When it rains...

Posted on Sat Sep 12th, 2020 @ 2:25am by Lieutenant Avira zh'Kenarh M.D.

Mission: Mission 3 - 100
1820 words - 3.6 OF Standard Post Measure

"Are you kidding me?!" Avira looked around the room, saw that nobody was there to answer her frustrations and then gave a swift, hard, kick to the console. There was a sputter, sounds of mechanical parts seizing up, and then a puff of smoke. "NO! No, no. Why are you doing this to me!" Avi grabbed the console with both hands and let out a guttural groan. With that she stepped away from the console and up to the communication panel on the wall and pressed the button, "Medical bay to Engineering, can you spare someone to fix a console for me? Thank you!"

"Why yes, Medical we can spare as many people as possible... We have nothing else to" there was a loud feedback burst before a yelp was heard. "... we will have someone there in no time." The comm closed and it was a couple minutes before Harper walked into the medical bay with a bag and limped into the room. "I have come to make a deal with you... we both seem to have something broke, needing checked out," Harper spoke as he looked down at the burnt uniform and leg with second degree burn.

Avira had heard the feedback and the shout over the comms and knew someone was going to come in here with some sort of a degree plasma burn. She hated the smell of those. She pointed towards the bed and grabbed the nearby tray she had quickly prepared in the minutes it had took him to make his way over here, "It would've helped if your people would've reported to me what part of you got affected." She stepped in closer to him to help him up on the bed once her had gotten to it, "Are you in pain? On a scale of one to ten, how much does it hurt?"

"Oh its not that bad... just stings like a fraken dickens..." Chris replied as he looked at the medical bay for the equipment needing repaired. "And yeah... I was to worried about coming up here to deal with this to worry about my little scrap. Looks like a little mess in here. Where is everyone?"

"We're experiencing a rather rare bit of peace and quiet. So I gave them some days off. I can manage scrapes and bruises," Avira waved him to come over to the bed in the corner, "before you start on the console, let me have a look at that. Wouldn't want to exacerbate your injuries."

"Well... who am I to question your medical expertise. Besides, you look like ya need something complex to keep your skills sharp," Harper started off with a slight grin as he did as what was asked for him. As he did what was told of him, it didn't take long to find himself under her medical scans.

"What happened?" Nine out of ten times Avira didn't really need to know how the injury came to be, it was simply a way to keep the person occupied while she worked. She was told it also gave the patient a little bit of comfort being able to tell about the incident that had caused the injury. In her previous roles her patients had always been unconscious as she worked on them and she got a professional and succinct summary of her colleagues before she went in and tried to fix it.

"Oh, during the last attack from our special guests, we were under attack and it blew out..." he posed for a moment to bob his head side to side for a second before finally correcting his statement. "... shot a power conduit, which blew up and knocked out some of them before they could enter the engineering. So when I was fixing it, I guess the patch didn't hold as well as I had hoped and had a surge and blew out my patch work while I was talking to you. Nothing major. I promise, i'm not suicidal."

Avira's antennae perked up at the mention of not being suicidal, she hadn't really considered that yet. The situation they were in probably made more than a couple of people on the ship reflect on their lives a bit less optimistically, she made a mental note to check in with the morale officer, "I didn't think you were." She stepped back towards the tray and got a small canister, she knew they were running out of this stuff but she needed to make sure the ship kept running and the Chief Engineer was a rather integral part to that equation, "You'll need to apply this every four hours, I can have the computer set you a reminder if you wish." She knew the biggest failures of medication was usually on the fact that people didn't apply them properly.

"Hey sounds good, thanks!" Chris stated as he looked at the andorian. Well, you are into the color blue, he thought to himself before rolling his eyes at his own thoughts before cleared his throat. "So what kind of damaged items you have for me? I bet you could keep me here for a while, if that is your intentions."

