“Second Shift Physical” – [Backpost]
Posted on 12 Jul 2019 @ 2:47pm by Lieutenant Amiri Aldana 365, D.V.M., M.D. & Sombra C.G.CA/U, C.PSA, C.ESA & Lieutenant Junior Grade Steven Bernard, Ph.D.
Mission:
Hahai i na pilikua nui - Hunting Monsters
Location: Main Sickbay
Timeline: 19:00
Tags: Sombra, 3CW4YMF696F
Bernard walked into sickbay, hoping this part of his first day would be relatively easy. Doctors, like all people, made him nervous, but he had been the subject of so many exams in his life, letting himself be physically examined was second nature. He saw that the one doctor on duty was the tiger striped-tailed person there, left of center. Bernard stepped forward and offered his hand: “Good evening, Dr. Aldana, I presume?”
Doctor Aldana, an attractive young-ish Kazarite-hybred, noticed the handsome, intriguing duel-toned man approaching hir. S/he admired the contrasting black and white features and wondered if the bifurcation came internally as well. “Welcome to sickbay! Pleased to meet you!” s/he exclaimed with excitement in hir voice and accepting his offered hand if only to use it for leverage to pull him into a warm, welcome embrace – the same way every member of half hir heritage greeted everybody (wellll, maybe not Vulcans). “I’m so glad you found me. Was I missing?” s/he joked, “You presume correctly. Something there is I may help?” For some reason something seemed to emanate off of this being that seemed to make Aldana giddy and desiring to play with syntax.
Sombra a large domesticated non-Terran canid-type join ‘Alpha’ by hir side. He wore a grey and black vest with teal highlights that mimicked a Starfleet uniform. Patches held in place by Velcro – that may or may not have been visible from the stranger’s vantage point – indicated he was a medically necessary service dog, and instructed, “ask to pet.”
He quietly went about his business of checking in with Alpha, brushing his nose over hir palm and wrists discreetly to check on hir. Then he casually lifted his head to scent the air to detect anything from the stranger. He wished to investigate closer, yet he dutifully stayed by Alpha’s side and sat.
Bernard chuckled softly. “Thank you for the very warm welcome. I’ve been sent here to make sure I am fit for duty. Correct?”
Aldana smiled. “Well, I don’t know; no one has informed me of such, but I suppose if that’s what whoever has sent you here to find out then that is what we must find out together.” S/he made a sweeping gesture over toward the surgical bay. “Would you please join me over this way, you may have a seat and if you would please remove your top, mister…”
“Bernard,” said the black and white man, after he had taken off his shirt. He had small but raised surgical scars on the black and white sides of his back, perpendicular to his spine. Two others under his chin and left ear. “I’m not sure who sent me here either. I just thought it was customary. I just go where they send me.”
Aldana quietly admired the man. His scars were impressive, but s/he wasn’t sure who’s handywork this was since most scaring now-a-days had been eliminated. S/he reached out but stopped hirself before touching them. “Where did you get these?” The doctor asked.
“They don’t hurt anymore,” Bernard said. “I was on a patrol on the ground in the Gamma Quadrant when I noticed a pattern on the ground ahead, a raising in the terrain. I knew it was a trap, but the crew was coming up too quickly behind me. I fired into the ground and then I woke up in the med bay of the runabout. The holographic surgeon had put me back together with carbon fiber parts—much harder than my original bones. The guys started calling me ‘RoboDoc’” He grimaced, remembering the week he had to stay in bed. “Where are you from? I’ve never seen anyone like you before, doctor.”
Aldana smiled and hir tail wagged slightly “(Please lie back so we can get started.) My father’s Kazarite, and my mother’s Hermat, I grew up on Kazar, a Federation member planet for quite some time now.”
Bernard laid back, letting his palms face up, imagining lying in a shallow pool to stay relaxed. “Amazing,” he said, “Did you catch any flak for that? Being a hybrid of sorts? I only ask because I have.”
Aldana chastised hirself inwardly for a moment. S/he suddenly realized s/he’d been forgetting to do something during hir more recent physicals with others. S/he wasn’t going to forget this time though. S/he reached into a near-by drawer and retrieved a small cylinder with a red nob on the end – a physical button – s/he gently placed it into Bernard’s hand, and closed it around guiding his thumb to the button since he couldn’t see it, and wouldn’t be able to soon. “(Just in case.)” s/he added as s/he activated the arch to close around Bernard’s thorax and abdomen.
Near-by Sombra perked up. He wasn’t sure why, but he felt maybe he should be paying attention, but not actually to Alpha, but the man.
Confusion came over the doctor’s face. “‘Flack?’ I’m not familiar with that word. That sounds like something from out of Terran 21st century comics media.”
Bernard closed his eyes and breathed deeply as the arch did its work. He’d learned this trick during the many physical exams he received as a child. “Let me rephrase, doctor: has anyone ever mistreated you or attempted to make you feel of less worth for being of two different races?”
Sombra quietly observed the black and white man sniffing him gently to get a sense of his vitals and stress levels. He wanted to help him.
“Well I’ve tried to move past it but like with most humanoids their children can be cruel and some of them as adults don’t seem to grow out of it, but Kazarites are mostly on par with the rest of the Federation member-worlds. Is there something on your mind?”
Bernard breathed as evenly as he could. “No, doctor. Just seeing if we had more in common. It seems we do.” As he lay there, he imagined he was enjoying a shallow bath, rather than being held beneath the medical arch.
