JP: Ensign Morro Caras & Lieutenant JG Sevantha Saa, Gwen'ora Tasen - Snake Oil
Morro Caras
((Private Quarters, Deck 12, USS Astraeus))
Saa: Morro…
if you need assistance with something, just ask, you clearly don’t
trust anyone with it you don’t believe you have some sort of hook or
power with. :: She spoke as soft as she usually did :: … I will help
you, not due to a debt, but because I genuinely want to. Gwen’ora is
also an expert in several fields of science as well, so depending on the
nature of it, she could be of assistance also. As you heard, the Ba’Ku
are not a people of favors but caring for one another because it is how
their people have lived and survive on this world. Neither of us have
any desire to leave you in debt or owing, nor are we seeking to be
indebted either.
Sevantha
hoped that would offer some relief to the Orion who was having his very
way of life challenged, she studied his body language, his movements
the best she could to read where she lack of ability to feel his
emotions and thoughts left it empty. She hated subspace communication…
it was so stilted and limiting.
Caras: Very well. I…can accept that. I have a medical issue that... I … cannot take to my CMO, and I have not made friends with anyone in medical. I am requesting your help for it, and I suppose using not the favor you owe but the… trust you put in me at least for a night, to make sure there is no record of it.
Tasen: ::Raises
an eyebrow as he talks before finally responding:: It must be terrible
if you cannot take it to your CMO or another medical officer on your
ship…
Caras: It’s nothing that bad, I just. I don’t want them to hate me for doing something somewhat irresponsible. I’ve tried to look at how to treat… what happened in the StarFleet files, but I… don’t understand anything that it says.
Morro’s face was that of a man who cared way too much about how people perceived him. He was embarrassed more about the fact that he might have to own up to it, rather than not knowing how to treat it.
Saa: Alright, once you show us, can you explain what happened?
Tasen: We will definitely need every detail you can manage.
Though Gwen had gotten much more detail already, just not about his medical issues. Dating a Vulcan? Sevan? It sort of made sense and she could slightly see it. Being a soft spoken woman, Sevan would probably fit with the stoak species that sometimes had a metaphorical stick shoved in places they shouldn’t. This was something Gwen didn’t know and the only acknowledgement of it was a small look towards Sevan before returning to look at the PADD.
Caras: I would also like it to be judgment free. I did not judge you getting over your Ex or even dating a Vulcan. I just met what I thought was what pleasure you were seeking that evening. I was your guide. I need you to be my guide now.
There was a very brief dropping of her concern when her ex-boyfriend was mentioned once more and the fact he was Vulcan. It was a sore nerve still. Where he claimed not to judge her, there was clear biases in his tone at the moment and she knew that night they met. She sighed before relaxing to take a more professional demeanor. She’d scream later.
Saa: Morro,
Gwen’ora and I are professionals in our fields, we aren’t here to
judge, just figure it out… but we need the whole story.
Gwen’ora nodded her head lightly as she shifted again where she sat, preparation setting in of looking at some boil or something else odd or gross looking that would definitely be more up Sevan’s line of work than hers. It wasn’t like it’d be anything a scientist would touch, let alone a botanist.
Caras: Ok here it goes.
Caras lifted up his shirt to the viewer, and presented the camera with some abs, before turning around. Long thin blue veins covered his back, almost like something was growing or living, and pulsing along his back. They reached all the way up to his shoulders, and went down below his beltline front he back.
Admittedly
Sevantha wasn’t entirely prepared for him to just lift his shirt and
expose his well defined abdomen to her. Huh, she could see where she
made certain that decisions that night. Well, no one could say she
didn’t have taste when it came to the physical aspect. There was a good
moment where she couldn’t even look at Gwen due to her initial response.
Still, after she took a moment to compose herself from the initial
surprise, Sevantha turned to stare at the long thin blue veins,
squinting and leaning towards the PADD.
Saa: Gwen… ::She trailed a little:: Do those look like roots to you?
Gwen gave Sevan a smirking grin when her roommate had gone silent at Mr. Orion-Macho-Abs but then when she’d turned back to the screen and saw the pulsing veins covering his back. And now she too sat silently studying, but her’s wasn’t for the abs but for the strange marvel that was…was it a trick of the PADD but did it look like the veins were pulsing? And how had this become something that aligned with her line of work too?
Tasen: Strange…but yes…
Saa: From the looks of it, whatever it is, is clearly alive but it seems too surface to be a parasite. Typically they evolve to be subtle and co-exist with the host undetected… maybe a symbiotic plant? ::She looks back to the screen:: Morro when did this first appear? Any symptoms other than physical appearance? Increased appetite? Nausea? Fever?
