Loose Ends on Ice
Posted on Tue Nov 28th, 2017 @ 1:02am by Lieutenant Commander Shadi Zatra & Master Warrant Officer Tsabina
652 words; about a 3 minute read
Mission:
S1: These Are The Voyages...
Location: Morgue Quarantine and Decontamination
Timeline: MD 2; 10:30
Shadi pounded against the forcefield, then pulled her fist back with a hiss. It was blackened and singed from repeated pounding.
"I said get me the famine out of here!" Shadi yelled. "This corpse has almost turned into a full Klingon and I might be next!"
Buck naked, though still covered in dried blood on her face, neck, and hands which had been exposed during her kamikaze spearing dive through Samno's body, Shadi had lost all decorum. The first few moments of her quarantine were fine, but the longer she stood next to the dead bodies of her superior and his murderer, the more it began to unsettle her. Samno, or whoever he was, had lost most of his hair with bumps in the disconcerting pattern of Klingon forehead ridges beginning to emerge.
The racket being raised from down in the morgue's quarantine locker was enough to wake the dead, Tsabina thought. Those boys on corpse retrieval were something else. She made her way to the morgue with a wondering curiosity of what she might find.
A naked, frenzied Saurian thumping the force field with a blackened fist still managed to surprise her.
"Hello?" Tsabina asked with a cautious lilt in her voice.
"Finally!" Shadi shouted. "Pleassse get me out of here!"
Tsabina made for the nearby console that contained the readout data for the quarantine alcove. "I'm afraid that I have to ask how you came to be quarantined in the morgue."
"Lieutenant Zark was killed by that... thing... over there, and I killed him right back as is proper," Shadi said, pointing at Samno's body. "Except that now he is turning into a Klingon, and since I'm covered in his blood, I might be next!" Shadi slammed both fists against the force field and shouted, "YOU'VE GOTTA' HELP ME!"
Despite her best efforts, Tsabina failed to bite back her chuckle. "Well, I can assure you that you won't be turning into a Klingon."
"I won't?" Shadi let her claws drop to her side, though she wasn't fully convinced. "But Officer Samno--"
Tsabina had uploaded the readout data from the console to a PADD which she offered to Shadi through the sanitation filter. "--was already a Klingon. Or, at least, a Klingon had impersonated him, perhaps for some time."
"They can do that?" Shadi gasped. She snatched the PADD in her claw and read it with vigorous interest. After a moment's hissing from silent reading, she tossed the PADD aside and fell to her knees. "Oh tasty goddess, I am not going to turn into a Klingon!"
With Shadi's melodramatic display of relief, Tsabina let her smile broaden. "Let's get you out of there and into Decontamination. I'm sure after a sonic shower and a fresh uniform you'll feel as right as rain."
Shadi looked down at herself as if realizing for the first time that she had shed her garments once more. "That does ssssound good," she admitted shyly.
"You should know," Tsabina said teasingly, "seeing as how you went through Decon yesterday."
If Saurians could blush, Shadi would have done so. Her head shifted coyly to one side. "Yes, yes... I did get a little messy when crawling through the damaged Jefferies tube."
"Mmm," Tsabina hummed as she looked Shadi up and down. "Lucky tube," she said with a wink. "See you next time."
Shadi blinked repeatedly. "Next... time?"
"If there's one thing I've learned about a Starfleet Sickbay," Tsabina said as she released Shadi from quarantine, "is that there is always a next time."
As Tsabina left Shadi to her privacy, Shadi made her way to the sonic shower head in the decon area. The cleansing feeling of being rid of the blood caked over her face gave her a moment to consider Tsabina's parting words. By the time she was finished, Shadi decided they made no sense.
"'Lucky tube'?" Shadi hissed. "Starving crazy warm-blood."