I'm Called Little Buttercup

Posted on 02 Feb 2016 @ 6:17am by Lieutenant JG Natalya Kirilova & Lieutenant Tuula Voutilainen M.D. & EMH Mark X-C "Shirley"
Edited on on 02 Feb 2016 @ 6:24am

3,443 words; about a 17 minute read

Mission: Episode 10 - Symposium
Location: USS Galileo - Sickbay, Deck 3
Timeline: MD 23 - 1029 hrs

[ON]

I'm called Little Buttercup — dear Little Buttercup,
Though I could never tell why,
But still I'm called Buttercup — poor little Buttercup,
Sweet Little Buttercup I!

Pushing herself through sickbay, Tuula took advantage of the quiet time to tidy up a little. Usually she was on duty with either Olsam or Allyndra as she wasn't quite finished her residency yet, but in this case, the EMH had been programmed to activate to assist her if needed.

I've snuff and tobaccy, and excellent jacky,
I've scissors, and watches, and knives;
I've ribbons and laces to set off the faces
Of pretty young sweethearts and wives.

And with the sickbay all to herself, she could enjoy her favourite music: the songs of Gilbert & Sullivan. Of course, one can not truly appreciate the music of Gilbert and Sullivan without singing along and allowing the genius lyrics of W. S. Gilbert to roll off one's tongue.

I've treacle and toffee, I've tea and I've coffee,
Soft tommy and succulent chops;
I've chickens and conies, and pretty polonies,
And excellent peppermint drops.

As she sang along she looked up at the walls of sickbay. They were just so bare and sterile. For the sake of the patients, she felt that it could a bit of decor. Perhaps a painting or two on the wall would brighten up the room, or maybe some of her antique medical instruments would give it a happier feeling. She would have to make a note to discuss with Allyndra the possibility of hanging her bone saw in sickbay instead of her quarters, to give the patients something to look at.

Then buy of your Buttercup — dear Little Buttercup;
Sailors should never be shy;
So, buy of your Buttercup — poor Little Buttercup;
Come, of your--

Tuula froze instantly when she came face to face with Shirley and another woman. "No one can know about this," she uttered, glaring at both of them, but reserving most of her ire for the hologram.

THe EMH of course had been watching almost all of the goings-on of it's comrade-in-arms through the internal sensors. Her physical body might have been dematerialised, but her simulated consciousness very much had not.
Crossing her arms, and cocking her head slightly to one side, the hologram was bemused as to what exactly she had materialised into.

"Well - I know that Starfleet had a 'Dancing Doctor' in the form of Admiral Crusher - but a singing surgeon? That might be a new one for Starleet Medical?"

"There won't be a 'singing surgeon'," replied Tuula in a firm tone as she glared up at the EMH, "That is, not unless you'd like your memory dumped and your matrix reprogrammed to serve as Dr. Mott's loyal assistant."

"Should I ah... come back another time?" Natalya spoke up, seemingly unconvinced that she was in the right place. She'd seen a lot of strange things, and stranger people in Starfleet, but in her experience the medical bay had always been a domain of relative sanity.

"Yes, perhaps if we give it five minutes or so, a lady with a tray of ice creams might appear during the intermission? What do you think Doctor Voutilainen?" The EMH responded, covering her mouth with the back of her hand as she tried to suppress the grin spreading across her photonic face.

"Oh, I see what's going on here," countered Tuula. "You're jealous of my talent. You wish you could sing half this good, but your program wasn't designed with artistic subroutines." Tuula shook her head and continued in a mocking, sarcast tone, "it must be terrible to be unable to truly appreciate the works of Picasso, or Sa'vek, or Gilbert and Sullivan. Truly a pity..."

The hologram lost her grin almost instantly, her hands dropping to her waist and forming fists as she retorted against the insult that her program was anything less than perfect.

"Actually Doctor, I think you'll find that my program was designed with one of the most expansive databases in Starfleet! My only reason to interfere was that my auditory subroutines picked up what could only be identified as a Tarkalean cat coming into unfortunate contact with an exposed plasma relay!"

Tuula let out a derisory grunt. "A few subroutines does not a true appreciation for the arts make," she dismissed with a wave of her hand. "There is a reason why I don't talk to my tricorder about their taste in music."

