Make it make sense

Posted on Tue Apr 5th, 2022 @ 5:17am by Lieutenant Avira zh'Kenarh M.D. & Lieutenant JG Cristóbal Santana

Mission: Mission 5 - Babel
Location: Sickbay, Deck E
635 words - 1.3 OF Standard Post Measure

"What I need is someone that can actually understand what I'm saying" Avira muttered to herself as she stepped away from the nurse in frustration. All of the medical devices were set to a language apparently nobody understood anymore, and it was impossible to communicate to any of her staff because none of them actually spoke Vulcan or Andorian. If something happened to the ship that would cause a medical emergency they'd be up the frozen river without an icebreaker.

With the last small cut healed she slumped back in her chair behind her desk and out of habit picked up one of the medical texts. Absolutely useless, as it was in the gibberish language. She lobbed it back on the pile and sighed loudly. "Anyone care to get me an Ale?" She looked around, her people looking at her in a bit of confusion. She waved them off with her hand, indicating it wasn't important. Her antennae curled up tightly in frustration.

Cris had been making his rounds the past hour with the clear intention of adjusting the computers in the most vital parts of the ship so they would be readable by as many people in that section as possible. It hadn’t been a simple task at all, as first he had to determine what other languages everyone spoke. Now he made his way to Sickbay, his arms swinging comfortably at his side.

“Lottie” He said, acknowledging the nearby nurse he had always found interesting with his boyish charm. He then moved toward the doctor, offering her a handsome grin which seemed to know her predicament. He spoke to her in fluent Andorian. “You too, Doc?”

Avira redirected her gaze from staring up at the ceiling towards the person that had just walked in and talked to her in her native language. "Finally someone that makes sense. What can I help you with, Lieutenant?"

“I’m actually here to help you.” He said to the doctor in Spanish-accented Andorian. “I’m here to adjust your displays to a language you can read.”

The tightly coiled antennae uncoiled, "Really?" She got up from her seat and walked up to the monitor next to the nearest biobed, "Does that work?" She didn't have the faintest idea of where to look for the setting with all the Standard being replaced with gibberish.

"Yes, it's just like any computer," he said with a nod, moving toward her. "The real question is, what languages work best for your staff?"

Avira had to think on that for a moment. "I honestly don't know. I can't talk to any of them, none of them speak Andorian. But without the information in a language, I understand there's no way I can do my job." It felt arrogant and selfish to want the computers to display in Andorian but it seemed like the most helpful thing to do in the moment.

"How about one console in Andorian, one in Vulcan, and the rest in various other human languages?" He asked with a questioning grin. "People are bound to be able to read one of them if they can read anything at all."

Avira nodded slowly, just having one console in her own language would already help tremendously. "Let's do it. Set it up for us. Do you need anything from me?"

The comms officer immediately went to work, making short work of the language settings around the sickbay. It was clear that he had been doing this all morning and before they knew it the consoles were set to languages the medical staff was able to make sense of. With a lot more decks and departments to go Santana was gone before Avira had a chance to thank him for making her life a lot more manageable.