Meeting the Doctor

Posted on Tue Sep 14th, 2021 @ 8:33pm by Captain Calypso Skyie & Lieutenant Syrial J'naii

Mission: The Boneyard Heist
Location: A Corridor

Syrial had arrived late.

That, at least, was about on par for the J'naii. One had to manage people's expectations, you know? Arrive on time to report for duty, and suddenly everybody on the ship expects you to be on time, all the time. Syrial found it best to set a good precedent of tardiness - then timeliness would be praised, not expected. Not to mention that said policy of tardiness happened to line up perfectly with the fact that Syrial had barely arrived on the ship before it left, proceeded to curl up on their bed, and sleep in all without remember to actually contact her Captain. Of course it was all on purpose, and not just a convenient uh, accident.

Really, Syrial did intend to report in as soon as possible. It wasn't their fault that the ship was so distracting. First the mess hall, and the amusement of seeing the older models of replicators in it. Then exploring the ship, trying to find the restrooms. Then being overtaken by curiosity at the ships size, and exploring just for the sake of it. Syrial could already imagine all the decorations they might fit in the hallways as they strode down a corridor.

The J'naii smiled and nodded at every crew member they walked past. At first, that was how they greeted one blonde crewmate that they passed. The doctor had to do a double take when they noticed the crewmate's rank pips.

"Ah," Syrial took a step back and smiled. "Captain!" They seemed excited to see her, as if this were the plan all along. It might as well have been. Syrial already expected some sort of discipline for the late arrival, and now they might as well get this berating over with sooner rather than later. Truly, what a convenient scenario for fate to toss them in to.

Calypso had just given her normal bright 'Good Morning' to Ensign Martinez when another officer who looked relatively nondescript had gotten her attention. A Lieutenant by the pips on their collar, teal, which meant Science or Medical, but... She searched her memory of her officers, but nothing.. She still smiled broadly, "Good Morning!" She chirped, trying to keep the confusion from her face, then couldn't help herself, "I'm sorry, I... Don't recognize you."

"I barely recognize myself either," Syrial chuckled. That was a more common joke structure on their J'naii homeworld, but it if didn't make sense in English, the doctor didn't seem to care. "I'm Syrial; I think I'm supposed to be the Chief Medical Officer here." They smiled. Now that Syrial revealed their status as a department head, the Captain was bound to start at yelling at them, right? Syrial just continued to smile, confident that they could take whatever the Captain dealt. Ohhh maybe if they got demoted that would set a new record. Did Syrial know of anybody else who got demoted while reporting in for the first time? Syrial's pessimism about how the Captain might respond leant itself to a certain brand of outwards optimism; where Syrial would be happy with nearly any result, given that it was better than what they expected.

Calypso's attention was suddenly all over Syrial, looking for the evil weapons used by the medical profession. Her concerned search ended a couple seconds later when none of the tools of the trade were located, but what was that smile about? Perhaps there was a trap that was about to be sprung? She took another second to just glanced about really quick, her own smile obtaining a slight nervous twitch, "I, um... I wasn't aware that we'd had one assigned to us?" Cally again searched her memory, "But, welcome aboard? When did you get the orders to report? Not that I'm not thrilled to have you aboard, Because it's wonderful to have you."

"The orders to report were, uh..." Syrial let out a chuckle. "Definitely _not_ for yesterday." They spoke with such blatant sarcasm that it was obvious to both parties that the truth would be in the opposite. That was the only sort of sarcasm that Syrial had learned to manage in this language; the J'naii had no practice with and no use for the sort of sardonic sarcasm that they often misunderstood coming out of others. "uh, sir." Then they grew just a touch more serious, finally giving their explanation. "I arrived late, didn't get a chance to come find you before I fell asleep." That didn't explain just why Syrial hadn't come first thing in the morning, but it was an attempt at an excuse.

“Shame on you for forgetting then.” Calypso shrugged with a chuckle, “It really wasn’t critical then, since we were getting underway and ‘requisitioning’ some final supplies from ships who wouldn’t be needing them anytime soon. While, of course, testing all the ships systems purely to make sure they worked properly.” Cally winked at him… Her? She couldn’t tell and didn’t want to hazard a guess, “And I prefer ma’am over sir, being a girl and all, but unless we’re doing something that requires officialese, just call me Cally or Calypso or even ‘hey you over there’. Let’s see.. Medical… Medical, Medical… You’re understaffed at the moment, but we’re going to get you filled out once we hit the Starbase. You do have another doc already there, a Bolian named Adoff.. I think he’s pretty good, but that’s just from reputation.” She thought for a moment, “I didn’t get your last name, of course I haven’t given you mine, how rude of me… Skyie, Calypso Skyie.”

