Weighing The Consequences

Posted on Sun May 4th, 2025 @ 1:41pm by Lieutenant Commander Angel Blake & Lieutenant Commander Isabella Reyes M.D

1,611 words; about a 8 minute read

Mission: Mission 9: When the Stars Went Silent
Location: Sickbay
Timeline: Two Days After the Battle of Vulcan

Denver's sickbay had seen a lot of traffic over the last forty eight hours. Angel would have liked to say it was the first time she'd been in there. It wasn't. All she knew was that she'd been summoned. Her pace quickened as she approached sickbay and she deftly skirted someone leaving through the same double doors and started looking for a Teal uniform to check-in with. One of them looked up.

"Lieutenant?"

"I've been summoned," Angel explained, watching the nurse register the presence of her cybernetic eye, try not to show a visible reaction and fail all in the space of around a second. "Chief of Security." The nurse cleared her throat and continued.

"Ah, yes. A couple of your crew have been um... a bit of a handful? Could you talk to th..."

"Herbert and Kellie?" Angel cut her off, her look of concern over who may have died swapping quickly to annoyance. "Again?" The nurse nodded. "Yes ma'am. Sorry."

"Don't apologise," Angel told her, her head beginning to shake left to right in pure frustration without Angel even registering it was. "I'll deal with them."

There was nothing more to be said. Angel started to scan sickbay for the pair, the zoom on her ocular implant being somewhat useful in locating tweedledumb and tweedlemoron. Angel stalked them like an Ocelot, her rage mounting.


"Herbert! Kellie!" She barked as she approached, putting pay to their boisterous conversation. The giant form of Crewman Jim Herbert made the biobed look like it was designed for a toddler. Great as a meat wall he was, good at basic sense? Not so much. Kellie should have known better. He was still a crewman, but a higher grade and smaller than Herbert, but still taller than Angel who wasn't short at five feet ten. Kellie had potential if he could reign in his chaotic streak, but it seemed he couldn't. Angel had read up on both of them after the previous call from sickbay. She was pissed at having to be back. Kellie craned his neck to see what Herbert was suddenly looking so concerned about. He grinned.

"Hey, Crusher."

Angel's eyes rolled, both the good one and the 'bad' one, but her frown remained throughout.

"Shut up, Kellie."

"Shutting up, Lieutenant."

Angel planted herself firmly between the beds, her hands behind her back, feeling the familiar coolness of her mechanical hand with her 'real' one. The sensation was always slightly odd, but she sought it out anyway.

"You really think with the Dominion taking Vulcan and the fleet being in tatters I have nothing better to do than come down here and deal with you two morons?" Angel spat. Herbert looked crestfallen, but Kellie wasn't licked yet.

"But sir, we're bored!" He whined.

"Good for you," Angel retorted, gaining a little satisfaction from his slight flinch as her cloudy cybernetic eye flicked over to take in his stubbly facade. "How many people on this ship and the other remaining ships would fucking love to be bored right now huh? They're all working as hard as they can to make sure we don't lose this war entirely. And you two fucking idiots are disrupting the medical staff, wasting my time and putting the ship at risk. What if the Dominion attack now, and I'm here instead of in Auxiliary control where I should be. Huh? Did you think of that before you opened your mouths and started acting like five year olds?"

"No Lieutenant."

"Sorry Lieutenant."

Angel shook her head again.

"Kellie, once you're out of here, one week in the Brig when you're not working. Herbert, if you keep your nose clean you'll just be on report. If I hear one more peep you'll be joining him. Got it?" Herbert's manner remained rather crestfallen, but Kellie's mouth was precisely what it shouldn't be. Open.

"But Lieutenant..."

Angel picked up the used metal casing from a piece of equipment on the trolley by Kellie's bed with her right hand. Under her uniform arm servos ticked, links moved, all resulting in the metal being crushed into a small, jagged tube in front of Kellie's eyes. Angel leaned in, her eyes evoking Gowron, her nostrols flared like Jadzia Dax.

"What?" She asked, her teeth never parting in the utterance. Kellie gulped.

"Sorry, sir. Ma'am! Sorry ma'am."

