Q the Mayhem

Posted on Sat Jun 10th, 2023 @ 6:56pm by Captain Shran dh'Klar & Commander Samantha Howard & Petty Officer 1st Class Amethyst Reece

Mission: Writing the Q Cards
Location: USS Washington

The juvenile Q had been watching the crew of the Washington perform tasks for several hours now. Thus far the now switched members of the crew had been able to handle the relatively mundane tasks, staying out of the way of the rest of the crew and simply allowing things to function without interference. The amusement had been high initially, but had diminished significantly once they had determined how to avoid many of the hazards. Q was now ready to do some of the things he father had taught him, and that meant mayhem for the Washington senior officers. He watched Samantha in sickbay as she continued to hide in her office looking busy. Of all the switched officers, she might be the easiest to have some fun with in his mind. He considered what to do that might frazzle her most.

Everyone called her Sam and so she ran with that, looking busy in her office whilst madly researching anything she may be faced with in the near future. She'd figured out the medical tricorder, worked out how to use the basic biobed functions and preset a padd to display anything outside of the standard acceptable medical ranges.

She noticed the doors opened and that most of her staff were otherwise occupied. Muttering something about frying pans and fire she rose to address the new comer, who appeared from all outward appearances to be in perfect health.

Q smiled as Julia approached. "You seem to being well with everything that is going on" he said, his voice thick with smugness.

"To what are you referring?" She answered innocently enough, hypothesise has started to form as to who this person was, the smugness narrowed the candidates considerably.

"You know, it is mighty calm in here. Perhaps we should make things a little more interesting." Q gave a wry smile and snapped his fingers, and suddenly sickbay was empty with the exception of Julia and Q, and the doors to sickbay opened as Amethyst entered, helping in a severely burned Lt Oxford. Q looked to Sam, "Time to be a doctor."

She ignored the dropping of her gut and the fear that clenched every internal organ. She could do this, she'd spent the last few hours learning everything she could about modern medicine. And when all else failed, what she knew of current medicine would do until someone better turned up.

"Righto then, hop yourself up here" She patted the nearest biobed and reached out to examine the hand, reaching into her pocket for the medical tricorders she had learnt how to use. She would need some painkillers, and antibiotic and a dermal regenerator. Hopefully the basics would be in the tricorder...

Amethyst stood ready to assist where needed, she gave Julia a warm smile noticing an air of tension. “Is everything alright Doctor?”

" Ahhh yep, everything's fine, Mr Oxford here will be right as rain in a short while" She replied, projecting a very false sense of security.

Oxford was seriously injured and his range of motion limited. As Sam scanned him the readings of her tricorder kept changing, as if he was slowly but surely getting worse and worse. Q watched as Sam began to visibly perspire and Amethyst began to look concerned as well.

"This doesn't make sense" Sam mumbled, injecting the 'recommended treatment' for the second time and watching the detail on the screen refuse to obey. How was it that he came in with a second degree burn and now it had progressed to a third degree burn with infection and bone involvement? She grabbed another hypospray, loaded it, dialed up what she hoped was a potent antibiotic and injected it into Oxford's neck, whilst rummaging around in her pocket for the dermal regenerator she was sure she put in there a few minutes ago.

Oxford began to convulse violently. Q watched intently as the young officer approached his timely end in a painful way. Q was interested in the reactions of the two medical personnel, especially Julia.

Amethyst gave Julia a very worried look, something was very wrong here. “There’s something very wrong here Doctor! Burns don’t progress like this! There must be an outside force causing this.”

"I know, but it doesn't make sense. I can't stabilize him" the pseudo doctor stammered. She looked at the man who had the demeanor of Q with an accusing look. "Are you behind this? He doesn't deserve to die for your enjoyment."

Q gave a look of incredulity. "You are blaming me? I must admit, I am truly wounded at the allegation. I am not the cause of this poor fellows injury. You seem quite concerned about the why and when for him, all to avoid your own responsibility here. My father, the brilliant man that he is, he tried to teach me that about humans, about virtually all mortals. I suppose I had to see it for myself. I would have expected more to be honest. Aunt Kathy's crew certainly didn't behave like this. Perhaps it is the fault of your captain. Perhaps I should take more attention on him, what do you think?"

Amethyst gave the man Julia was talking to a look. “Whoever you are, Perhaps you just leave well enough alone. This man hasn’t done anything to you.”

"I really am getting perturbed with being blamed for things that aren't my fault. You humans are quite annoying and smallminded at times it seems" he said as he walked over to the surgical bay.

"Aren't you at fault? Tell me how else the medical staff magically disappear, and this patient miraculously deteriorates when the standard treatment protocol should have worked" Julia challenged him as Oxford deteriorated further, his vital signs bordering on critical.

"I'm not at all responsible for what is happening to your patient" Q snapped back. "I am responsible for seeing how you do with no assistance except this one nurse, but beyond that, this entire situation is on you. I know what the outcome is to be, but seeing you deal with it is what I want. Thus far, blaming me for your failure is all you have done, unfairly I might add."

"Maybe not entirely, but you are the reason why the entire medical staff disappeared" Julia spat back as she tried in vain to save the dying man. "Nothing I try is working, Amethyst can you think of anything that I've missed?"

Amethyst shook her head. “No Doctor....there’s nothing...nothing at all.”

The alarms began to sound as Oxford stopped any movement. The dull hum of his death rang out from Julia's tricorder. Q looked at the two women, "You are welcome to try anything you want, but you'll find he really is gone. And before you try to blame me, his death was inevitable, no matter me being here or not. I believe the human expression is, physician, heal thyself." With that Q vanished.

Q vanished, Oxford was dead and Julia stood shaking at the recent turn of events. There had been a death.

Amethyst was just as shaken as Julia, but did her best to reassure her. “You did everything you could Doctor, we have to find out what went wrong here.”

Q listened intently, invisible to them. They had no idea what had happened, nor that one of them had become infected with the same disease that was actually responsible for Oxford's death, masked by his other injury. He'd let them know if they couldn't figure it out, though he wondered if they'd be able to cure the Kilrathi Fever. That might be interesting.