" He asked. "Ok, so. Tattoo repair, but you're keeping the scars. Let me grab the transdermal regenerator," he said, turning away to open a cabinet. A moment later, he'd returned to her bedside. "A full hysterectomy would throw you into early Menopause, which has its own set of problems, not least of which is hotflashes and personality changes. The most of which are a permanent change in your hormones, which will, very likely, require you to need regular injections of estrogen and epinephrine," he said. He found a vein, and gently and carefully injected Rose with the numbing agent. "Ok, let's give that a moment to kick in," he said, placing the hypospray gun to the side. "So you have a few things to think about. I would like for you to take 24 hours to do some deep thinking about it. I will continue to search my database for a cure or at least a removal," he said.

Katherine watched the holographic doctor at work. She was somewhat surprise at how the doctor behaved. It, he, was probably the most unique holographic doctor in the fleet. And it seemed Rose was more relaxed than at any point she had known her.

"Long as you take that time to research if it's going to be necessary. If there's any hope of curing my parasite or straight up restoring my powers, then there's hope I can retire and get fat in some hydroponics bay somewhere with myriad fat babies. Till then, it's too much of a risk. The scars are a reminder of what's down in my skull. So the discretion is yours."

Roger nodded as he bypassed her skin several times with a small needle, and then followed it with the dermal regenerator. "Now, you will probably feel a bit sore later. That's normal. Please do your best to not pick or scratch at it; it may cause an infection," he said. He glanced at the viewscreen. "Nothing has come up yet, but I've only managed to do one hundred years worth of research so far. So. Let's let you go for now, for a think, and we'll see each other tomorrow, ok? I will call down to your quarters if I find anything before then," he said. HIs face was grim with the prospects, but he respected people's rights to choose their own health outcomes, including sterilization, abortions, and refusing cancer treatments, and so on. He was just a computer; he didn't know HOW to judge. Only give the best options.

Peck thought that even if 'Roger' was a hologram, he did seem capable of empathy. She looked at Rose. "Rose. How are you feeling?"

"Like a bag of hammered dicks with six different mental health issues. Bit of disgrace, lotta rage, and a shitload of frustration that I can't tell if anyone's ever genuine." Rose relaxed into the treatment, feeling her scars fade and the lines of her tattoo stitch back to their original arcane form of the magics her family had found in the superstitions of a hundred worlds and bound in the circuitry of human design. She almost wanted to bare them for the hologram to better work, and to watch in morbid fascination as her tattoos were restored, the scars of her monstrous months in the throes of rage and stim fueled madness sanded from her body as though it could restore her soul. "I know I got a lot of healing to do. Maybe we'll start small. A holodeck simulation of Starbreaker's agriculture bay. Some goofus commander trying to to be my dad. The arboretum Noxi told me to build because botanists have no idea how an artificial water table works or how to use zinc dioxide gravel to turn the drainage layer into the zinc air battery running the bay's own gravity and pumps. Basic stuff."

Roger chuckled. "Well, that sounds like a good plan, actually," he said. "But make sure you get some sleep. You might have some minor residual stinging pain from the grafting. If that's the case, report here. No need to suffer; you have nothing to prove by doing so," he said. He'd had the same conversation the day before when the Captain had reported with minor symptoms from side effects of her Orkett's treatment.

"I can arrange holodeck time for you, as part of your treatment. And it seems you are probably one of the people who can help those poor souls on the planet." Peck looked at her. "I know you have been through a lot in your life, but if you will let me, I think we can resolve some of your issues. What do you say?"

"Better than I thought it'd be. I don't like sleeping, though. I got too much work to do. Sorry not sorry about my humor, by the way." Turning her head, Rose offered a grin. "My thoughts on the prescription stand."

"If you think you need any prescription's, we should talk about, it?" Peck asked.

The EMH chuckled. "The prescription was to wait it out for twenty-four hours, Dr Peck," he said, lightly, with a wink to Rose. "I trust you can see your way out. Make a follow up with the Yeoman, please," he said, as he let Rose go.

"Oh. I was talking about Doc Rogers prescribing me a boyfriend. Though I imagine that's more your purview, Counselor." Rose stood off the biobed, casually breezing towards the door. "I'll be back tomorrow for the tattoo work. Scars you don't need to see, but tats are art and need eyes on. Don't look into my collection of romances if you want to tell me to have some fun. Be about as bad for your mental health as having a telepath look at my parasite."

Muttering to herself. "Yeah, that girl is going to fit right in here." He turned to the doctor. "Shall I have the computer shut you down, doctor?"

A Short Trek Post by:

EMH Dr, Roger Harrison (NPC Captain)
EMH


Rose Andrake
Astrocartography

Dr. Byron Baker
Chief Medical Officer

&

Dr. Katherine Peck
Chief Counselor NPC

 

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