Lost my grip

Posted on Sat Apr 11th, 2026 @ 5:23pm by Lieutenant JG Miles Mercer & Ensign Aza uri Valtana

1,286 words; about a 6 minute read

Mission: 1 - Third Contact
Location: Sickbay
Timeline: --tbd--

On:

Miles rounded the corridor into sickbay, his hand looking like a purple colored alien fruit as he entered, he raised it again in an attempt too keep the blood flow from causing any more damage, he looked around "Anyone here?" he called out audibly in pain.

"Uh," Aza responded. A head of brown corkscrew curls paired with sea green eyes and an expression of uncertainty popped up from beside the nearest biobed. The owner of the head scanned the space as if expecting to see literally anyone else there. Finding that was not the case, however, he stood, unfolding himself from the spot he had occupied on the floor.

"Umm... I am," he confirmed. "Ensign uri Valtana." He rounded the biobed and crossed the space in a few long strides, offering his hand to shake for all of two awkward seconds before he withdrew it. "Oh, right. Umm..."

Something in his brain seemed to jump start and he waved the officer over to the biobed he had just left, snagging a medical tricorder and flipping it open as he followed. "Please, sit. Can you tell me what happened?"

As Miles hopped up on the biobed, he started to recount the events "I was helping lift a crate of equipment into the intelligence office when it slipped pinning my hand to the desk, I was lucky that the lower decks who brought it up was still there, unfortunately I've broken bones in this hand before..." he paused wanting to avoid embarrassing details.

Aza frowned at the hand, then at the tricorder, then back to the hand. "Right, umm... the scan does show the repaired breaks from earlier." He pursed his lips and then with a movement that was more practiced than one might expect he came around the biobed, making for a small supply locker from which he withdrew a hypospray. When he returned, however, he frowned once again, this time at the intelligence officer's neck before finally adding, "Could you, uh..." and then tilting his own neck to indicate the desired angle his patient should take so he could apply the hypo.

Turning his hand flat he looked at the doctor, "If I remember properly two metacarpal bones and one proximal bone from the original injury."

The Valt's eyes widened, realizing his half verbalized request had clearly been misunderstood. "Uh, right. That's... that does match my scan. Could you tilt your head slight, though?" He held up the hypo, giving it a small shake for emphasis. "Pain killer first."

Miles moved as asked, "Valtese if I'm not mistaken, I've met maybe three of your kind, how long have you been in Starfleet?"

Hypospray deployed, Aza had moved on to evaluate the hand, manipulating it with extreme care between his own. "You are not mistaken," he answered with a hint of surprise, though his gaze never left the hand he was evaluating. "Most folks assume I'm Trill."

Miles waited a moment to answer, "I worked with a Trill during the war, smaller spots and the give away was the hair, most Trill have straight hair, Valtese have more curls almost like dreadlocks or ringlets." he paused "Certain similarities have fueled the sometime controversial shared ancestry theory."

That drew a snort of amusement from Aza. The Valt's shared ancestry was clearly documented if not by the Valtese themselves, by the Kriosians who they had split off from. "The hair thing is more stereotype than reality," he said, pausing long enough to do an odd little flick of his head that made his brown corkscrew curls bounce. "Course it's not as if my hair helps that."

He grinned and then, gently placing the man's hand in his lap, turned to collect a different device. "This break isn't terrible," he said, realizing how that sounded just as quickly as it was out of his mouth. "I mean, tendons and muscle are largely intact if heavily bruised. And the bones haven't shifted significantly." He held up the tool he'd retrieved. "Osteogenic Stimulator," he explained. "I'll apply this and it should stimulate the repair naturally. But you're going to be here for a bit. Half hour maybe? And I'd like you to keep that hand still while it knits. Do you want me to stabilize it so you don't move it?"

"That's fine, the last time it was set in the brig." Miles said with irony.

The only evidence that Aza was affected by this declaration was a widening of his eyes in surprise. His gaze, blessedly, had been back on the hand and so any other clear indications that he didn't exactly know how to handle a senior officer offering history of stays in the brig was largely muffled.

"Oh," he said finally as he ran the device over Mercer's hand. "I'm... sorry to hear that. Looks like the medical officer did a pretty good job all things considered, though. So. That's a plus."

Despite trying to sound nonchalant about the whole thing he managed to stumble his way through a more than unnecessary commentary complete with a put on version of calm that was clearly fake. That Aza's bedside manner might still require some work was irrefutable.

"Those were different times, I've spent too much time in an intelligence archive." Miles commented.

Aza nodded as if he understood anything about what that meant. "Is that like... Like a library or..." He tried, feeling as if he might be running out of worthy bedside banter to offer.

"A bit, it's more like a museum that you don't get to see unless you work there with boxes of junk, piles of reports and other things." Miles said trying to keep up the conversation.

"Right... right... That makes sense. I mean..." Here the Valt gestured to the spot he had originally been occupying on the floor next to a biobed. "I think a lot of departments can be that way sometimes. Lots of things to... you know... sort and file and..." he trailed off, glancing at the intelligence officers face and blanching slightly as his brain caught up to his mouth. "Of course, not the same for like... for intelligence. You can't just waltz in and look at stuff there. I mean..."

Aza was clearly caught on the thought now that he had started. "You can't just come and look at anyone's medical records either. Privacy and whatnot. But... still... umm... probably not the same..." he finished lamely.

Looking around he tried to find a good excuse to do anything other than what he had been working on before. It wasn't that he wasn't curious about the things that intelligence did. The rumors were probably twice as wild as the reality. Or so he told himself. But, he also was starting to panic at a lack of good conversational options and he had promised the Doc that he'd get the biobed calibration done before he got back. Finally, he sighed, "Do you mind waiting here for a bit? I need to get back to..." he gestured to the spot he'd come from. "And there's not much more I can do until the Stimulator is done. Should be maybe 30 minutes?"

"That's fine, I'm not in any rush." Miles said uncertain of what was going on.

"Right, awesome, uh, thanks," the flustered ensign answered and, with only a quick further moment's hesitation disappeared again next to one of the other biobeds leaving the intelligence officer and the Osteogenic Stimulator to their peace.

Miles had a tough time wrapping his head around meeting this particular individual, then again he freely admitted to himself at times he had the social skills of a service drone so he just waited as the generator did it's thing.

End

 

RSS Feed