New Cocktails

Posted on 29 Jul 2013 @ 7:54pm by Rear Admiral Lirha Saalm & Commander Allyndra illm Warraquim

2,740 words; about a 14 minute read

Mission: Episode 04 - Exodus
Location: USS Galileo - Deck 4, Sickbay
Timeline: MD -02 - 0010 hrs

[ON]

Moseying down the corridor of Deck 4 with a leisurely stride, Lirha passed several blue-collared crew members who politely nodded to her as she made her way to sickbay. The hour was late and the Gamma shift changeover had just finished, meaning that Lirha was one of the only few people currently wandering the halls of the ship. She normally would have been in bed at the current moment, but had a quick obligation to take care of which required the assistance of a medical officer.

The gray door to sickbay swished open and Lirha stepped into the medical bay, then reached up to push a lock of her dark hair from her eyes as she stopped short of the middle of the room to look around for the on-duty officer. She silently hoped someone was present, or else she would have to summon the cranky EMH again.

As Allyndra had hoped, this shift was one of quiet and she could think and work. She was still adjusting herself to the change of time but it seemed to have come easier.

Quiet, it was terribly quiet and with no current patients there was no reason that some of extra staff had to stay since it was nearly shift end. She was making a note or two in her own personal log when she heard the faint shwish of the sickbay doors.

Closing her log, Allyndra stood and went to the office door. Two things were immediately obvious to her. One was the person was Orion or appeared to be and the second was the four full gold pips on the collar.

Stepping out with a practiced grace Allyndra smiled, "Captain, how may I be of service this early in the morning?"

Lirha let out a mental sigh of relief when a medical officer came out of the office. She returned the woman's smile with a polite one of her own, then paused to take in the appearance of the very strikingly unique junior lieutenant. Tall and slender in build, the captain had never seen a member of the woman's species before. Black hair with blue, almost metallic streaks adorned an attractive face highlighted by a most unusual set of jeweled-looking blue eyes.

After realizing that she had been staring, Lirha cleared her throat. "Good morning, lieutenant. I am scheduled for my weekly dose of pheromone suppressants." she said simply enough.

Allyndra blinked. She then remembered Orion females required a suppressant to their natural pheromones. "Yes, but of course Captain. Let me get prepared and perhaps you may like to take a seat on one of the beds?" Allyndra waved one slim fingered hand toward one bed in the corner. "Bed number six is most private."

The green-skinned captain appreciated the offer of privacy despite the lack of any other crew members present. With a nod, she followed the lieutenant's instructions and moved over to the far biobed where she took a seat on the edge of the firm mattress.

Allyndra pulled up the Captain's records so she could see what particular combination of chemicals and dosage had been given before. Scanning briefly she noted that the dosage and combination seemed to have been fairly routine which meant it had proved to be stable and so far the Captain's system had not gotten overly used to the combination. Allyndra dialed in the proper amount and soon enough a beep from the replicator in the sickbay let her know the medication had been dispensed and into a ready hypo.

Allyndra returned to the biobed with the hypo and carefully placed her body between the Captain and the rest of sickbay even though no one else was around currently.

"Here we go, Captain" Allyndra pressed the hypo home as she did so she continued to talk. "It is a pleasure to meet you. I am your new ACMO Allyndra illm Warraquim." she said trying to keep the near singing tones to a minimum.

Lirha felt the common pinch of the hypospray injecting into her neck and listened to its soft hiss as it dispensed its contents into her blood stream. Letting out a fatigued sigh, she looked up at Allyndra and nodded once again. "Yes, I remember reading through your file when you first came on board. It is a pleasure to meet you as well." she replied in a soft voice. "How are you adjusting to life on board Galileo?" she proceed to inquire.

"I am working on it. The worse seems to be getting my body clock adjusted but it will come along Captain." Allyndra laid the hypo aside. "I must say I have not had time to fully review your medical file and went with the combination and dosage that was on record. I presume it has been working for you?"

"Yes...it works." Lirha confirmed. "I must admit, however, it is tedious at times to keep coming into sickbay every seven days for my assigned dosage. I have been doing it since my days at the Academy but...it would be nice if someone were able to develop a longer-lasting dosage. Say perhaps, a monthly treatment instead of weekly?" she proposed with raised eyebrows, not entirely sure if such an solution was possible. Lirha wasn't exactly gifted in the field of medical knowledge, but with the advances in modern-day medicine...well, she would never know until she asked.

