A New Beginning

Posted on 15 Apr 2018 @ 10:13pm by Commander Jayla Kij & Lieutenant Commander Camila Di Pasquale

5,623 words; about a 28 minute read

Mission: Crossing Over
Location: Talon's
Timeline: MD 37 || 1400 Hours [Backpost]

It had been a few days after Camila fully got her memories back and the woman had been going over each one in detail as they had surfaced. She wasn’t using them to go back to drinking, but to examine them to see if she could learn from the experiences. Some were very painful but there was no way to block them out, so she had to accept them as wounds that were reopened. She would have to live with them like she did the first time the events happened but try to move forward in a more positive way.

One of those memories centered around the Trill Chief Medical Officer and Camila knew she had treated the woman unfairly because of rumors. I’m a Chief of Security, she thought to herself. I don’t specialize in rumors. I specialize in learning the truth. The personal lives of the crew aren’t my concern unless it affects the lives of everyone on the ship or the safety of the ship itself.

With that in mind, the thin, hollow-eyed woman sat down at her terminal and opened a communique:

Jayla,

I was wondering if you would like to meet at Talon’s for lunch or somewhere we can talk.

Camila

Camila reviewed it and decided simple was good, then sent it.

Sitting at her desk, still a bit tired from restoring the memories of the entire crew and yet much better off for a few good nights’ sleep, Jayla saw the message as soon as it was sent. Lunch? She peeked at the chronometer. No wonder she was feeling hungry. It was nearly lunchtime. She quickly sent a reply.

Camila,

Absolutely! I’d love to. See you in 15 minutes?

Jayla

The ombre-haired woman smiled when she saw the response. With all that had been going on with drills with personnel in short supply, she had been pushing herself and needed the break. That and friends were hard to come by, especially with the losses caused by the Consortium. She got up and checked her uniform, then headed out of her quarters.

A few minutes later, Camila walked into Talon’s and looked around for Jayla before she headed towards the counter to get a mug of coffee while she waited.

And of course, the Doctor was late. Aren’t doctors always late? Jayla hurried in and spotted Camila by the counter. With a smile, she hurried over to the other woman. “Hey, Camila,” she said. “How have you been?”

Camila gave Jayla a wan smile and gestured towards the seat next to her. “Tired, overworked, and in need of some good memories. How about you?”

Jayla grinned almost ironically. “Same,” she said. “I was beginning to think it might be time to resign from Starfleet and spend my time at a clinic on Trill.”

“You can’t leave,” the thin woman said. “Especially not now. Well, not that any of us could until we get out of the Convergence Zone, but not even then. We need good officers like you and besides, you’re our Chief Medical Officer. Who’ll be there to patch me and other Security officers up when we get hurt defending you and others on the ship?”

“Road and Abrams will still be here,” Jayla pointed out. “They’re good doctors. At least as good as me. Abrams may be better, actually.”

“Yet, here you are, our Chief Medical Officer,” Camila responded as her coffee arrived. “Did you want something to drink before we go to a table?” she asked.

“I’d better just stick with water,” replied Jayla. “I’m probably not drinking enough of it.” The requested water was delivered quickly and she led the way to a nearby table. “So, what’s on your mind?” she asked, taking one of the seats.

Camila headed to the table with her and took the other seat with her coffee. “Coffee has water in it,” she pointed out. “Just holding to the promise that I made in Sickbay when you were there for me. It was a scary time, not knowing who I was or anything else and you took the time to be there when you had so much more going on. It meant a lot to me and I realized that despite serving on the old Black Hawk and now the new, we barely know each other.”

“You’re right,” answered Jayla. “Goodness, we’ve probably had a total of three conversations off-duty, haven’t we? That’s rather pathetic.”

“I think that we need to change that,” the Security Chief said. “In fact, we’re going to change that starting now. What do you like to do in your off duty hours?” Besides the men the rumors say you do, she mentally added but dismissed it as an unfair thought.

“I’ve been painting a lot lately,” Jayla replied. “It’s something I used to do as a teenager and in the academy and I just recently got back into it. Besides that, I enjoy tennis and zero-G handball. Just about any sport, really.” She grinned. “How about you?”

“I’d heard you had a gallery for some members of the crew,” Camila said. “I’m sorry that I didn’t attend, but I want to see what you’ve done. Honestly, I do my shifts, then go back to my quarters and read. I was given a book called A Hobbit’s Tale and it’s drawn me in.”

