A Leg Up
Posted on Wed May 30th, 2018 @ 9:39pm by Lieutenant Commander Shadi Zatra
1,148 words; about a 6 minute read
Mission:
S1:3: Myriad Problems
Location: Sickbay
Timeline: MD 1 (pre-briefing)
"Ss, ss, *pop*, ss, ss, *pop*, phhhhbt th-z, *pop*, ss, ss, *pop*..."
Syncopated hissing and snapping noises reverberated from one end of Shadi's medbay to the other. The pain of her injury, once agonizing, had settled into a dull ache. Shadi had never utilized painkillers before, as they were for weaker creatures bred not for combat.
Shadi was an Ops technician, though, and had sustained her dismemberment in the course of her work shift. Technicians were allowed painkillers.
And with her head clear from the pain of losing her leg, Shadi was free to hear the rhythm of her four heartbeats. Never before had she noticed how catchy her tasty pulse truly was. She could not help but click her mouth to the beat in total obliviousness of everyone and everything else around her.
The hissing and snapping was... odd, at least to Rena. The clicking her patient started making created a strange sort of harmony with the noises coming from her leg. So far, Shadi seemed... not as panicked as most would when losing a limb. Actually, not panicked at all. Rena, standing just outside the cubicle, went over her medical file and the notes from her injury again. She had gotten the affected areas cleaned and sanitized, and after a short dispute over the use of painkillers, she was able to convince her crewmate to take it.
By convince, she meant Doctor's orders.
Deciding that Shadi was freaking out the nurse on-call with her clicks, Rena knocked on the side of the cubicle wall and poked her head in. "How are you doing, Shadi?" she asked. The nurse, seeing that Rena was there, handed her additional notes and mouthed a 'thank you' before leaving.
"Fan-starving-tastic!" Shadi shouted far too loudly. "Whatever you did finally scratched that burning itch." She looked down at her stub. "I hope that hellbeast choked on it!"
Her rising pulse set an entirely different beat in Shadi's ear, which sent her onto new rhythm.
"Ch, pbt, ss, ch... ch, pbt, ss, ch..." She started drumming her remaining leg with both hands and shook her head with vigorous abandon. "Shoo-doo-ba-da-doo-sh-ch-shoo-doo!"
Surprised was an understatement. "Uh... glad to hear it..." Rena took a moment to look over the new notes, realizing that that nurse put up with this too. The only thing that's been injected into Shadi's system was the painkiller, and with her biology... great, she unintentionally made her patient high as a kite. "So, I can ask Lt. Zhuri to work with you on making a prosthetic leg. If he is busy, I'm confident he will get someone just as capable. If not, he will get an earful from me." The Trill looked at the overly happy patient on the biobed. "I hate to bring the mood down, but after you get a prosthetic, I'm going to prescribe you physical therapy to help you get used to using it."
"I hope it's adjustable," Shadi said, still drumming a beat on her thigh, "otherwise I'll need a new one as soon as my leg starts growing back."
"Wait..." Clearly there was still a lot more to learn about Shadi's species, because that wasn't in her file. Then again, if she hadn't lost limbs before, or simply neglected to mention it in the paperwork, then it easily would have been left out. But regardless, Rena was... well, if she could be more surprised, this was it. "... you can regrow your limbs?"
"The Ragolar clan didn't rise to supremacy on good looks alone," Shadi said as if that should have been obvious. As she swelled with pride, she got up off the biobed, tubes and monitor wires popping off with every movement. She raised her talon to the ceiling and the Goddess beyond in hallowed song:
"With a strong and mighty talon's girth,
carried by glorious afterbirth,
the young claw of our brood
shall take all our foes for food,
and never --"
Shadi lost her balance on her single leg and tumbled onto the floor. "Pangs! I was just getting to the good part!
Rena jumped to action, failing to catch Shadi but helping her back up. "Well, that does make things easier when it comes to treating you. However, it does increase the frequency of your follow-ups, so we can make sure the prostgetic is adjusted properly." She helped Shadi get back onto the bed. "Now please, the last thing we need is you getting more banged up."
"More like panged up!" Shadi grabbed her belly and convulsed with hissing laughter.
With a roll of her eyes, Rena called the nurse to bring in the prosthetic. The young man who nervously walked out came back in with... a rather humanoid-looking leg. "It's a skeleton and can be adapted to match your skin tone, so you won't even be able to tell the difference. It's a simple adjustment so it adapts as your leg regrows, but, uh... what do you think?"
"No!" Shadi howled. "The Ragolar Warrior Code demands that I use a bone peg filed from the thigh of a large mammal, broken into segments with each growth spurt, that I might enshrine my new limb with the remains of another."
Looking the shiny new prosthetic over, though, and pictured it covered with her scales. "But... maybe timesss change." She turned to face Rena, her eyes wide and sorrowful. "I want to be more than a Warrior, Doctor Kal. It's time that I stop acting like one, and that starts here and now."
She slapped the stump of her leg. "Put it on me."
Rena couldn't help but chuckle at that as she started to attach the leg. "Even if you preferred your warrior code, Shadi, it would be a little difficult to find a thigh bone from a large mammal out here. You will feel a slight pinch." That was her only warning, as her words were followed by the prosthetic sinking what felt like a bunch of little needles into Shadi's stump. The needles were also subdermal probes that allowed the prosthetic to respond to Shadi's neural activity.
The prickling and prodding of the prosthetic attachment complemented well with Shadi's buzz.
"That... a girl could get used to that."
While Dr. Kal and Shadi were interacting, a lone figure secreted into Sickbay, accessed the database through advanced decryption protocols, and downloaded the entirety of the Clock Maker case file. The infiltrator held no special disguise or telegraphed any extraordinary skills or abilities. Clad in naught but a standard Starfleet duty uniform, they made quick work of the secure login. The art of hiding in plain sight was a simple but effective method. Training helped, of course.
With the download complete and the data stowed away in a concealable chit, the shadow operative fled the scene with nary a notice. The doors closed behind confident boot falls.
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