Grilling the fresh meat.

Posted on 12 Jul 2021 @ 3:50pm by Lieutenant Commander Camila Di Pasquale & Conrad Hawkingsson
Edited on on 17 Jul 2021 @ 1:23pm

1,815 words; about a 9 minute read

Mission: Extinction
Location: Sickbay, U.S.S. Black Hawk
Timeline: Mission Day 19 at 1200

His head felt heavy and foggy, almost like thoughts where moving through melasis. The air was fresh and it wasn’t difficult to breathe, not to mention the throwing headache was gone. With a long sigh, Conrad opened his eyes, only to close them again from the sharp pain in his eyeballs from the bright lights. From what little he could gather from the short moment of observation, was that it was clean and very much the esthetics of a federation ship, probably the Sickbay, considering how he felt at the moment. He would also need to talk to T.A.M.I. about him not being in a place he could be alone to do research.

After the ship - or runabout, shuttle or whatever had remained of the civilians ship had been salvaged and its database scanned and quarainted, Camila made a log entry in Security, then headed to see the newest person to join the Black Hawk-A. She wore her duty uniform and had her ombre hair pulled back, her face decidedly neutral and a PADD in her hand as she entered Sickbay.

She inquired and then argued with the nurse until she was given fifteen minutes to see the man that had been brought aboard and entered his room, her brown eyes on the PADD. "Mr Conrad Hawkingsson?" She inquired.

The voice told him a few things, first was the standard stuff; female, youngish (hard to tell exactly but hits should be easy to tell), confident and a voice of authority. Was it the ship captain? Or was it the head of the security? The sound of her footsteps gave him clues as well, military training perhaps. A person's gate is always as informative as a person's facial features. Not very one thinks of that.

"Yes." He finally answered, opening his eyes and looked at the woman, she was very cute. Her face showed little, the rest of the clues he had gathered made him think she had seen shit, well it was one of the reasons she wore a neutral mask.

"What brings you out here, Mr. Hawkingsson?" she asked. still looking at her her PADD for a moment before she looked up and practically through him.

By the look she gave him, he had a feeling she was trying to intimidate him, he had read that focusing your eyes slightly behind someone often made them uneasy because the brain was really good at finding flaws that didn't really look right. Even if it couldn't exactly tell what was wrong at the time. But he had met hard boiled people before and he had his own way of dealing with them. Simply not acknowledge or enable them to let it affect him.

So Conrad focused his eyes on her fringe hairline because that was close enough not to make it obvious that he wasn't focusing on her eyes. Unless she was just as observant as he was. "I believe the crew on-board removed me from what remained of a shuttle." He looked around. "I still want my private property back." He demanded and was referring to his notebook were he wrote down ideas and theories in code. And of course T.A.M.I. who was no doubt in lockdown mode in order to prevent tampering. He looked around, looking for his glasses.

This person seemed to be trying to read her and that amused her because she had long since learned to school her expressions. Especially after going through nightmare after nightmare. "That's not what I was asking, Mister Hawkingsson," she said. "To elaborate, what brings you and what remains of your shuttle to this section of the Gamma Quadrant?"

"You should be more specific then." Frowning deeply when he didn't find them. He knew with someone smart enough they could figure out clues what T.A.M.I. was. But accessing her data would be much harder. "I was doing research," Conrad said flatly. "I would also want my property back please."

"At the moment, everything is in quarantine until it can be analyzed for threats," Camila said. "It will be returned to you in due course. Do you have any documentation to prove your identity and are you a Federation citizen?"

He arched an eyebrow at her. Had she not already looked him up or had he somehow slipped through the cracks. No, that wasn't possible, he had managed to obtain the shuttle through legal means. In fact, nothing he did was illegal. The fact that he kept his secrets private didn't matter. That wasn't illegal. "Commander, either you are wasting my time or you are slacking in your job. I highly doubt you don't know exactly who I am, the databases on a federation starship are extensive, then you have subspace links to Star fleet archives." he tilted his head to the side. "Is your subspace transmitter and database down?" It was the only thing he could see was the logical reason for her asking him. Unless she was simply unscrupulous.

