-= Cargo Bay 4, Kincardine Station =-
“Doctor Vaughn to cargo bay four.” The voice was beyond impatient.
"On my way," Andraste replied more by rote than by actual
acknowledgement. When a doctor was called on, it was pretty much always
an emergency, so one didn't refuse it or even question it...
...until one realized that they were just a guest on this station, and there was literally no reason that anyone would call her
to do anything. And yet. Someone had. So, she put her PADD aside and
made her way out of her guest quarters and down to the cargo bay, only
taking one wrong turn on the still-mostly-unfamiliar station.
The voice was attached to a particularly sour-faced Bolian male who,
upon her arrival, thrust a padd at her. “You’re Doctor Vaughn, yes?"
"I am, yes," she said, eyeing him suspiciously as she took the device and read through...a list of animals?
“Good.” Behind the man, within the recesses of the cargo bay, a squawk
sounded. Some kind of rumbling – snoring, possibly, or the pacing of a
large mammal – followed, although it could have been a passing
construction bee. It wasn’t likely. Not with the cross-species choral
intervention that happened straight after.
“Sign here.”
In a very un-officer-like way, she replied, "What the hell am I supposed
to do with these?" She of course had not read the entirety of the PADD.
This was hardly a medical emergency, so why was she here?
"Not my circus, not my monkeys." The Bolian shrugged, his crossed arms
indicating that there was a zero-percent chance of his taking the PADD
back. "The monkeys are in the container behind the Kevolian cow. By the
way." The squawk intensified, matching the tone of the door as it
squeaked closed in his wake.
"Sure as hell aren't my monkeys," Andra said irritably, reading the
information and manifest on the PADD again. This time, she saw the
reference to the Lone Star's arboretum. A ship that didn't happen to
have docked at the station yet. So, now she understood. With a sigh, she
signed off.
With absolutely no clue what to do with this, she read more of what
she'd just signed and saw a name. CPO Monkfish, USS Lone Star... And she
was already on the station? "Lieutenant Vaughn to CPO Monkfish?" She
gave it a shot.
There was no immediate response. After scuffling and what could have
been an unfortunate person or other mammal, a shrill voice arrived on
the line.
“This is Monkfish!” it exclaimed. “I expect you are calling to tell me
that Hieronymus and Herodotus have arrived. I assume they are in
excellent health, Lieutenant. If not, someone will have to be held
personally responsible. What is your location?”
Upon hearing their names, two of the heron began a chain reaction
amongst their sedge of wild guffawing, which did nothing to endear them
to the Andorian geese in the transport pen next door – to nor the
Kevolian cow, whose multiphonic rasp set off, well, whatever that was in
the closed cage that sounded like fourteen chainsaws and a backed-up
drain.
It took no less than five tries at varied pitches with varied cursing
accompaniments before Andra was able to be heard shouting "CARGO BAY!"
over the cacophony. The truth was, all the animals quieted down entirely
just before her fifth shouted interlude so she ended up screaming
hoarsely to a silent bay.
Groaning, she rubbed her temple. "Cargo Bay Four," she said, quieter but
no less hoarse. "I'm in the cargo bay. Come do something about this.
I'm a doctor, dammit, not a zoologist!”
“Ah!”
Regina Monkfish entered the cargo bay not long after; her mass of stark
orange-red curls moved like a separate entity behind her.
“You must be the zoologist,” Regina didn’t ask, confidently. At one with
her own loose appreciation of command structure, she snatched the padd
from Vaugn’s hand and scanned it forensically. “The Intogi Fighting
Beavers. Where are they?” Monkfish marched ahead into the space. “And
what is this?”
"How in the hell should I know?!" Andra exclaimed in
exasperation. "I'm the chief medical officer, not a veterinarian. I have
no idea why I was called down here in the first place except for some
loose affiliation between me and these animals in both being directed to
the Lone Star.”
The words penetrated Regina’s ears and while their point was, technically, lost, the most vital of the information was retained.
“Our new doctor! As the ranking medical practitioner our animal contingent is now in your, I am sure, capable
hands. We did ask the scientist once but she – it – had an unfortunate
encounter with a Benzite gull that practically did them both in.”
Monkfish, whose wedding rings now counted nine, glanced over the padd.
“We will need to count the animals in and sign them off together, so
shall we begin? Chief Regina Monkfish, chief of the boat. A pleasure.”
She extended a hand. Fronds of overspilling russety hair leaned forward
with her.
Andra blinked her dark eyes at the woman. "You clearly missed my negative," she said. "I'm not a veterinarian--"
“Do hush,” said Regina, although it was not entirely clear to whom she
was talking. “Tell me, did you oversee the transport of the animals? The
flock of Denobulan parakeets are more sexually agitated than usual.”
This appeared alarming to Monkfish, who tugged at her collar for air,
before circling briskly. She approached a flatter, more oblong box and
pried at its edge. “Do keep up, doctor––EEEEEE!”
Until the scream, Andra had really had no intention of keeping up with
anything, nor following the orders of some insane lady who thought she
was involved in all this.
However, instinct took over at the scream itself and she immediately
rushed around all the big boxes, strange snorts, ghastly grunts, freaky
frolicking, and hangry hoots until she found the woman standing over yet
one more large box. "What is it?!" she demanded, not seeing any obvious
sign of injury although neither could she see in the box just yet.
Regina huffed with excitement, fear and, possibly, the after-effects of
copious quantities of hairspray. Wobbling to one side, she reached for
her satchel, steading herself with an unusually large bottle of
antibacterial spray. She raised it and aimed it toward the glass-fronted
box.
“It – he – death is unsanitary!”
Andraste spared the other woman the barest moment of "are you kidding
me" looks before leaping into action at the...whatever this was before
her. As a doctor, she was rarely without her medical tricorder, so she
unclipped it from her belt and began scanning. After a moment, she
announced, a tad testily, "He's not dead. Calm down."
“Calm!” Regina sprayed the not-cadaver, as if to make a point. “Whether
dead, nearly dead, undead or not quite dead, the closeness to death is
perturbing. Doctor.” The last word was a bare hiss. “Surely, you must appreciate the importance of this.”
But a new phenomenon had begun to overcome Regina Monkfish. Was this her
prince, frozen in time? The tenth and, herons willing, final episode in
her chronology of husbands?
“Tell me,” Monkfish intoned, her voice changing, “that he is alive.”
"He's in a dormant state." After a moment, she saw something else pop up
on the screen. "And he's apparently assigned to the Lone Star. Hence
his presence in the shipment of fauna.”
“Alive!”
Regina’s hand, containing the spray, retreated. She scanned the doctor, and the doctor’s device, with opprobrium.
“If he is of our crew, Lieutenant, you must ensure he is looked after.
The Lone Star is now docked. You must look after him, forthwith! I will
take care of the safety of our animal crew.” Through thinned eyelids,
she seemed to say: ‘in case you won’t’.
"So all we had to do to get you to cover your own duties and leave me
out of it was find a seemingly dead crewmen, noted," Andraste muttered
in a way that really wasn't all that reminiscent of a ship's senior
officer...
Monkfish ignored this last response and raised her head, and hair, haughtily.
“I am Chief of the Boat,” she declared, before moving away to polish a heron.
=/\= End Kerfluffle =/\=
Lieutenant Andraste Vaughn & CPO Regina Monkfish (apb Felix)