YE/D05 - Sickbay

[Jennifer Braggins]

==

[Pax Cassidy]

<<<< Briefing Room <<<<

Cassidy’s good mood was beginning to fade. This was the kind of mission that could go bad very quickly. He’d been sent to clean up the aftermath of a hundred skirmishes that had almost certainly begun just like this. Even if they were able to prevent an all-out war, there would be sick and dying Talarian refugees languishing on the other side of the barricade. Either way, the only thing that he could do for them was to come prepared. He stomped into sickbay, his fists held tightly at his side.

His mind drifted to Ian, following a well-trodden path. The edges of his vision softened. He felt the tension in his body relax. Even this feeling was only an echo of how he’d felt when his hand closed over Ian’s in the Mess Hall. Face-to-face, their chemistry was euphoric. With some distance, it was more akin to a mild sedative. He blinked away its effects, anchoring himself in the task at hand. He couldn’t allow this childish infatuation to get in the way of his work.

Sickbay was like a second home for Cassidy. Even in total darkness, he could retrieve a hypospray or a dermal regenerator from the appropriate supply cabinet, sterilize it, and return it exactly where it belonged. Still, the inventory was much leaner than what had been available on the Reyes. Everything available was designed first and foremost to handle the daily requirements of the Yeager’s crew. A group of Talarian refugees would have specialized needs that might have caught him unprepared.

“Computer, query all available Talarian medical texts,” Cassidy said, his voice quiet yet powerful. “Are there any outbreaks among the refugee population that we should be prepared to deal with?”

== GM input: any medical situations that we should be prepared for? Any notable gaps in Yeager’s inventory? ==

[Artemis d'Tor'an]

[Security to Medical Department:

Please report current status at earliest convenience.
We advise preparedness for combat readiness.]

[Pax Cassidy]

Cassidy groaned as the chief tactician’s voice came through the comm system. He lost count of the tetrovaline vials in his sedative collection. He smacked the combadge on his chest in response.

“Cassidy here. Combat readiness is your job, Lieutenant. I’m just the cleanup crew,” he replied, plainly irritated. “Sickbay inventory is looking good so far.”

Closing the channel, he pushed a flimsy pair of reading glasses back up the bridge of his nose and resumed his count, mumbling each medication’s name to himself as he checked it off the list.

[Kal-Geal Beinn]

==Sometime while at warp==

Kal-Geal in his off-duty uniform, came walking into sickbay with a bleeding knife wound in his left arm, and a pair of security crewmen, one with symmetrical bloody gashes in their leg that looked suspiciously like claws, though Kal-Geal's claws were clean.

"Lieutenant Cassidy. We need some help here. I got invited to a werewolf horror story, and we forgot that the holodeck safeties were still off from the last person who used the holodeck. Petty Officer Lucks got a claw from the werewolf, and Crewman Pollux mistook me for the villain and caught me with what I think was a silver knife. I think Lucks might need a protoplaser, though I don't think he's going to turn into a werewolf any time soon."

==tag Cassidy==

[Pax Cassidy]

Cassidy turned to face the trio of patients. The scene was like a horror movie, crimson blood soaking through the petty officer’s costume. He smirked. Finally, something interesting.

“Sounds like a certain Klingon didn’t reset the holodeck when she was done with it,” he said plainly, eyes focused on his medical tricorder.

He moved toward the group quickly and deliberately, his eyes sweeping over each of them in the practiced pattern of a visual examination.

“Lucks, you’re with me. Beinn, go on and grab a biobed. Nurse Manx will stitch up your arm. You’ll be fine — unless you have a silver allergy that’s not noted in your chart.” He said, biting back a grin.

Cassidy swung Lucks’ arm over his shoulder and helped him hobble toward biobed 2. The lacerations were deep but clean. They would heal fine, as long as he stayed off his feet for a while.

“Attacking a fellow officer is a serious crime, Crewman Pollux. I recommend you replicate a convincing prop knife next time you decide to go hunting.”

== Tag Beinn ==

[Kal-Geal Beinn]

“Sounds like a certain Klingon didn’t reset the holodeck when she was done with it,”

Kal-Geal sat down on a biobed, stifling a snarl as Nurse Manx began to run an autosuture across the wound,

"Crewman Pollux isn't to blame. The holodeck program replicated silver knives and swords for some reason. I think the program was named Witcher and Werewolf, the Eighth Saga. The question is, whether or not petty officer Lucks contracted something from the holodeck program. I don't think the holodeck is allowed to do genomic alterations, or viral replication, but given the state of the safety protocols being offline, you might have to check for a pathogen."

Kal-Geal looked over at Pollux and added,

"Next time I'll wear a bright pink jacket so that you won't have any issues telling me apart from the werewolf."

Crewman Pollux flushed from the comment, looking very distraught over the fact that he had been the reason why Kal-Geal was annoyed, but he was also concerned by the Lieutenant's comments about Lucks. Pollux then asked,

"Doctor Cassidy. Do you think it is possible that the holodeck would give Lucks a disease if the program called for a werewolf that can make other people it attacks into werewolves themselves?"

==tag Cassidy==

[Pax Cassidy]

“What? Of course not. Why synthesize a virus when you can can accomplish the same thing with photonic tricks?” Cassidy replied automatically. He squinted over his reading glasses, examining the wound skeptically. It had been clean, at least in terms of bacteria. That was the upside of a laceration caused by hard light. Still, a viral infection might take hours or days to show up on scans, depending on the disease’s incubation cycle.

He continued to think as he ran the protoplaser over the damaged muscle. Cassidy enjoyed stitching up wounds. He was fast enough in a pinch, but situations like this gave him a chance to show off his technique. It wasn’t just for show — skillful work meant faster healing and reduced scarring. This was usually a meditative process, repetitive enough that he often found himself falling into a trance.

A screaming howl of pain rung in his mind. Bones crunched as they twisted and reshaped. Matted fur burst from the exposed skin beneath the unlucky crewman’s shredded costume. Now that Beinn had mentioned the possibility, the image was hard to shake. He sighed and pinched his nose, deciding to do a microcellular scan, just to be safe. If this theoretical virus was particularly fast-acting, there might already be some damage to the surrounding area. If not… well, they would wait and see.

He pulled the arc-shaped scanning apparatus over the injured leg and hammered a few buttons, initiating a scan at the highest possible resolution. This would take a few minutes.

“Witcher and Werewolf, eh? I can’t say I’ve ever tried that one. To be honest, I prefer a more relaxing holodeck program. If you don’t mind me asking, what role were you meant to play in this horror story?”

== Tag Beinn ==