Buy You Dinner?

Posted on Wed 11th Apr, 2018 @ 9:47pm by Lieutenant Commander Lanis Dhuro MD

1,021 words; about a 5 minute read

Mission: Brushfires
Location: Infirmary/Morgue
Timeline: End of workday, the date Samurai arrives.

"I'm not seeing any more patients today," Lanis promised Nurse Longworth a couple of hours after he should have gone off duty.

Longworth snorted and made a shooing motion with his hands. "Then why are you still here, talking to me? Go, before you get ensnared again."

"I thought I'd see Chlamydia before I leave. is she still in?"

"No idea," Longworth said. "I've been too busy to check her office. Besides, if she isn't there, she might still be in the morgue."

"I wouldn't be surprised," Lanis said. He walked over to Chlamydia's office door and knocked.

The only answer was a hand appearing on the door jamb, its long fingers moving like the legs of the spider it was registered as. It paused, and raised one finger away from the bulkhead, pointing significantly in the direction of the morgue.

Lanis cocked his head at Thing. "You know, Thing, someday, you and I are going to have to sit down with a couple of beers or whatever you prefer to drink, and discuss where your eyes and ears are--because you clearly have them, even if I can't see them. Anyway, I was going to invite Chlamydia and you out to dinner, if either of you are up to it, just as a way to relax."

When he'd first arrived, Lanis recalled, he would have felt silly, talking to a disembodied hand. Now? Not at all. Thing had too much personality for him to feel that he was talking to anything but another person.

Thing did a couple of push-ups on its fingertips by way of warning, then lept to Dhuro's shoulder, where it settled in comfortably, its thumb behind his neck. It waited a moment, then pointed again in the direction of the morgue.

"I guess you're hungry," Lanis said after he took a moment to get used to the sensation of a hand draped around his neck. He headed to the morgue and tapped his combadge as he walked. "Dhuro to Addams. Your swain and I on our way to you. Feel like dinner?"

"In the morgue," Addams answered. "Seeing my last patients of the day. Join me quietly?"

"Certainly," Lanis replied. "Dhuro out." He made his way to the morgue. "It's going to be cold in there," Lanis warned Thing just before he paused at the entrance and keyed in his access code. Entree to the morgue was limited to only those people who had either the authority or the direct need to access the area.

The doors slid open, and Lanis stepped inside, heeding Chlamydia's request to avoid unnecessary noise. Ever since he had known her, she had had a particular respect for the dead, and he in turn respected that. He had seen enough death to appreciate someone who treated the dead with the consideration they deserved.

Within the morgue were more living people than expected. A group of young women in a garment halfway between kimono and ao dai stood near one of the tables. Four of them shared the same face, the same white hair. They'd shaved their heads, and now had no more than a day or two worth of stubble. The fifth had a bandage covering the right side of her face, but what was visible looked identical to her sisters.

"This is what the Graves Registration crew found," Chlamydia was saying to them. "Are you prepared?"

The girl with the bandaged face nodded firmly; the others, somewhat uncertainly. Addams zipped open the black body bag. "The molecular disruptor pierced through the ship," she said. "It does not seem to have struck your sister. The majority of her wounds appear to have been caused by splinters... debris created by the weapon and given kinetic energy by the sudden change in atmospheric pressure."

"Did..." one of the young women asked, and then shook her head, turning to bury her face in another's shoulder. The girl with the bandaged face followed through on the thought. "Did she suffer?"

Addams shook her head. "I doubt it. The evidence I see suggests that she died instantly. She very likely didn't even know her life had ended."

The girls nodded. One of them said, "Thank you, Doctor. Do you mind giving us a moment with our sisters?"

Addams nodded in her turn, and walked away from the mourning group, coming to stand by Dhuro. She smiled at the sight of Thing on his shoulder, but made no move to take the spider back.

"Shall we give them some privacy?" Lanis asked in a low voice.

Addams nodded, stepping outside the door before saying anything else. "A Besm sibling group," she explained. "They lost half of themselves, but only two bodies were recoverable."

Lanis winced. "Holy Prophets..." He sighed. "That ship took a hard hit, judging by the injuries I saw. Any idea what attacked them? I operated on quite a few patients with disruptor burns."

"Multiple hard hits," Chlamydia answered, taking Lanis' elbow and falling into step beside him. "According to February -- that's the helm officer with the bandages -- the first hit came when their shields were down. Apparently, there were a late model Lyran battlecruiser and two antique Romulan light cruisers, all outfitted with latest-generation cloaking technology."

"So not official military craft, by any means," Lanis commented. "That's a problem. And we're a significant target."

Chlamydia made a non-committal sound as the pair stopped in front of turbolift doors. "We're a very big target with many, many guns. I doubt we, directly, have anything to worry about. But shipping in this area... if the Lyrans are backing raiders...."

"That could have implications for the economy of this station and surrounding space," Lanis said. "What percentage of products sold in the Promenade and the Riverwalk would you say are replicated, and what percentage are original merchandise, brought in from off-station? Even if raiders don't shoot us, they can still hurt us."

Chlamydia shook her head. The only response she gave was, "So. Dinner. Are you in the mood for fish?"

"I'll eat just about anything that doesn't eat me first," Lanis said. "Lead on."

---

 

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