A Little More Caution
Posted on Wed Feb 1st, 2023 @ 11:43pm by Christine Graham & Fleet Captain Maxwell Culver & Lieutenant JG Aurora House of Kor
2,171 words; about a 11 minute read
Mission:
Mission One: Goodwill Tour [Part One]
Location: Triton Seabase: Sickbay
Timeline: MD6: 1400 hours
Max and Aurora transported into the sickbay. Doctor Graham materialized in the sickbay even before the last shimmer of the transporter had finished.
"I'm sorry, sir...ouch!" Aurora hissed softly. "I hate to add to my being in trouble...but my legs just went numb," Aurora almost ended up on the floor as her legs gave way.
She was beside Aurora immediately. “Nurse, I need twelve ccs astermorphine and nine ccs of Tetrimulab.”
The nurse approached almost immediately with hypospray in hand. She handed it to the doctor. Christine applied the hypo to the panicked woman’s leg, the one part she wasn’t flailing at the moment. It took about sixty seconds before the drugs took effect.
Turning to the ensign, she asked, “What happened?” as she looked at the woman’s flailed flesh.
"Well...I decided to go and break the number one diver's rule about never swimming without a partner. This school of little weirdo fishes decided to try and make me dinner. I...I think I might...ooohhh boy..." Aurora's world went black.
“Let’s get her to the biobed,” Doctor Graham asked urgently.
Max scooped up the alien and placed her gently on the main biobed. His official first time in sickbay and he appreciated how white and clean everything was. He crossed his arms and backed away, still shivering.
“Nurse Garre, begin a cross match of fresh frozen plasma, start a warm intravenous fluid infusion - Ringers, Norm-R or Plasmalyte - I don’t care which. Pain medication every four hours and full body dermal regeneration for Ensign Aurora.”
Doctor Graham spun on her heel and used the wand of the tricorder to scan him. “Captain, you’re hypothermic and your body temperature is continuing to drop. It’s unusual. Nurse Ross, will you put the captain in a private room so he can take a sonic shower, change clothes and warm up, please?”
Max followed the nurse to the private room, where he removed the over garments before the nurse stopped him. “Captain, you’re dangerously close to frost bite. I don’t understand it.
“Doctor Hill, can I borrow your eyes for a moment? There’s something I missing with the captain’s vitals…”
Doctor Hill, a rotund Tellarite grunted as he entered the room. He took the tricorder and wand from the nurse. “Hmmm,” he mused as he read it, then changed some parameters. “Captain, you’ve brought back a lifeform that uses host body heat to…well, breed. On a microscopic level, those little suckers are getting busy!”
“Great,” Max responded, his teeth chattering. “How do I not die of hypothermia?” he asked a little less politely.
“Ah! I’m setting the transporters to their specific biology. Transport in three, two, one.” Max was held in position as the transporters beamed the microscopic life forms to the lab, in a safe place. Unfortunately, it also transported Max’s wet clothes with it, leaving him cold and naked.
“Your patient, Nurse Ross,” the Tellarite grunted as he managed a look at the naked El Aurian form. By the look in his eye, he seemed disgusted.
“The sonic shower is set to warm heat, I’d recommend increasing it slowly, you don’t want to shock your system, sir. I’ll have clothes prepared for you and then we’ll continue heat treatment until your temperature is normal.”
Doctor Graham stepped into the med bay. “Where are we at?” she asked bruskly.
“I’ve got her on Ringers using the infusion set. Nurse Briall is having difficulty with the intravenous catheter, doctor.”
Christine walked to where Briall was working. The young Orion had just graduated and had little experience. Christine decided to coach him. “You’ve found a very nice vein,” Christine complimented the man. She could see his hands shaking. With species like hers, you’ll have to lift the scales in order to place the catheter. Christine lifted the armor like scale to show him the vein. Once displayed, Briall punctured the tough skin and hit the vein almost instantly. “Perfect insertion, Nurse. Now get the plasma on a drip.”
