Hail to the Queen

Posted on Fri Sep 18, 2015 @ 11:51am by Lieutenant Nicole Anderson & Fleet Captain Rhea Kennit

1,615 words; about a 8 minute read

Mission: All this has happened before...
Location: Sickbay, USS Victory

=/\= Sickbay, 1800 hours =/\=

Nicole sat in her office, feet crossed at the ankle and propped up on her desk. She was thumbing through a padd, but only half reading it. As her next appointment neared, she found herself looking at an indicator by her terminal. Finally it started blinking and she hit it, stopping it quickly.

Entering sickbay, the Captain walked through the relative quiet of the main bay towards the Chief Medical Officer's office, where she knew she'd find Dr. Anderson watching the clock and waiting for the Captain's arrival. Reaching the Doctor's office, she rang the chime then entered without waiting for a response. Not speaking a word, she paused as the door slid closed behind her, and waited.

"Evening," Nicole said, bringing her feet down. She gestured to the chair across from her. "Make yourself comfortable."

Not answering, the Captain simply settled herself into the chair with a decidedly predatory ease, a lioness strolling to her couch, stretching her long legs out crossed at the ankle in front of her as she leaned back in the chair lazily. Gazing across the desk at the Doctor, finally the Captain said. "Well, to what do I owe the honor of this nocturnal invitation?"

Nicole opened a drawer in her desk and pulled out another decanter of golden amber liquid, then two glasses. She poured a couple fingers worth each and reached down, bringing up two black berries and dropping one in each glass. She pushed one glass to the Captain and took the other for herself. "I thought we were due for another chat over drinks," she said, matching the hardness of the Captain's gaze.

Accepting the drink, rather than decline the alcohol as she had done at every other 'chat over drinks' attempt the doctor had made, this time the Captain lifted the glass, said, "cheers.." and knocked back the drink in a single swallow.

"Muhl'es," Nicole said, tossing hers back as well. She took a deep breath after swallowing, letting the aroma fill her nostrils and sighed in satisfaction. "The berry really was a berry this time," she said, almost as an aside. She examined her glass for a moment longer, then sat back and looked at the Captain. "When were you going to tell me?"

One eyebrow rose slightly. "Tell you what?" the Captain asked.

Nicole handed the Captain the padd with her scan results. "God save the Queen," she sang.

A single glance at the pads was all Kennit needed. Her eyes, dark and intense turned back to the Doctor. "Oh, you have been a naughty girl haven't you, Doctor?"

"Oh, I think there's been enough naughtiness to go around," Nicole said, holding her hand out for the padd. "Considering I'm speaking to a dead woman."

When the Captain returned her padd, Nicole thumbed through it, muttering a bit as she read. "USS Endeavor, borg cube, full assimilation, no outward signs of implants, yet full internal conversion and," she said, slowing down for emphasis, "the Royal Protocols installed." She set down the padd. "Yet, when I access your records..." she turned her terminal around to show a large section of nothing in the Captain's file. "Despite this very clean and efficient wiping of your file, there are still clues if enough people compare notes."

She sat forward, lacing her fingers together. "So my only question remaining is, why were you flexing your arm this morning?"

"Rumor of my death was premature," the Captain answered. "The reality was something else. As for why I may have flexed my arm," she said, "everyone needs to stretch their muscles now and again," Katrijn answered slowly. "Even me..."

Sitting up straight in the chair now, her movements deliberate and controlled, the Captain then said, "A better and far more pertinent question is why you are attempting to access classified information from my personnel file. The information available to you is sufficient for any possible medical situation."

"I haven't attempted to access anything classified," Nicole parried. "I read your file, made a few non-classified inquiries, and put the pieces together." She pointed at the Captain's arm. "Your arm wasn't stretching, it was twitching in response to stimuli. Now I can assume that based on the programming of your assimilation systems you are in somewhat conscious control of your implants, but if something is triggering them, I need to know."

"I assure you Doctor, I am in complete control of what remains of the Borg implants within my body. My wrist and forearm ached, so I flexed the muscles." Kennit answered, a trace of irritation creeping into her voice.

