A Little Kolari Maintenance
Posted on Mon May 27th, 2019 @ 10:11am by Ensign Davna & Lieutenant Gunnar Arnason
2,511 words; about a 13 minute read
Mission:
Deep Freeze
Location: Haumea Medical
Timeline: MD 08 : 0920 Hrs
"Is there a Lieutenant Arnason around?"
Setting herself on errands for the Commander simply to get out of the Command Center, Davna had made the trip to the hospital. She had arrived bundled up for subzero temperatures at Luka's prompting, but the moment she was inside the hospital itself, she began to take layers off. It was unfortunate she was not able to shed most of the layers, as it was still extremely cold in the hospital itself.
But, once settled, she set about her work, searching for who Luka pointed out earlier, at least he had on paper. With little idea what he looked like, she trotted up and down the halls of the hospital until she ran into one of the various nurses. Nurses knew where everyone was.
"I'm just trying to get a message across, and the Command Center's communications hub is down. Is Lieutenant Arnason available?"
The nurse blinked, momentarily at a loss, then it dawned on her. "Oh, you mean Gunnar. He's right over..." Lissa looked around at the empty space he'd just occupied and shook her head - long legs and a seeming determination to be everywhere he could possibly be needed had struck again. "Well, he was there a moment ago." She almost said 'it should be easy for you to find him' but decided that might come across as assuming an Orion would just naturally zero in on handsome guy, which would be kind of racist. "Come on, I'll help you track him down. He shouldn't be hard to find, just look for a blonde a head taller than everyone else."
"Oh." The Commander had made every attempt to not describe the gentleman she was supposed to meet. Davna followed after Lissa with a skip in her step. If he was that tall, then he certainly would not be difficult for them to find.
In the next ward, another nurse, recognizing Davna and the look on Lissa's face, pointed them in the right direction before the question could be asked. "A patient came in with a break." An amused smile played on her lips as nodded toward where Arnason was emerging from a treatment room carrying a mildly sedated goat. "Turns out he'll double as a vet."
Lissa swallowed a laugh before heading over to where he was setting the goat on a blanket beside a boy who had obviously been crying not long ago.
"She'll be fine, just needs a few moments to come around," Gunnar assured the boy. "But some of the sedative will get into her milk, so you'll want to toss the batch she gives you, okay?" Getting a nod from the boy, he stood and turned to go wash up.
And ran right into Lissa. "Oh, sorry. I thought you were in ward 1."
"I was." She put her hands on her hips. " And I thought you were too. I swear I'm going to put bell on you."
Gunnar laughed. "Wouldn't be the first time someone's threatened to do that." Noticing Davna - who resembled at least in skin tone one of the people who'd once threatened it - he smiled. "You must Commander Mahone's yeoman. He told me to expect you." Noting that she seemed a bit lost, he offered a greeting in Orion hoping it would help put her at ease. "Maln mloudla sebai [a pleasure to meet you]."
Davna blinked, first at the strange goat (of which she had never seen before), then to Gunnar. Then to the goat again, and the boy as he tended to the creature. Whatever it was must have been revered highly in the community. She would have to do a mountain of research for this.
Her eyes lit up as she looked back to Gunnar. He was not the first person to take the initiative to speak with her in her native tongue, but typically the speaker had another motive. Not that she would have minded another motive out of the tall man in front of her, but that was probably not ideal for their first meeting. "Ah! Maln mloudla sebai! Rhadaman Mahone simply wanted me to go over a few things with you, and make sure the hospital hasn't lost complete power like half the colony seems to have done." She gestured a little further off, where she remembered seeing a small cafe. "Il wam slai [shall we]?"
His brows lifted at news of the power loss. The lights in the ward were on, and he was sure someone would have called him if there'd been any shutdowns elsewhere in the hospital, but if it wasn't restored to the rest of the colony soon they'd need to make plans to take people in. "Mloan'se elena [as you wish]," he replied, using the simplest affirmative he knew in the language, which had no direct single word like 'yes'.