"If you would like I could look into it. There are definitely some longer term therapeutics that could be done. I will put it on my list inbetween the DNA scissor work I have started."

"Thank you, that would be ideal. As busy as I am, I find it difficult to remember my appointments on a weekly basis." the captain admitted, then tilted her head with curiosity at the mention of DNA work. "What exactly is this project you are working on?" she proceeded to ask.

"It is one reason I have asked for Gamma shift," Allyndra smiled and leaned against an adjacent bed. "To give me time to work on a modification of DNA or rather what are known as molecular scissors. Are you familiar with the concept?"

Lirha shook her head. "No, not overly. Unfortunately, I am not one of the more medically-inclined captains in the fleet." she answered.

"Basically restriction enzymes that can cleave bits of DNA in specific locations which allow insertion or deletion of genes. One can literally programme the 'scissors' to particular bases. It is the basis of programming to say increase cancer cells susceptibility. However, nanomachine, nanites as we call them, use a template to replicate themselves. The template and routine is highly specific as to composition of material and structure and it was observed that 'scissors' can be programmed to recognize parts of a nanomachine template. The idea is to have the 'scissors' recognize the template of a nanomachine then insert instead of a DNA code a wrong element. For example instead of a silicon atom, a germanium atom is inserted. Though both are tetravalent ions the binding and chemical space are quite different resulting in a failed machine. If the nanites cannot replicate, they cannot spread. I think you can see the potential use."

The technical speak being presented by the medical officer was way above Lirha's scientific knowledge, but she indeed understood some of the basic implications of such research. "A fascinating idea." she agreed with a slight smile. "How long have you been experimenting with this concept?"

Allyndra laughed. It was light and musical in its sound. "Just beginning. There has never been enough time to really pursue the subject but I have started some basics already."

"Well Captain, give me a little time and perhaps I can offer something longer lasting. I am thinking maybe a dosage infused through an osmotic pump would be a perfect solution."

"As long as it is not a painful or invasive process, I do not mind." Lirha agreed somewhat tentatively, then quickly thought of the other Orion on the ship. "My sister, Nesh, is also on board Galileo - perhaps you have seen her wandering around? Well, she is sixteen and her body is naturally full of hormones...which means she requires the same treatment as I, sometimes in higher doses. She would no doubt be grateful as well if you could devise a more long-term solution."

"I will work on it Captain, now is there anything else that I can do?" Allyndra asked. The pump would not be painful but did require being mounted under tissue, it was minimally invasive but none the less invasive. Perhaps though with the Captain's sister she could try and if it proved problematic. Allyndra realized she was letting her thoughts get away from her.

Lirha shook her head lightly, her dark hair bobbing gracefully across the tops of her shoulders. "No, I believe that is all for now. Thank you for your time, and I look forward to seeing the results of your experiments." she answered. "By the way, your species is quite fascinating." she commented, taking another glance at the Akkadian's appearance. "Are there many of your kind in Starfleet?"

"I imagine," Allyndra knitted her brown, "probably no more than the fingers of one hand. It is complicated to explain and I would not want to keep you from your considerable duties. However, if you care and have the time I would be honoured to explain a few things."

The captain glanced at the nearby chronometer. Considerable duties at 0020? she mused with a mental chuckle. "Please. I am not busy, and I enjoy learning about different cultures." she prompted while she crossed her legs beneath her and made herself comfortable on the biobed.

Allyndra leaned against the other bioded. "The first thing to explain is that we are an allied world, not a member world. Though the Guild Council wants to remain insular, even they realized that even though Akkadia is out of the way its location at the juncture of a little explored arm of the galaxy with no other inhabitable worlds within many parsecs made it a desirable location. Between major players in the area, the Federaton seemed a more desirable partner."

Allyndra cocked her head and a slight smile played on her lips. "That explains why there are few that go to the Academy, but not why there are so few off-world. I mentioned insular. There are two reasons for that Captain and both have to do with past history and biology. Do you know what a heamatophage is?"

Recalling her basic Academy medical training, Lirha slowly nodded. "I believe it is a creature which eats or drinks blood as a means to gain nutrients? Similar to an Earth mosquito?" she answered to the best of her knowledge.

