We Need More Doctors

Posted on 12 Aug 2016 @ 5:15pm by Commodore Harvey Geisler & Lieutenant Commander Joey Geisler

1,644 words; about a 8 minute read

Mission: Risky Business
Location: USS Chimera
Timeline: MD 6 || 1300 hours

Dr. Abbey Road found herself in an unfamiliar sick bay, patching up another doctor. She had fixed up his ears first- after all, what good would it do to fix him up if he couldn't hear?- and now, she was just waiting on the Cortical stimulator to do its job. She made another tweak to it and watched it for another half minute before deciding it had done about as much as it could. She readied two hyposprays. One, held in her left hand, with a stimulant and the other, held in her right, with a sedative- just in case. "Here we go," she warned the security officer she'd brought with her. Then, with a deep breath, she pressed the stimulant to his neck and waited for signs of life.

Ensign Shay Mitchell, plus five other Security officers, stood not too far away from Abbey with her hand resting on her phaser. It was already set on level two with a narrow beam so she wouldn't accidentally hit anyone else but her intended target. She never imagined she'd be going over to the ship the enemy once walked, but stranger things had happened in the past. Convincing these individuals that they were the good guys was going to be a challenge, and she was glad that task didn't rest on her shoulders. Although, it was going to be amusing watching the Doctor try to convince them otherwise.

"Doctor," Abbey said softly, hiding the second hypospray up her sleeve as he stared to stir. "Doctor, can you hear me?"

What... What happened? Hans groaned as a hand moved up to his head, trying to stop the mallet from continuously pounding. The surgeon opened his eyes into a bright shining light. He moaned, trying to remember what he had been doing before he blacked out. He was working with the doctor on something... Something about radiation poisoning. Then the first batch of wounded came in, a couple sporting wounds inconsistent with typical ship-to-ship damage. Someone had to have been aboard.

His eyes couldn't focus, but the blurry figure that failed to obstruct the bright light did not seem familiar. "What...?" He muttered softly, trying to catch his bearings.

"It's all right," said Abbey, glancing at the readout on the biobed monitor. "You'll be all right in a minute. I'm Doctor Abbey Road- no Beatles jokes, please, I've heard them all about a million times. How are you feeling?"

"Road...?" He asked slowly, trying to place the name.

Hans' eyes shot open. Adrenaline surged in his bloodstream as he vaulted off the bio bed to get away from the woman. His body, however, hadn't caught up to his mind, and he quickly slumped onto the floor. Somehow he managed to push himself up and stagger backwards. It was then that his vision focused. He saw the wounded still on the bio beds, as well as his crewmates lying the floor. Standing over them was this Beatles wannabe and several yellow-collared persons he didn't recognize.

"Easy," Shay said, extending her free hand in front of herself as if trying to calm a wild animal while the other five prepared themselves for violence. "We're not here to hurt you. We're here to help. All of you."

"Course we are," said Abbey gently, taking two slow steps towards him. "You're still shaky. Can I help you back up onto the bio bed?"

"Hell, no!" Hans replied, trying to back away, but quickly finding a wall. "Is this how you Consortium creeps do this? Knock us out and brainwash us?"

"If we were going to brainwash you, we'd have propped your eyelids open and turned on some horrible videos before we woke you up," Abbey pointed out with the air of one explaining to a toddler that vegetables were good for him. "Now look, do you want me to finish patching you up so we can work on the rest of the ship or are you gonna cringe on the floor for the next seventeen hours?"

Shay looked over to Abbey and rolled her eyes before she turned her attention back to Hans. She crouched down to his level on the floor and shook her head. "Listen to me... most of your senior staff is missing. Only two of them were found on board. A Major Carter Jackson and Lieutenant Commander William Godfrey. At least one of them isn't what you think they are. I can't speak about your Chief Medical Officer. We need your help to take care of the rest of your crew. Can you help us do that?" She kept her tone calm, gentle and nurturing. If she was going to hurt him, she already would have.

Hans started to look around, hoping to spot something useful. There! A laser scalpel to his left! He started to slide along the wall towards the tray. "And help you turn them into Consortium drones? I don't think so!"

Perhaps Abbey was just paranoid, or perhaps it was the martial arts training she had, but she had seen the doctor looking around and his gaze land on a tray not far away. Without a word, She crossed to the tray, picked it up and carried it back to her original position. "Don't be ridiculous," she said, giving him a sour expression. "We're not consortium, but I don't expect you to believe that. I don't care if you do or not, to tell the truth. But, if you're gonna try to get- let's see, what have we got here? A laser scalpel? I may be a doctor, but if you're gonna try to kill us, I will not hesitate to knock your head clean off, got it?" It was her tone that made it slightly creepy. She didn't yell, she didn't seem stern. She was just matter-of-fact, calm and even a little regretful.

Ensign Mitchell turned her attention toward Abbey in shocked disbelief. Was this woman serious? "Did you seriously just threaten to kill him? Because... saying you won't hesitate to knock his head clean off can't come across as anything else," she said, and the Filipino woman didn't even appear to be remotely impressed by Abbey or her words. "I could take you into custody for that, and I should, but the only thing that's going to keep me from doing that is your usefulness in regards to getting these people treated." She lifted a hand almost as if to cut off any attempt to protest before she continued. "And, before you attempt to come at me with anything about him wanting to kill us... he thinks we're the enemy, and he's scared. You don't have the same excuse. Time is of the essence here, Doctor. Treat someone else while I talk to our friend here."

Abbey sighed and rolled her eyes at Mitchell. "Relax," she said. "It was more of an empty threat because I'm annoyed."

Hans eyed both women carefully, thankfully they'd taken their attention off of him for a moment. Part of him still regretted not making a dive for the tray as the dark-skinned woman in blue took it away from him. This, however, was a far better opportunity. He lunged at the security officer with the intent to obtain the phaser.

Shay turned her attention to Hans the second she caught his movement out the corner of her eye, but he didn't get very far before two of the other five Security officers dog-piled on top of him. Now, it was the Security Ensign's turn to appear annoyed. "You ungrateful piece of..." She shook her head. "Listen to me, and listen well... if we were going to kill you, we would have done it already. If we were Consortium, and planned to turn you into our lackey... we would have done it already. Get a grip and help us with the rest of your crew, that's all we want."

Abbey took a deep breath and closed her eyes. Calm down, she told herself. None of this is his fault. "As I said, it doesn't matter whether or not you believe us," she told him gently. "But there are over a hundred people on this ship who have hearing and nerve damage. I'd really rather not have to patch them all up alone. Can you help us without trying to kill us? Because, to be honest, if it comes down to it, we're not willing to die just to prove that we don't want to kill you."

His head was still swimming. None of this made any sense to Hans, and it didn't take a Vulcan to comprehend their logic. Their Captain had promised they were still loyal to Starfleet and that the crew of the Black Hawk were traitors. If the command staff was correct, why wouldn't the Black Hawk have blown them out of the sky?

"All right," he said softly as he was still trying to recover from his injury, and the wind in his lungs was limited from the yellow-collared pile up. "I'll help you," he committed. If things did go south, then at least he'd have numbers on his side.

"And a little food for thought... if we wanted to kill any of you, we'd have done it before we sent someone over to take your entire crew down," Shay said, gesturing for the other officers to help him to his feet. "We aren't the bad guys here, and the sooner you realize that, the better off we'll all be. Now... get busy. We don't have a lot of time."

Hans shook his head as he was pulled to his feet. He could tell she was sincere, but he would still not turn his back to anyone that came from the Black Hawk. "Just show me what to do."

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