“Someone else, get another bag of plasma.”
Christine then activated the arch. “Initiating full body dermal regeneration. Let’s keep her on this regimen for the next hour.” Christine paused to make an adjustment to the dermal regenerator, pulling back the scales to expose the raw tissue.
Christine was about to leave her team to their work when Briall stopped her. “Doctor, she has barbs from what appear to be small stingrays. The dermal regenerator can’t fix the tissue while the barbs are in the skin.”
Christine returned and looked at the readings. “You’re correct, Nurse Briall, well done. We will need to remove each barb by hand. Let’s get gloves on and as many hands and forceps as we can get in there!”
The team seemed pleased by this new challenge. It was rare that any medical team could pull barbs from the flesh of anything, let alone their colleagues.
“You’ll have to pull up the scales to expose the barbs, otherwise you’ll just get the tails. Be cautious, these are still emitting a venom. Would be nice to have a marine biologist to tell me what kind of toxin,” she joked. “Karen, get a sample to the lab. In the meantime, we’ll give her a bag of antivenin. Nurse Skrall, you’ll be on that. See if you have the same skill as Briall in hitting these veins.”
Doctor Graham checked in on her other patient. He was sitting comfortably on his bio bed, reading a holographic report of the next city they would visit, Mountain View.
“Captain, your nurse tells me your body temperature has been normal for three hours without heating support. I suppose it would be illogical to lecture you on looking before leaping, but after looking at your tricorder readings, those particular lifeforms didn’t show up on the microscopic scans.”
“Good to know I’m not incompetent,” Max responded with amusement. “However, I’ll have Director S’Lovok assign one of his staff to examine the creatures so future explorers don’t have surprise hypothermia.”
“A wise decision, captain. If we can determine why they didn’t show up on our tricorder, perhaps we will be able to add that process to all sensors.
“In any case, sir, I am prepared to release you from sickbay. Now, before you go arguing, Ensign Aurora is out of surgery and will make a full recovery by morning. Perhaps in time for her shift on the tide pools tomorrow.”
“If she’s up to it. If she’s not, I’d rather not push her, Doctor,” Max warned.
A few hours later and the sickbay looked like a bomb went off. Christine walked into the Neenah to check on her patient. “Hello sunshine,” she said to an awake Ensign Aurora.
"Uuuh...jeewiz...did anybody get the license plate on that tar carrier that ran over me?" Aurora groaned, trying unsuccessfully to sit up. "Yo...what'd y'all give me, whale tranquilizer?" Aurora smirked softly as she carefully shifted into a more comfortable position. "Hey, now that I'm thinking about it clearly, the Captain didn't look so swuff the last time I saw him. Is he ok?" Aurora was suddenly more alert.
“The captain brought another lifeform back with him. Once we separated him from his new friends, he recovered rather quickly, though he may have a lingering chill for a few hours, but he’s already been released to duty,” Christine explained.
"Cor Blimy! Glad he's ok and...hey, is Tom ok? He's an octopus. I think I caught sight of him too...but I was pretty out of it, so I could be wrong," Aurora gently rotated her neck, hearing the soft cracking of things realigning. "So, how long y'all thinking of trying to keep me in here?" Aurora smirked through a groan.
“Don’t worry about Tom, he was transported back to his home aboard the base,” the Doctor explained.
"Whew, that's good.“
“You’ll be here in sickbay for observation overnight, Aurora.” The Doctor said, silently recording the patient’s vital signs.
“Ah come on! I...er, yes Ma'am, sorry Ma'am," Aurora quickly shut her mouth as she realized she was acting like a spoiled kid again.
"Um, any chance someone could swing by my quarters and grab 'Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea' for me?" Aurora decided asking and getting a 'no' was better than knowing she was going to be board stiff.
Christine handed the ensign a PaDD. “You can find it in the library, I’m sure,” she answered with some amount of distraction. There was an occasional irregularity in Aurora’s heart rate. She would add orders to have the nurses alert her if it became more frequent.