"Correct, Terran Greek for blood and eat or consume. We are heamatophages. It is something I find normal but many find odd. I digress though. As with any such organism that feeds that way, we have developed in our bite several compounds. One serves as an anti-coagulant, another serves as an analgesic, and then there are a series of complex proteins that induced a euphoric state. Now the reason I mention all this is because as we moved out off our planet, we encountered others and it turned out that in some species not only did our bite induce the same euphoria but had aphrodisiac properties as well." Allyndra pointed her chin at the Captain. "Not unlike your own natural body chemistry."

Lirha lifted her eyebrows at such a concept. "That sounds very...," she paused to choose her words carefully, "interesting." "I would imagine that would cause certain difficulties in encounters with other races." she deduced.

"Slavery was the result for some. The second is that we cannot breed off-planet and that lead to war. I will not iterate the details but we withdrew to our home world. The Council decided that it would be best to rewrite history and thus it has gone on. There are those that know our true past, but for those that disagree with the current course of action." Allyndra made an odd shrug which caused the translucent wings to rustle. "Find lives of quiet contemplation in isolated islands or are offered to go away off planet. I was being groomed to take a place on the Council of Warraquim, perhaps even Guild Mother and thus our true history was made known, but I thought Akkadia might be better served by reviving some of its long hidden and forgotten past."

"So you chose to leave your home world due to your dissent for the council's actions?" Lirha summarized, attempting to fully understand what the woman was telling her.

"Yes and the fact that I lost my husband in an accident and none of my children survived. It still hurts but at the time, I was near disconsolate and the Council thought perhaps being away from the closeness of those memories would be advisable."

Allyndra smiled wryly, "They were correct." She waved a hand in general, "Once away, there were so many new things, new people, places that I was captivated. Oh I miss home, but even though I have been allowed to visit it always seems that the stars called again."

Lirha smiled at the woman's story and felt a twinge of empathy emanate inside of her. "I too, miss my home," she said softly. "My family were originally private traders who traveled the Alpha and Beta quadrants, but were forced to settle on Earth midway through the Dominion War. It was difficult to adjust to life on the Human home world at first, because like your species, Orions are not a chartered member of the UFP. But my life up until then had been spent in space aboard my parent's trade vessel, and my curiosity to explore and meet new cultures never wavered. I suppose Starfleet was the naturally career choice for me, and there was no better place for me to train and work than San Francisco." she added with a grin.

Allyndra nodded as she listened. "My Guild Mother had a saying which I have found also to be true: 'When one's curiosity is as wide as the ocean, be prepared to ride many currents."

"Very appropriate, considering the circumstances." Lirha agreed. "There is much to discover in the depths of the cosmos, and many races and worlds still out there to discover and interact with. As a member of the medical and scientific community, I am sure you appreciate the opportunity to learn and expand your knowledge base."

"Of course I do." Allyndra took a step away from the bed. She only partially opened the wings on her back. "We also have a saying on my world: 'If one is afraid of falling then never try one's wings." She closed the wings to lie flat again. "I have never been afraid to try my wings."

Taking note of the intricate-looking appendages, Lirha wondered what it would feel like to have a her own set of wings and to be able to fly. "Do you fly often?" she curiously asked.

"Whenever I can. I particularly liked an art we call water dancing. It is a bit like Terran ballet though not quite so formal but instead of stage we dance with our feet and toes just touching the water. One must balance wind and wave in order for one not to get a dunking."

"That sounds intriguing. I would love to see it in person one of these days." the captain commented as she unfolded her legs and stretched them out, then slowly hopped off the biobed and stretched. "Well, thank you for sharing with me. Regardless of what people might perceive, all captains do care about their crew...some just show it more than others." she added with a slight sideways grin.

"It was nice to speak to you." Lirha continued, then gave the woman a slight wave of her green hand. "Keep me notified of any progress on the pheromone suppressant."

"And you as well Captain." Allyndra made a slightly curtsey and bow. It was so inculturated in her she did not even notice it. "If there is time, I will try to have something ready in a week."

[OFF]

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CAPT Lirha Saalm
Commanding Officer
USS Galileo

Lt. jg Allyndra illm Warraquim
ACMO
USS Galileo

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