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Main Sim: Romulan Sickbay - An Unwelcome Homecoming (Tag Kastarak and CO)

Posted Oct. 18, 2022, 1:38 p.m. by Lieutenant Symar (Chief Medical Officer) (Kieron Hoult)

Posted by Ensign Kastarak (Doctor / Counsellor) in Main Sim: Romulan Sickbay - An Unwelcome Homecoming (Tag Kastarak and CO)

Posted by Captain Chris Taggart (Captain) in Main Sim: Romulan Sickbay - An Unwelcome Homecoming (Tag Kastarak and CO)

Posted by Lieutenant Symar (Chief Medical Officer) in Main Sim: Romulan Sickbay - An Unwelcome Homecoming (Tag Kastarak and CO)
Posted by… suppressed (17) by the Post Ghost! 👻
Once the ship was away at impulse, Symar made his way through the winding corridors of the Romulan Warbird, the memories of his mind-meld with Commander T’Aria flooding back. He had to laugh at the situation he found himself in at this moment. Here he was, masquerading as a fully Vulcan officer in Starfleet, on board a Romulan ship, trying to remember which of the markings on the walls around him meant ‘Sickbay, this way.’ He had not had chance to speak his true native language in some time, so refamiliarsing himself was going to take some time.

Two winding corridors later, Symar found himself in front of a door with a symbol that seemed to loosely resemble the medical iconography seen on Earth. Hoping for the best, the CMO crossed the threshold and breathed a heavy sigh of relief as he saw his young Vulcan officer, Ensign Kastarak unpacking some of the medical supplies onto a Romulan biobed, “Ahh, finally kid, I found you. I swear, my mind has been so all over the place of late, even Romulan text is starting to seem unfamilair to me.”

-Lieutenant Symar: Chief Medical Officer-

BUMP

-Kieron-

Kid? Why did Symar have to call him kid? Kastarak remembering when in Star Fleet Medical Academy, the visited a farm, in order to understand veterinary medicine in practice (cross-species medical care did after all have much in common with veterinary medicine, and Star Fleet physicians are because of that more or less qualified to deal with veterinary medicine) and Kastarak saw his first ever goat. Strange-looking little creature. Smelly. Loud. It had apparently been domesticated millennia ago for its milk production. In any case, Kastarak met a little kid there – a goat youngling, and ever since learning that “kid” was the appropriate and accurate name for the child of a goat, he had associated the word with goat. He did, of course (he was not stupid), know that kid was a synonym for child in general as well as a diminutive vocative for older people when addressing younger one. The informality conveyed by Symar, Kastarak understood too, was Symar’s signalling his trust, confidence, and intimacy in the relationship between the two.

Kastarak was moreover unsure how to respond to Symar’s bubbly small talk. Of course Romulan text would be unfamiliar to them both. It was, on one hand, derived from Vulcan, and the similarities were quite strong despite millennia apart. Earth’s alphabets had severalfold more divergence over a much shorter span of year. It would be indicative of Romulan culture being conservative and ill-suited to change, Kastarak hypothesized. While Symar was half-Romulan genetically, he was not so culturally, but the DNA in Symar – along with his trauma – had made him unable to take on logic in a Vulcan manner. Perhaps there is a certain mutation that cause Romulans and Vulcans to be differently receptive to emotional load as well as the capacity to take on a logical serene emotion-free state of mind? Symar, as pitiable as he was (if Kastarak used emotion to feel about his superior, which he tried not to), seemed incapable of that. What was it like for Symar to grow up, knowing his difference so acutely from everyone else? Yet, Symar had excelled. He was a good physician, was accepted into Star Fleet. There is a strong sense of perseverance and grit and endurance in his character. Kastarak was impressed with Symar’s achievements in light of the trauma, constant masking, and acutely aware of his great difference from everyone else throughout his life.

“Find whatever calm you can, sir,” counselled Kastarak, “I can do most of this work. It is understandable that your mind might be all over the place. I can only imagine how strange it might be for you to be in his environment, given your.... history....”

Kastarak looked at Symar with calmess and peace in his eyes, hoping (perhaps in vain), that some of it might be transferred to and picked up on by Symar.

– Ensign Kastarak (“Rateg”)

Sensing the smallest hint of trepidation in Kastarak’s voice, obviously suppressed by the Ensign’s Vulcan meditation skills, Symar smiled, “You don’t have to babysit me ki- uh, Ensign, I’ll try and do what I can to help. What have you found so far?”

-Lieutenant Symar: Chief Medical Officer-

“I did not intend to convey a need to babysit you. You’re an adult, sir. I have no need to baby-sit you, nor do you require it, sir” replied Kastarak.

Kastarak handed over the Betazoid padd that he had bought in the market in Risa.

“Here’s the inventory of supplies, chemicals for medicinal synthesis, sir. If you move to the next sheet, you’ll see the inventory of technology, including the Federation-issued medical synthesiser and medical tricorders, along with Romulan scanning equipment. We should have enough supplies to deal with emergency casualties on our trip, as well as some long-term chronic conditions, sir.”

– Ensign Kastarak (“Rateg”)

“Excellent,” Symar said, giving Kastarak the same look a proud father would, “Let’s see if we can’t get some of these biobeds online,” He crossed to the nearest bed and pushed a button, hoping for the best.

-Lieutenant Symar: Chief Medical Officer-

“I’ll pretend to be patient,” said Kastarak with a voice of agreement. He quickly moved up the the biobed and lay down.

“Can you read my data? How different is the visualization from the Chernov’s biobeds?”

– Ensign Kastarak (physician/counsellor)

Symar chuckled, “For one thing, I’m having to remember some of the basics of the Romulan language, but if I’m reading this properly, you’re a picture of perfect health Ensign.”

