Let's Steal Drugs!

Posted on Sat May 29th, 2021 @ 6:56am by Ensign Elegy Nascimento & Lieutenant Avira zh'Kenarh M.D. & Petty Officer, 3rd Class Lottie Daglish

Mission: Mission 4 - Eden
Location: The Caelestis - Corridors
Timeline: Day 165 - 11:40 hours
2228 words - 4.5 OF Standard Post Measure

The away team slowed their march as they reached an intersection between three corridors. Ensign Elegy Nascimento squinted in the direction of two of the corridors and then tilted his head down to review the hand-scanner in his palm. As he studied the digital schematics on the scanner's display, he frowned and shook his head. Looking up again, he struggled to orient himself, trying to translate the 2D map into his 3D view. Breathing out a sigh, he gave up for a moment, and he looked to Avira zh'Kenarh. "How did you like that last song I sent you?" he asked, referring to the sheet music he'd suggested she look up in Atlantis' cultural database.

"Still getting a little used to the Terran registration of musical notes," Avira didn't want to admit that she had spent most of the time trying to figure out what exactly an F-minor note was. She simply followed along with Elegy trying to figure out where these people were stashing their medical supplies.

Lottie stayed quiet she was hating the ship more and more. It was like a never ending horror film especially now that they knew someone else was onboard that was not the AI. “So what do we do if we run into the figures Darru and O’Connery saw?” She asked keeping her voice lower.

Avira lifted the Andorian plasma rifle that she was holding to show to Lottie, "Don't worry, I've got your back." She held it at the ready but in a non-threatening way, aimed at the floor. She looked back towards Elegy, "any luck yet on that medical supplies closet?"

Replying to them both, Elegy said, "Perhaps," and he elongated the vowels to lovingly suggest a different approach, "If we come across any unfamiliar crew members aboard this ship, Lieutenant, we can engage them in a dialogue. Maybe ask them where to find the medical supplies..." Raising his scanner again, Elegy tapped the controls to adjust the sensor settings. Squinting down one of the corridors in particular, Elegy said, "The clues we've been noting from E.D.E.N. --and scrolling through the alien script on the computer panel-- have suggested the supplies are stored in one of the compartments on this corridor." In a burst, Elegy broke out into a stride down that corridor and raised a finger at one door in particular. "The scanner is sniffing out chemicals in that room," he said.

Lottie hated that she was on that ship with the doctor and scientist. Neither time that she’d been with them previously had ended with her being less than a ball of stress and needing a stiff drink. She followed, not encouraging her fellow human with his teasing any longer, her hand on her weapon that she had refused to come to the ship without him and stopped outside of a compartment that the science officer was sure that held everything that they would need.

Chemicals and medicine weren't always the same thing, Avira's antennae twitched trying to stay alert about her surroundings as she raised her weapon slightly, "Let's just hope it's not just a broom closet with cleaning agents." She took up a position that would allow her to use the doorway as cover and still sneak a peek inside herself before anyone from inside would be able to get a shot in on them, "open her up."

“We deserve some luck. One there. One... two... three.” Lottie pressed the door release and watched as the door inched open. Of all the doors to be slow as molasses it had to be that one when they wanted to see what was inside.

Avira stood with her back against the bulkhead as the door slid open excruciatingly slow, she held her weapon at the ready to react to anything that might be happening inside. Her antennae subconsciously scanned the newly opened room to detect any movement that might be happening inside.

"It, you know, could be pharmaceutical storage," Elegy remarked hopefully about the shelving units filled with transparent tubes of liquids in varying colours and viscosity. He stepped into the compartment with somewhat less caution than Avira had been demonstrating. A little less hopefully, he said, "It could be cleaning supplies." Elegy frowned back to his away teammates, but then his expression brightened as he said, "...Or even a store room for the ship's bar. That... that wouldn't be a bad alternative."

"I vote for a storeroom for ships bar," Lottie muttered as she started to scan the shelves. She was disappointed they had not found anything like that. Finding something like booze would have boosted morale. Nothing like getting absolutely wasted for lower deckers and partying. She smiled to herself, maybe that would be something she needed to explore more. The silence in the room was deafening as they worked away. "No friggin way," Lottie muttered holding up a vial to the pair. "This is a quinolone class... um, a broad-spectrum bacteriocidal. This is like a basic compound of antibiotics on earth. My father was a pharmacist, he was very disappointed I became a nurse instead of following him." She shrugged holding it out to them.

Elegy couldn't help himself. He hopped on the spot and let out an excited "whoop" of discovery. This could provide an absolutely massive win towards the longevity of the crew, given they were so far away from any Starfleet facility or depot. Elegy clapped a hand against the back of his hand-scanner and he declared, "We just hit the jackpot!" Lowering his hands to his side, he thumbed at a couple of toggles on the scanner without looking at what he was doing. He activated a pre-programmed sensor sequence to search for bacteriophages, from his own personal shopping list.

"Acetylsalicylic acid," Avira seemed very pleased with what she had just pulled off the shelf herself. She showed the canister to the rest of them, "painkillers." The rest of the sentiment from Lottie came across a bit late because she couldn't quite place one of the things she had mentioned, "Who's Jack Pot?" She didn't remember that particular idion from her English lessons, at least she hoped it was an idiom and not some poor crewman that lost a bet or something.