The J'naii nodded. Good. They had been meaning to figure out the Captain's name. They were sure her name was on the reporting paperwork, but, well, it had been a whole four hours since Syrial had looked at that, and all human names - was she a human? She looked human - tend to blur together for the doctor. "Well, it's good to meet you. Ma'am." Syrial usually defaulted to "sir". Half the time a female officer preferred to be called it anyway, and the other half of the time... well... Syrial still wasn't good telling apart genders, and they found that a female often took better to being called "sir" than a male did to being called "ma'am." Truly fascinating. "Technically, on paper that is, my last name is J'naii. But I don't really use that often. My species don't use surnames; I just put one down on the Starfleet paperwork because I thought it was required." They chuckled. "And does this count as a check in? Or do I need to, like, come back to your office, or ready room, or wherever, later?" The J'naii asked, visibly hoping for the latter.

“J’naii…” Calypso let it roll off her tongue as she searched her memory once more, once again coming up blank. That would have to be one of the first actual things she’d have to do today, after ducking down to engineering to see how the dilithium crystal kludge was faring. But she want oblivious to emphasis her new doctor had about reporting in later in the day, “No, this works well enough for an official check in, the Four know I’ve had far more interesting ones. Believe it or not, I’ve had three officers check in with me during my morning swims.” Cally actually giggled, she hated it when she giggled, “So this is more ‘normal’, I suppose. Besides, my guess is that the copy of your orders is sitting in my message queue somewhere, so I’ll go over that when I see it. Any interesting hobbies for you? I’m trying to get a tally from everyone I can, just to see what everyone likes.”

"Oh I have plenty of hobbies." Syrial was glad. Not only did the Captain not publicly berate them for their tardiness, she seemed genuinely interested in her crew. Syrial wasn't about to get their hopes up, but it was already far better than they expected. "I play the cello." They didn't play it well perhaps, but they definitely played it. "I love reading. I like to find those weird genres that you wouldn't think exist. Like, Klingon feminist fiction, or Vulcan Romance novels. I like keeping plants! I didn't bring over any from my old office though." Not to mention that the ones in their old office were all dead. "Um. I like trying different sports. I'm really bad at sports, but I like trying them out. Other people's enthusiasm is just so infectious, you know?" Infectious. Haha. Syrial had used a doctor word. "What's the tally look like so far? Who's got interesting pastimes?"

Called her bluff. This new doctor had called her bluff and now Cally had to come up with SOMETHING! Sure, Calypso did want to know about her people, it was part of being well… The Skipper. But she’d not actually asked people about their hobbies specifically, “Well, there are at least two of us that play tennis, I’m one of those by the way, Rene has a penchant for fencing, with swords of course, and Tyler enjoys teaching hand to hand combat. Really, most everyone so far has something completely unique about them that isn’t replicated by someone else. Heck, my own interests are the tennis, the swimming and basically flying anything I can get my hands on, well, it was that, now I don’t really have the time. I also love to sing, mostly when I’m alone. But… Vulcan romance novels? I don’t think I’ve ever seen any of those.”

"There's not many but they're..." Syrial tried to suppress a giggle and failed. "They're quite something. They're written only to be read during pon farr." The names meant nothing to Syrial. They had yet to introduce themselves to any of the crew. Tennis. That was a fun sport. Syrial had tried it once, back at the Academy, and had found it fairly enjoyable - if only because of it the fact that it didn't require much physical contact. "Well, Captain, if you ever need somebody to beat in tennis, I'm always down for a game."

“Then we’ll arrange a match.” Calypso flashed a grin, “A good distraction from the boredom we’ll have over the next couple weeks, no doubt. “But, I’m not going to delay you any longer from getting over the Medical so you can look over your own domain. I don’t expect you to have much company of the injured kind, but accidents do happen.” The CO shrugged.

"Ah, yes. Back to Medical." That had not, in fact, been where Syrial was heading but Syrial could change their path. Better for the Captain to think that they were doing something useful rather than randomly walking through the corridors. "And I do hope we don't have any injuries. Especially not before their initial check ups." Syrial chuckled.

“Absolutely, injuries look bad and cause far too much paperwork.” Cally agreed, “But I would say start bringing in people for their initial work ups and if you have any problems with people not coming in, let me know by comm and I’ll get them to you.” Cally smiled.

"If there's one thing I don't want to do it's more paperwork." That, at least, was entirely honest. The doctor smiled. And you know what would make more paperwork? If somebody managed to hurt themselves before that initial checkup. Trying to explain why those checkups had not been done a.s.a.p. was not something Syrial had wanted to go through again. Maybe they'd get lucky and the other doctor would have already started some.

Syrial glanced down the hall. "I guess I'll get on those now those. Starting getting them scheduled, that is." All in all, this reporting in could have gone worse. Much worse.

Cally reached out and patted the J’naii gently on the shoulder, “Go get ‘em Syrial.” She smiled at them and chuckled slightly under her breathe as she gave the V for Victory sign on her way away from the doctor. ‘Yes, go get THEM, not ME!’