Sickbay Chore 1: "A Friend In Need..."

[Images 0]

It’s the friends you can call up at 4 AM that matter- Marlene Dietrich

 

 

Victor was tweaking a neural stimulator. The device was the first he had encountered with problems in his study of the replacement emergency equipment. The amount of energy being discharged by the unit on its activation was slightly higher than its intended target. The danger of using it on a patient would be minute, since the readings were close enough to what they should have been but a sickbay depends on order and doctors depend on exactitude. When something has the potential, no matter how small, of affecting a patient in an unfavorable way, that potential must be removed or at least lessened if at all possible. So, Victor was tweaking.

 

 

 

His mind should have been 100 percent on the task at hand but since he had looked up at Nick a few minutes ago, about a third of his attention was away from his work.

 

 

 

Lieutenant Victor Images had decided he was quite pleased at the arrival of Dr. DJ McKinney, a new colleague and head of the medical team. She would be able to whip everything into shape and would let him witness and learn from another chief’s style but Victor was still not a happy man in general. The cheerful grin on Nick’s face after his quarrel with Captain Ayers had felt like a stinging slap and it was still giving him bother.

 

 

 

The words, “What was so funny to you mate?” ran through his head a dozen times in different tones and speeds. It irked the physician. He had not seen any humour in his current predicament nor need for vindictiveness on Nick’s part if that was the case. Victor believed he had made the serious nature of his conflict with the command staff clear with the Ensign but apparently that was not the case.

 

 

 

And now, now he had got Muon involved in it all.

 

 

 

Before the doctor had sent her that memo, it had seemed like the most rational and clear decision available at the time. He needed advice and she was the best person to give it to him. But now…

 

 

 

Now he felt immoral.

 

 

 

Muon probably had a lot on her plate; things on Cardassia were as bad as ever if not worse and probably deserved full attention of her eyes and large ears. The last thing the head of station security would want would be to get involved in a squabble between a few officers over a now quite aged occurrence. And with two of the trio being the highest-ranking officers onboard, Victor realised it could get messy for Muon pretty easily.

 

 

 

What made it worse was that one of the reasons that Muon was perfect to assist him was paradoxically one of the reasons that it was harder for her to do so. That reason was that she was a friend to both Commander Hawke and himself. It was perfect because it would be easier as a pal for Muon to express Victor’s feelings to the Commander but harder because it might feel like a slight betrayal for the Ferengi to have to take sides between them. Also, if any of this got Muon into any real trouble, Victor knew he would never forgive himself.

 

 

 

Victor felt like he was putting one of his mates onboard the Aegis, who he had known for quite a while, in an awkward situation that she really didn’t need to be in. He wondered if she had received the memo already and if it wasn’t too late to recant what he had asked of her but something else inside him stirred.

 

 

 

He knew he needed Muon.

 

 

 

Victor could not be at odds with the Command staff forever. If DJ stayed on as CMO for only as short a time as she had told the staff, Victor would probably have to lead the medical team again a year from now. If he actually became the official Chief Medical Officer, he definitely would need to liaise with the CO and the XO in order to do the best he could for his department and for those who needed medical help in this still-dangerous area of space. If good communication was going to exist between the bosses and him, current disagreements had to be neutralized swiftly or the issues would just fester.

 

 

 

However, normal dialogue was turning out to be a failure, with too much resistance having been built up over time. The only healthy alternative would be to find an objective and tactful go-between who would be able to bring about the end of this long-standing hostility. If that option failed, Victor knew he would have few other choices but to amputate himself from Aegis.

 

 

 

Muon was his only hope. It was the right choice for him to send the memo and he trusted her.

 

 

 

Victor heard a click, followed by a beep and he looked down at his hands. He’d completed his maintenance task and the unit would now function correctly. He’d actually done the job without even noticing it.

 

 

 

“If only everything in life was so easy”, he thought to himself.

 

 

 

Looking up, Nick was still busy. The senior medical officer’s feelings softened. Lepage seemed to be a decent chap, hardworking, extremely competent for a newer Starfleet officer with some experience in regular medicine under his belt too. He decided to let the smiling incident slide, thinking that he wasn’t going to be a hypocrite in his current ordeal by holding a grudge.

 

 

 

Lieutenant Victor Images continued with his study of the rest of the emergency equipment. The work was now regaining a larger percentage of his mental focus. The only wandering his mind now did was considering how he could possibly pay back Muon if she did agree to lend him a hand and also whether or not she’d be interested in being his new martial arts sparing-partner any time soon.

[Images 0]

Curses, could one of the mods please gimme a hand and change the title to Sickbay Chore 2...its the second log in the series

 

Thanks a bunch for your help

Eric

Images' Player

Edited August 21, 2005 by Images