A Little Trip to Sickbay

Posted on 18 Jun 2014 @ 7:26am by Commander C. Kos & Lieutenant Commander Thaddeus Quint M.D.

1,250 words; about a 6 minute read

Mission: Pursuit
Location: USS Black Hawk, Sickbay

Despite being an engineer and fully understanding all of the technical specifications and theory behind transporters, Lieutenant Commander Mackenzie Kos had never been completely comfortable beaming places. Her dislike of being transported was not as strong as many others, who refused to transport under all but the most emergent of situations. Instead, Kos just tended to feel unsettled after rematerializing. This time it was no different. As usual, she was aware of a tingling sensation all over her body as the matter stream sorted her molecules back to their proper places with the help of the Heisenberg compensator and the molecular imaging scanner. Eventually, if that term can be used when discussing a process that takes no more than several seconds, the Executive Officer's body was fully formed and the matter stream dissipated, allowing Mac to step off the pad.

"Thank you Crewman," she said to the young Andorian behind the transporter console. She made an effort to always thank transporter operators, computer specialists, mess staff, and other people who performed jobs that infrequently garnered much recognition by most officers, and rarely from senior ones.

She turned to address the assembled group of people the away team had found in the X'annon's hidden, sensor-shielded compartment. "I will escort you all to our medical facility. There you will all receive any treatment and care you require. Afterwards, you will be assigned to temporary quarters here on the Black Hawk . During your stay here, some of the senior staff, like myself or Lieutenant Noxa, who has escorted Captain D'rimo to quarters of his own, will want to meet with you to discuss your situation."

She paused to see if any of the group members had any questions to for her to address. Seeing no one trying to speak up, nor any faces showing any signs of confusion, she continued. "Please follow me," she said, motioning as she turned to exit the Transporter Room.

As she led the group of people through the corridors of the ship, making the trek from the transporter room on deck 15 to Sickbay on deck 4, Kos slowed regularly to turn around to verify that she hadn't lost anyone. That she managed, finally, to arrive at Sickbay with everyone still in tow was bordering on miraculous. As they crowd approached the entry to the medical facility, the door detected their presence and slid open to allow then ingress. Once all of her 'tag-a-longs, where inside the infirmary and the doors slid closed, Kos looked for Doctor Quint.

She spotted him walking out from his office. "Doctor," Mac called out, getting the Chief Medical Officer's attention.

Thaddeus Quint emerged from his office at the latest disturbance with a scowl on his face. To say his mood was rapidly sinking was an understatement. Two away missions, a morgue full of corpses, two life threatening surgeries, Noxa coming in with a sprained fist because she felt the need to deck someone and a visit from the captain . It seemed every time he tried to attack the pile of paperwork and incident reports on his desk some other interruption happened, and to add insult to injury invariably added to the pile of paperwork he continued to get pulled from.

The latest interruption came in the form of Commander Kos apparently bringing in a group that could only be described as hobos by their shabby clothing, and frail appearances. Doubtless this would require another pile of paperwork after he got through with them. Then by that time they'd be demanding to know why he hadn't gotten his reports done, assuming nothing else went wrong, which was beginning to more and more unlikely. Sometimes Quint thought that the command officers delighted in setting their subordinates up to fail.

"Who are these people?" Quint said eying the group of aliens warily. By the way the group was already freely wondering around Sickbay, he reminded himself to have his people take inventory to make sure nothing was missing. If there weren't any loose fingers among this group, he'd be surprised.

Mackenzie put a smile on her face in spite of the Chief Medical Officer's poor attitude and gruff demeanor. "Well Doctor Quint, after you brought the injured Karemma crew back here for treatment, we discovered these people in a hidden, sensor-shielded section of the freighter's hull. We found them after their compartment began leaking atmosphere."

"Oh the one the Karemma wouldn't let me in, everything's fine, don't ask any questions and go away," Quint sardonically remarked, shaking his head. The doctor did briefly offer Kos an almost questioning look at the smile. He wasn't quite sure how to react to that, so he then raised his voice to the rest of his staff, "Well let's let to it. These people look half starved."

The doctor and the nurses, medics and technicians of the undersized medical staff all fell upon the group of refugees with practiced efficiency getting their names, conducting scans and treating some minor scrapes and bruises. Quint quickly noticed the wary looks the two unconscious Karemma that were recovering from surgery in their biobeds were getting and decided to keep the new patients on the opposite side of Sickbay. He half wished Noxa hadn't left either, security would be nice to have on hand if they got out of line. After a time Quint separated himself from the group, activated the restraining fields on the two Karemma patient's biobeds and then approached Kos.

"I've never seen this race, but their physiology doesn't seem that abnormal on the surface," Quint stated matter of factly, "They're all suffering borderline malnutrition. One fellow is even suffering from an equivalent of scurvy believe it or not. Other than that, they were all suffering from mild hypoxia, and I've treated the symptoms.

"I don't have enough beds here, so getting them some quarters so they can get a good meal and rest would be a good idea," Quint said shaking his head disdainfully, "If half of what they say is true, the Karemma are likely to wake up dead if they stay in here. Not that any jury would convict on that one."

"Relax Doctor. We've already got temporary quarters arranged," the red-headed Executive Officer explained. "I am interested in what they said to you and your staff. Can you put it all in a report and send it to me? It might help as we debrief them, and the X'annon crew, about what happened."

"Commander, I already have several hours worth of medical paperwork on my desk that I keep getting pulled from every time I try to get started on, that's getting bigger in the interim," Quint said irately, his left eyebrow twitching in annoyance, "If you really need a report on these people's behavior, you have a whole Counseling department for that. Otherwise I imagine I'll be awhile getting to it as regulations require me to place priority on maintaining proper medical records."

"Lieutenant Noxa and Counselor St. Croise will be interviewing them after we get them settled," Kos explained, taking care not to snap at the cantankerous doctor.

Mackenzie started for the door. "Security will be here shortly to escort these fine people to their quarters." She got close enough to the door that it opened. Kos stepped part-way through the opening, and paused briefly. "I want your report on my desk by 0830 tomorrow," she said before continuing down the corridor and to the nearest turbolift. She still needed to report back to Geisler.

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