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Erich Jaenke

I'm a Doctor, not a Discrete Engineer

I'm a Doctor, not a Discrete Engineer

 

(
Keb and Erich}

 

The LCARS console in front of Keb showed no record on the invaders. Frustrated, she gladly

rose to relinquish the CC to Admiral Sovak. A9 and McFly vanished into the turbolift. Something was up and this left her with an odd, unsettled feeling in her stomach.

Erich felt a pain in his own belly through the decks between the bridge and main engineering. Given his attraction to her was strong this unique link played in his favor. Well, most of the time. His stomach now distracted him greatly. Only the Holy rings of Betazed knew how different his life would be if linked to someone like Kansas. He shivered at this thought as he crossed the threshold of the engineering door on his way to the bridge. The lie he told was checking the navigation linkage. The truth was checking in on Keb.

She rubbed her side as she took her place at Helm. In the last phaser blast that had stunned her--the third in one day--she’d fallen on her weapon, and it had cut the skin a little under her uniform. It would leave a nasty bruise, too. Erich had taken some of the pain from her when she’d gone with A9 to reclaim the bridge, but now it was bothering her again--and she had no desire to go to sick bay and see the people she’d had to shoot there.

Travel to the bridge took longer than usual, the unending questions Erich endured slowed his progress. He deferred most of the work to others, making quick fixes only. After some minutes he stepped onto the bridge. Keb sensed his arrival.

"Commander Mizu, I am here to regain navigation linkage. I need your help." Erich said with no pause as he walked towards her. He stopped short of running right into her as she turned towards him. She gave him the brilliant smile that his presence generally engendered, and started to reach for his hand--but stopped, remembering they were both on duty.

“Okay, what can I do?” she asked.

"I'll need you to completely log out and log into our subprocess. A processing core will be taking over navigation until we can fix the physical breakage in the links." His eyes met hers in a fashion under normal circumstances would be reported to Sovak.

“Oh, yeah, I can do that,” she replied after a moment frozen in his gaze. She turned to her console and logged out, though it was going slowly. “It looks like it’s going to take a minute,” she told him.

"Oh sure," he said calmly. His mind raced to scan how she was feeling, after the captivity and the stress of the battles to reclaim the ship. He could tell her side was bothering her, and something else that didn’t feel right to her.

"Why are you here?" Erich asked as he stood beside her at helm. "I can tell."

“You’ve already done enough,” she said, looking away from him and staring blankly at the rebooting console instead. “I’m fine. We got the ship back--that’s what matters.”

Out of all his responses he chose laughter. "While I can feel your discomfort contrary to rumor I am not a medical tricorder." He glanced from side to side. He whispered. "Let me take a look. Everyone is busy and if you don't want me to alert the Admiral I need to look. Will only take a moment."

Keb sighed. “If it’ll keep you from worrying…” She slid over a little on her chair to conceal the impromptu exam from others, and lifted up the side of her uniform shirt, revealing the still-bloody cut and spreading bruise just below her bra.

Erich's face contorted, bloodied flesh was not his game. "Ugh... How is that not more painful? I-I... It's over a wide area." He thought to treat this like a piece of hull damage. No major breaches, but more of a large series of impacts all over her soft... No, this was not working. "I can't see it all. The purple is going up your side a bit. Hold still." He lifted the strap to see how far this gruesome bruise went. He got on his knees to look up. "Oh my."

At the next station, Opsguy coughed pointedly, his eyes as big as the saucer-section. Keb quickly pulled her shirt down over the wound, her face looking like a red-alert light.

"Erich, we can’t do this here," she thought loudly, pulling away from him. “I told you--I’m fine.” The cough alerted other crew on the bridge, having occurred at the apex of a sudden drop in chatter and bridge sounds. Eyes zeroed in their direction.

"Look, just show me what to do to get full helm back." She was desperate to regain some face, especially knowing now how ruthless A9 could be.

The Chief placed a hand on each shoulder, making sure she had to look right at him. "Look, when we get control back I need you to get this looked at right away. One blow to your side could cripple your ability to fly the Manticore. Do you want A9 to call me to make the attack run?" He laced the question with sarcasm, but his seriousness and humor were both dry in general.

The horror at the idea that filled her struck him hard. He had hit a deeper nerve than he had intended. Her fear of failing in her duty again was stronger than her fear of medics...but there was a new layer after the battle, after watching A9 slaughter the invaders. "N-no," she whispered. "I...I'll go to sick bay. I promise."

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