Chapter Text
The Star Beagle Adventures
Episode 3: Yours Is No Disgrace
Scene 6: Tomato
3.6
Tomato
“Go ahead, bitch! Slap me down again! You know I’ll just get back… *hic* …up ag…” Captain Rhonda Carter wasn’t able to continue her red-faced yelling as other out-flowing traffic was taking priority.
General Krank got the bucket to her quickly enough. This time.
“Ten, please tell me what you gave them again?” asked a frustrated and weary Captain Skip Howard.
Lt. Ki Kresid was hanging upside down with her legs hooked over the back of one of the biobeds in the U.S.S. Mako’s medical center, her long, thin, prehensile tongue regularly flicking out and down into a small glass of purplish fluid. The tiny roylan's skin had gone from its usual greenish gray to a bright, glowing, fluorescent green. A dark, greenish smoke cloud puffed out of her crenelated cheeks in slight pulses.
Pel was sitting cross-legged on the same biobed, his fingers crammed in his ears, face screwed up in a grimace and was occasionally emitting a high-pitched hooting that sounded something like a cross between a small owl and a bat. He occasionally removed his knuckles from his ears long enough to shake his head vigorously, then his fingers slammed back into his ears. And there was more high-pitched hooting.
“I have provided each of them a unique cocktail of neural depressants, pain receptor blockers and a course of purgatives,” the betazoid doctor responded.
“It looks like you got them all trash-faced drunk,” Commodore Yui Song observed.
Dr. Tentis Uto shrugged. “Eh… You say tomato, I say tomahto…”
The bald doctor took a breath. “Even in stasis, their brains were entering a dangerous fugue state and their bodies were starting to overload with toxins. There’s no way to speed this process up. They’re just going to have to suffer through this. Whatever it was that got into them would have killed them in seconds if the General hadn’t advised you to have them placed in stasis. Even so, it was a very close call.”
Rhonda Carter’s digestive system was taking a break, giving General Krank the opportunity to empty the contents of the bucket.
“How did you know, Krank?” Skip Howard asked.
Krank was emerging from the water closet. He had brought out a wet rag and proceeded to use it to gently clean Captain Carter’s face as she alternately drooled and made feeble attempts to wave his attentions away:
“The last time something supernatural got into people in this area of space, they died,” the elderly klingon general observed.
Skip Howard gave Yui Song a significant look. “Well, he’s more than just a pretty face.” The captain of the U.S.S. Beagle took a deep breath. “That cardassian tug is still moving this way, although it seems to have been slowed due to some property of the space it is traveling through. Dutch tells me it should exit denatured space within the hour. Hopefully we’ll be able to get some useful information from its logs and an investigation of its engineering section… What’s left of its engineering section.”
“How is Sakura?” Commodore Yui asked.
“Ten got to her in time,” Howard responded.
“We have regrown the dermal layers on her hands,” Dr. Tentis Uto said. “It will take a few weeks of exercise and continued surgery to restore them to full function and sensitivity. Some of her fingers were burned down to the bone. But as Skip said, we got to her in time to prevent neural pathway decay. As with most things in medicine, response time is critical.”
"Next order of business." Commodore Yui Song immediately had everyone's full attention. "Dr. Uto, what was the frequency of the astral experiences while we were aboard Deep Space 9?"
"27 hours, 13 minutes, 26 seconds," Uto replied.
"Skip, where were we a little over 28 hours ago?"
Captain Skip Howard nodded. "We had slowed our approach. We would have been about 7 light years from here. I can have the exact coordinates forwarded."
"Do that," Yui said. "Those coordinates will become our next rally point. How fast can the U.S.S. Beagle tow that cardassian tug through normal space?"
"Warp 7.5," Howard responded.
"That beats this ship and is more than twice what the Escort could accomplish," Yui said. She turned to the bald, betazoid doctor. "Dr. Uto, can Sakura be moved to and treated in this medical facility? And can these three continue their recuperation here?"
"Easily," Uto said. "Give me 20 minutes to compare notes with Lucius. I know where you're going with this and I think my most advantageous deployment would be back to the Beagle."
"Excellent," said Commodore Yui. "General Krank, I think Lt. Commander Gross could use your support aboard the Escort."
The elderly klingon general had been holding the bucket that had three times now served to catch the contents of Captain Rhonda Carter's digestive system. With a single motion that was at once commanding and eloquent, and without breaking eye contact with Commodore Yui, he extended his arm, placing the bucket in front of a passing orderly, who took the grim receptacle with mingled surprise and disgust.
"Skip, I'm going to take this ship to the rally point," Yui said. "I want the Beagle and the Escort to wait here for that tug to enter normal space. As soon as possible, with all due care and deliberate speed, I want you to tow that cardassian ship to the rally point with Escort to watch your six. Dismissed."
3.6