Not Quite Right

Posted on Fri Nov 14th, 2025 @ 12:01pm by Lieutenant Azrel Vox & Lieutenant Commander Marc Kitchner M.D.

1,048 words; about a 5 minute read

Mission: Mission 6: Echoes of the Interphase
Location: USS Midway
Timeline: Current

After her shore-leave, Aze had returned to the Midway. The time on Earth had been so much fun but she was ready to get back to work. However, she had noticed that on and off since their encounter with the interphase, she hadn't really felt quite right. It was hard to describe and because of that she wondered if it was just in her mind.

Her break on Earth did help with how she was feeling. It was considerably less down there, and sometimes, not there at all. She did wonder if what she was feeling was something left by the encounter on the ship itself, like a residual effect.

After she finished sorting out her quarters, as she had let them get a little untidy, she headed for sickbay. On a arrival she wandered through the doors into the brightly lit facility. As most of the crew were still on shore-leave, sickbay was empty. She wondered if the CMO was even here.

"Doctor Kitchner? are you here?" She called out.

The duty nurse came around the corner. "Dr K. just stepped out. He should be back in a few minutes. He accidentally doused himself in the lab." She said putting a stack of data chips into the ready rack. "Is there something I can do in the meantime?"

"Oh dear. I do hope the good doctor is ok." Aze paused.
"Well, this could just be all in my head but ever since we had our encounter with the interphase, I kind of feel not quite the same, a residual effect, maybe. As I said though, could all be in my head."

Aze replied, still conscious of the possibility she could imagining it and wasting time in sickbay.

The nurse thought to herself. "You're the third person since we got back to say something like that to me. Mild to more severe headache ... a general feeling of just being off kilter that you can't explain why ... Have you been having trouble falling asleep since then?" She stepped over to a biobed gesturing for Vox to hop up.

Vox hopped onto the biobed.

" A little but my usual tricks to help me sleep have seemed to have worked, so far at least" Aze replied.

Just then Kitchner walked in still toweling his hair dry. "Linda ... thankfully my lab coat took the brunt of the mess. Oh ... company."

Linda tried not to chuckle. "Yes, Dr. K." She turned on the biobed.

"Hello Azrel, you're not a usual costumer. What's going on?" Kitchner said as he looked over the reading on the bio monitor.

"Another case of whatever is going around. Mild headache, feeling off..." Linda said as she went back to work.

Marc picked up a scanner and made two slow passes. "Except for a your blood pressure being a bit low, nothing that's jumping out at me." He stepped over too a storage cabinet and pulled out two small bottles and handed them to Vox. "Here's what we're going to do. You're going over to the lab, I'm asking for a full blood panel. Ten minutes and your done. I should have the results back tomorrow or the day after. In the meantime take these. The orange ones are for the headaches, take one. If you need to take more than one call me first. The green ones are a mild sedative, they'll help with the trouble sleeping. Just from personal experience take that 1 to 2 hours before you go to bed."

"Thank you Doctor." Aze replied taking the medication from him.

"Now beside that anything else going on that I need to know about?" Marc asked out of curiosity.

"Not really, I feel fine terms of myself and my Symbiont. I'm not feeling any symptoms that would suggest any imbalance or a low isoboramine level. Is that what you were asking?" Aze replied.

"Standard procedure ... well mine anyway. I'd rather hear something straight from the patient versus reading about it on some test result." Marc said. "Speaking of that slug in your belly. I saw the reports from the symbiosis center. They did a thorough job on you. Excuse me a minute..." Marc said running into his office, returning a minute later with a hardcopy in his hand. "You just reminded me about this. I couldn't find this word in the linguistics database." Marc hands Aze the sheet a paragraph boxes in red pencil and one word in particular underlined. He pointed to the single word.

Aze took the sheet. She ready it through till she got to the word underlined in red.

"Ah, Pyjmoic, Kidneys. The singular word for a kidney is Pyjmoi." Aze replied. "As for my symbiont, I think 'slug' isn't very accurate. Have you ever seen a symbiont, Doctor?" She asked.

Marc muttered to himself rereading the sentence adding the word kidney. His facial expression changed from curious to annoyed. "Kidneys. I must be getting old not to be able to figure that out." He looked up into Azes blue purple eyes. "I've known several unjoined Trills over the years, but you young lady are the first joined." He put his glasses back into this pocket. "I've seen pictures and some video in the databases, and a lot of reading. Not in the flesh no."

"Perhaps the next time I am due to visit my Homeworld, particularly the Caves of Mak'ala, where Symbionts live in their natural environment before being mature enough to be joined or are breeding, you could join me. It maybe quite educational." Aze commented.

"I'd like that very much. Provided it's alright with your people of course. I understand access is tightly restricted." Marc said with a slight grin.

" Of course. I will run it by the appropriate people in advance and see what is said." Aze replied.

She briefly visited the lab to provide a blood sample and was soon back in sickbay.

"You have a sample of my blood now, doctor so hopefully all will be ok with the results." She commented.

Marc was reading a duty roster when Vox popped back in. He gave her a nod. "I should have the results tomorrow or the day after. I'll let you know how things turn out."

"Thanks. I will be on my way." Aze replied and left Sickbay.

End

 

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