“You’re welcome to come by and see my paintings,” Jayla replied. “I’ve let a few people see them privately. The Captain, for one. And Cal. Callam Jaxer,” she clarified. “He was one of the fighter pilots. We were good friends while he was here. Sorta miss him.”

“The only fighter pilot I’m familiar with is Commander Walsh,” the other woman responded after a deep drink of her coffee with a satisfied sigh. “He’s a really good man and we’ve been working out on teaching him Search and Rescue in our spare time. Sadly, there hasn’t been much of that lately. Still, I’d like to see your paintings. What’s your style?”

“All kinds of different stuff,” said Jayla. “I’m into impressionism lately, though. But, I’ve tried my hand at cubism- that was a disaster- and realism and even a technique called trompe l’oiel. It means to deceive the eye. You know. Hills that are actually a flock of birds. That sort of thing.”

“Have you ever seen the art of the Lisseppians?” Camila asked her. “It’s like three-dee illusions which draw you in to the center of it, then makes you see patterns inside of patterns, and each of them do the same to take you to a new part of it. It’s almost never ending until it’s too small to see with the naked eye.”

“I haven’t,” Jayla confessed. “Sounds like I’m missing something pretty fantastic, though.”

“Only if you want to stare at the same piece of artwork until your eyes cross and your brain convinces you that you’re going to fall into it,” Camila sounds with a laugh. “Then again, it could be just because I’m human and I couldn’t handle the full impact of it. Do Trill see things differently?”

“Not to my knowledge,” replied Jayla, sipping her water. “Perhaps philosophically, but that would only be joined Trill. The joined are a bit weird, even to us. How many women do you suppose could deliver the babies of the wife of the man they used to date?” She grinned, eyes sparkling with mirth. “Granted, dating isn’t really accurate. But, it helped me move on. And that was good.”

The blonde woman twitched a bit as Jayla spoke but quickly suppressed it. “Aren’t Joined Trill forbidden to have any association with anything to do with previous hosts?” she asked as she remembered some of her Xenological studies from the Academy.

“In a way,” she replied. “It’s kind of hard in my case as my parents were good friends with Kij’s previous host. There have been instances when friends receive symbionts whose previous hosts were lovers and then there have been times when people meet and fall in love without realizing that their symbionts were friends or mates previously. The general rule is that we’re not allowed to associate with people or symbionts we previously knew. There are always exceptions to the rule, though. Kij and Djinx knew one another in our previous hosts. But, that’s beside the point. I’m talking about Jayla’s life here. Still, they’re both my friends. I love them both. And let’s face it, Harvey and I would have just argued all the time. We were doing that as it is. We’d have just ended up murdering each other.”

Camila blinked as she went from getting knowledge of the Trill to hearing about her and Harvey. “Umm. Did you and Captain Geisler know each other in a previous host?” she asked, clearly confused at the transition from one topic to another.

Jayla grinned. “No,” she laughed. “We dated briefly. Very briefly. Like three weeks, I think. It had all the makings of an explosive relationship. Yeah, it would have been terrible. But, no, I meant that when I said how many women could deliver the babies of the wife of the man she used to date, I was talking about Harvey and Joey.”

“Ohhh,” Camila said, glad she wasn’t going insane or that the Trill hadn’t snapped. She thought back a moment and realized what she had missed when Jayla clarified. “I’m sorry. I thought you were talking about delivering babies of the wife of a former lover from a previous host. I dated one time since I left the Academy and that didn’t work out too well, so you won’t have any babies to deliver from me in the foreseeable future.”

She paused as a waiter came over to see if they wanted to order anything. “Strawberry gelato if you have it,” she said and looked at Jayla to see if she wanted anything.

Jayla considered for a moment. “Grilled cheese and tomato soup,” she said. She was in the mood for comfort food.

“An Earth food connoisseur, are you?” Camila asked with a grin. “I would have expected something far off the beaten path. Ever get urges that previous hosts had a taste for but you couldn’t stand?”

“Once in awhile,” she replied. “Belar was a huge fan of telizi. It’s a fish based dish with root vegetables and this totally disgusting spice that tastes like soap. Every once in awhile, I think I want some, so I tell Belar to shut it and eat some chocolate instead.” She grinned. “But, Earth has the best comfort foods. Macaroni and cheese is another one of my favorites.”