"I am NOT a tricorder!! " The EMH replied in a shrill shriek, even more aggrieved than she had been a few moments ago at being compared to an inanimate lump of metal.

"At least the Bolian respects my medical genius! This collection of subroutines has feelings you know - like the feeling to make that archaic collection of primitive medical instruments of yours disappear!"

Tuula's jaw dropped. Her collection of antique medical instruments was her most treasured posession, and the very idea of someone threatening them made her irate. Almost as irate as if they had threatened Jaana.

"You so much as touch my bone saw," she said, in a deathly serious tone, "and I'll transfer your program to a seedy Ferengi holosuite."

Natalya was a pretty laid back person. It took a lot to make her freak out, like an extreme, deviant personality or staggering incompetence. She'd only met a small handful of people during her ten years in Starfleet that had made her lose her cool. Now, immediately into her second posting, she was about to lose it because of an opera diva wanna-be, and a badly programmed hologram, both of which appeared to have alarmingly severe attention deficit conditions.

Going off observations and derived logic, Natalya could only assume that one had been programmed by the other.

"Computer, mute emergency medical hologram!" Natalya called out, wondering whether she'd actually get a chance to state the nature of her medical emergency.

Tuula glanced over at the EMH smugly and then looked up at Natalya. "Thank you," she said, wishing she had thought of that earlier, "now that the distractions have been taken care of, how may I help you?"

The EMH could of course do very little. Opening her mouth yielded nothing but silence and an annoyed look across her face. Resigned to her fate, the program crossed her arms in front of her chest and did her best scowl towards the new Lieutenant.

Natalya almost felt bad. Almost. She tended to minimize her interaction with holographic entities because they made her feel uncomfortable. They got more and more independent by the year, but ultimately they were mere products of their programmers, and whatever means of controlled evolution that had been allowed into their coding. They made life useful, but Natalya felt that holographic technology was a dark road of science better left unexplored.

There was that, and the fact that deep down Natalya wanted to treat them like real people. She feared that one day she'd find herself in Tuula's position, arguing with a hologram over something so pointless as musical taste. Or worse... that she might form an emotional attachment to one.

"Oh fine." Natalya sighed upon seeing the sulking EMH. "Computer, un-mute emergency medical hologram." She then turned to Tuula.

"I originally came here for a routine medical checkup so I can begin my duties. But... now I think I may have a case of post-dramatic stress." Natalya added the last in perfect deadpan tone.

"Very funny," replied Tuula in a less than enthused tone. "If you take a seat on the biobed of your choice, I can pull up your medical records and will be with you in a moment, Ms..."

"Natalya Kirilova, I'm the new chief engineer." Natalya said as she moved to the nearest unoccupied biobed. She was almost afraid to look and see if the EMH was still scowling at her. Natalya feared she may have already made an enemy-for-life. Those weren't good to have in sickbay. Someday, that EMH might be the only one available to save her life, and she could only hope that it's programming didn't hold grudges.

"Kirilova," said Tuula as she pushed herself back towards the office to pull up her medical file. "I'll be back shortly."

"Engineer. That explains it." The EMH replied with a huff as her vocal subroutines came back online. There was no surprise there after the history that her program had with people in yellow uniforms, and the hologram was not afraid to show it.

"You people just love to meddle with a hologram's subroutines. How would you like it if I could just turn you on and off like a lightbulb?!"

"Who said anything about meddling with subroutines and turning you on? Hologram, we just met!" Natalya said, throwing her hands up in a feigned defensive stance toward the holo-woman scorned.

"You know what... you're right. I should have just told you to shut up first. I'm sorry." Her words did seem sincere, if in a messed up kind of way.

The EMH cocked her head as she tried to figure out what exactly had just been said - it was either a further insult, or a backhanded apology, or both!

"Well...in that case Lieutenant apology accepted. And don't call me Hologram - you don't see me referring to you organics as 'Meatbag'. I am the Emergency Medical Hologram...or if you must...'Shirley'. Not that I had anything to do with that particular moniker."

Though it seemed Shirley preferred the full technical designation over her assigned name, That was too much of a mouthful really. "Shirley it is." She looked around somewhat nervously, wondering where the doctor was, and how long this was going to take. The EMH seemed to have calmed down a bit, but it was apparent that she was easily provoked, and to Natalya, unnecessarily attractive. Plus, she might have a 'kill all meatbags' subroutine hidden in her code somewhere.