Aldana started the scan cycle. “Well if you ever need anyone to talk to or to commiserate with, we’re all ears.”
Sombra seemed to sense the man had things under control, so he returned to his place of relaxed vigilance near-by.
“I appreciate that, doctor. Have you found any glaring abnormalities?”
~Me too.~
Aldana 365 beamed, “Sombra is available too, he’s doubled as a therapy dog too.” S/he stood over the controls supervising the work. “This is going to be a little detailed scan than a normal tricorder scan. It will take a moment or two for the computer and I to process through all the details. It hasn’t finished a full scan cycle yet, I’m sorry.” S/he then thought about the question a bit deeper and thought it curious. “Is there something I need to be on the lookout for?”
“My heart and some other organs are oddly shaped, uh symmetrical, yet they perform their functions well, as long as I take the prescribed mineral supplements to keep up electrolytes. Some abnormal to humans, but fine with other species.”
Aldana smiled, “I think you mean ‘asymmetrical’; but even though most hearts have an even number of changers, valves, arteries, and vanes to them, their over-all shape isn’t supposed to be the same on both sides.” Aldana reviewed the preliminary scans, “hmm, your kidneys seem disproportionate. That might influence your renal system, that and your testicles seem to be larger than average for most humanoids, and the epididymitis on the left side is slightly larger than the other.” S/he paused to muse what this could mean. “Fascinating.” The doctor gazed at him, making eye contact. “Do you know what supplements you’re taking? How long have you had this condition?”
Bernard was surprised and somewhat embarrassed: he had a doctorate in Xenobiology, yet he had never questioned the effects of the supplements he was taking. He swore in German. “I have been taking the supplements for years. My physiology is unique. My innards, at least the only scans of them I have even seen, are almost mirrored. I was told I needed the minerals to survive because of my abnormal pericardium. They told me that because of the flow of electricity from neuron to neuron as well as the odd beating of my heart, that I needed special electrolytes to correct the flow. I don’t know what I’m taking. I—” he peeled a med patch off of the back of his hand and held it out of the arch to the doctor “—wear a patch. Here is what I’m taking and how. I’ve been sent them for years.”
The computer chirped and the arch retracted, completing its task. Doctor Aldana was surprised, normally s/he would have been more observant. S/he regarded the supplement patch as if it were a used tissue; s/he retrieved a piety dish, opened it, and held it out for Mr. Bernard to place the patch in. S/he didn’t want to contaminate this evidence. “Don’t worry Ensign, we’ll get to the bottom of this. Something seems fishy; something about what you’ve told me just doesn’t make sense.” S/he smiled down at him, offering him a hand in sitting up.
Curious as always, Sombra started to approach casually scenting the air and making a beeline for—
~PLATZ!~
Instantly, Sombra, dropped like a stone; giving alpha a slightly confused and hurt look, but he knew that when s/he yelled like that, it was usually for his own good, and he trusted hir implicitly.
~Y’r goo’buoy…~
Bernard took Dr. Aldana’s hand and sat up. “That worries me. Should I continue to apply the patches or leave off for a few days and see how I feel?”
“If you feel comfortable with it, why don’t we see what happens when you leave the patch off for a few days? In the meantime, when was the last time you had your Orion Measles booster?”
Bernard shook his head. “Five years ago. My old ship kept me up to date on everything you could get. They used to stand there, the corpsmen, in a row and we’d walk by in a line and each one would hypo us with something when we stood before them.”
“Sounds like you’re over-due for another. I have some in stock if you’d like to take care of that today?” S/he smiled bringing out a giant rubber syringe with a fake 30cm long and 5mm thick needle on it.
“Mein gott! Where did you get that silly thing?”
Aldana chuckled; somewhat disappointed Mister Bernard saw through hir very realistic gag prop. “From an old shop on Earth; Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes. Have you heard of it?” The doctor put the prop away and got out a real hypospray. S/he loaded it and looked at Bernard “Where do you want it?”
Bernard shook his head at the goofy question and poked himself in the neck. “Here is fine. I don’t care to go through my other options. I thought Triple-W was a legend, meaning, not real.”
“It’s as ‘real’ as much as anything here is,” s/he said with a wink to the reader. “It might have been one of those places that draws from fiction, but who can say; there was some pretty trippy stuff going on there that I couldn’t explain if I tried.” S/he gave a brief, slight frown, he was cute, and s/he’d hoped he’d ask for it in the posterior. S/he gave him the injection into the jugular. “Do you know why they always wrap the chocolate bunnies in foal or put them in a box, but the chocolate frogs go free?”
After the hiss of the hypospray, Bernard shrugged, totally oblivious to the reader. “No,” he said, “I would keep amphibians in a small plastic case. Regardless if they were made of chocolate. Are we done here, Doctor?”
“Well you’ve heard the idiom: ‘Breeding like rabbits,’ right?” Aldana left it at that. “I will have to go over the scans in a little more detail, but yes, you’re dismissed Ensign.” The doctor deactivated the surgical arch.
Bernard put his shirt back on and sat up as the arch opened. “Thank you, Doctor. I would very much like to know what they’ve been medicating me with. Would you let me know?”
“As would I, but I’m afraid this is one of those instances where time will tell. We’ll have to wait and see.
“Awesome,” Bernard said. “See you around Doctor,” and with that, the black and white man left sickbay.
Aldana, Amiri A., Doctor, Starfleet
ACMO
Bernard, Steven J., ENS, Starfleet
TAO
Aldana, Sombra, Starfleet Medical
Service Animal