“If you want some real comfort food, I’ll give you a recipe for some cheesy Bucatini pie with mini meatballs,” Camila said. “The best of Italian comfort food and you’ll never go back to anything else. I promise you that. If you want something good for a dessert, try gelato. It’s far better than ice cream or sherbert any day of the week.”

“I’ve had gelato and it’s amazing,” agreed Jayla. “There was a little shop near the academy when I was there. They had my favorite- peppermint. I love peppermint gelato. Or Ice cream. Or anything, really. Peppermint is just fantastic.”
“Bah,” Camila said as their orders arrived. “If you want real gelato, go to Gelateria Pasticceria in Venice the next time you’re back on Earth. It’s the best in any quadrant and you’ll never go anywhere else once you’d have it. I went there when I was on shore leave before I headed back to Deep Space 11 and still remember the taste. They have every flavor you can imagine.”

“I’ll keep that in mind for next time I’m on Earth,” Jayla replied, dipping one corner of her sandwich into the soup. “I dated an Italian in the academy. He didn’t like anything Italian, though. The weirdo.” She bit off the soup covered end of her sandwich. “That is so good.”

The ombre-haired woman took a bite of her gelato and closed her eyes. “It may not be the same, but it reminds me of days at home before I joined the Academy. Sitting in the shadow of Patriarchal Cathedral Basilica of Saint Mark on a hot day, hiding out with some friends, some cold gelato and hoping no one realized that we’d carved our initials into the stone.”

Jayla grinned. “It sounds so idyllic,” she said. “I used to go cliff diving with my sister. All the days were hot summer days where we’re from. Sometimes our friends would join us, but as we lived on the cliff, we had more practice so we always won. Whoever jumped from the highest point would win,” she explained.

“I’ve done mountain and rock climbing, but if you like jumping, you should come orbital skydiving with me,” Camila offered. “You’re up so high you need a special suit and oxygen, and you’re going max velocity well before you ever get near the ground. You can see from horizon to horizon and the curve of a planet when you’re that high up and it seems like the fall will last forever.”

“That sounds amazing,” Jayla replied. “Next time we’re in orbit over a friendly planet, we’ve got to put a request in.”

“Are you sure?” Camila asked after another bite of her gelato. “It’s not like falling off a bike. You jump off a platform thirty to sixty kilometers off the ground and fall for ten or fifteen minutes.”

“I’ve definitely got to try it once,” Jayla agreed. “I’ve got to try anything at least once. It’s kinda my own personal rule.”

“Sort of like when you tried Jiu Jitsu with me in training for SAR?” the other woman asked with a wink. “By the way, why didn’t you come back for the next lesson?”

Jayla considered that for a moment. “I guess I got sidetracked,” she said. “And then everything started happening at once and I just…. forgot about it. I really should try again, though. I quite enjoyed it.”

“I have a holoprogram you can use to practice if your spare time if you’d like to use it without someone seeing you get tossed around like a rag doll,” Camila offered after another spoonful of gelato. “Or you can spar me in the training area for Security.”

“Either way would work,” answered Jayla, dipping the last of her sandwich in the soup. “Maybe both. Extra practice can’t hurt, can it?”

“No, it can’t. Be glad I’m not running the full eighteen-month Pipeline,” Camila said. “That’s so grueling that only three to five potentials make it every course out of a class of around a hundred and fifty. One class didn’t have any graduates at all.”

“Yikes,” replied Jayla. “I’ll bet I’d be the first to drop out. I’m hopeless.” She grinned, but it didn’t reach her eyes and her tone indicated that she wished she were a bit tougher.

“It’ll toughen you up,” the other woman promised her. “Besides, you won’t need to do the medical portion of it. You could teach it, though. Phase I is five weeks of emergency medical technician basic training. Phase II lasts seventeen weeks and provides instruction in minor field surgery, pharmacology, combat trauma management, advanced airway management and military evacuation procedures.”

“I can see why a lot of people would drop out,” she replied, feeling slightly better about it. “That’s not easy stuff to do, especially if you’re at all timid. I always advise anyone taking field medic training to not second guess themselves and to be aggressive. There’s nothing worse than setting a bone or stitching a wound gently when there’s no time to wait for anesthetic.”

“That’s just one part of it,” Camila said. “It starts out with two weeks of Search and Rescue Preparatory Course and then ten weeks of indoctrination, followed by six weeks of Combat Water Survival, three weeks of Aerospace Insertion Training, five weeks of Zero Gravity and Spaceborne Operations, two and a half weeks of Starfleet Basic Survival School and twenty-four weeks of Search and Rescue Specialist Course. All in addition to the medical training.”

