First Authorship

Posted on 16 Sep 2014 @ 5:26pm by Lieutenant Tuula Voutilainen M.D. & Lieutenant Asahi Kita & Commander Allyndra illm Warraquim

1,679 words; about a 8 minute read

Mission: Episode 06 - Legend of Souls
Location: USS Galileo - Deck 3, Sickbay
Timeline: MD 09 - 0700

[ON]

Having spent the night on duty, either delivering a baby or attempting to synthesize a birth control method for tribbles, Tuula had decided that her time would best be used to get a wink or two of sleep before her big surgery later in the day. With Allyndra working away in the lab, her office was the quietest place in sickbay. Tuula entered her boss' office, folded her arms on the desk, and plunked her head down, falling asleep almost immediately.

Asahi was absolutely brimming with energy and an overdose of synthesized caffeine, as one would expect of the Chief Engineer during a tribble infestation. He was more than happy to ignore the little flickering lights, nodding them off as hallucinations as opposed to tribble-related power issues. With Min out for the rest of the mission due to child birth, Asahi found himself in charge of two departments. It might have been temporary, but it made him quite twitchy.

So the scheduled medical appointment that he had been half putting off since he arrived on the Galileo had become a welcome distraction. He was more than happy to be poked and prodded at, for the sake of a little break from the copious amounts of paperwork.

The moment he entered the med labs, he found himself poking around, looking for the doctor he scheduled his appointment with. Asahi hajvivrdn't met very many of the doctors in Medical, but he knew he found them rather odd. He eventually braved the idea of poking his head in the various labs to find the Dr. Voutilainen he was looking for, surprised when he happened upon her dozing off in the CMO's office. At least, he assumed it was Dr. Voutilainen. "... Uhm..... Doctor?"

"Hello!" exclaimed Tuula, lifting her head off the desk. She had been having the strangest dream. Her and Jaana were on a double date out at a Klingon sushi restaurant, with Luke and Dr. Mott, respectively. It was quite bizarre, but fortunately she was rudely interrupted before things got too hot and heavy. After rubbing the sleep from her eyes and a bit of drool from the corner of her mouth, she turned back to the yellow-shirted figure standing in the doorway. "Welcome to sickbay, Mr..."

"Kita. Asahi Kita. From Engineering? I had an appointment scheduled today, and I'll probably check on your systems while I'm here, to make sure everything in Medical is working properly." Asahi rose a brow, and probably would have been more amused with the situation if he wasn't sleep deprived himself. "Doctor Voutilainen, I presume?"

"Yes... Lieutenant Kita." Bleary-eyed, Tuula glanced out the window of the office and then back towards her patient. "Have a seat on an empty biobed, any one. Give me a minute to pull up your medical file and I'll be with you in a moment." Her eyes wandered to the replicator; perhaps she could get away with a shot of espresso while reviewing his file.

Asahi probably would have let her get away with a whole caffeine IV, but he merely nodded, returning to the main area and inspecting the medlab beds. He eyed one that didn't look like it had been just molested with a multi-colored array of fuzzy lumps, before hopping up onto it and waiting for the doctor to arrive.

A few moments later Tuula rolled out of the office into sickbay, her eyes wide open. The espresso was wreaking havoc on her empty stomach, but she had a job to do. "I'm sorry, it's been a long night," she said, her words coming out slightly faster and more frantic than normal. "You know how it is; I had just delivered a baby and may have accidentally discovered a form of tribble birth control. So, have you been having any medical issues as of late?" she asked, lowering the biobed to a more appropriate height.

"Tribbles are excellent forms of insomnia in cute, little packages." Asahi nodded in agreement. "Babies too, though to a much lesser extent. At least babies sleep." He nearly missed her comment about tribble birth control, and almost nodded the thought away as a sign that he had finally lost his head. "Uhm, not to my knowledge, unless lack of sleep and maybe a heightened anxiety level count... did you say tribble birth control? I thought they split in two like amoeba."

"Not quite," she said as she waved the tricorder over her patient. "Tribbles do reproduce asexually, but they have live births, similar to most mammals." She closed the tricorder to continue the conversation, reasoning that her patient had a particular interest in this discussion. "We've found a tribble who wasn't reproducing after being exposed to some hair growth supplements. We're thinking if we can find out what specifically is causing Gilbert not to reproduce, we might be able to find some way to stop the tribbles from breeding and taking over the ship..." she looked around for a moment "...any more than they currently are."

