More New Medical Staff

Posted on 15 Jul 2016 @ 4:48pm by Ensign Katniss Sutherland & Commander Jayla Kij
Edited on on 15 Jul 2016 @ 4:49pm

2,112 words; about a 11 minute read

Mission: Risky Business
Location: Sickaby
Timeline: Back Story

Jayla was thoroughly excited. She was getting another new nurse. She finally felt as though they had plenty of medical staff, which was a far cry from very recently when they all felt over worked. Of course, there had been a virus, but even so.

She looked over the file one more time. Katniss. Interesting name. But, then, she supposed most humans thought Jayla was an interesting name, too. She grinned to herself as she waited for the nurse's arrival.

For once Katniss was up on time, in fact she had already eaten breakfast had a sonic shower and was already in her uniform. For a change it wasn’t a bad fit, they always tended to be a little baggy due to her small frame and low weight.

But today was the day, her first official assignment. No doubt the Chief Medical Officer had gone over her files. Katniss signed out loud. She nearly didn’t make it through Starfleet Medical and she had several infractions on her record already, why on earth did the Black Hawk take her? When no other ship would, were they really that desperate for medical staff?

Katniss's main concern wasn’t first day nerves, or that she didn’t know anyone, her main concern was how on earth was she going to get around her medical. The trick was to get the CMO to use Katniss’s altered medical tricorder, then all would be fine. However If that failed a normal tricorder would pick up abnormalities that would require further in-depth scans, it’s only those scan’s which would present a problem. But she could always delete those and replace them with her altered medical file stored in her personal database, but that was risky and she had almost been caught before by an overzealous security officer. She didn’t like to keep secrets but this one needed to be kept. No one could find out.

With that she picked up her modified tricorder and the padd with her orders, it was time. For once she was going to be early. The doors to her quarters opened as she slowly walked towards them, she wandered out into the corridor. They closed behind her and there she was deck 5, room 05-041, she still hadn’t got to grips with the layout of the ship but at least she knew where the closest turbolift was. She headed towards it content in the knowledge she was going to be early, after all she wanted to give a good first impression to try and balance out the negative reading in her personnel file.

It only took Katniss about five minutes before she was finally standing outside of sick bay on deck four, she was pacing up and down outside, no doubt anyone that was passing would be wondering what the hell she was doing. But she was merely psyching herself up, finally she took a deep breath, turned and entered. The familiar sight of bio beds and a gentle hum greeted her, she looked around for a moment to take it all in. She tried to straighten herself upright, grasped the tricorder and padd and made her way to the CMO office.

She marched boldly in, knowing fine well she was early “Ensign Katniss Sutherland, reporting as ordered. Sir, Ma’am, Doctor?” she spurted out in a nervous croaky voice.

Jayla grinned at the young nurse standing in her doorway. "Any one of them will do," she said. "Come on in and have a seat."

"Thank you ma'am" she quickly replied, before doing as ordered. She sat down and tried to replicate a smile towards her new CMO, but she wasn't used to smiling that much and no doubt it probably looked as though as she was having a stroke.

It didn't, though. It did look forced, but not painfully so. Assuming she was just nervous, Jayla gave her a genuine smile. "You can relax," she said. "I have read your file and I'm not concerned with your past. A lot of people do stupid stuff in the Academy. All I'm concerned with is that you do your job, do it right, and keep your nose relatively clean from here on out."

Katniss immediately dropped the smile, it wasn’t something she liked doing. Unlike her CMO sat opposite her, who looked like a Cheshire cat smiling. But Katniss was paying attention to what she was saying. “Ma’am, yes Ma’am, I’ll always give you my best” she replied trying to smile again. But keeping her nose relatively clean, well the CMO’s definition for relatively clean might be different to that of Katniss’s. “But I have to ask Ma’am, why did you take me? No other ship would give me the time of day, not my first choice, nor my second, or my third.”

Jayla nodded. "Would you be surprised that I hand picked you myself?" she asked.

"Really?" Katniss replied.

The Doctor nodded. "I did," she said. "When I was 15, an accident resulted in the Kij symbiont needing a temporary host. I volunteered, rather bravely, I now realize. I won't get into the particulars, but by the time we got to a medical facility where the symbiont could be properly stored, it had already bonded to me. Rather than kill me, they opted to train me to deal with the memories- something that I was having immense difficulty with."

She paused a moment, thinking. "It took me a long time to come to terms with everything," she finally said. "Nearly three years. Instead of dealing with it, I tried to hide from it. My mentor came home to find me bleeding to death one day- I had slit my wrists because I couldn't deal with all the memories of death. Another time, I got drunk and ended up in the brig. There were many other things, too, and all together, they would have been able to keep me out of Starfleet. Luckily, at my entrance psych exam, the Councelor told me that she was going to take a chance on me because a person's past shouldn't have a strong influence on their future. I suppose I would repay her poorly if I didn't also take a chance on someone with a troubled past." She leaned forward. "Try not to make a fool of me, okay?" she said, adding a smile and wink to soften it.