That deflated Jayla again. “Wow,” she said. “That’s… a lot.”

“I was just going to offer the very basics of each,” the Security Chief said after she finished her gelato. “Most officers have already gone through one aspect of it or another while at the Academy, so it’s sort of a refresher and a chance to pick up some cross-training.”

“Oh,” said Jayla, cheering up again. “Well, maybe it won’t be so bad. You know,” she laughed, stirring the remainder of her soup. “I don’t know what to think!”

“It’s just something that I feel will help out all departments,” Camila said. “Personally, I think everyone should go through all eighteen months of it before they ever set foot on a ship or station.”

“I can’t say it wouldn’t have been beneficial,” Jayla admitted. “Especially with everything that’s happened to the Black Hawk. Do other ships get into this nonsense as often as we seem to?”

“I couldn’t tell you,” Camila said honestly. “Other than what we’ve gone up against so far, we seem to be in the thick of it on a regular. I can say one thing, though, we’ll have the toughest crew in the fleet. Even our cadets were battle hard before they graduated.”

“True,” agreed Jayla, finishing off her soup. “Those poor kids. Or very, very lucky kids. Depends on which way you look at it.”

“I wouldn’t wish it on them myself, but it’s a hard way to learn what it’s really like,” Camila pointed out. “It beats having cush assignments and not knowing what to do when it really hits the fan.”

“I think the latter is the lucky part,” Jayla replied, nodding. I’d hate to see what a cadet assigned to the Jupiter Station to Earth relay would do if they were suddenly thrust onto a ship like this.”

“Request a transfer or resign after a single assignment,” Camila said without hesitation. “Yet, almost all of our people came back when Captain Geisler got the Black Hawk--A without a thought.” She paused. “Well, other than me, but I had to help put things right on Deep Space 11 after I helped tear it up.”

“That’s true,” said Jayla. “I suppose there’s something about going through that sort of horror together that builds a strong camaraderie. I liked your replacement, but it just wasn’t the same.”

“Well, there’s only one of me,” the blonde joked. “What was he doing before I got back?”

Jayla shrugged. “General security guy stuff,” she answered. “Mostly standing around looking tough.”

“So not much,” Camila said. “Well, I’m back now and I’m staying. As for the cadets...well, Ensigns now, I’d keep an eye out for Ensign Khan. That one seems to be on a fast track to the center seat and my credits are on her getting there first for that out of the current batch still aboard.”

“You’re probably right,” agreed Jayla. “She’s far more ambitious than the other two. Why is it always the girls who are go-getters lately?”

“Because we’re built tough,” she said. “People always say grow a pair. I say…” she looked around and leaned in to whisper something in Jayla’s ear.

Jayla burst out laughing. “You’re not wrong,” she laughed. “Oh, that’s too good. I’ve gotta remember that one.”

“By all means,” Camila said with a giggle of her own. “I bet you’ve heard far worse, though.”

This time, Jayla’s grin was a bit saucy. In fact, she had done worse. But, oh, it had been fun. “You have no idea,” she said enigmatically.

“Care to share?” Camila asked and challenged the Trill with her eyes.

“Let’s just say that with a several hundred year old symbiont, the same old gets boring really fast,” Jayla replied. “We get… creative. and with 9 previous life times to pull from, I get a lot of ideas.”

“Are you going to make me drag you to Security and interrogate you?” the blonde asked in a huff. “Details, woman, details!”

“If you’re sure…” said Jayla, and she proceeded to very frankly describe the things she used to get up to with Silak back in Medical school.

“Is...is that possible without breaking bones or dislocating joints?” Camila asked with wide eyes.

“Apparently,” replied Jayla, a very slight flush to her cheeks. “You wouldn’t believe the positions a Vulcan can get into.”

“I bet it’s a whole new Kama Sutra,” Camila said and shook her head. “I’d need major reconstructive surgery after that. Or before that.”

Jayla laughed and then sighed. “Oh, I miss him,” she said, but not wholly sadly this time. This time, it was also fondly, as if she had finally accepted his death. “I never realized how much until… until he was gone,” she added.

Camila thought briefly of the one man she had been with since the Academy and a flash of anger crossed her features. “Is it true that most Joined Trill don’t want committed relationships?” she asked.

