Familiar Faces

Posted on Wednesday 10 August 2016 @ 20:20 by Lieutenant JG Zitla & Commander Caroline Miller
Edited on on Wednesday 10 August 2016 @ 20:45

Mission: Old, New Ship
Location: Level 7 - Science Lab to Sickbay
Timeline: Backpost - prior to arrival at Hayes
1423 words - 2.8 OF Standard Post Measure

ON:

Zitla groaned as a bite of pain lanced its way up her spine and right into the middle of her shoulder blade. She might be a scientist, but the Bolian was no lab rat – well, she hadn’t been until she’d found the time as the ship made its way to the Hayes asteroid field, to put some time into analysing a particular sample she’d had on ice for several months.

Uncharacteristically she’d spent all that time alone in the lab, and finally her body was complaining, either about her lack of company or poor posture. Either way it amounted to the same thing.

Still seated she rolled her shoulders but that just seemed to compound the issue. ZItla hissed through her teeth as she stood. It was time to go in search of aid!

Conveniently like the lab Zitla currently occupied, the primary sickbay was also located on level seven so it was only a matter of minutes before the doors whoosed open in front of her and she stepped in.

“Hello,” she said cheerfully, “anyone home?”

"Yes of course," the blond doctor said walking towards the blue alien. "Dr Caroline Miller. What can I do for you?"
She looked to be slightly stooped, like she had been leaning over something for way too long.

Zitla smiled at the doctor. She looked vaguely familiar. "I've managed to get a bit of a crick," she said placing her right hand on her left shoulder to indicate, "I guess its my own fault for spending too much time at the desk. I thought I'd better get it sorted rather than leave it till later. I'm Zitla," she added extending her hand to the doctor.

"Zitla," she rolled the name round in her mouth. She had heard that name before. Now she thought about it this bolian looked mighty familiar. Then it hit her, "We competed against each other in one of the summer swimming championships at the academy. I remember you now. You completely left me for dust in the freestyle race. Well Lieutenant now you are on board you are going to have to let me have a rematch there," the blond doctor said with a grin.

For a moment Zitla's cheeks darkened into a deeper shade of blue, then she grinned as she realised where she knew the doctor from. "Promise not to hurt me then," she said. "You were captain of the team then - it must have hurt at the time but it wasn't personal. If you'd like to, it would be brilliant to swim against a talented opponent, I've got pool and sea programmes for the holodeck!"

In her enthusiasm, Zitla had forgotten her shoulder entirely, "I didn't compete the year after and you came out on top, not that it means I'd have won," Zitla continued raising her left arm to clap Caroline on the back in belated congrulation --

"EEack!" she said, "There's something not right back there, Caroline."

"Your right," Caroline agreed scanning her. You have some inflammation. You have pulled some muscle and one of your ligaments. I am going to guess you have been spending far too much time in the wrong position without any proper breaks. I am going to give you an inflammatory. It can cause some nausea on an empty stomach, so I am also suggesting you have a cup of tea with me and a biscuit. Got to get you fighting fit for any rematch ehh!" She watched with amusement as the blue alien processed what she had just said.

"And don't worry about it. You winning just motivated me to up my game. Hey do you remember Coach Ramone? I assume you had one on one training with him too? Wasn't he dreamy?" she reminisced as she loaded a hypo spray.

Zitla grinned, "Only if you're the sort of gal who likes a toned stomach and a pair of arms that could wrestle a river lizard (a Bolian species I've just made up - for some reason she's developed an australian accent when I'm writing her! Lol), oh and to be fair he was a bit of a looker too," she added, "Are you just into pools or do you take open water too? I've a few great holoprograms that I'm dieing to get my feet into."

"I have a few programmes where I swim around an island and in some of the glens with waterfalls. The pools great for working up stamina and training but sometimes you just want to loose yourself. Neck please," she asked. Pressing the hypo spray to her skin there was a loud hiss. "Now sit." Caroline walked to the replicator. "White tea and .... ?"

She thought about that for a quite short moment, "Do you think it can make a decent bitter chocolate moose?" It wasn't to everyone's taste but made with 99% chocolate Zitla found the confection utterly divine. "Islands sound brill," she added.

Caroline was well aware of Bolian's taste senses being a higher spectrum to humans. "Ah a love of chocolate too. Lieutenant we will get on just fine. Computer. Bitterest chocolate moose you can produce please," she told it. The treat materialised and Caoline handed it to her.

"Awesome," she said, accepting the glass ramekin with glee. She dug the spoon in and tasted it. "That's really not bad, I might try it later with just a touch of chilli too."

"How do you like the ship? Are you acclimatising?" she asked taking a sip from her tea.

"I've not seen a lot of it yet," Zitla admitted rather sheepishly, "Other than the corridor between my quarters and the lab anyway. I had a bit of leave to use up but rather than have to chase the Merlin down in a shuttle I joined before leaving spacedock and decided to spent a bit of time on a personal project I'd not had time to get round to. What about yourself? I guess you get to meet just about everyone in a really short period."

Caroline nodded. "The problem is remembering everyone's name. You know that whole trick of repeat it back to yourself three times over and you have got it? Well it doesn't work with the amount of people who come through here. Can I ask about the project? Are you making headway?"

Zitla didn't really have any techniques for improving that - perhaps growing up in a very extended family made it easy for her, though she couldn't honestly say that she'd remember all the names of strangers so easily. "I took some samples while I was working on the Galea Colony pre-colonisiation project - there was nothing way out of the ordinary about them, well within norms but the mineral balance seemed a little off to me. Its nothing urgent but I'm just curious to get to the bottom of it - content that only appeared in a very specific region of the surface."

How's that feeling now? Has the anti inflammatory taken affect?"

She rolled her shoulder a little and feeling no wince, smiled. "A lot better. I need to spend a bit more time stretching," she said.

"I can give you a programme for that if you like," Caroline said. She brought one up detailing several exercises and stretches for arms and shoulders. "Here, I'll send it to you. Make sure you take more breaks. Get up, walk about. I know its hard when you have something of a mystery on your hands with your samples but your upper body will thank you for it."

"Thanks, I totally agree," Zitla said, "Its my own fault for not building enough breaks into my day. At least it will give anyone else in the lab a laugh when I take a break to do this. Hey, when do you reckon you'll have time to take a dip? I can book out a holodeck for an hour ."

"Barring any away missions and medical emergencies lets try for Thursday? I'm on Alpha shift so afterwards? Does that work for you?" Caroline asked.

"Sounds perfect," Zitla grinned, she'd never do it deliberately but she reasoned there was a very good chance that she might get her arse handed to her on Thursday if that *rematch* came about. She got to her feet, "I'll get out of your hair for now, and I'll do the exercises. Promise."

Caroline nodded. "Good luck with the project."

OFF:

Dr Caroline Miller
CMO, Uss Merlin

Lieutnenant JG Zitla
Asst Chief Science Officer