A pair of tribbles crossed Asahi's line of sight, wiggling across the bed as if nothing was the matter. The engineer gave the duo of multi-colored nuisances a half-hearted glare. "... A non-reproducing tribble, huh? If that were spread to the rest of the tribbles, it'd make my job a lot easier... I'd still have to find more places to put the buggers, but... damn. I have to admit, even a glimmer of a hope sounds a little relieving right now."

"You and me both," replied Tuula. "A starship is no place for tribbles, and the way these little guys are piling up, I'm afraid if we can't control the infestation, pretty soon people are going to be tempted to..." she trailed off, unable to finish the sentence. The thought of an impending tribble genocide at the hands of her new colleagues was just too distressing for her to even fathom.

Asahi raised a brow. "Execute them?" He wasn't fond of stating the thought out loud. The pair of tribbles that were worming away had now immediately made their way back, attempting to buddy up to the engineer by cooing and nuzzling at him. "Believe me, it's not a scenario I'm jumping up and eagerly volunteering for. If there was a way to halt the growth in their numbers, it'd be easier to contain them. Unfortunately, that method is a bit easier to manage than stopping their growth and containing them... and sadly, more feasible at this point." He frowned. "... I'd be much more willing to struggle with the more trigger-happy members of Engineering and Ops if it meant we'd found a better solution."

"We might have one." Tuula placed the tricorder on the biobed. "Allyndra!" she called out, loud enough to be heard in the medical lab.

"Yes?" Allyndra replied after leaving the experiments and going to the door. She did not like shouting, it hurt the voice and airways.

"How is our little project coming along?" asked Tuula. "Our friend here is desperate for a solution to his little tribble problem."

"Funny you should ask. There is a metabolite, slow in breaking down that is blocking the hormonal response in the tribble. I think I can manage to slow it further so that it has much longer term effect."

"Do you think it has practical applications? Can we use it to slow down or stop their breeding?" There was a hint of excitement in Tuula's voice; they were on the forefront of tribble birth control, and they might even be able to save thousands, maybe millions, of tribbles from death at the hands of their crewmates.

"The short answer is yes and if the modification of the Commodore's pheromones works as I hope we can get them to come to us...well her. I think in the long run we can even make the molecule stable enough so that those who want more permanent pets can do so." Allyndra replied. She looked at Tuula and continued, "I have made note that it was your observation and critical thought. You should have first authorship on a most interesting paper to the Xenological Journal of Biochemistry."

"Awwww, thank you. That's so... wow!" Tuula could barely contain her excitement; with her love of medicine, having first authorship in a paper in a prestigious journal was an immense honour. "Asahi, did you hear that? First authorship!" Tuula cleared her throat. "...and, you know, we might be able to save these tribbles."

"Huh." Asahi stared, dumbly, at the pair of doctors. He was pretty sure he was supposed to know about some of the back and forth going on, or at least be able to understand it. "Congrats then." His dulled over eyes snapped to attention at the end bits of Tuula's words. "I mean, no, seriously. Congrats. And if that's the case, all of that I mean, if you guys are getting somewhere, its another something to bring up. Another possible solution that doesn't involve decompression or anyone's deaths. Just gotta hope it isn't too late, yanno?"

"You will have to check if the Commodore has noticed a notable increase in her tribble attractiveness. I have not had the time to contact her, however we are pretty confirmed on Tuula's break through. The modification to a more permanent blockage may take a few days more but we are good to stop any more tribbles multiplication." Allydnra said and then began to turn back to the lab. "I will let you two finish up while I get enough of the compound synthesized for a ship wide dispersal."

"Sounds great, we'll leave you to your reasearch." Tuula looked up at her patient. "Why don't you clear off some tribbles and get settled on a biobed, and we can finish up?"

Allyndra nodded and returned to the lab.

Asahi nodded. "Sounds like a good plan to me."

[OFF]

LT Cmdr Allyndra illm Warraquim
Chief Medical Officer
USS Gallileo

Lieutenant (J.G.) Tuula Voutilainen
Medical Officer
USS Galileo

LT Asahi Kita
Chief Engineering Officer
USS Galileo

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