-Lieutenant Symar: Chief Medical Officer-

“Agreeable to hear. It is also aligned with how I subjectively perceive my own health,” replied Kastarak calmly. He quickly hopped off the bio-bed, his both feet landing on the floor in the same go.

“Sir – might I try? Should you agree for me to scan you, of course?”

– Ensign Kastarak (physician)

“Of course Ensign,” Symar grinned and swapped places with his junior officer, then playing it up a little, added, “Give it to me straight Doc.”

-Lieutenant Symar: Chief Medical Officer-

As the biobed scanned Symar, it immediately identified Kastarak’s patient as “Romulan”. In his pocket, Kastarak had the Betazoid medical tricorder too, and scanned Symar. It said Symar’s lifesign was Vulcan. If Kastarak’s hypothesis was correct, this machine would be able to discriminate between Romulan and Vulcan DNA in a way much more discretely than Federation technology could. This might prove important, thought Kastarak, remembering the Federation–Romulan wars and the history or accusations of Romulan infiltration in Vulcan history.

“I suppose the biobed said I was Vulcan,” stated Kastarak as he sounded out various words on the biobed display. While he could figure out things as names of organs and other body parts, as well as important diagnostic information matters such as “blood pressure”, “bloody oxygen saturation”, “temperature”, as well as various blood cell counts, the numbers were difficult to assess. It was logical, of course, that Romulan medicine would use other sets of metrics and standards. Heart beat would naturally not be measured by the Earth minute, or blood pressure by millimetres of mercury (millimetres being an Earth invention), and temperature would not be measured in Kelvin or degrees Celsius. “Please lie still, I am trying to interpret the data.”

He had already set the Betazoid tricorder to Federation standard units (which were more or less Earth-ish). Assuming that both the tricorder and the biomed measured things accurately (save for the species identification), Kastarak could collect the same data from both apparatuses on the same patient at the same time. That way, he thought, he could create a conversion scale. But he needed more patients for trial. Only having his own data and Symar’s would not be enough. They would at the very least need a third one – with a different biology, heart rate, body temperature and so on.

He quickly related his idea back to Symar (OOC: sorry, can’t be bothered to write that in dialogue form now haha), before adding, “We need a third patient to try the data on, someone hotter than us. Any suggestions, sir?”

– Ensign Kastarak (physician)

“You thinking we need a patient with a completely different physiology to us to make sure the biobed can completely work in the way we want it to?”

-Lieutenant Symar: Chief Medical Officer-

Had Symar not listened? Was it down perhaps to Symar’s diminished sense of logic due to his inability to suppress emotions? Okay, he had to talk to Symar like he would talk to a human. Symar was more human-like than Vulcan-like in his now unmasked demeanour, but appearances were, indeed, deceiving.

“You and I share a similar physiology: heartbeat rate, body temperature, blood oxygen levels. We can measure these with our Betazoid scanners (which have Federation standards in them) as well as with the bio-bed. But we don’t know what scale the Romulan machinery uses, so because of the difference between you and me are so small, it is difficult to translate the body temperature degrees, for example, from an unknown Romulan measurement to Celsius. Now, if we have someone who is hotter than us by a significant degree, we can measure them with both the biobed and our scanner and thereby make a calculation scale between the biomed and tricorder. Then we repeat this on all other measurements that we think of and gather data on, and that way the biobed will be fully functional in times of crisis or emergency. We need someone who is hotter than us, who’s heartbeat differs from us in speed, and who’s blood pressure might be significantly different too.”

Kastarak looked at Symar lying on the biobed.

“My scanning is complete, you are free to come up now, unless you wish to rest.”

Kastarak needed to tread carefully with Symar. Symar was so impaired in his Vulcanness and sense of logic, and Kastarak needed to be careful and be extra mindful of Symar’s needs.

“How do you feel right now, what are your emotions?” he asked, hoping it might give Symar an avenue to unload.

– Ensign Kastarak (physician)

Symar swung his legs around and sat on the edge of the biobed, “Nervous, but I can do the work where I’m needed.”

-Lieutenant Symar: Chief Medical Officer-

“Nervous?” It was not the answer Kastarak had expected. “Pray, tell, what are you nervous about?”

– Ensign Kastarak (physician)

“I never thought I’d see the inside of a Romulan Warbird since what happened, so this mission is bringing back some… difficult memories.”

-Lieutenant Symar: Chief Medical Officer-

Kastarak paused. This was serious stuff.

He seated himself next to Symar.

“I can only imagine what that is like, sir.” he said, knowing fully well the trauma that his colleague had gone through.

“Do you wish for my help? If so, what should you want me to do?”

– Ensign Kastarak (physician / counsellor)

“An open ear,” Symar replied, “But not now, we have work to do.” He stood and flipped open his communicator, “=^= Symar to Captain Good, may I see you in Sickbay?”

-Lieutenant Symar: Chief Medical Officer-

[O] On my way![O] “T’Aria. You have the con. I’m be in Sickbay.” With that he got up and went to sickbay.

A few minutes later he came into sickbay. “Lieutenant. How may I assist you?”

Captain Chris Taggart CO

It surprised Kastarak that Symar had not prepared him for why and what for the captain was needed. That would have been logical – to discuss and inform so that Kastarak could aid in the best way possible. Now he just stood there, the captain rushing in, without knowing what to do.

He acknowledged the captain’s presence by straightening his own back and standing at attention.

– Ensign Kastarak (physician / counsellor)

“Captain,” Symar said, pulling the Vulcan mask back up, “Ensign Kastarak and I require a test subject for the Romulan Sickbay controls, I believe you would make the most logical test subject.”

-Lieutenant Symar: Chief Medical Officer-


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