Jayla blinked, surprised. “Not at all,” she replied. “In fact, most of us want the type of committed relationship that past hosts have had. Sometimes, the memory of how perfect that one relationship was can spoil current relationships. Belar and Liara had such a great relationship, no host of Kij has been able to be romantically involved with a woman since.”

“Isn’t that putting a limit on centuries of experience based on one relationship?” the Security Chief asked as she pushed her bowl aside and accepted a refill of coffee.

“Pretty much,” answered Jayla, giving her a wistful smile. “But, sometimes all that experience is actually a hinderance. Unfortunately, very good experiences as well as very bad ones can affect the current host more than one would think.”

“What about the people you leave behind when you change hosts?” Camila asked. “It has to be hard, doesn’t it?”

“It has been, for previous hosts,” she answered. “Sometimes I miss Aldur’s children even though they’re long dead by now. It was difficult for Peri to resist going to see them. I knew most of Gevara’s family and friends before I was joined to Kij. Now I understand why they don’t give symbionts to those who knew the person in life.” She smiled sadly. “Gevara was like an aunt to me.”

“How did you end up with Kij then?” Camila asked. It was strange separating the two when they were in one person, but Jayla wasn’t the first Trill she had known. However, Jayla had an advantage over the other Trill and that was the fact that Camila didn’t want to pour antimatter in her symbiont pouch.

“We were camping on Kital,” answered Jayla. “That’s a moon near Trill where they don’t allow any electronics; the natives became superstitious after achieving warp drive and abandoned everything they’d achieved. Strange, but here it is. Anyway, they love visitors, so people go camping here a lot. Gevara had brought a stasis pos for just in case. If you’re a joined Trill, you always have a stasis pod for your symbiont. Of course, the worst happened and a tree fell on her.” She stopped, the memories overwhelming her from both sides. Regaining her composure, she continued, “and of course the stasis pod failed. I offered to carry Kij to civilization and since I was the only one physically capable of doing so, they gave me Kij. By the time we got back to the beam out point, Kij had already bonded. So the symbiosis commission opted to train me instead of letting me die.”

Camila listened silently to what had to be painful for Jayla to tell and reached out to lay a hand on the woman’s cold hand to give a gentle squeeze. “That can’t have been easy with no time to prepare or anything else,” she said. “All of those memories and everything at once without an idea of what to expect. How old were you?”

With a humorless smile, Jayla replied, “Fifteen. I had so much difficulty relating to my parents that they ended up sending me to a mentor. It was weird because I had two sets of memories with them- one as friends and the other as authority figures. It confused me and I had no idea how to deal with it. And then, of course, I felt abandoned because I just didn’t understand why they’d sent me away. It was a mess. Took me two years to start listening to Saraja Jelic. My mentor. I adore her now, though, and in retrospect, sending me to her was absolutely the right thing to do.”

The ombre haired woman nodded. “I’m just glad you were able to assimilate everything and pull through,” she said and meant it. “Otherwise, I wouldn’t have met you and we wouldn’t have a chance to be friends. I must be driving you crazy with all these questions, though. Do you have any for me since I’ve been grilling you this entire time?”

“It’s okay,” replied Jayla. “Most non-Trills are very curious because the Trill were so secretive for so long. Hm, questions for you,” she mused. “As I said, I dated an Italian in the academy, but he wasn’t very interested in his heritage. He was born and raised near Mount Etna. I tried to convince him to take me there, but he wouldn’t. So I know almost nothing about Italy. I guess you could tell me all about it.”

“Ah, that explains it,” Camila said with a knowing smile. “He wasn’t Italian. He was Sicilian from . the Regione Siciliana. Actually, I am too, just a different part of it if you want to go by geo-political points of view that are centuries out of date. Sicily has a lot of the same traditions as Italy, but they added their own little tweaks to it. They’re more ingrained and closed off than the rest of Italy and liked doing things their own way.”

“In its own way, Venice is just as closed off and traditional, but Venetians weren’t as closed off from the mainland and welcomed anyone who came there. We’re proud of our little area of floating islands and show off to anyone who wants to visit. Granted, we’ll still correct people who call us Italians, but you’ll have that anywhere.”

“I’m rambling, though,” she said. “It’s a beautiful country as a whole despite the differences in culture of one part of it versus another, but you’ll have that in most societies. I spent most of my youth roaming the canals, getting in trouble and being lectured for doing things I shouldn’t be doing. The Grand Canal was right outside of my home and the waterways were my escape on a daily basis.”

