Don't Say It

[Vilanne 0]

The whispered chatter from the nurse station was starting to get on Eva’s nerves but the unexpected comm from Tang announcing he would be spending the evening with her lightened her mood considerably.

 

She shot one last dark look towards nurses Nancy Smith and Anastasia Bellamy before heading back towards the coffee machine to start a new pot. Vilanne would soon be back from the senior staff meeting where she stood in for Dr Mele and she hoped some delicious caffeinated beverage would helped her foul mood.

 

How true that statement rang. Vilanne had not had coffee in about 18 hours and was way overdue. Her cup went cold that was poured at the end of the previous shift, and she didn’t refill. Her trip back from the meeting of the department head minds was unremarkable. She thought about the mission announcements, and her mind was tabulating the workload. Her new-found seriousness and dedication to her commission aboard Manticore was at the forefront of her mind.

 

Upon approaching Sickbay, for one brief moment, she was about to step in and consciously look for Jaiysa... but it broke her step; she lightly stumbled and nearly took out one of the patients leaving sickbay’s doors as she approached. Dr t’Tamarak had been assigned to the science department; Dr Chalice had to get used to that.

 

Pausing at the door, while it swished open, she cleared her head, remembering, then assumed a more somber expression and entered.

 

Eva did not need to be a telepath, nor privy to Anastasia’s gossip, to know that Dr Chalice’s Andorian-winter-cold attitude towards her had something to do with Jaiysa’s transfer to the science department. She’d be the first to admit that there was no lost love between her and the Romulan, but Eva knew better than to think she had anything to do with Dr. t’Tamarak’s decision.

 

The hush took over sickbay in a wave as Dr Chalice stepped past the nurses’ station. Even the nurses developed an eerie hush as she passed. Vilanne parted the silence as she passed through and made it safely to Chief Mele’s office. She sat across from his empty chair, leaned up on his desk and started poking at his console after flipping it around to face her. .

 

Eva spied Vil entering Mele’s office without a word. Starring at the door, she finished her coffee debating if she should wait or bite the proverbial bullet and be over with it. Now was a good time as any, Eva walked to the office, hesitating a moment before hitting the door chime.

 

Vilanne had tapped the console that started the pass of all of the notes from her PADD from the meeting to the console when the door chimed. She reached over and manually hit the button to open the door. “Yes?”

 

“Have a moment doctor?” Eva asked, keeping an unreadable expression.

 

“Of course, come in,” Vil said as she scooted over to allow Eva room to also sit across from Mele’s empty desk. “What’s up?”

 

Eva sat down in the empty seat. “ I was wondering if I did something wrong? You seemed... upset with me earlier.”

 

“Wrong?” Vilanne was a bit taken back, but it only took a moment for her to know why this confrontation had come about. “I am just taking my commission on Manticore more seriously. I have more work to do and need to be more responsible to the ship since Chief Mele has been tied up, and backing him up takes a lot of my attention.” She hoped this response was enough for Eva.

 

The previous night’s dinner with Jaiysa was still bearing hard on her mind. She didn’t want to rehash all of that with Eva, or anyone else, because it hurt. It hurt really bad... and she was finding the only way to pass through this was to totally, and consumably, throw herself into her work.

 

Eva nodded, knowing this wasn’t the real reason but not pressing the issue. “Alright then,” she said, getting up. “I have divided Dr t’Tamarak’s patients between Dr Raleigh and myself, everyone’s been contacted.” She walked towards the door. “Oh an there’s a fresh pot of coffee on.” Eva added with a small smile. Vilanne would talk whenever she wanted to, no need to press the issue.

 

Before Eva could get out of the door, Vilanne jumped in to respond. “You could lighten both of your loads and keep me in the loop. I probably have room for some more patients as well.”

 

Eva nodded again, “I just thought with the added responsibilities around here... but if you want to I will assign some to you as well.”

 

“Yes, go ahead and give me some. We have annual physicals that need to be done over the next few days before we get into the badlands mission.” She paused for a moment, knowing she hadn’t briefed Eva yet. “You better come back in and let me explain.”

 

Eva smiled slightly before doing a double take and walking back in the office, sitting once again in the same chair before picking up her PADD to take notes.

 

“What do you know about the Badlands?” Vilanne began slowly. She didn’t know much herself, so she reached over and pulled some information up from the ships computer while waiting for Eva’s response.

 

Eva took a second to think, “Err, beside the fact that it’s close by Cardassian space and known for wicked plasma storms... Not much.”

 

Vilanne put the computer in audible mode so they could both listen, and the familiar LCARS voice began, “The Badlands are located in Sector 04-70, was a region of space along the border between the United Federation of Planets and the Cardassian Union, that are known for intense plasma storms and gravitational anomalies. For that reason, it was commonly avoided by most interstellar traffic. During the Cardassian occupation of Bajor, the Bajoran Resistance frequently used the Badlands as a refuge from Cardassian patrols. Because of the severely limited sensor ranges in the area, the Bajorans used echolocation techniques to navigate and detect other ships. Because of its strategic location inside the Demilitarized Zone...”

 

Vilanne stopped the computers recitation of the initial facts and turned back to Eva. “My orders are to get some serious radiation treatments ready. I will need you to slice out some lab time to help with this project as well, ahead of all patients at this point. We are suppose to arrive in about, oh, 48 hours I think or less now. We’ll have to inoculate every crew member and department head that could come in contact with the shuttles.”

 

Eva nodded, head down, making some notes on her PADD. “I will get Josh to start replicating the needed doses for both the inoculations and hydronaline for emergency treatment. Can you set up a rolling schedule for crew members needing the original protection?”

 

“We may have to go to the shuttle bay to get all of them injected for this mission, as time is very critical. They are only giving us less than 48 hours at this point. There could be a need to formulate alternate hypo’s to cover types of radiation we do not regularly come in contact with.” She stopped again, there were so many items to coordinate with. Chief Mele typically did all of this type of organization, so having all of this on her shoulders felt overwhelming, but she was embracing it, especially under the circumstances in her personal life at the moment.

 

“Oh and Science is using a ‘bioarmor” for this mission. I am not sure if we have to medically or chemically treat it to assist with the radiation poisoning or whether our inoculations will be sufficient on the away team alone.”

 

Vilanne paused for a moment, thinking about how she needs to coordinate with the Science Department about this. She couldn’t do it, it just wasn’t within her, so she had to pass it off. She put on her authoritative voice, something she’d used a lot in the last 24 hours. “I need you to coordinate with Science for the answers to those questions. I will get a list of all of those that are going to be going on the shuttles or be near them when they return so we can confirm their inoculations.”

 

Eva cocked her head sideways, trying to read Vil. She would have normally took it upon herself to be the interdepartmental liaison. She guessed the entire thing with the Romulan was still too raw for her to handle. For some reason Eva had never able to figure out why Vilanne had become quite so attached to Jaiysa.

 

The Trill doctor, nodded once more indicating she understood. “I’ll get right on it then” she said, matching Vil’s professional tone. “Anything else?” she asked.

 

Vilanne did not want to think about ‘it’, so she was thrilled to bury herself in a mission such as this. “No, I will meet you in the lab in about an hour. We’ll need to research possible antidotes for extremes that we’ve not encountered. First, I have a project to keep our nurses busy.”

 

 

 

[source for the computer’s Badlands information was Wiki: http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Badlands]