Gathering the Evidence - Medical

Posted on 27 Feb 2019 @ 6:06am by Commander Allyndra illm Warraquim & Lieutenant Lake ir-Llantrisant & Ensign Mimi
Edited on on 09 Mar 2019 @ 9:57am

4,270 words; about a 21 minute read

Mission: Episode 17 - Crystal of Life
Location: USS Galileo-A - Mimi's Quarters
Timeline: MD -145, 0500hrs

[ON]

A rapid beeping sound spread across Mimi's quarters and automatically the light level in the room raised signalling it was time for her to get up.

Slowly Mimi woke up and tried to sit up but quickly laid back down when a bolt of pain shot through her hip and lower back. Her entire body felt strange; her legs were numb, her jaw hurt and her head pounded and for some strang reason she was still wearing her dress from the evening before and even stranger she had no underwear on.

She tried to roll onto her side but again a sharp pain through her body forced her back onto her back. For the first time she regretted not having a room mate to call out for. "Computer, open a channel to sickbay."

=^=Sickbay, please state the nature of the call?=^= Came the reply back in a musical toned voice.

=/\= It is Mimi, I need help, I can not get up from my bunk and I have pains all over. =/\=

Allyndra thought that was a bit odd. Whatever was going on that Mimi hurt and could not get up. Probably she had something she should not have eaten. =^=Very good, on my way then.=^= she replied and grabbed a small medkit along with making sure the hypo had a setting for nausea.

She arrived after a bit and then used medical override to enter Mimi's quarters. It did not take much to notice the place was a mess. "What happened here?" she asked moving toward the bed.

"I do not know." Mimi replied turning her head to face Allyndra.

"It looks like party time central," Allyndra shook her head and took out the small portable scanner head. "Alright let's see what we have here." She started to scan and raised her eyebrows. "Some bruising around the wrists and ankles, head but you have a fracture of the hip. Just what was going on?"

Mimi shook her head a little. "I do not know. I was in the lounge waitng for John to come off duty, I had a drink given to me from the man at the bar, then I am not sure and I woke up like this."

Allyndra looked puzzled. "You are sure a single drink? Do you remember anything else at all?" She was not sure about the lack of events. Well first things first was the hip. =^=Allyndra to sickbay, need a grav stretcher please on my comm.=^=

"I think there might have been more to things then it appears. First off let's get you looked over properly but I am going to call security to have a look at your quarters. There are indications of 7-aminoflunitrazepam in your blood. I want to get more confirmation. Right now try to relax until we can get you transported and properly treated."

"It was only one, a cocktail." Mimi replied. "It did not taste a lot like alcohol and was nice so I had it and quickly felt light headed."

"If the detailed scans confirm this then there is more to it than some alcohol. Now then relax."

She spent a few more moments monitoring and just looking around. She did not want to do more than that in order to preserve the scene as much as possible. The chime rang and then the door slide open with two orderlies with a grav stretcher.

"Come on in but try not to disturb anything more then you have to." Allyndra waved the two in and carefully stood back and made a recording of the state that Mimi was in. She then went back and said, "I am going to give yous something. You will probably sleep a bit but when they move you that hip would hurt like the devil." She pressed the hypo home and then waited a moment before nodding to the orderlies to go ahead and move her.

Allyndra waited until they had Mimi out the door and then called security.
=^= Commander Warraquim here. Security to Ensign Mimi's quarters. I believe there has been an assault. Transporting the patient to sickbay. =^=

Anyone that knew her, knew she seldom used rank, but when she did it was serious.

=^=Yes Commander, lock the door and we will be there to investigate.=^=

--Sickbay a few hours later--

Allyndra gently shook Mimi. "Wake up, wake up," she called. She would hold off on the giving the flumazenil until the Counselor arrived.

Mimi awoke with a start. "Get your hands off....." She blurted out.

"Easy, easy," Allyndra took her hand away. "Mimi, you are in sickbay. Hip is all healed up but no running or jumping for a few days. Now then do you remember anything about last night?"