Caras: It’s a plant!? It happened this morning, and it’s been growing all day. It painful but in the pins and needles way, like when your foot comes back from being asleep. Now that you mention it, I have replicated like twenty wings today.
Tasen: Where is the base of it? oO Ever had one of those questions that you really don’t want to ask for fear of the answer but scientifically need to ask? This is one of those. Oo
In all honesty, Gwen was slightly afraid for this answer. Especially with what she had gathered over the past few minutes of Morro’s extensive extracurricular activities.
Saa: Where did it first appear and how far does it go?
Caras: The base is lower. But it also spreads to about the back of my knees. It’s base? Core? It’s concentrated on my tailbone.
Gwen nodded along softly as she shifted her PADD to her lap and started taking notes. This was probably the strangest chat with an ex fling she had EVER been apart of.
Tasen: Did you come in contact with anything odd prior to appearance? Travel anywhere? Touch something abnormal?
Caras : We’re in the Gamma quadrant, I heard they had unique gifts at this night market. I managed to gather some assets from former dominion traders. We were ..discouraged from going to the night market, but some of us went. It’s painful. She said it was supposed to give me energy, and now it won’t let me sleep.
Gwen frowned lightly at the mention of the dominion, the thought of Changelings made her skin crawl. Quickly the woman shoved away those memories from Frontier Day and focused in on the situation before them.
Saa: Sounds like a… the Terran term is “Snake Oil” salesman dealing in this market. ::She held back her judgment and let her morbid curiosity manifest instead. She chose to ignore the word Dominion for her own sanity:: … Hmm, if you’re capable of feeling the pain it means the attached organism isn’t administering any chemicals that would suggest it was developed to be parasitic or symbiotic… It has to be feeding off of something particular…and pins and needles makes sense with the location of its base right at the intersection of the spinal cord and sciatic nerve, its hitting the nervous system in its attachment.
Tasen: Any other details you think might…help?
Caras : I don’t know! I tried poking it and it just makes things more numb. It’s mostly under my skin too, but I don’t want to cut myself open to get to it. But now I’m just… I need help.
Morro had probably never looked more pathetic in his life. He had certainly never looked this vulnerable to anyone in his life other than his older sister Z’Mat. If she were here, she would probably call him a baby and cut the thing out of him. Morro didn’t want the CMO to know, because if she knew, then it would go on his report, and then that report would also go to the cute counselor, and the fact that he had got to the night market would go to his boss. Morro wanted to cry. But he couldn’t, Z’Mat had made him promise. He didn’t have anywhere else to go though, he didn’t know or trust any of the science officers on his ship yet.
Saa: Setting off it’s defensive measures is a bad idea, we don’t know what it is yet, it could work like a Terran tick that if you rip it off, whatever hooks it has or head could end up lodged in the blood stream, ::She explained slowly:: or trapped beneath the dermal level which could leave it room to grow back or grow internally.
How was this the same man she’d met that night? Actually, considering her state of mind and want for utter simplicity, she could see it… she just hadn’t given him the opportunity to do something incredibly stupid that evening. From overcomplicated half-vulcan with heritage issues to pretty and… well dumb.
Caras: Ok i’ll do whatever you want. I think I have the leftover cream, I can put it in the analyzer and I can send the data over what it is.
Saa: That
would be helpful yes, that will help us understand the evolution of the
situation. ::She looked to Tasen:: So far I have two theories
formulating… either the cream itself contained spores of some sort that
resulted in this, a living vine or fungi of sorts ::She traced her
fingers along the images of the blue veins:: we have some sort of
microbial creature perhaps picked up in the Night Market that this cream
as essentially acted as a growth formula for… I suppose that doesn’t
rule out plant or fungi in that consideration either.
Gwen was watching and listening in minor shock as she thought through the fact that he felt the need to buy something like that from a night market vendor just to keep him from being tired. Slowly she shifted her PADD and began noting down the results of the cream on the man. So, unable to rest…visual internal vine system…excessive hunger…quick growth post this
Tasen: Do
you know if this vendor sold this cream to anyone else on your ship? Or
have you encountered a species or plant in that quadrant that has these
same veins?
((TBC))
Lieutenant LG Sevantha Saa
Medical Officer
USS Astraeus
A240105SS2
and
Ensign Morro Caras
Engineering Officer
USS Octavia E. Butler
O240106MC1
and
Lieutenant JG Gwen'ora Tasen
Science Officer
USS Astraeus, NCC-70652
A240105GT2