A Place to Call Her Own

Posted on Wed Aug 14, 2013 @ 7:03pm by Lieutenant Nicole Anderson

469 words; about a 2 minute read

Mission: A Whole New World: Part 1 - Precipice
Location: CMO's Lab

Nicole had mixed feelings about smaller sickbays. On the one hand, it allowed her to move between patients faster, but on the other hand, with a crew of less than 170, there would be far fewer casualties to handle at once, and triage could always be established with secondary locations. She'd learned the hard way, on a Defiant-class ship, what a lack of biobeds and surgical bays meant when the entire crew was at risk, and while she did value that type of ship, having a full-sized Sickbay was a blessing she wouldn't take for granted. However, with Sickbay downsized, there were no alcoves for her to work within Sickbay, so she was forced to requisition a lab for herself. This was fine by her, as she preferred to keep her work private.

She stepped in through the doors and took a breath. The air was cold, sterile and empty. Every surface gleamed in that way that can only happen when organic beings haven't entered yet, and her requisition list looked to have been filled completely.

She let the doors close behind her and set her black bag down on the counter. She picked up padd and began inventorying everything, making sure that nothing was missing, hidden or in some other way outside her reach. When she was satisfied that she had everything she needed, she set the padd down and sat down in front of her private terminal. "Computer," she said, "begin door lock sequence, authorization Anderson-Rubicon-Sigma-Epsilon-Blue."

"Acknowledge," the computer said, "enter code when ready."

Nicole's hands flew over her terminal, entering a code that was as long as it was complex. It was a code she'd been forced to memorize years ago for a previous ship, and it was complex enough and long enough that it would be near impossible to guess randomly. After a full thirty seconds of entering, she was finished, and the computer beeped an acknowledgement.

She then opened her bag and pulled out a tricorder, flipping it open and activating it, aiming it at the terminal.

"Interface established," the computer said.

She tapped a command into the tricorder, watching the commands upload into the ship's computer.

"Command codes accepted," the computer beeped compliantly. "Sterilization program activated, code accepted."

Satisfied that her privacy, and the ship's safety was assured, she reached for a hypospray, putting in an empty vial and pressed it to her neck, extracting a small sample of her blood. She placed the vial in her molecular scanner and activated it.

"Computer," she said, the words all too familiar. "Begin full scan, complete chemical and genetic screen. Catalogue variences from human norm."

"Acknowledge," the computer said. "Requested scan will take approximately three hours."

"Take your time," Nicole said, sitting back. "I have all the time in the galaxy."


Nicole Anderson
CMO
USS Victory

 

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