"Sorry Allyndra." Mimi said, she thought hard. "Only what I already said, I was in the lounge waiting for John, the bar man gave me a drink, I drank it and felt strange and light headed."

"I would imagine," Allyndra replied. She had all the blood work worked up and there was no doubt that Mimi had been drugged. Just exactly who was the question. She had already checked and Hollenday was under heavy security so that would eliminate more than likely him.

"I am going to call the Counselor in. I think we can get some indication of what happened but I would like him to be here when we do." It was a statement not a question of asking.

=^=Allyndra to Counselor ir-Llantrisant, please report to sickbay please. Matter is urgent.=^=

"Understood," was the immediate reply that came from Lake ir-Llantrisant, by way of the comm system. His voice was gruff in that moment. Clearly, he was in the middle of something, and would have preferred to be anywhere other than Sickbay. At the same time, he knew Allyndra wouldn't insist if it wasn't deathly important. "I'll be right there, Allyndra," he promised.

"Thank you," she replied and waited and talked to Mimi trying to get her mind to start working.

"How bad does my face look?" Mimi asked, she could feel some swelling in her cheeks.

"At the moment not too bad. We will take care of that in a moment or two. I just need to record the bruising and then we can go from there."

The doors to the passageway couldn't open quickly enough for Lake. As he passed between them, he bashed his elbow against one of the door panels moments before they fully receded into the bulkhead. It didn't break his stride. Lake closed the distance between himself and Allyndra on long steps, and he rubbed his elbow absently as he did so. The first thing Lake asked was, "How can I help?"

Allyndra stood up and gently pulled Lake aside. "Her blood work shows traces of flunitrazepam and metabolite of 7-aminoflunitrazepam. Her physical signs show a cracked hip, bruising around the wrists and ankles and head. I would say someone drugged her with an attempt to rape. I did not detect direct sexual assault but she cannot remember much. I am about to give her something to counter act and see if she can remember anything. I think it best that you be here depending on what memories she can glean."

Although Allyndra had already guided Lake away from Mimi's biobed, Lake turned his body further. He turned his back on Mimi completely, so she wouldn't be able to see the slack-jawed shock and dismay fighting for dominance on his face. "Assault? ...Aboard a starship?" Lake asked, mostly rhetorically. He spoke in hushed tones; the questions behind his dark eyes were far louder. Such things may have been heard of aboard Romulan Star Empire warbirds, but Galileo was a Starfleet starship, isolated in the dark of space. Clearly, Lake's admiration for the values of Starfleet was in danger of being tarnished by this experience. He couldn't conceive of a Starfleet officer being responsible. "Could we have intruders on board?" he asked.

"I do not think so, but at this point..." She just shrugged. "However, I am going to administer flumazenil. That drug should for a short time reverse the effects of the other and allow access to the memory of what happened even if temporary. Considering the experience might be traumatic that is why I wanted you here and also if we get a description or name you would be a secondary witness. While this would be temporary I am guessing the subconscious will be continuing to have her experience dreams and anxiety that might result in depression thus ongoing counseling. This might provide you a sense of what you will be dealing with. Are you ready?"

Was he ready? That was the question. Lake tilted his head back and he took a deep breath, staring at the overhead. This wasn't the first time Lake had worked with Starfleet officers recovering from criminal activities; his service as a trauma counselor had made certain of that. All the same, his last few postings had acclimated him to patients who needed to work through little more than neuroses and daddy issues. He took another breath. Lake cleared his throat and he palmed a small handheld PADD. Looking to Allyndra, and then looking past her, Lake said, "Yes, Allyndra. Lead the way."

Allyndra nodded and returned to Mimi with Lake. "Mimi I am going to give you something. It might help with the memories. They may be painful but we need to know what happened so we can give the information to security. It might take a moment or two, here we go." She pressed the hypo home and sat on the edge of the biobed ready with something else just in case. "Now then," she said gently, "relax, close your eyes and tell us what you can remember of last night. The memories maybe blurred or disconnected, that is alright, do your best."