Katniss’s eyes started to water. She was sat opposite her new CMO, someone who knew nothing about her apart from her troubled past and what was in her personnel file and she had still decided to take a chance on her. Hell she’d even opened up about her own past. This was an act of great kindness, but could she live up to the CMO’s expectations.

‘Try not to make a fool of me, okay?’ was ringing in Katniss’s head, ‘Try not to make a fool of me, okay?’ over and over. Even after the CMO’s heart-warming introduction and welcome, Katniss was already about to deceive her. She couldn’t manage a response, with tears in her eyes, she looked directly at Jayla and nodded.

For a moment, Katniss wanted to tell Jayla everything, she didn’t want to intentionally deceive her. But it couldn’t come out, it could never come out. How would anyone understand, they would never look at her the same again, no one would ever trust her. So she put it to back of her mind, she had to proceed as intended.

“Well I guess you better give me my medical and declare me fit for duty.” Katniss said reaching for her own tricorder and holding it out towards Jayla. Her pulse started to rise, she could feel her heart beating faster and faster ‘take it’ she thought, ‘please take it’

Without a second thought, Jayla took the tricorder with a smile. "Sure, let's go," she said, standing and motioning for the nurse to follow her. She lead her out to main sickbay and a bio bed. "Right up here," she said, pointing to it.

Katniss followed Jayla over to the bio bed, the dreadful feeling of panic was over, her pulse started to slow, she'd taken Katniss's modified tricorder. All she needed to do now was make sure Jayla wouldn't hold onto it. She jumped up onto the bed and waited for the Doctor to start her scans.

"I should hopefully be in an okay shape, I like to work out. I know I don't have much muscle or fat on me but still everything else should be okay."

"It might not be a bad idea to eat more," Jayla suggested with a grin as she started preliminary scans. "Seriously, though, as long as you're healthy, weight doesn't matter much. I mean, it can start to have an effect on your health, but you're young enough that it doesn't matter."

"So when I come in and find food left at my workstation, it's your hint for me to eat more" she said jokingly as the doctor continued with her scans. "So Ma'am anything that I need to know about, anyone to watch out for or any gossip?"

"Gossip," said Jayla with a grin as she finished preliminary scans and moved on to the secondary ones. "There's lots of gossip. Doctor Road is starting a jazz combo with some friends. Apparently, the singer is fantastic, but has terrible stage fright. As for people to watch out for, nobody's really horrible. But, if you ever work with Lieutenant di Pasquale, do not, under any circumstances, give her cheek. She told me off for it and I'm her friend. But, on a personal level, she's really nice."

Katniss nodded in response "Not that I want you to think I'm one for gossip ma'am...it's just hard on a new ship and I'm sure you know how it is. In fact I normally stay out of gossip, it's normally wrong and blown out of proportion or not as exciting as people think..." Katniss blurted out getting herself in a fluster.

"It's okay," said Jayla with a gentle smile. "Sometimes gossip can actually help. For instance: don't hit on Ensign Hernandez in security. He's taken. But, you're right. More often then not, it's blown out of proportion. There was one involving the Captain and I and racquet balls not too long ago. I still don't fully understand where that came from, but whatever."

Katniss laughed "So do I have clean bill of health? Am I fit for duty?" she asked noticing Jayla was taking her time, nothing could be showing on that tricorder, it was impossible.

"Hm? Oh, yeah," said Jayla distractedly. "It's just... these readings are textbook perfect. I was hoping to find a reason to order you to eat a cheeseburger and chocolate shake. No such luck, though," she added, snapping the tricorder shut and putting it in her pocket. But, she felt one already there. "Oh, that's right," she said, taking it out again and handing it to Katniss. "This one's yours," she said.

Katniss smiled as she took the modified tricorder from Jayla "It was a gift, for graduating the academy and if you would like, in my spare time I love to cook, perhaps you would let me cook for you and some of the medical staff? a bonding session if you will? that's if I can get my hands on some fresh ingredients?" she said as she put the tricorder into her own pocket.

"That's a great idea," said Jayla with another grin. "I'm sure we can convince everyone else to come. I mean, free food, right?" she joked. "Next time we're at a star base, I'll help you get some fresh stuff."

Katniss's smile got even bigger "I'll hold you to that Ma'am. So do I need to report to anyone else, or do you have any work that you would like me to be getting on with?" Katniss asked, eager to please and impress Jayla.

"Not right now," said Jayla. "Although, it might be a good idea to familiarize yourself with Sick Bay. It's small, but has everything you can think of and more, so the set-up is a bit weird." She paused for a moment. "Welcome to the crew, Miss Sutherland," she added.

Katniss looked around, it was bigger than she thought "It's a pleasure ma'am and I won't let you down." she replied as the reality of her first assignment started to hit her. She could see herself really liking the Black Hawk.

RSS Feed