How Are My Little Robots Today?

Posted on Fri Mar 5th, 2021 @ 11:27pm by Lieutenant Commander Mara Ricci

Mission: S0E0: What Came Before
Location: Sick Bay

True to her word, Mara presented herself in Sick Bay to have the arm checked. The glowing had been cool, but Ingram was right; she should have had it checked a week ago. But, at least she was here now. The only thing that remained was to find a doctor.

"And you need to actually take these tablets this time..." Murray was telling a young man with curly hair who looked as if he'd seen a ghost. "After you eat, and with a glass of water. Don't worry," he added, calmly. "It'll even you out."

"But..."

"Ssssh," he said, pressing the old school bottle of little green tablets into a sweaty palm. "Just trust me, okay?"

There followed a nod and the youth swiftly shuffled out of the way, leaving Mara as an obvious 'next in line' to be seen. Murray took a moment to exhale softly at the ceiling, aching for the dirty chaos of a Rish ship moving through space and time. It had been too long, stuck here, playing the kind medic, but needs must and all that gibberish, loyalties were important, he supposed. At least this one was. Debts needed to be repaid.

Murky green eyes regarded honey-brown and hazel as the curvaceous figure of the Chief Engineer stepped into the infirmary. Murray smiled, and waved as if he'd seen a long-lost friend.

"How's the arm, Commander?" He asked, as he beckoned Mara in his direction.

Mara grinned at the young officer as he left, but she didn’t think he saw her. No matter. She turned her attention to Dr. Jacobs. “It’s great,” she replied. “I was supposed to come a week ago for a check up on the nanobots, but I completely forgot. I remember when Ingram pointed out that my arm was glowing under the strange lights in the Xylosian area and we decided it was probably the nanos. But I thought I should have you check anyway. Just in case.”

"Xylosian area?" Murray queried with a raised eyebrow. He clearly wasn't up on current events, but then as ACMO he wasn't exactly fully in the clique here either. "Your arm was glowing?"

“Yeah, the native inhabitants of one of the worlds we took on because the Concordance ravaged their world,” Mara explained. “Anyway they life on the station and have these weird lights. They remind me of black lights. Ingram’s teeth were glowing, too. Or as he calls it, fluorescing. And right here, right at the connector,” she explained, indicating the bit of flesh just above the silver ring that marked where real flesh ended and artificial began, “it was sort of doing the same thing. I thought the lights might have been picking up the nanobots in my blood stream.”

"Ah, gotcha." That would be one of those areas he'd been encouraged to stay away from. CMO territory. Murray couldn't really blame Ingram on that front, man was wise. "Let's have a look at your arm then," he said to Mara, with friendly concerned medic voice as he scanned the Commander's arm. "Hmm," noted Murray as he regarded the results, turning the screen so that Mara could see. "Well, would ya look at that..."

Mara looked at the results, but as she wasn’t a doctor, couldn’t be absolutely sure of what she was seeing. “That means they’re working, right?” she asked.

"Sure," said Murray, sounding as certain as he could be in the circumstances. This was, after all, his first up close and personal experience of the tiny little bots. Mara seemed to be alive, unharmed and the same as she had been since they'd first met, so he assumed all was peachy. "Yup," he confirmed. "Means they're working just fine, Commander." He shifted his gaze subtly from Mara's eyes to the screen again. "Wiggle your fingers for me, please," he added.

Mara grinned at his enthusiasm and complied by wiggling her fingers. “You did mean the prosthetic, right?” she asked, partly unsure.

"You can wiggle the other hand's fingers if you want," Murray teased amiably. "But yeah only wiggling the prosthetic one will help me with this test." He watched the display closely and nodded firmly. "Yup, that looks normal. What does it feel like?" He asked then. "I mean really, can you feel their presence in there, has it made any obvious difference?"

This brought another grin to Mara’s face as she wiggled the real fingers at him for half a moment. “It seems to have,” she replied. “I mean, the itchiness and swelling hasn’t come back, so I’d say that’s progress.”

Murray made some observational notes on the file and added a couple of images to that record for future reference and comparison. Mara certainly seemed in good spirits, and there was no sign of anything bad going on in there. "Looks absolutely fine to me," he confirmed, focusing his attention back on the woman beside him. "No issues with the prosthetic and all your vitals are on point. Seems you just got a cool insight into the lil bots hiding out in there, then? No reason for any concern that I can see," the Rish medic announced. "You're free to go, Commander."

For reasons she could not fathom in the slightest, this disappointed her. Did she want something to be wrong? Of course not. But, she had been enjoying the Doctor's company. It struck her that she had always enjoyed her visits to Sick Bay when Dr. Jacobs was in attendance. He was easy to talk to. "Okay," she sighed almost reluctantly. "See you again next week? As long as I remember, that is," she added with a grin.

Ricci paused as if considering something she wanted to... ask? Murray wasn't sure, but he patiently observed Ingram's Chief Engineer while she processed internally and caught a slight edge to her tone that raised another question. "If there's something else you need to talk about," he offered in the manner of medics everywhere seeking information they were either never going to get, or were destined to be overburdened with. "It's okay, I'm gonna be around. I'll listen. I guarantee I'll have heard worse." Then she grinned, and Murray let it go.

"Next week it is then," he confirmed with a smile and nod, before his more formal closure. "Be safe out there, Commander."

“Thanks, Doc,” Mara replied with a grin. “You, too.” With that, she turned to head out of Sick Bay. At least she knew everything was as expected.

And she kinda wanted to go back down to that cafe and see her arm glowing again. Maybe have some more Capies. Then a thought occurred to her and she turned back. “You’ve never met the Xilosians,” she said, half as a question. “I don’t suppose you’d like to? And then you could see my arm glowing for yourself.”

Murray put down the coffee mug he'd just picked up and turned back to face Mara. "That sounds great, thank you," said the Rish Medic, injecting genuine enthusiasm into those words with consumate ease. "I'd like that very much," he added. "Whenever you're free for the tour, Commander, just give me a heads-up." That, he thought behind his happy smile, was unexpected. And a lot easier than he'd thought.

“Absolutely,” replied Mara with another radiant grin. “Thanks again, doc.” And she wiggled the fingers on both hands at him with an impish grin before turning to actually leave this time.

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