Klutz

Posted on 04 Aug 2013 @ 4:26pm by Lieutenant JG Victoria Crawley & Lieutenant Jacob Pendleton

1,677 words; about a 8 minute read

Mission: Episode 04 - Exodus
Location: USS Galileo - Deck 4, Lab
Timeline: MD -01 - 1045 hrs

ON

"Ow! Damn it!" Victoria pulled back away from the counter, dropping her PADD on the floor and clutching her throbbing wrist. It had been acting up all day; a random twinge now and then, but it hadn't actually started throbbing until a few minutes ago. Banging it on the edge of the counter certainly didn't help it.

She knelt down and picked up her PADD, praying that she hadn't broken it and lost her research notes. She had finally gotten them from her colleague back in California and she was just starting to check through it all. She had added her own notes to the files, and if she lost those, it would have been disatrous. Taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly, she stood back up and placed the PADD back on the counter.

Jacob, who had been just walking in, heard the exclamation of pain and rushed into the room quickly to see Lieutenant Crawley place the PADD back on the counter, "Everything ok in here?" His deep voice was somewhat soft but filled with concern nonetheless.

Victoria turned to face him, her face turning an interesting shade of pink. She hadn't thought anyone had heard her. "Yeah. I'm fine, just a bit clumsy, is all." She smiled tightly at him and turned to grab her PADD, wincing when she reached forward.


"I see.." Jacob replied, "... except for your hand it seems, shall I get one of the hyposprays from the first aid kit for you?"

Victoria looked down at her hand, then back at the lieutenant and nodded. One of these days, she needed to have someone look at it, for real this time. "Thank you," she muttered, feeling like an idiot. "

Jacob brought back the hypospray and with with a remarkable gentleness, rested her delicate hand in his massive hand and gave her the spray right above her wrist. He held her hand a few moment to let the analgesic work and then gently let her rest it. "Better?" he asked.

Nodding, Victoria thanked him again and flashed him an apologetic smile. "I'm sorry, I'm not usually this clumsy. This stupid wrist has been giving me trouble all day."

"Oh?" Jacob remarked, "Maybe you should let one of the medical staff look at it. You don't want something to be broken or infected or some other diagnosis you don't need."

"No!" came Victoria's quick reply. "I mean, it's fine. It happens every now and then. I broke it a few years back and it does this every now and then. Thank you, though."

Jacob's face showed much concern but he did not press the issue. "Very well then Lieutenant. So... what is it that you are working on?"

Glad for the change in subject, she nodded over to the PADD. "A colleague of mine finally sent me some of the notes from some studies we were doing before I was assigned here. I'm just trying to read through them and make my own notes on the findings." She took the PADD off the counter and handed it to Lt. Pendleton.

Jacob looked at it, "Ahh, I love the smell of research any day of the week. So what's the topic we are dealing with here?"

"Neurological damage in Vulcans due to trellium poisoning and hyperthyroidism. Specifically, trying to reverse the damage." She pointed to the PADD. "We worked on this back in San Francisco, but we didn't get very far. The first treatment, the one right there was proved to be completely ineffective, so we just scrapped that one. We had started a second one, but I left before it was finished. Apparently, the sample was corrupted somehow and ruined the whole experiment. I'm still trying to sift through the information in that one. Whoever took the notes did a terrible job; they need to be translated rather than read." She rolled her eyes, but smiled, clearly annoyed but not actually upset.

"Fascinating!" Jacob's voice was filled with curiosity and enthusiasm, "This sounds wonderful to delve into! So, what would you need to make this work? How can I help you get this project finished?"

Victoria thought for a moment, trying to think of what she could use to start her research. One thing was certain, she was glad for any help she could get; she'd definitely need it. "I guess I'm going to need some scans of Vulcan brains, some healthy and others damaged by trellium and hyperthyroidism. Other than that, I'm not sure where to start. Any help you can give is greatly appreciated." She grinned, a bit embarrassed and her face turning red yet again. "I'm afraid I'm not used to heading up research, so I'm a bit lost."