Angel transferred the crushed casing to her other hand and pointed at the two Crewman with a metallic finger.

"Any other time, gentlemen. Don't test me." And with that she span around and headed for the C.M.O.'s office. Her metal hand knocked on the doorframe with a metallic 'ting ting ting'.

"Come in. Ah. Lieutenant Blake, bueno. I just made some coffee. If you'd like, I can get you some." Isabella said in her typical singsong tone. In one hand was an insulated metal mug, well-worn and dented. The other was working the console. "I didn't expect you to rush down here, but please sit for a moment." She drained, then refilled her mug with fresh coffee, adding a bit of milk and sugar.

Angel moved into the office, her eyes taking in every inch of the small space. Angel knew not only where the exits were, but was making routes out in her mind, what would get her back to Auxiliary control fastest, what to do if an exit were blocked in an attack and other information that'd help her to have already made decisions if the worst should happen, rather than relying on her decision-making in the moment.

"Thanks," she said, and obligingly took one of the chairs, resting her arms on the armrests with a contented sigh. "Nothing on long-range sensors, I could probably take a short break." Unbeknownst to Isabella, the feed from Angel's cloudy eye went dark. She did it to rest her occipital lobe when the opportunity arose. The eye continued to move in tandem with her right, biological one, but Angel was seeing now purely in 2D. "Sorry about those two. I've handed out some punishments. Probably a little harsh, but there's no space for their brain-dead antics. Not here, not now."

Looking around as she saw Angel's movements, Isabella commented, "I know, it is tiny. I much prefer an open floor plan. Being able to see the larger picture. The engineers haven't made it down yet to move the walls."

Isabella stopped herself from staring, she saw Angel notice. "Sorry, I wasn't intending to stare. My specialty is in regenerative medicine. As a doctor, it can be a hard habit to break sometimes."

"But yes, unless they are injured, I need the floor space." Isabella stopped. "Tell them next time, they get to empty bed pans and have become my new gophers."

Angel nodded.

"Sure thing, doc. They'll love that. Your lady nurse out there said they'll be discharged soon? And don't worry about staring, I'm used to it. It can be useful, to be different. Oh..." Angel stood and discarded what was left of the crushed casing quickly before returning to her seat.

"So the old CMO was sent to a hospital ship huh? What were you doing before you came here? If you don't mind my asking of course ma'am."

She waved a hand dismissively. "Of course not. Starbase 375. Studied Dominion bioweapons, and far too much planning at the fleet level. I finally told them I would resign if I wasn't reassigned. My place is here with my people, not the fleet admirals." She paused, then asked Angel, "If we are being open, bueno. I can get them looking at you for the right reasons. Plus, if I am honest, not to put too fine a point on it. You're a Starfleet officer. You deserve better. Surprised no one has tried already."

Angel shrugged her left shoulder.

"I dunno doc, being able to crush the neck of a Jem'hadar is pretty useful right about now," she replied with a slight smirk. "You'd be surprised how it can rattle a squad seeing their first get wasted in the first few seconds of action to a waif like me. , Had these a long time." She lifted her right wrist and wiggled the metallic fingers a little in front of her face. "I guess I could be interested in an upgrade.... It's possible... Heh..." Angel smirked, fully now. "Upgrade, like a bit of software or something, peddled by a Ferengi." She shook her head.


Isabella smiled gently as she nodded. "Since you have security clearance, military hardware can be done. It does not have to be inelegant. We will be able to give back fine motor control. A simple implant can bypass a break in the nerves if one exists. It is also nothing that has to happen right away, unless you want it to. My job is to help you live your best life."

She let that sink in as she typed notes into the system. "Come back when both of us are a bit less busy. Then it will be your choice. A simple exam, first, though I suspect what I need is already in your files. No pressure. The holodeck will allow you to experience it before any changes."

Angel nodded thoughtfully.

"Not crushing cutlery would be good, I won't lie..." She mused. "I better go, nice to meet you ma'am. I'll think about what you said."

"An open mind is a good thing," Isabella said with a smile. "Have a good day, Lieutenant."

"You too ma'am," Angel replied and standing, headed quickly out of the door, in a hurry to get back to her sensor readouts.

 

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