*Ahem* Lissa cocked an eyebrow at him. "Care to translate so the rest of us know what's going on?"
"Oh, sorry. I just haven't had a chance to practice Kolari in awhile," he explained. Someone stifled a snicker. He ducked his head, chiding himself for not expecting that, but while it had been somewhat deserved with Dr. Divash, there hadn't been anything even vaguely flirtatious here. He focused on Lissa. "We're going to go discuss the situation. I'll let everyone know what's going on once we figure it out. For now, let's get a warming cabinet with blankets to the lobby. There are bound to be some very cold people showing up soon."
"Okay, and I'll see what space we have available."
"Thank you. We'll be in the cafe," he informed her, putting a slight emphasis on the public location, before turning to follow Davna.
Davna was quick on the uptake, keeping a nice pace before she addressed the curiosity that Gunnar brought up. "I've never had Starfleet member who wasn't already speaking in Kolari before. Well, not without another motive-" she turned her gaze toward him, "Not that there's anything wrong with another motive at all. I don't mind that in the slightest, it's quite flattering, but usually the ulterior motive comes up first. It's like they see the green skin and don't think I'm interested in anything else at all." She crinkled her nose. "But no one can see Operations when I'm a yeoman, now can they?"
"I can.," he assured her earnestly. "And I do. I served with an Orion for almost two years and I understand. Even once she became CMO, a lot of people seemed to see 'attractive Orion' and completely miss Starfleet doctor. In fact, I learned Kolari in part because it's not very well known in Starfleet, so she didn't have to pull me aside to say something like, 'I think this patient is only here because he wants to hit on me. Can you take his exam?'" he winked, and flashed a grin. "You wouldn't believe how many patients suddenly decided they felt much better."
"I think that makes you and Commander Mahone." Davna said with an amused grin. "But you must have had a high success rate with all the male patients who came in for similar minor coughs or sneezes." She stopped as they reached the small cafe area, flashing a happy smile at the barista behind the counter. "One of whatever your special is, please." She turned to Gunnar. "But I do like the freedom being yeoman has afforded me. And that the Commander seems absolutely fine with me working as I have been. Which reminds me, I'm here on his behalf, so I should get to doing some work, shouldn't I?"
"If it were only just coughs and sniffles..." he sighed, but put worrying over the source of the flu-like illness taking half their bed space aside in favor of the business at hand. And coffee. Which was important. "Same as last time, Jess," he told the barista, offering a semi-apologetic smile for his less adventurous order, before turning his attention back to Davna. "The Commander is smart to give you the leeway to take care of operational details for him. So, let's get to those details." He picked up his order - a spiced double espresso - and gestured toward an open table.
"Is it worse now?" Davna asked in concern, seating herself and her rather fruity-looking beverage at the offered table. She pulled her PaDD out for note-taking. "I'm sure you can tell the Commander all of this as well, but why make two conversations when you can have one?"
"I sent a report, so he's aware, but I think I should keep you updated too," he said, and took a sip of his drink as he thought of how to best to summarize. "First, it starts as coughs and sniffles, but develops into flu-like symptoms - fever, muscle ache, dizziness, nausea and vomting - not life-threatening in general, but if untreated there are risks due to high fever, dehydration, and secondary infections. From what I can gather, it was originally a few isolated cases, but the number has been increasing, even in just the few days since I've been here the number of patients has doubled. My concern is that if that's a pattern we may be stretched in terms for providing supportive care." He glanced around at the lights, which were thankfully on. "And if the colony is experiencing rolling power failures, that's going to complicate matters further."