"Well, some possibilities might include contacting a Vulcan ambassador and letting him or her know about this project so that that person could steer us to the correct people we could talk to so that we could have a good number of Vulcans for both the control and the blind groups. It is my opinion that going that route would give your project the best chance for success. So, let me help in any way I can. Why don't you start making some contacting and I will do the same until we get through to someone on Vulcan? Perhaps I can use my own family political contacts to help as well." He smiled at her and took a drink of his soda.

"Ok, great! That sounds like a plan." Smiling widely back at the doctor, relieved to have someone to help and a place to start, she stood and went over to the replicator, grabbed a cup of green tea, and came back over to the lieutenant.

Jacob walked over to the replicator, "Grape Nehi soda, thirty three degrees fahrenheit." Appearing a tall glass bottle of purple fizzing drink. He took a swig and went back to looking for contacts on his PADD.

After studying her own PADD for a minute she put it down and took a sip of her tea. She looked at lt. Pendleton. "May I ask you something?"

"Of course Victoria, you can ask me anything." Jacob smiled at her and gave her his full attention.

"Ok then," she said leaning back in her chair and taking another sip of her tea. "How long have you been assigned here? And how much research is generally done here? Do you head all of it?"

"Well I am relatively still new here. As far as research goes, lots of it happens aboard this ship every day, and I head all things Research wise but not all things Science wise." He smiled at her and took another drink of his soda.

"What kinds of things are currently being researched? I'd love to help out if I can." Victoria smiled, sipped her tea again and just about dropped the cup when she burnt her tongue. Really, Victoria? Could you look more like an ass? First the wrist, now the tea. "Sorry, hot tea," she said quietly. She set the cup down and turned her attention back to Lt. Pendleton, waiting for his answer and pretending that her face had not been assaulted by hot liquid.

Jacob gave her the courtesy of pretending not to notice that she was pretending not to have scalded herself, "Well, I gathered quite a bit of data from the final exploration of Rojar. We found an instition of health care and the team found some fascinating discoveries that I could use some assitance with."

She perked up and sat up a little bit straighter. "Do you know what kind of species they are? Are any of them left?"

"Not sure to be honest," Jacob looked down at his notes, "I believe that Rojarians were humanoid in physical type and they seemed to be a complex race of people who had what we might call 'ancient' technology working alongside some very advanced ideas. Rojar appeared to have been attacked by the Borg and so much of the evidence of Rojarian society was destroyed. I surmise that if any Rojarians are left, they have been scattered to the galaxy." He looked back up from his PADD, "So I hope that the data and samples we took from this institution will help us at least understand their psyche and their day to day lives."

"I can't wait! It sounds fantastic!" She grinned, and then remembered what he had said about their being decimated. "Not that their being obliterated is fantastic."

Jacob gave her a panned expression and said with a hint of pun in his words, "I would expect that obliteration would not be fantastic at all, but I am wiped out by all this talk of obliteration..." He looked at her to see if she would get the pun, trying not to laugh.

Victoria stifled a laugh behind her hand and shook her head. "Sorry, that was stupid." She sipped the last of her tea and stood up. "Should we get back to work? Maybe you can show me some of the data you were talking about. I'd love to get started on it."

Jacob smiled, "Of course." He handed her a PADD then walked to a table where they could look at the notes. "So, here is the entire mission and what we found, give a good read first then let me know your thoughts and observations."

She took the PADD from him and eagerly scanned the information on the screen. "Thanks!" Her eyes widened as she read on and she couldn't help but exclaim, "Oh my God. This is just...amazing. There's so much here! I could spend hours on this!" She was practically bouncing where she stood, like a kid on Christmas. "I...I have to go work on this," she said, barely able to contain her excitement as she started to drift off towards her station. "Thank you!"

OFF

Lieutenant Victoria Crawley
Psychologist
USS Galileo

Lieutenant Jacob Pendleton
Chief Research Officer
USS Galileo

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