Mimi closed her eyes. "I was in the lounge waiting for John, we usually go there for a meal after our shift, he was taking a long time though. Oliver gave me a drink he said my date ordered, I never saw John arrive so I thought he must have called down to the lounge."

"What did you have to drink?" Lake asked Mimi. He intended it as an easy question, something innocuous to build up rapport before Allyndra or he had to ask Mimi anything very personal. Lake perched himself on the edge of the next biobed beside Mimi's.

"It was a cocktail of some kind, fruity and quite nice. Maybe a little alcohol but not much." She replied also anticipating what the next question would likely have been.

Lake may have surprised her. He nodded at what she said, he took a quick notation on his PADD to avoid ignoring her while she spoke, and then he looked to Mimi again. "What happened next?" was what Lake asked, making an effort not to influence her responses with what Allyndra had told him.

"I had the drink and then someone came to talk to me..." She paused trying to remember who it was. "I can not think who though."

Giving her another few heartbeats to think on it, Lake took another note on his PADD. He allowed for silence, he let it get awkward. He knew there was no need for him to fill it. That would be counterproductive. "If you don't remember what you saw, what you heard," Lake said, "What do you remember of what you smelled after you had that drink?"

"Perhaps something about the voice, eyes anything could be useful." She had already done a quick check to look into the status of Hollenday but he was under supervision and not allowed to stray from quarters unless to work. The logs seemed pretty complete but she could not rule out him completely.

"They were not human." Mimi said, "They did not smell like one."

Allyndra looked puzzled for a moment and looked to Lake with a questioning look. She then realized that for someone like Mimi smell was a much more important sense. Akkadians were visual, much more so than even most humanoid species discerning patterns in the ultraviolet.

"You remember the scent," Lake said. He didn't ask it as a question; he made it a statement to affirm what Mimi had said. He exchanged a quick glance back at Allyndra, before he settled his eyes on Mimi. "What would you say you smelled just then, if it didn't smell like Human?" he asked. "Was it sweet? Musky? Earthen? Astringent?"

"Musky, very strong, definitely male. Maybe like... wet fur." Mimi said her nose twitching several times.

"Wet fur?" Allyndra questioned to no one in particular. That was interesting and definitely if the memory was correct would eliminate and large class of potential assailants. She then asked Mimi, "And what next and the drink?" They only had so much time before the drug would begin to wear off.

Mimi thought hard. "We had an arguement, I got up to leave and then felt really wierd."

"You said you had an argument," Lake said, circling back to seek more clarity in Mimi's words. Lake caught himself hunching forward, leaning closer and closer to Mimi. He straightened up and he squared his shoulders, correcting his posture reflexively. "What did you argue about?" Lake asked.

"I did not want him sat with me, how he would only ever talk to me if.....he... M'rthyr!" Mimi suddenly called out opening her eyes.

Allyndra looked to Lake and nodded and said gently, "Go on," before she got up and moved off out of ear shot. "Commander Warraquim to security, please locate and detain M'rthyr for questioning. I also will need to obtain a DNA specimen as well."

"Yes Commander," came the reply.

She made a nod of the head though no one could see it and returned to see what more Lake had managed to parse out if anything.

"He's the only person I can think of that might do something like this." Mimi said, a little gingerly she sat up glad that Allyndra had eased the pain through her hips. "He has tried to court me and is not happy I have said no."

Allyndra looked to Lake. This was now getting into his area of expertise. "A moment counselor," she asked.

Nodding gently at Allyndra, Lake took a moment to thank Mimi for her bravery before he did anything else. Giving Mimi a moment to reflect, Lake stepped away from the biobed alcove and away from what he understood as the range of Mimi's earshot. He looked to Allyndra, then, encouraging her to share what she wanted to share.

Allyndra looked back to Mimi and then back to Lake. "Well the hairs and other evidence that was left has finished being analyzed. It does mark M'rthyr as being there. I also managed to match the bruises to his own hands. The problem now is that the drug I gave her will wear off. She is liable to forget most of the incident at least on the conscious level. That means that there will be still things in the subconscious that will be affecting her. I think, unfortunately you are going to have your work cut out for you trying to get her mentally stable. Is there anything that I can do to help?"