Though she didn’t know much about Italy, she gathered that Venice was the on with water for streets. “It sounds beautiful,” she said. “Are the canals the only way to get around, or are their footpaths?”

Camila shook her head. “There’s footpaths and bridges over the canals, but if you want to get anywhere fast, get a gondola and take to the canals. Some businesses and residences have a small landing for people coming and going from them and the rest of it is just smooth walls. The city nearly sank at one point and they had to buoy it up, but they kept the layout the same throughout the centuries. There’s over a hundred and eighteen islands all connected via canals and four hundred bridges..”

“Wow,” replied Jayla. “That’s incredible. I’ll bet kids must learn to handle a boat almost as soon as they can walk, huh?”

“No,” Camila said. “We’re taught to swim before we can walk, then we get lessons on what not to do in a gondola before we’re taught how to handle them. There’s more than enough people to handle all of them throughout the city, but it’s always good to know what to do in case something happened to a gondolier.”

“Good point,” agreed Jayla. “My sister and I learned to swim before we could walk, too. The cliffs are just high enough that we wouldn’t have wanted to jump off them when we were toddlers, but falling was always a concern and our parents wanted us to be able to swim just in case. Swimming still seems like a necessity rather than a pleasure to me.”

“It’s both when you live in Venice,” Camila responded. “Imagine going out the door with no coffee and discovering that your first step put you in the drink.”

Jayla laughed. She couldn’t help it. “I imagine you’d come up with the rule of never setting foot outside without coffee,” she said.

"Or at the very least, watch that first step," the Security woman replied with a laugh. "I ended up in the water more than once involuntarily. We usually kept towels by the front door for just such occasions."

"That seems like a good idea," she agreed. "Mum used to keep a close eye on us when we were little until dad put up the fence. But, the cliff was always a little frightening to us, so we stayed away from it on our own."

"I think I've always been a thrill seeker, but didn't get to really explore it until I entered the Academy and then went through SAR training," Camila said. "Then I really cut loose and was always in medical for one thing or another. They jokingly put a plaque above one of the biobeds that had my name on it with a counter that said how many days since my last accident."

Jayla laughed. "That sounds like something I'd have done," she replied. "I don't think we ever had one cadet in the medical bay more than any of the others, though. Let's see," she said, thinking. "You're not far behind Nurse Rigby in age, are you? I wonder if she was one of the trainee nurses at the time."

"I'm twenty-six," Camila said, even though she felt much older. "It kind of rings a bell, I think. I have so many new-old memories that it's hard to sort them out. Tiny with a voice like an intercom?"

"Sounds like her," agreed Jayla. "Blond, ultra cheerful. Her smiles rival my own."

"Does her anger match when you go see her more than twice in the same day?" Camila asked, remembering a day at the Academy when she had been taken to medical three times in one day for three different injuries.

"She does tend to get a little hot if you keep doing the same stupid stuff all the time, yeah," answered Jayla. "Or even if you just do something really stupid once. She's a bit of a mother hen."

"I got yelled at more than once," Camila said. "And it happened every year I was there, too. Not always the same person, but the same reasons."

"I probably would have yelled at you, too, then," replied Jayla with a grin. "Or at the very least lectured you."

"I got that, too," the Security woman replied. "More than once, but that's life in Security and we come back for more."

"Security and engineering are the most hazardous jobs," Jayla agreed. "Sciences and Medical almost never get injured."

"You could volunteer some time," Camila said jokingly. "I wouldn't object. I heard you got a decent score on your phaser certification while I was gone, too."

"It was respectable," Jayla replied. "Definitely not good enough for security, though."

"As long as you're certified, that's what counts," Camila said. "You should encourage your department personnel to swing by Security and get certified, too. We'd like to get everyone on the ship up to standard in case we get boarded again."

"That's a really good idea," agreed Jayla. "Gosh, but I'll bet Doctor Road is fierce with a phaser. And probably Nurse Rigby, too. They strike me as especially deadly."

"Well, send them my way and I'll test them out," the other woman responded.

"I certainly will," replied Jayla. A glance at the chronometer told her she'd better get back to Sick Bay. "Well, that's my lunch hour eaten up. No pun intended," she added with a grin. "We should do this again sometime."

"I'd like that," Camila said with a smile. "Until next time?"

"Absolutely," replied Jayla, standing. "Sooner rather than later, eh?" And with another grin, she headed out of the lounge and back to Sick Bay.

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