"Oh...right. Snicker. I forgot about that. Thanks Doc. It just feels better holding the actual thing in your hand you know?" Aurora sheepishly took the PaDD, typed in the title, found where she'd let off, and began reading.
“I can have a nurse fetch the book for you, Ensign. That was my misunderstanding. Sometimes a PaDD isn’t as good as the real thing, however, in my case, I am better than the real thing because I have the combined knowledge of over four hundred doctors. I’m a walking, talking and functional dictionary of medicine.” Christine chuckled.
"Wait...huh? What the heck are yo...opsi...there I go again. I'm sorry, Doctor Graham," Aurora dropped her head behind the PaDD, wondering if she was just DESTINED to be a vocal klutz!
Christine could figure out where the ensign was going with her question. “Yes. I’m a long-term holographic doctor, ensign. About that book? Shall I have someone fetch it for you?”
"Wow! That's that's that's just wow. Um...if it's ok?" Aurora giggled, rubbing her neck sheepishly. Suddenly, Aurora jerked. "Whoa! What was that?" Aurora asked, rubbing her arms.
Christine took out her medical wand and ran it over the ensign’s arm. “A residual pain response. I will prescribe a medication to help with that pain as well as to get you to sleep tonight. I hear you’re going out to the tide pools again tomorrow with much more equipment and science staff.
"Not the biggest fan of sleep aids, but I'm trying to be good, so I'll take my medicine," Aurora sighed softly as she rearranged her pillows.
“I wouldn’t want you to miss it.” Christine put away her wand and caught the attention of a nearby orderly to fetch Aurora’s book.
"Me either! I LOVE the water! I...I guess that's kinda obvious though huh?" Aurora's giggle turned into a full-blown laugh.
“It might be interesting to join you. Perhaps I can shuffle my schedule to allow me to join tomorrow’s exploration of the tide pools. I can make sure you do it more safely,” she answered with a single white eyebrow cocked high.
"That would be fun! I think if we could snag one of those little ray monsters, we could cook up some great antivenom!' Aurora was already back in scientist mode!
"I wonder what that stuff was that they made the shell out of? It took my highest pitched Siren scream to break it," Aurora suddenly clammed up. "D..don't tell anyone about that yet please. I..it's a little bit on the scarier side than anything else about me. I'll tell the Captain, I promise, just...just keep it mum for now?" Aurora looked at Doctor Graham almost pleadingly.
The Andorian holo-doc smiled. “As an Aquadian, the Siren’s scream is well documented. I would not be surprised if the Captain doesn’t already know - even if he hasn’t seen or heard it yet.”
Aurora blinked, then started to giggle at how silly she felt for not remembering that. "Maybe I should get some sleep, cause apparently my brain's not all the way here right now," Aurora snickered as she stretched.
”That,” Christine answered, “sounds like a very good idea, Aurora.” The Doctor tucked the ailing hybrid into bed for the night, called for the lights to lower and began to sing.
SuvwI' loDnI'pu' moj ghaH.
juHdajdaq QongmeH qo' ghaH juHDaq
Qo'noSDaq chenbe' tlhIngan
moDtaHvIS vangtaHvIS 'ej tlhu'moHtaHvIS
navDaq ghotpu'vaD neH lutoblaHbe'
che'wI' wa'netlh chutmey
QI'tu' pagh, Qo'noS pagh, QI'tu'
yejquv vaS DaneHchugh, vaj qo' Hoch batlh.
tugh qabDaj wIpeghnIS
jInIDqang 'e' vIHarqang, tlhIngan Hoch vIjaHlaH
muSHa'chugh vaj muSHa'bogh HatlhwI' je
Suyep DaqeqnIS “
It wasn’t long into the song before the Klingon lullaby put Aurora to sleep, but the doctor cleaned her private room, moving about and straightening things up and replacing things that had been used. The orderly returned with the hard bound book only to find the patient sleeping and the doctor singing.
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