Looking to Allyndra with heavy eyes, Lake's lips thinned to a straight line. His typical bravado was replaced with a sheepish expression. "You may know as much as me, Allyndra," Lake admitted with some reluctance. His arms folded over his chest in a vaguely defensive posture. "There isn't much research on Nekomi psychology... We'll have to stick to the basics and adjust through trial and error. Once we've completed our interview for legal purposes," Lake suggested, "We need to guide her towards a healthy balance of being present in her memories without being overwhelmed by them.

"I'll encourage her to tell her story a few times," Lake continued, "to acknowledge and validate what she's feeling. And then afterwards... truly, it may be better if she forgets the specific textures of her traumatic memories. We should give her something to occupy her mind -- maybe a puzzle game, or low-risk duties, something like cataloguing mis-routed communiques. It won't help her to sit in bed trying to remember what happened all night long."

Returning to Mimi's biobedside, Lake dragged a stool behind him. He sat himself by Mimi's side, his approximate distance from her was well-measured. From one perspective, he didn't want to tower over her like a demanding security officer; from another, he didn't want her to fear unwelcome physical contact. With some restraint, Lake didn't wave his hands while talking. He kept his hands on his PADD in his lap. "I heard you say that M'rthyr was not happy when you refused his romantic advances on previous days," Lake said softly. "What made you think he wasn't happy? What did he say or do then?"

"He kept just... being there, when I was off duty. I would go to the mess and he would be there, go to the gym and he would already be there." Mimi explained. "At first I did not mind then it got...."

When Mimi trailed off, Lake made no effort to finish her sentence, nor to prompt her. He nodded at Mimi, and he stared at her, offering her space to fill the pregnant pause. When it seemed she might not be ready to say more, Lake gave her permission, by saying, "Go on. How did it get?"

Mimi tried to think of an appropriate word. "...forceful, he would say bad things about me and John, and he grabbed me to stop me walking away once."

Lake hardly waited a beat. "In the lounge tonight," Lake asked, figuratively hopping around the timeline of events, "what do you think your argument may have been about?" With the progress Mimi had made with her sense memory, Lake asked the question out of a hope she might remember more through associations.

Allyndra returned but this was now mostly the counselor's area and she was mostly there to witness what was said.

"He sat at my table and I wanted him to go away as he would probably start saying bad things again, he would not so I got up to leave instead."

While Mimi spoke, Lake aimed for the right balance between making eye-contact to demonstrate his support of Mimi, and looking down on his notes, so Mimi wouldn't feel studied like a science experiment. "I'm hearing that M'rthyr sat down at your table and you wanted him to step away," Lake said, reciting it back to Mimi to confirm his own understanding. "He remained at the table and you stood from your chair." --He looked to Mimi-- "What happened next?"

"I felt strange." Mimi replied. "Dizzy, a little..... weak in my legs, I had to hold the table to stay steady."

Allyndra nodded that would be from the effects of the drug. "The drink had a drug in it, so not unusual. Go on, anything else you can
remember?"

Mimi thought hard. "M'rthyr helped me to my quarters and then, I do not know."

"Do not know if he helped you or entered with you or you cannot remember anything beyound that?" Allyndra prompted her friend. They had enough physical that he had entered but she was trying to prompt what had occurred within said quarters. How much had Mimi given in or not.

"I think he came in with me, I needed help to stay up. I felt...." She thought for the right english word but after a moment settled for the Nekomi word hoping Allyndra would recall it it. "...zaurgarri."

As he swiped a finertip across his PADD, Lake scraped his teeth across his lower lip. He continued to document everything Mimi was saying to them, as subtly as he could manage. He certainly didn't want Mimi to feel as if she was being interrogated. That word, though, zaurgarri, it escaped him.

Allyndra thought that was an unusual word to use. She would catch Lake up in a moment but switched to Nekomi. It might be possible for Mimi to recall a bit more if she thought in her native language.

...What did he do then?...