"None of that is important, Mr. Hawkingsson," she said. "I'm asking you to confirm or deny what I already have available. You'll pardon me going over each point, but until I get the answers and you're clear of medical, you aren't going anywhere, anyhow. Now, please. Just answer the questions."

"None of that is important?" Conrad asked, very surprised. Something truly horrible must have pushed this woman to this coldness. He was cold too, but she was not even trying to hide it. It made the part of him that respected and wanted to care for women flare up. Now a part of him wanted to ease her pain, even if it was just a little. "Ask away and I will answer. We don't carry around ID-cards like the old days."

"None of it is relevant," Camila amended since he wanted to get technical. "Are you are Federation Citizen, Mr. Hawkingsson?"

"No. I am a highly evolved ameba." it was starting to get a tad annoying. "Of course I am, you seriously think I would obtain a shuttle without miles of red tape?"

"There are ways of obtaining what you wish," she said and made her voice a little flatter. "Since you are a declared Federation citizen, you have all the same rights and privileges of such, and when you are medically cleared, you will be freed to take the remains of your shuttle and depart at the nearest starbase upon our arrival. In the meantime, you'll be given a guest quarters with replicator and recreation privileges, as well as places you are not to go under any circumstances. A PADD will be provided to you with a map of the ship and any areas marked in red are off limits. If you require any assistance with your quarters, please contact Lieutenant Akorem in Operations and he'll be happy to assist you. Do you have any questions, Mr. Hawkingsson?"

"Yes. I want my personal items. I highly doubt you find a notebook, some glasses, and some technical do-dad threatening." He would go absolutely insane if he didn't have something to do while he waited. The very lease he wanted his notebook back. He highly doubted they could crack the code he used to write in it. Sure, some of the illustrations could be comprehended if they were skilled enough.

"Your personal items will be returned to you once they are released from quarantine, as I've stated," the ombre haired woman repeated. "They will not be damaged, but we don't like to take chances here."

"Naturally. and how long would this quarantine be in effect? I hope you don't expect me to simply lay here and look for treasure in my navel until I am released."

"I cannot give an estimate on how long that will be, Sir," Camila said. "They will be scanned by Security, Operations and Medical before being released. A PADD will be provided for your entertainment so you don't have to play with your navel."

"Oh goodie, so my research can be stolen. No thank you. Get me a new notebook and a pen." he figured he could scetch a little to pass the time. Being in the shuttle had provided a few new views of the wonders of the galaxy. "Would that be acceptable to the Lt Commander?"

"But of course," she said with a smile before she turned to the nearest replicator and requested a stylus and a flexfilm which stored the information written on it. She retrieved it once it materialized, then turned back to hand it to him. "Will there be anything else?"

He looked at her with disgust. "I asked for PAPER, none of this high-tech crap. You know, old school sheets of mechanically or chemically processing cellulose fibres derived from wood, rags, grasses or other vegetable sources in water?"

"You'll have to ask Operations for such, Mr. Hawkingsson," the Security Chief said flatly once again. She hesitated, then remembered the PADD and went back to replicate it, placing restrictions on it once it materialized with an alert to be sent to her if he attempted to access any other than approved systems. Once she was satisfied, she turned and handed that to him as well. "Now I wish you a speedy recovery and if you need anything else, please call Operations, or a nurse if it's medical."

"Thank you, Commander. I hope you find something truly challenging to wrap that mind of yours around today." he smiled, accepted the PADD, to him a challenge was some of the most enjoyable things to tackle.

"Trust me when I say I have many more challenging things on my plate than you today," she quipped and with a smirk, she headed out. She had done more than place simple alerts on the restricted areas in the PADD, but it was actively set to record audio and video of everything he did and that was locked away from his access as well.

Conrad supposed that was true, he was stuck in sickbay and who knows what kind of things she had to deal with onboard. It's was a very large vessel with hundreds of people on board. It wasn't as large of a population as a spaceport naturally. But there were always minor issues when you put hundreds of people inside an enclosed environment. No matter how disciplined a crew was, there would ALWAYS be micro conflicts. He again looked at the PADD, he couldn't do any serious work on it, but he could probably read some research papers and such. He really wanted to get his hands on paper. "Could you tell one of your operations officers that I wish to see them?"

"I gave you his name, Mr. Hawkingsson," she said and with a swish of her ombre ponytail, she was gone.

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