Medical Staff Briefing

Posted on 22 Mar 2014 @ 4:56pm by Commander Allyndra illm Warraquim & Lieutenant Olsam Mott & Ensign Varek & Chief Warrant Officer 3 Alexion Wylde & EMH Mark X-C "Shirley" & Petty Officer 3rd Class Bo Chalan & Lieutenant JG Delainey Carlisle & Lieutenant Teth Miir

2,672 words; about a 13 minute read

Mission: Episode 06 - Legend of Souls
Location: USS Galileo: Deck 3 - Sickbay
Timeline: MD01 - 1000

ON:

Allyndra had made a call to all current medical staff for a briefing. She had stayed late from her duty for this and knew that this would be odd times for others as well.

She had asked Doctor Mott to order some refreshments and set them up in the office with the doors open. She herself had prepared the big monitor over biobed 3 in the surgical suite so she could put up some of the minimal information.

She had also asked the Counselors to attend as well and provide some insight. Everything was ready and she just chatted a little with Mott whom she had asked to take the alpha shift instead of her.

Olsam may have been the last person to place in charge of "light refreshments," since his version of "light" corresponded roughly with "seven-course meal" in most cultures. He'd replicated an actual cornucopia and placed it on Dr. Allyndra's desk, stuffed full and surrounded by finger foods from a dozen different societies. Now that all the food was setup, the Bolian doctor was very impatiently awaiting the arrival of the rest of the medical staff.

"How was the senior staff meeting?" he asked, trying to make small talk to keep his mind off the Ktairian creme puffs.

"It was interesting. All I will tell you until the rest get a chance to get settled is that we will be diverting away from Deep Space Nine so shopping is off the list for now as are the interesting restaurants."

Olsam looked a little bit like something inconceivably horrible had just been announced. He had many fond memories of Deep Space Nine from his time working on Cardassian reconstruction projects, so he'd been looking forward to visiting. Instead of saying anything, his shoulders just slumped and he turned sullen.

Teth crept in as usual, doing his best to go unnoticed. Hungry, he spotted the table covered in a wide array of strange and interesting foods. He picked up what appeared to be a piece of seared animal meat of some kind. It was very vague in appearance and also in flavor as he choked it down.

Olsam perked up when he saw Teth and grinned stupidly when he finally made eye contact. He gave a little wave but stuck by Allyndra's side, allowing his friend to pick through the prepared delicacies. He really wanted to rush over and give Teth cuisine recommendations, but he thought his place was probably beside his boss's side. Instead, he just pointed to things with his eyeballs, which gave him the effect of looking like he was being periodically electrocuted.

Allyndra saw Teth and waved him over. "I wanted to say congratulations on the promotion."

"Thank you. It was... unexpected." Teth offered a small smile before turning his attention to a medical display of the neural network of some alien amphibian.

Alexion Wylde moved in with a quick, firm stride, his back upright. His sleeves were rolled up as they often were midwork, and he wore a somewhat usual frown on his features as he moved for a seat. He mindlessly reached for an apple, crunching into it without even looking at it as he watched his PADD instead.

Olsam finally drifted away from Allyndra, drawn by his own selection of refreshments. He began piling up an obscene amount of food on a tiny plate that seemed likely to buckle under the weight.

"Oh thank God someone else isn't shy about eating," Delainey offered with a chuckle, heading straight for the refreshments and reaching for a creme filled chocolate doughnut, and out of some guilt, a plate with healthy fruit as well. "Otherwise me and my sweet tooth would feel tremendously self conscious in this room full of health professionals." As usual, she liked to match gazes with all in the room, if only for a moment, her eyes seemingly assessing their well-being. She lingered a bit longer on Teth. She was pleased to see his efforts past and present had been recognized, but given how hopeless he seemed to feel about his life and profession just a short time ago, she wondered how he was truly coping with his promotion.

Ensign Varek arrived after finishing his work. The young vulcan officer glanced around the room and took note of all those present before setting up along the wall and folding his arms.

tag entrances?

Allyndra was still waiting for the rest when she remembered that the EMH would not be on right now unless requested.

"Computer, please activate EMH," she said to the air. It always felt odd to do that.

Having spent the past few weeks hidden in the data processing units behind Sickbay, the EMH was glad for the opportunity to stretch it's photonic legs. As the newly serviced holoemitters whirred into life, the medical hologram materialised with it's usual fizz.

"Please state the nature of the medical emergency."