"I remember getting into bed, he must have helped." Mimi replied, she rubbed her wrists a little where the bruising was.

Allyndra noted the wrist rubbing and asked, ...you rub wrists, why?..

"They hurt." Mimi replied returning to english. "It feels like something was put around them."

"They were, did M'rythr bind you?" Allyndra inquired switching back to Federation standard again.

"He must have done, to stop me clawing at him." Mimi replied.

Allyndra looked over at Lake. "Why would you be clawing at M'rythr" Allyndra asked. She needed to get as much as possible before the memories faded as the drug she had given was metabolized out of Mimi's system.

Mimi tried to think, she'd never attack someone unless she had an extremely good reason and if she had no other choice. "I wanted to stop him but he would not."

Moving slowly, Lake stood up from his stool. He adjusted the sensor settings on the biofunction monitor, instructing the biobed to scan for traces of foreign DNA on Mimi's body, especially her claws. As he did so, he casually asked, "Can you imagine what his flesh would have felt like? Do you think you can remember that sensation?"

"Not nice, he was too rough." Mimi replied "I did not want him touching me."

Allyndra nodded and looked to Lake. "I think we have more than enough. I am certain though that she will need continued counseling. The drug will wear off soon and while the main memory will fade again there will always be something there."

In agreement, Lake nodded back at Allyndra and then he tapped on his PADD to finish off the notes he'd taken thus far. While he worked, he asked, "Is there anyone you would like us to call, Wind Dancer?" --He fell back on the nickname he'd given Mimi the first time they'd met, back on Earth, and then he looked up from his PADD-- "I don't think you should be alone today."

"I do not need you to call anyone Lake, I want to go back to my quarters." Mimi replied shuffling back down fully onto her back.

Shaking his head twice, Lake said softly, "I don't think I'm comfortable with that." --He looked to Allyndra again to gather her assessment-- "Given the psychiatric medication you've been prescribed, and your experience, I can't release you from Sickbay if you'd like to be alone." --He drew an arc through the air around Mimi's biobed-- "I'm sure we can make arrangements for privacy fields to be erected for the night."

"Indeed that is easy enough. I think it is time to rest, shall I give you something?" Allyndra asked. She would not give Mimi anything more considering what had happened unless medically necessary.

"I think I have slept enough already today Allyndra." Mimi said knowing she might draw some flak for talking back to the Cmo. "I could really do with something to eat though."

Allyndra smiled. If she was thinking about her tummy then it was a good sign for now. "Indeed, well then, I think I can think of something that any Nekomi might savor. I shall be back in a moment or two unless you wish it fresh cooked?"

"I will take whatever you can get me Allyndra." Mimi replied.

Allyndra knew what her friend liked and did not like. Fish was a high on the list and that would certainly figure into her plans. She would just have to replicate something up as she did not have the time to cook.

It took a bit longer but she made something up and also something for Lake knowing what he liked. She thought that it best maybe to all share a little something, something to take everyone's mind away from what had happened. Meals tended to be communal things amoungest most races.

"Here we go, some salmon and other delicacies. Lake, I made something up for you as well." Allyndra took a tray holder to set the plates down and took up a nice container of juice.

"Thank you Allyndra." Mimi said and took a few peices of the salmon. "mmhh that is good."

"You are welcome, once you finish get some rest. I have some final reports to put some details in. Lake are you good at this point? I am sure there is a report you might need to make as well."

"Most certainly, I do," Lake remarked. The words pained him, with the weight they carried. Pained him so much he could only mutter something about his report to the Security department, rather than say it aloud. He clasped the plate Allyndra prepared for him and he started to walk away, but the report could wait for a little longer. Lake sat himself back down on the stool beside Mimi's biobed, and he chewed on his salmon, and he sat with her. He didn't say anything; he just stayed by her side.

[OFF]

--

Ensign Mimi
Asst. Operations Manager
USS Galileo-A

Lieutenant Lake ir-Llantrisant
Chief Counselor
USS Galileo-A

Cmdr Allyndra illm Warraquim
Second and Chief Medical Officer
USS Galileo-A

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