The Spider and the Hangover After Effect
Posted on Sun Aug 4th, 2024 @ 7:51pm by Fleet Captain Maxwell Culver & Lieutenant Commander Frasier Greene
1,079 words; about a 5 minute read
Mission:
Short Treks
Location: USS Intrepid:Sickbay
Timeline: Backpost
Max shuffled into sickbay, feeling a lot better now that he was away from the spider with hypnotic thoughts. Rena had insisted that she accompany him to sickbay, maybe thinking he couldn’t, or wouldn’t, follow through, but this was not one of those times. Max had given his word that he was, in fact, on his way to sickbay and he wanted her to return to the lab, protect the others from another attack.
“Hello?” he asked, his own voice sounded strange in his ears. “Frasier?”
Having been expecting him earlier, following Vila's concern, Frasier had been pacing nervously as time had passed without an update from the science lab. Had the Captain been bitten? Did the security field fail, were the others injured too? Where was the spider now? Was it loose on the ship? How would it be contained? He'd need to samples to create an antivenom...
He jumped at the sound of his name being called having been lost in his thoughts.
"Captain!" he hurried over to meet him full of nervous energy. "What happened, are you alright?" he asked quickly scanning visual for obvious injuries before inspecting Max's arms, rolling back the sleeves for a closer inspection fearful of what he'd find.
“Getting better the farther away from the spider I got. Some kind of psychic hypnosis, maybe? It…made me want to open the fields, probably get us all eaten,” Max said in quick succession.
The Doctor froze in alarm and his eyes widened. "And the...?" he asked with a quiver in his voice.
“It’s still contained. Probably dead, knowing Lorut’s feeling about having it alive and aboard. With a psychic predatory function like that, there’s no doubt it poses a shipwide danger."
Relieved Frasier heaved a sigh. He was certain Vila would ensure the hideous Spider was very much dead before you could raise an ethic argument otherwise.
"Why don't you tell me what happened?" he lead Max deeper into sickbay and willed his heart to stop pounding loudly in his head. "How do you feel now?"
“It’s like I’ve got a terrible hangover.” Max could feel his stomach go queasy as he also broke out in a flop swear.
Frasier nodded and steered Max toward the closet bio bed to perform a closer examination and plucked a scanner from the side. "Start from the beginning," he instructed. "What happened after I left you in the lab?"
“We were talking, telepathically. The spider and I, of course,” Max added as clarification. “Then I felt a wave of dizziness, I guess. That’s the best way to describe it, but it was more.
“Then it had me locked in. It tried to use our psychic bond to force me to open the force field and biocontainment field. It was going to kill us all and eat. I could feel its intentions, I just couldn’t block them. I was even trying to double my psychic blocks, but it was already in my head,” Max explained it to the best of his abilities.
“Obviously someone stopped me or we’d all be dead now and that creature would be stringing up meals for later. I don’t know…it’s gone now, so either Vila gassed it or killed it. Or both, knowing her, both."
The Doctor shuddered at the comment and his grip on the tricorder faltered, thankfully he's quick reactions saved his blushes from dropping his scanner and continued."
“And the worst part of it all is that, if it’s dead, sentient or not, I’m glad it’s dead,” Max finished. It had all just spilled out in one expositional dump of, hopefully, coherent thought.
"You and me both," Frasier muttered lowly before glancing up at the the monitor. "You'll be pleased to know you've escaped any lasting damage and there's no evidence of linger affects of the assault in your cortex." he concluded turning to face Max in full. "Aside from your physical symptoms probably a reaction to the unwanted attention you're fine."
“There’s that, at least,” Max answered, feeling the effects begin to ebb. “I don’t think the holodoc wants to reroute all my neurons again.”
The Doctor nodded thoughtfully already prepping a hypo to relieve Max's nausea. "We should update Captain Hart and the others back on Triton, as precaution."
“I figured you would have heard before now, Triton Seabase went defunct. The indigenous peoples managed to somehow remove the water and aquatic life forms into a stable ocean without a typical planetary core.
I’d love to see it some day, but I don’t think we’ll be getting an invite any time soon. The Ro’Nel are pretty pissed that the Romulans were using a small version Genesis Device to develop more land,” Max explained.
“The planet is barren and the land animals are being moved to suitable planets nearby. Captain Hart is running that operation from the Reliant.”
Frasier lowered this tools at the explanation: "No, I didn't know. That's... extreme and fast, plus very unexpectant. Did you have any inkling about this before we left?"
“I was aware of the Ro’Nel, as were the Romulans. Starfleet had slated Triton Seabase to reach out to the Ro’Nel, but somehow that all got dropped,” Max answered. “What I think likely happened is that Captain Hart wasn’t able to make the direct contact before the Ro’Nel transferred their water from the planet to…basically an ocean in space. I think the USS Voyager experienced something similar in the Delta Quadrant.
“Maybe the Ro’Nel found that information in the Starfleet database and used it quite effectively,” Max wondered how much unfettered information came out of the Delta Quadrant.
"Maybe," Frasier sighed reaching forward to inject the dosage. "I'll guess we're never know. Disheartening all the same."
Max could feel the room orient itself again a few seconds later. “Ah…” he sighed. “Much better.”
Suddenly exhausted, Max laid back on the biobed, hearing it begin its automatic readings. “I feel a bit sleepy. Do you mind if I jusss.” Max didn’t finish the sentence as instantly fell asleep.
"Make yourself at home," Greene murmured as the Captain quickly dropped off. He dimmed the lights around sleeping beauty after a watchful eye on the reading before turning away to focus on other duties
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