"Uhhh... Lieutenant Jack Pot, back at STC," Elegy lied, his tongue planted firmly in cheek. He glanced back at Avira over his shoulder, but only for a moment. Otherwise, Elegy couldn't keep his eyes off the rows and rows of pharmaceuticals. He raised his hand-scanner, running searches for the items on Avira's wishlist, as well as the wishlist of his own. "He's an excellent gambler," Elegy added; "No matter what he plays, he always wins."

"So I guess today is a bit of a win?" Lottie asked as she put the vial back gently and moved back to let the professionals get a better look at stuff as she looked elsewhere.

"Bit of a win is an understatement," Elegy enthused. He looked up from the display on his scanner and narrowed his eyes on another shelf of vials in particular. "This is saving lives. Saving lives for... another year, maybe three," Elegy said. As he said the words, he sounded incredulous, but he said them anyway. He believed them enough to say them out loud: "Maybe we can do this? Maybe we can survive long enough to make it home?"

Lottie smirked at the man and nodded. She has been 99% sure they were going to be able to do it but this confirmed it beyond doubt. “Course we can survive.” She was not going to give up just get when something bigger than themselves kept pulling them back from the edge of disaster.

Because he didn't want to see their reactions to his words, Elegy kept his eyes on down. He locked his gaze on his hand-scanner, searching for a chemical substance that might resemble a bacteriophage. "I... uh... don't know if... I believe it before now," Elegy said. By the way, his voice went up at the end, he tried to pass off his admission as a flippant thought. Scanning another shelf, he went on with, "We lost so much, so quickly. I thought we'd be in trouble if we couldn't catch our breath, like this."

"We shall persevere, humans have shown a tremendous amount of resilience and ingenuity over the past few years," Avira reassured the two others in the room. It was also a bit of reassurance to herself. She remembered a mantra from her survival training in the Andorian guard, overcome, because what's the alternative?, that was perhaps a bit too bleak for what appeared to be fairly optimistic people. She remembered something similar, but less morbid, from the introductory course at Starfleet, "We Improvise. Adapt. Overcome."

"Marine Corps motto." Lottie giggled just a little. "Marines are taught to be able to overcome any obstacle, which serves them well in the chaos of combat." She knew many marines and they really did train their brains to fight against disappointments and difficulties. It was most likely why they were coping better than every other department on the ship.

"Life and Combat are not so different, both can be chaotic, and inevitably good friends die." There was the morbid Andorian cold-heartedness shining through again, "we do what we can to avoid that, of course. And if it does happen those left behind are going to have to make sure it has not been in vain."

Nodding gently through Avira's sermon, Elegy spoke softly when he said, "You're right. I can see how that would be so. And we're no strangers to loss." --The Science and Medical departments had both lost many of its crew since Atlantis first launched-- "What would be enough...? What would we have to do to ensure the memories of our lost comrades are well-served?"

Lottie grew quiet thinking on the wall up near the bridge. Maybe there was some way to move it from where it was to somewhere where everyone passed every day. "I think surviving is enough to ensure their memory but maybe that is something we need to think on the memorial wall maybe needs to be moved." She offered as a suggestion if he really wanted it.

"We work under the shadow of death in the science lab," Elegy remarked at a deadpan. "Which his to say, we have a second memorial wall: some mission patches and the pet rock." To hold back the wave of emotions that threatened to overwhelm him, Elegy raised his hand scanner and continued his search of the pharmaceuticals. He was wearing a satchel --to bring items back to Atlantis for cultural study-- but it would serve just as well to smuggle drugs back to Sickbay. "You're right, we should merge them together. Maybe relocate the memorial somewhere central... That would honour their memory..."

"Survive and thrive," Avira gave another boilerplate answer to a very deep personal question. It helped her create a distance, which in turn helped if either of them ever ended up on her operating table, "make sure you leave the universe a slightly better place than when you entered it."

"Oh I am going to more than thrive out here," Lottie assured. She had big dreams and even better plans. "None of you are getting rid of me." She declared softly.

Elegy's hand-scanner started to ping at him and he turned off the notification. Raising the scanner to the level of his eyes, the readings on the display confirmed it had found a bacteriophage unlike any that had been created by United Earth, Vulcan or Andorian science. It held the potential --if not the certainty-- of curing infections, much like the chronic Rushton infection that plagued Elegy's husband, Paulo. Elegy snatched up three of them and tucked them in his satchel.

Avira was going through the available supplies and had dropped any pretence of making careful considerations, sure there was limited room for them to store all of this, but their stores were nearly depleted and she'd give up most of her own living space to be able to haul all of this with them. Even those things that she wasn't readily able to identify or find a purpose for found its way into the rather hefty duffel bag she had dragged along for the occasion. Every so often she looked over a the others, making sure they were all still present and accounted for.

Lottie grinned at the pair hanging back a little to let them have more space to work as she kept watch. Some people might not believe the rumours of someone being onboard but she did and no one should be complacent in keeping watch. "So this stuff shall we get it back to the ship and one of you can declare our victories to the Captain?"

"Our Chief Medical Officer should have that honour," Elegy insisted.

Avira looked back at the two and frowned slightly, "well, I'm more than happy to report on our findings in my briefing with the Commander, but I don't see how that would grant me honour over the two of you. We've all had an equal part in this discovery."