Olsam wandered back to the group and observed the EMH with narrowed eyes. "Who turned that thing on? Shoo!" He waved a hand at the hologram. "Go on, shoo. Shoo. Get back in the holoprojectors, you."

The hologram looked towards the face that had taken such objection to his presence in the room. Odd, that an organic would summon it's program, yet another would decide it was unnecessary. The price of sentient organic life , the hologram mused to itself.
Simply raising one eyebrow, the hologram retorted shortly afterwards.

"Shoo? I am a doctor not a dormouse! I possess the entire medical library of Starfleet Medical and have one of the most advanced holomatrices ever developed by organic beings. I shall not simply shoo! Now if someone has activated my program simply to allow a Bolian to treat me like a common pest, I would ask that someone switch me off immediately and file a complaint to the Captain!"

"A doctor? You're not a doctor! You're a hologram with an medical encyclopedia," Olsam said, frowning at it. "But if you insist on being here, you could at least be quiet. You things talk too much. Always talking, with the mouth moving and the noises and sounds. Holograms should be quiet and just do what they're told. Speak only when spoken to."

Teth gave Olsam a disapproving glance.

"EMH's are sentient lifeforms," the counselor pointed out, "I think we should all work to be more respectful to him."

Olsam had his own opinions about just how sentient this particular EMH was but decided to keep them to himself for once, otherwise he'd probably be there for a half a shift arguing with Teth, as usual. He didn't have to work with that thing. He didn't know the half of it.

Allyndra needed to say something to Mott about the EMH but there would another time. He/it had proved to be invaluable and she had gained even more respect for the EMH since.

"Alright everyone, if you please." Allyndra waited until the room settled. "Now for those of you expecting to have time for some fun on Deep Space Nine, I am sorry, we are diverting immediately to the Lyshan system. For our part there have been reported incidents of the miners claiming to have had a series of 'metaphysical manifestations'. Now as far as we are concerned we will be evaluating the medical conditions of the miners, comparing their medical arrival with the current to see if there has been a change physiologically that might explain the phenomenon. The miners are mostly human and..." Allyndra paused a moment to drop the bombshell. "Cardassian. This is a joint venture mining concern with uridium."

Alexion's jaw tensed at the mention of the Cardassians and he looked up from his PADD. He'd served during the Dominion War. He'd seen what they were capable of first hand. It was history now to a lot of these younger officers, but for Alexion, it really didn't seem all that long ago, not to a longer lived species like the Vaeron. "And we really think we can trust their side of the story?"

The EMH felt less than inclined to add it's vastly superior intellect and processing power to the organic's discussions. The Bolian had already made his view of holograms widely known, and the so-called walking encyclopedia was content to remain silent, after all, apparently holograms should only spoke if spoken to! The lack of manners on Galileo simply astounded it.

"They have been working alongside humans for quite a while at this point. " Counselor Miir quietly interjected, "They are participating in a joint venture, they obviously need the uridium. Wouldn't they have airlocked the humans and taken the whole thing?"

"That's what I would have done," Olsam said, agreeing with Teth. "I don't see why they would have a reason to lie. But if they are lying, I think we certainly have enough resources at hand to determine that in short order. Do we have any further description of the symptoms associated with these metaphysical experiences? We could begin some preliminary research to rule out several neurological disorders if we had a little more information."

Allyndra shook her head in the negative. "Not that was given, but enough strange things happening that there is now a widespread labour unrest. It will be our job to make sure the experiences of the miners are not due to some medical phenomenon. We must eliminate gas, uridium influences, check for serotonin levels if some sort of telepathic entity is involved and anything else that might come to mind."

"And that includes any psychological disorders," Delainey reiterated. "While we can't rule out some sort of environmental issue creating neuro-psychological symptoms, we also shouldn't rule out the possibility the stress of working together has left people in a highly suggestible state, so that easily explainable phenomenon suddenly seems like signs of a shared delusion. It doesn't explain why it's happening now, however. I'd like to review their mental health records prior to this assignment."

Olsam cleared his throat. "Is the mining venture a private operation, or is it sponsored by the Federation & Cardassian governments? Either way, I think we should contact the relevant authorities to try to obtain medical records for all of the miners so we can begin cross-referencing them and looking for any similarities or patterns that might suggest...something. Anything. I don't mind taking the lead on that, if it's all right with you, Dr. Allyndra."

"Now who sounds like an encyclopedia?" The EMH chimed in, his subroutines for both sarcasm, and personal defence combining in an almost organic display of annoyance.