"I will have you back out there, fixing other stuff in no time, no need to worry about that," Avira walked over to the malfunctioning console in the back of the room and pointed at it, "Didn't want to do what I asked it to, and then in a final bout of insolence decided to spit a puff of smoke at me." Her antennae drooped a bit, as she knew that her kicking it might not have helped matters.

"Oh I believe you, purty little lady," Chris smirked as he made his way over to the console and started to tinker with the device's buttons before huffing before grabbing a tool. He grinned as he started to work on opening the panel in the back. Once he got it open, he leaned in unevenly and started to click his tongue. "Yeah, looks like there are some burnt computer chips here that need replaced. Must have been the power fluctuation from the patch we did. It should have been protected by the Sick Bay's surge protectors but then again, it may have just been a feedback loop from a capacitor. Either case, it shouldn't take long," He explained as he started to loose his balance before gripping onto the top of the console. "So, what made ya interested in medicines? I heard Andorians were soldiers. Obviously not like the blood thursty Klingons, but still."

"Where there is a lot of blood flowing, you need people to keep it on the right side of the skin," Avira didn't really want to go into the whole stereotype surrounding her species, even if she rejoined the Guard after retiring because she got restless in a civilian role, "I grew up on a farm. Raised buffalo all my life. Enlisted at seventeen," She conveniently left out the part that her brother was beaten to within an inch of his life by one of her fathers, "they needed someone to pull the others out of the line of fire," again leaving out her interest in doing so due to the selflessness of her brother, "so I went through medical training. Field medicine. After I finished my tours I felt like I should help more people than I harmed, so I enrolled into medical school, using my tours with the Guard to sponsor my entry." She gave a small shrug, "We're a very diverse people, like Humans," she then lifted her chin a bit in a reverse nod, "so how about you, what made you go into the Engineering track?"

"Me?" Harper raised an eye brow but dipped down to start working on the console with his tool by pulling a couple wires out of their connections and worked on the bracket in the way. "I... uh... I was born on a cargo ship. The good part of my parents was that I was always around things that needed fixed and it seemed to come natural to me. Kind of like a puzzle to children. Well we didn't have those, I had components and controls that I got to play with. Got shocked a couple times. Lit myself on fire once or twice." A spark shot out at him and he looked up with just his eyes to share a weak smile before going back to his work.

"My family was lost, and I joined Starfleet..." he explained but left details out. It wasn't something that he really talked about. He had given himself time to get past it, but it still came up from time to time. It was what it was.

The hum of the console's power flow came back up online and the console lit with no fluctuation of the power flow. This caused him to smirk and stand. "Tada!"

"You weren't kidding," Avira was impressed with how fast he had been able to fix the problem in the console, "I promise not to kick it anymore." She felt that he passed over the loss of his family very quickly, and didn't want to pry, "if you ever need anything, then I'd be happy to return the favour. Even if it's just to have someone to talk to."

There was a slight pause between the two as Chris looked at her to try and pick up any other hints but there weren't any. The fact that she seemed to care was not one of those characteristics that he has come to expect from an Andorian, but there were only a couple he had met in person. She was the only one that he had been given the chance to work along side with in a permanent assignment, though. As he nodded to her and collected his tools, he collected his thoughts as well.

"Sounds like a date, doc. I'll take ya up on that some time. For now, if ya need to let off some steam, hit me up as well. I'm happy to listen or beat around. I have this doctor that I work with that can patch me up. Sound fair?"

Avira frowned and her antennae angled forward, trying to parse what had just occurred between the two of them, "Oh. No. Not in that... I mean, you are probably an attractive man, don't get me wrong." She took a deep breath and reasserted herself, "I did not intend to court you"

"If you say so, love!" Harper winked as he gathered his stuff. Once he was ready, he started for the door and waved. He knew all to well that she hadn't but... "... Keep telling yourself. I'll see you around!"

Looking at the Chief leave Avira just stood there, mouth agape, at a loss for what to say to him as the doors closed behind him.

 

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