A Visit From Personnel

Posted on Wed Jan 25th, 2023 @ 5:02am by Lieutenant Zon th'Tetz & David Meddows MD-Ph.D.

0 words; about a 1 minute read

Mission: Mission 1: A Fool’s Errand
Location: Deck 7: Medical Division
Timeline: M1 MD13 (2268.28.05) 1600

The lights seemed to dim and the loud clacking of boots echoed as the corridors of Deck 7 cleared. The sight of the ship's personnel officer was enough for everyone to go back in to hiding. Although the Andorian lieutenant was friendly enough, a visit from him only meant one thing... That you were in trouble.

Captain Faust and Dr. Kitchner had informed him of the situation and the personnel officer was taking the direct approach, as always. He caught a faint smell of something foul burning as he approached the office of the ship's psychiatrist. He did not knock but just walked through the door.

"Dr. Meddows," he said in a firm voice.

Dave was dressed in a flowery kaftan and was sitting in a cross-legged 'Lotus Position' on the floor, along with two other crewmembers: the first was an attractive brunette girl, dressed in a tightfitting pantsuit which was 'barely there' up top, and a many-limbed Edosian, also in its non-uniform 'mufti'. The three were sitting around some form of lightly smoking 'bong', in which liquid bubbled and which, instead of diffusing fumes to their mouths through pipes, was attached by wires to the mystical and invisible 'third eye' on their foreheads.

At the sound of the officious Andorian's voice, all three opened their eyes and hazily pulled the suckers from their foreheads with a resounding 'pop!' The two humanoids took a second to recover their wits, but the three legged Edosian creature managed to utter a creaky and lazy "Ohhhh maaaan, I am sooooo wasted."

"You better get up and leave this room or else your Starfleet career will be wasted!" The Andorian bellowed.

The trio clambered to their feet a little shakily.

"You two had better go." Meddows told his 'disciples' (for want of a better word) and all three made a triangle sign with their hands at each other and intoned the single word "Reach".

"Come on up and adam!" The last thing Zon really wanted to do was open a can of worms investigating every officer in the room. He felt it best to let them spread like cockroaches when you turn the lamp on in a seedy drug den.

The girl with the tight pants and fancy hair stalked past the Andorian with her nose in the air and a single word of recrimination. "Rude!"

Even the shambling Edosian risked a comment. "You got a hard lip, Herbert!" Dora reckoned it'd get away with it - no way the hated Personnel Officer would recognise it again, what with it being out of uniform.

As the two disappeared down the corridor, the three legged being started to sing a song by Adam in his croaky voice: "Stiff man puttin' my mind in jail" and, as their voices grew fainter, Thraxina harmonised on the second line "... and the judge bang the gavel and say, 'No bail!' Gonna lick his hand and wag my tail..."

"He he he" chuckled Dr Meddows indulgently "Kids today, eh, Lieutenant?" They were all off duty and what they had been doing wasn't illegal, so he was wondering what the Andorian was looking so grumpy about. Even for an Andorian he was looking, well, serious.

"We need to discuss your practice, and we need to discuss it now," the Andorian responded. He walked over to the doctor's desk and sat down in one of the chairs without invitation, "There appears to be a great deal of... Funny business going on. I see some evidence of that here. In addition you seem to ignore orders and protocols from Dr. Kitchner and the Captain."

Instead of joining th'Tetz at his desk, Dave started tidying up the bong and the scatter cushions from the floor, talking as he did so.

"Well, it's all a bit vague isn't it, Lieutenant? 'Appears to be this' and 'Seems to' be that. 'Funny business'. What exactly am I accused of doing wrong, I wonder? Can you tell me, that, Lieutenant? One... single... action?" he asked, throwing the last three cushions in a cupboard built into the wall in time to the last three words of his sentence.

"I'll give you one, this Mitsubishi Test," Zon retorted, "I've looked it up, not only has it not been approved by Starfleet Medical it's considered highly controversial and even dismissed as nonsense by the Federation Psychiatric Association... Speaking of the FPA, apparently your membership has lapsed which is also a violation." Zon could continue rattling things off, but he figured that was a place to stop for now.

"The FPA are idiots!" Dave was suddenly very animated and dashed over to his desk to pick up a stack of data discs and wave them in the blue officer's face, close enough to make his antennae waggle.

"D'you know what these are?! Eh? Case studies! Case studies that prove that that test is bone fide and effective! Your stupid FPA refuses to accept it because its fallen out with Professor Mitsubishi, just like it fell out with Dr Adams. Its.. its grey, anodyne so-called leadership don't just fail to recognise genius, they actively resent it!!" he exclaimed, actually looking very angry for once.

Then he threw the discs onto his desk and flopped down in his chair with a sigh of resignation.

"Ohhh, what the point in trying to explain to you, you're just a pen pusher!" he looked at the administrative officer with a look of distain "I thought you lot were meant to be a proud warrior race: soldiers and explorers! What're you doing nit picking over people's personnel records and bullying overworked crewmembers?!" he asked the Andorian quite tersely.

The Andorian stood up, his expression unchanged, "I can see the Captain and Dr. Kitchner's assessment of the situation was correct," he said.

"Well, of course you'll agree with them" Dave shrugged "Personnel?! Just the Captain's little messenger boys aren't you?"

He paused a moment, "Lieutenant," he intentionally omitted the word Doctor, "You are relieved of duty pending a full ethics and regulatory hearing which will occur on Starbase 10. I suggest you choose your next words carefully or you may find yourself confined to quarters for the remainder of this voyage."

Never the coolest head on the block (even when his head literally was on the block) Meddows jumped to his feet. His mother in the wild frontier colony of Deneva had always taught him to stand up to bullies and he always had. Granted, he usually got his face smashed in, but that was by the by. Being told to 'choose his words carefully' was like a red rag to a bull in a chinashop.

"Oh threats, threats, threats! So you have the power to relieve me of duty, put me on trial and confine me to quarters, do you?! Well, I've got news for you, sunshine: I've got the power to let you!" he declared and sat back down in his chair with his arms crossed and a 'that's told him!' look of triumph on his face.

"Then this situation is defused for the moment," Zon responded in a matter of fact tone before he standing up, "I suggest you find an advocate and prepare for the hearings. Make no imagination, none of them will be pleasant. Additionally, save yourself some additional trouble and let them speak for you."

Meddows looked like he was going to say something, but then stopped himself and instead adopted a self confident smile, made his hands in the shape of a triangle and uttered a singular single word of singleness.

"One."

 

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