"Getting along, you two?" asked Tuula as she rolled out of the office, the PADD containing Natalya's medical data on her lap.

"Oh yes, we're besties now." Natalya said, as if that were the truth. She looked at the PADD. "So.... anything interesting?"

"No, not at all," replied Tuula as she placed the PADD on the medcart near the biobed. "In fact, your medical history is rather boring. Which, I suppose, is not a bad thing," she added, as she lowered the biobed to its minimum height to bring Natalya within reach of her tricorder.

Natalya had of course noticed that the doctor was in a wheelchair, but said nothing or gave any indication that it was surprising to her. By the way she gracefully navigated the room and went about her tasks, Natalya was guessing that the doctor had been using one for a while. At once it was both sad and inspiring to see. Modern medical science could not fix everything, it seemed, but whatever had happened to the doctor had clearly not stopped her from getting to a place where loads of other doctors would love to be.

"Yeah, sorry about that..." Natalya said in regards to her boring medical history. "If it makes you feel better, I've never left a medical bay without getting jabbed with a hypospray. I'm sure there's got to be some vaccine or whatever that I'm not up to date on."

"I suppose you could use a booster shot for your XA-4 flu vaccine..." mused Tuula as she began waving the tricorder over the patient. "Have you noticed anything unusual? Aches, pains, embarrassing rashes, anything like that?"

Natalya spent a moment thinking back, but couldn't recall anything out of the ordinary aside from the minor aches and pains that came after an especially tough day on the job. "Nothing since my last checkup. Or that I can recall." She said.

Tuula nodded and waved the tricorder up and down Natalya's body, carefully scanning for anything out of the ordinary. "Hmmmm," she said, furrowing her brow curiously after about a minute of scanning, as she raised the tricorder up to Natalya's chest. "That's interesting..."

"What?" Natalya said, tension starting to mount in her voice. Interesting results in a routine medical scan couldn't be good.

"Oh, it's probably nothing," replied Tuula, closing her medical tricorder. "But just to be on the safe side, I'm going to have to run a detailed scan. Lie down on the biobed and stay still, this should only take an hour or so."

"Safe side? An hour? That doesn't sound anything like 'probably nothing' to me, doctor! What are you seeing?" Natalya exclaimed, not quite panicking but coming close to it. If Natalya went to the captain and told him that she needed the Galileo to stop everything it was doing and power down for a few hours while she ran a ship-wide level one diagnostic as a precautionary measure for probably nothing... she couldn't imagine what would happen. She'd throw the entire ship into a panic, and that's if the captain acceded to her vague request.

Tuula sighed and placed a hand on Natalya's arm, trying to keep her calm. If only patients would stay calm and listen to her, things would go so much smoother. "It's a small growth on your liver. It's likely benign, but I need to know for sure. Which means I need to do some detailed imaging." She flashed Natalya a reassuring smile. "Don't worry, I probably won't need to cut you open."

Natalya swallowed. The doctor's attempt at reassurance did not quite have the desired effect. A growth? On her liver? Her last routine checkup had been five months earlier... the doctor who'd performed the same basic scan Tuula had had not detected anything. Even though this could be dangerous, somehow Natalya was worried that this might interfere with her duties. She had just come aboard.

"Ok. Let's get this over with." Natalya said with a sigh.

"Very good," replied Tuula as she pressed a couple buttons, activating the sensor cluster which folded over Natalya, covering her. "Just remember, stay still, and I won't have to put you under a restraining field."

With a few taps of her fingers on the touchscreen control panel, Tuula calibrated the sensors for Natalya's physiology. The blue lights on the sensor cluster lit up as the scanners initialized.

Before rolling away to fetch herself a coffee to drink while she watched the scan results appear, Tuula placed a finger on her chin. With Natalya trapped in the biobed for an hour, she would need something to entertain her, and Tuula knew just the thing. "Computer, pull up the Gilbert and Sullivan archive. Play the complete score of the HMS Pinafore. And deactivate EMH."

*******************************

A British tar is a soaring soul
As free as a mountain bird
His energetic fist should be ready to resist
A dictatorial word

His nose should pant and his lip should curl
His cheeks should flame and his brow should furl
His bosom should heave and his heart should glow
And his fist be ever ready for a knock-down blow

As they were nearing the end of Act I, the scans were finally wrapping up. "Computer, lower volume, and bring back Shirley," called out Tuula as she approached the biobed, a PADD in her hand.