Olsam cut his eyes immediately to the hologram and scowled.

The EMH's facial expression software immediately pulled his face into a satisfied smirk. He had data from four hundred different psychological papers on Bolians, and knew exactly how to annoy them.

Allyndra let the others talk. She waited until the small battle between the two doctors settled down a little. "Very well Doctor Olsam, you can have lead on doing comparisons. My understanding is that all the miners would have to have records available before hiring on so hopefully they will be somewhat complete." She looked at the EMH and realized that she needed to affix a name of some sort, it felt funny just referring to the EMH as EMH.

"I am going to ask that the EMH remain active and assist you in this endeavor." She knew that might not go down well but the two needed to learn to work together.

"Doctor Carlisle, as you have said psychological evaluations as well. Would you like to add more from the briefing this morning Doctor?"

Olsam sputtered and started to object, but Allyndra had already moved on to addressing Dr. Carlisle before he could muster a sentence that wasn't laced with profanities. Work with the EMH? Remain active? Assist? Resigned to his fate - for the moment - Olsam just folded his arms and glared across the room at the hologram.

"A very sensible judgement Doctor. I agree." The EMH confirmed, crossing its arms and taking a more confident stance now that it knew there would be a purpose for its program on this mission beyond the usual bumps and bruises.

Carlisle spared a sidelong glance at Olsam and the EMH before continuing. She had a feeling she would be playing mediator between the two soon. She turned to Allyndra. "You brought up a good point about pre-hiring records. I want to think those selecting the team made sure people would be comfortable with joint Federation-Cardassian ventures before they were hired, but depending on how careful they were, those records should help us determine how suggestible and anxious they were going in. If they seemed solid psychologically, that might lend credence to the environmental cause theory."

Allyndra nodded. "And perhaps we might want to look into backgrounds as well." she mused. "We can not rule out that some of this might be friction between Cardassian and Federation. Perhaps if someone seems a little odd we might get our Intel pointed onto those individuals."

Alexion sat back in his chair, looking around the others completely mystified. Obviously his apple had been laced with drugs, or he'd just dropped through a hole into the mirrorverse....where Federation personnel were sent ghost hunting on the word of a totally ruthless race of people that they'd been at war with not so long ago and were about as trustworthy as Ferengi. Yes, that was definitely what was being discussed earnestly and in all good faith around him. They were all bloody mad.

"Well we have plenty of work ahead. Thank you everyone and please enjoy the wonderful set of goodies out Doctor Mott has gone to the trouble to select for us."

"Yes, everyone please enjoy the fine selection of organic foods," Olsam said, smugly eyeing the EMH. "I'm sure your taste buds will find them all delightful."

"Or if you wish to try the Bolian dishes I will of course be on hand to suture your digestive tract back together. Organics. So fragile."

The EMH quipped in return. What he lacked in taste buds and organic senses he more than made up for with a database of witty remarks and one liners.

Teth tried very hard not to laugh at the EMH. He was so flamboyant and catty. He found him immensely entertaining. But he was afraid that if Olsam became aware of this, he would likely kill him in his sleep for treason.

Allyndra just let the Mott and the EMH tit for tat it out. It was one reason she had made the impulse to assign the two together. Either one was going to get deleted somehow or they would learn to work together.

Delainey had half a mind to call Olsam out on his behavior then and there. The EMH was beyond difficult at times, but he was also the very definition of new life they were sworn to be respectful of.
It concerned her that a member of the crew, a healer, would deliberately provoke someone different than himself by pointing out that someone's overt limitations while in the company of others.
She did not want to think Olsam would do that to members of other cultures, but past behavior was often the best predictor of future behavior.

Not wanting to do to Olsam what he had done to the EMH, she offered a simple, "Dr. Mott, when you have a moment, I'd like to speak with you privately."

OFF:

Lt Cmdr Allyndra illm Warraquim
Chief Medical Officer
USS Gallileo

EMH Mk-X
Emergency Medical Hologram
USS Galileo
[PNPC - Holliday]

Lt. Delainey Carlisle, M.D., Ph.D.
Counselor/Doctor
USS Galileo

Lt. Teth Miir
Counselor
USS Galileo

WO Alexion Wylde
Doctor
USS Galileo
[PNPC - Blake]

Lieutenant Olsam Mott, M.D.
Assistant Chief Medical Officer
USS Galileo

Ensign Varek
Medical Officer
USS Galileo
played by Psylus Anon

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