"Operations has been assuring the Commander that they're trying to keep those under control, but that may just be in the Command Center." Davna frowned, making a note in her PaDD. "The Commander wanted to make absolutely certain that the power failures weren't affecting the hospital as much as they are. But I bet if we reroute the EPS flow from a parked shuttle, we might be able to give the hospital a back up generator. It can at least give you a few minutes while power is trying to get back up to normal. I saw one parked out back, but I don't think anyone has hooked it up properly yet."
Gunnar very briefly considered saying he'd see about hooking it up when they were done. He could probably manage it. After one somewhat awkward incident - which had not been his fault; he had been there to fix a crewman, not the exploding EPS conduit that had injured him! - T'Ango had made a point of coaching him in that sort of thing. However, his better sense over ruled whatever masculine pride was attached to the notion that he should be able to do such things himself. "If you could arrange for someone to get that hooked up, it would be much appreciated."
Davna made a noise with her tongue, frowning. "I'm not going to leave you here with all these patients and not at least try to help. It's an EPS conduit. I can reroute those in my sleep." She leapt up, ready to retrieve her coat and march herself back out there. "You don't happen to have a set of maintenance tools on hand, do you? I may have left mine at the Command Center."
"Yes, I'm pretty sure I can locate tools," Gunnar replied, impressed. And grateful - he might have to find one of Divash's Orion recipes and send her something as thank you. "But we have power, so please, finish your drink and let me know what else the Commander sent you to discuss."
Davna sat back down just as quickly as she was up, agreeable to the idea of finishing her warm and fruity beverage. As she sipped, she flipped her PaDD back over. "Well, if the report is as you just mentioned to me, the Commander's response in sending me was probably because he was afraid of what would happen if he got caught up in the hospital. And probably why he made sure I was up to date on all my vaccinations before sending me."
"Being current on vaccinations is always a good idea," Gunnar remarked. "But I'm not sure that will help here. Whatever this is isn't any known pathogen, and we haven't had a chance to even determine whether its bacterial or viral. Though if I had to bet, I'd say viral. It's not that unusual in colonies - an opportunistic virus in a new environment finds a way to use new settlers as hosts. The fact that everyone's stressed from the crash and the unexpected cold just amplifies the effect."
Davna nodded along with Gunnar's explanation, grateful he was able to describe it to her in ways that a non-medical expert could have understood. "It's easier said than done to get everyone to calm down, unfortunately. And the power losses are not helping at all either. Do you think someone's going around and causing the power losses?" she mused curiously. "That they would be so stressed that they felt that they had to take matters into their own hands?"
"Unfortunately, adjusting to environmental stress is something that takes time." He paused, thinking about her next questions. His gut feeling was that it had to be something else - but how much of that feeling was bias from his own background? While his people were often regarded as quirkily individualistic, there was a strong communitarian ethic. Even during the worst conflicts and feuding depicted in the ancient sagas, this sort of wanton behavior would have seen as evil or insane... but then he knew well enough how fear could drive people to a sort of madness. "I don't know. I would hope not, since it endangers everyone. For someone to do such things out of some idea that it gave them a measure of control..." he shook his head, "...they would have to be seriously unhinged."
"Or desperate," Davna pointed out. She agreed with Gunnar that there would have had to be something seriously wrong, but with how everything seemed to be progressing, she had a different mindset. "I've seen enough on my home planet that if someone has enough motivation, they're willing to do almost anything. Though, it would be something I would sooner ask a counselor before I speculate too much."
"I suppose that's true," Gunnar sighed. "I may bring it up with Reverend Nikedoros if we have more incidents. For now though, I just want to make sure the hospital can stay up and running. If there's nothing else, would you mind if I watch while you reroute the EPS flow from a shuttle? I have the general idea, but it seems like something it would be good to know better, just in case."
"Oh, yes. Absolutely. It's easy!" Her drink finished, Davna set aside her drink glass and hopped up from her spot. "All I need is a small maintenance kit and we can get this done real quick."
"I'll get one for you," Gunnar said, downing the last of his drink and getting up as well. "Thanks again. We owe you one."
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