Nicole shook her head. "No, that doesn't fit either. Your nanites are, for the most part, inactive, save for maintaining what's been grafted onto your nervous system. Your body regulates itself. That's why I found it so odd you twisted your ankle and tore those ligaments. You remember? I didn't say anything, because of Commander Hunter. I'm guessing he isn't aware." She reached into her desk again and pulled out a tricorder. "I scanned the impromptu blood sample I got from you during the Raeru incident when you broke your nose. I was alerted the moment the nanites went active." Her eyes crinkled in sympathy. "If it hurts, I can help."

Annoyed, for a moment the Captain said nothing. Then, with an exasperated sigh she said, "I experienced a tingling, burning sensation. It did not last more than an hour or so."

"You should have come to me immediately," Nicole said angrily, flipping open her tricorder and scanning the Captain quickly. "Your injection tubules are initializing," she said. "Some nanites are active, some dormant...why..."

"At the time the entire ship was otherwise occupied with radioactive corpses moving about in the cargo bay," the Captain retorted mildly. "Worrying about a minor discomfort was not a priority."

Nicole leaned down so she was looking at the Captain eye-to-eye. "It is now." She stood up and checked her readings again. They were consistent with the readings she'd received from her scan and the other scan on the Captain from-- "The spikes," she said, slowly. "The radiation spikes from the corpse..."

She went back behind her desk and reached under it, pulling out a small palm phaser and quickly aiming and firing it at the Captain's chest. As the Borg shields activated to halt the beam, Nicole nodded. "Thought so," she said. "You're neural network is activating, and your nanites have begun to initialize all your systems. We need to deactivate them. We can do it in my lab."

The Captain did not take being shot at with a phaser at all gently. She was on her feet and stalking towards the doctor before the woman had finished speaking. Jerking the phaser from the doctor's grasp, and for an instant it was obvious that her sole intent was to return the favor!

"Without a means of regeneration to provide necessary power, the situation will reverse itself without intervention." Kennit said, her tone of voice hostile without doubt. As she spoke, her gaze held a distinct unspoken warning for the Doctor: Do not try that again.

Nicole didn't flinch and her voice didn't waver as she met the captain's gaze. "Then why hasn't it?" she said. "It's been more than enough time for your system to reset." She held out her hand for her palm phaser.

Never taking her eyes from the doctor, the Captain with one hand flipped the power unit out of the phaser to fall with a muted clatter to the deck then tossed the now disabled weapon aside to slide across the office floor and come to rest against the far bulkhead wall. "You said it yourself," she answered. "Some nanites are active. Others are not. It is not as simple as turning a light on or off."

Nicole blew air impatiently. "Then why haven't they?" she said again. "Ten minutes, my lab, we can sort you out." She paused for emphasis. "I can take the pain away," she said, a bit more gently.

"There is no pain to be taken," the Captain retorted. "In fact, you see far more perturbed by the current functional status of my remaining Borg components than I am."

Nicole sighed. "Right now, we both know your arm feels like lava is moving through the main artery. You feel like there's sand underneath your skin and the muscles feel like they want to cramp but they never do. The neural network inside you is firing so that you feel like you have to itch, but you know you can't itch deep enough." She glanced down at the Captain's arm, "and so far, your only outward sign is that arm that's still twitching." She turned and picked up the pieces of her palm phaser, reassembled it and put it in her desk drawer. She sat down behind her desk and laced her fingers together again. "I'm going to scan you again in twelve hours," she said quietly. "If the nanites aren't deactivated by then, I'll have you in my lab regardless of your insistence."

The doctor's description was not even close to what the Captain felt. Far from it. She felt alive. Strong. "We'll see."

Nicole looked down at her hands. *Further along than I thought,* she thought. "I'll see you in twelve hours, Captain, if not sooner."

Kennit's only response was a smile, then she turned and strolled out of the office, crossing through sickbay and then was gone.

She watched the Captain walk out of her office and sighed, profoundly glad she'd lied.


Joint Post

Captain Rhea Katrijn Kennit
Commanding Officer
USS Victory


Nicole Anderson
CMO
USS Victory

 

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