Only a Small Medical Emergency II

Continued from Part I

The inside of the building opened up into a large, four-story concourse that echoed just slightly with the occasional voices and crisp footsteps on the hard tiled floors. The entire building seemed lit to create the illusion of a perpetual early afternoon.  Sri turned to search the open areas of the upper floors, but was unable to see any Starfleet uniform standing out among patients, visitors or staff.  She reached out with her awareness, and the murmur of the concourse became a deafening roar of emotion.   Waves of frustration and worry, but none of the usual static that came with a Ferengi presence.  Nath was not nearby, but the sheer volume of emotion concealed a great deal.

Light Show

James Bridgeway’s first conscious moments weren’t of sight, or even sounds, but instead a scent – a sweet, charred smell, that at one time invoked memories of hot, thick cut bacon soaking in that last puddle of maple syrup. That was before he had been part of an engineering team trying to keep an alliance Klingon cruiser’s warp core from going critical. There the smell had come from the nearby plasma conduit which had ruptured near one of the targ pens. The conduit still flashed occasionally illuminating charred targ statues, caught in mid panic with brilliant white light. Other bodies, the parts that hadn’t been caught in the plasma wash, steamed. A few twitched. Others screamed. He remembered being mesmerized by the stench and the sound until the Commander had boxed her ear, screaming into it. “Want to wind up like them? Get that coolant system running!”  Afterward he’d stopped eating bacon – the pleasant memory; the warm hominess had been replaced by carbonized statues and screams.

Only a Small Medical Emergency - I

Oppenheimer’s departure from Deep Space Nine had been an experience to try the most beatific of Vulcans. As a hub of crew transfers, supply drops, and ship refits, occasional logistical mistakes at a busy station were only natural.  When that station is overloaded with novice crew and staffed with officers less familiar with the mix of Federation and Cardassian technology, one accepted the mistakes as commonplace and tried to avoid total catastrophe. Oppenheimer's supplies had been mis-appropriated to three different ships – all unwilling to release Oppenheimer's supplies until their supplies were found.  Her departure window had moved so many times the deck crew had to be re-briefed on adjusted procedure and contacts twice. Post departure, just as Sri was counting herself lucky, the quartermaster on watch discovered five crewmen milling about the mess hall who thought they were on the USS Lyons.  Not minutes later, the Lyons sent out a hysterical alert; the furious captain declared the crewmen deserters and demanded they be arrested and detained.  Despite Chief Security Officer Tran’s eagerness to put them in irons – he hadn’t had a chance to use irons, after all --   Lt Commander Sri decided they were merely lost and to make sure they had some lunch before transfer.  However, instead of bowls of hot plomeek soup,  the replicator produced a hypo of nutrients that resembled that of plomeek soup.  Closer inspection revealed the replicator to be a medical replicator, not a food replicator and that several crewmen had used the replicator to make hundreds of medical hypos – mostly stimulants controlled under Starfleet regulations.  Sri merely sighed and  ordered and enthusiastic Tran to head up the investigation to track down the hypos, mentally contacted D’Shyv to swap out the replicators, and sent the errant crewmen to sickbay for a bowl of soup.