Natalya was not having a good time. After only a few minutes, the upbeat rhyming schemes began to have a soul-crushing effect on her psyche. Her final memories as a person in good health were going to be spent focused on a mounting desire to have it all end. Quickly.

"Please... no more..." Natalya said pleadingly. "Someone sink the stupid ship already."

"Oh, come on," replied Tuula, pressing a button to retract the sensor cluster, "everyone likes Gilbert and Sullivan. The joy, the whimsy, the satire... I'm sure we've all served under someone like the Major General in our careers."

Natalya wanted to sit up, to resume the semblance of a normal, healthy person again, but she didn't know if the doctor was done with her tests. "So.... what is it?" She asked, trying not to look as worried as she felt.

"Well, I have good news and bad news," explained Tuula, handing the PADD to Natalya. "The bad news is that that, right there, is a tumour. The good news is that we caught it early, and it will just be a simple operation to remove it. Shirley, do you concur?"

The hologram had almost reached the point of decompiling her own program by this point, the inability to stop the computer from playing that most irritating of Earth musicals had driven the EMH to the brink of self annihilation rather than list to act two. Upon her deactivation, she was of course to hear that the music had ceased and they could get back to the medicine at hand.

"Yes...yes I concur...please can we get this over with...in silence?"

"Wait, a tumor? Where? I just had a checkup... five months ago!"" Natalya said. Even though they were not as life threatening as they were in centuries past, any sort of tumor that needed to be removed could interfere with her ability to perform her duties. With this only her second day aboard the Galileo, this couldn't have come at a worse time.

"No need to panic," replied Tuula in a tone which was probably more upbeat than it should have been given the circumstances. "Fortunately, the days of getting your hands dirty in the patient's innards for this type of procedure are long over. The surgery will only take an hour or two and doesn't even require anesthetic. I don't have any appointments this afternoon so I could even get us started right away."

"Yes... yes, of course." Natalya said with a nod. She'd been listening, but also seemed somewhat distracted by the news. If there was a problem, it was best fixed as early as possible before it turned into something worse. From her kind of work she understood that all too well.

"Great!" exclaimed Tuula, definitely too excited about a surgery. "Just lie down on the biobed. We don't even need to put you under; a local anesthetic and a restraining field is all we need! Now, where did Dr. Mott put that surgical probe... there it is!"

Natalya did as instructed and laid down on the biobed. She had very bad feeling about this. The woman who was going to be performing her surgical procedure appeared to be bloodthirsty as hell, and the EMH, who would no doubt be assisting, saw her as a threat to her existence.

Returning to the biobed with the surgical probe, Tuula placed it in the disinfectant tray on the medcart and pressed a button on the biobed, activating the restraining field. "Now, Ms. Kirilova, are you restrained nice and tight? Can't move your lower body?"

Natalya tried, but she couldn't move. Was the doctor keeping her awake for this on purpose? "No.... I can't."

"Good." Tuula smiled at the patient in an effort to reassure her that this was a simple, routine procedure, though being a little too excited right before a surgery may have had the opposite effect. "Shirley here will just administer a local anasthetic while I prepare for the incision. You'll be awake throughout this whole procedure. It's much safer that way. Just relax and try to take shallow, deep breaths." Taking a moment. "Hmmm," she mused as she put on her gloves, "Surgery is just so dry without a little music in the background. Computer," she called out, "begin Act II of Pinafore."

Natalya's reply for the doctor was glaring, she positively stared knives. If she lived through this experience, she would make it a point to have her computer specialist purge every single reference to Gilbert and Sullivan from the database, and have anyone who tried to access it flagged as a potential threat to security.

Fair moon, to thee I sing,
Bright regent of the heavens,
Say, why is everything
Either at sixes or at sevens?
Say, why is everything
Either at sixes or at sevens...

As the unforgettable lyrics of W. S. Gilbert and the catchy tunes of Arthur Sullivan filled the sickbay, Natalya was left with one thought in her head. Was it too late to get a second opinion?

[OFF]

Lieutenant JG Natalya Kirilova
Chief Engineering Officer
USS Galileo

Lieutenant JG Tuula Voutilainen
Medical Officer
USS Galileo

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

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