Star Trek Hunter

Episode 19: The Ivonovic Commission

Scene 5: Stroke of Luck

19.5

Stroke of Luck

“Owwieee!!”

It was a low moan. Dr. Tali Shae was sleeping fitfully on Pep’s bed. She had taken Commander David Pepper’s quarters as ordered by her captain, but she was having a hard time sleeping in an actual bed after years of sleeping on the cot she had placed in the Medical Director’s office. She rolled over and tried to dispell the nightmare.

“Aaaallliiii….”

This was no nightmare - the sound was coming from the communicator embedded in her chest. The voice sounded weird. Indistinct.

“Hell.. Aaaalliii…. hell eeee…”

“Minerva? Are you drunk?”

“nooohh… naaahhh uhnk… srohhh….”

Tali was on her feet. She wrapped a sheet around her naked body and raced out of the first officer’s quarters (there was barely room for a twin bed, a workstation, a private watercloset, and a shower unit that was shared with the adjacent 2nd officer's quarters.) 

“Medical emergency!!” Tali howled as she ran into the transporter room, only a few feet away on deck 7. The andorian doctor shoved a startled Transporter Engineer K’rok out of her way, the sheet dropping from Tali’s naked body as she engaged the transporter. “Chrissiana! Scramble medical. I’m beaming the captain into the small surgery!”

The moment the transport cycle was complete, Tali raced out of the transporter room, leaving the sheet behind her, and leapt into the lift. “Medical!!” she screamed at the lift and began beating her left hand against the lift wall as the door closed and the lift crept down from deck 7 to the medical department, located on deck 3.

Dr. Tali Shae stormed into the medical office, only to be astounded to find Lt. Napoleon Boles, the ship’s half bolian epidemiologist, waiting for her. Napoleon caught her and had to wrestle the naked andorian woman and pin her against the wall. 

“You can’t go in there, Tali. You’re not dressed. Sam’s in there. He’s already started surgery.”

“Surgery?” With a surge of strength, Dr. Tali Shae shoved her way past Dr. Boles, nearly making it to the door that led from the medical office to the small surgery before Boles caught her again, pinning her in a wrestler’s hold and lifting her so that she could not gain traction.

“Merde woman! Calm down! You can’t go naked into the surgery room!”

“Let me go, Boles!”

“You need to get some clothes on!”

“Let me go! There are some scrubs in my private office! Well… Sam’s office…”

Napoleon gradually released the naked doctor, then stepped back quickly as she sprinted to the medical director’s office that had, until recently, been hers. It took only a few moments for her to re-emerge, dressed in scrubs that were only a little too short for her. She was still barefoot. But before she could make it to the door of the small surgery, the door opened and Dr. Sif emerged.

“Give Sam a few moments, Tali,” said the small, trill medical examiner. “He has her stabilized.”

“Stabilized???” Tali pounded the desk that had until recently been hers, then leaned on her fist.

“She’s had a stroke, Tali," said Sif. "We got to her in time. Sam thinks she’s going to be okay, but he really needs you to not be in there until he gets done with surgery.”

The andorian doctor surged toward the door, only to be caught once again by Napoleon Boles. Instead of struggling, she sagged against the half-bolean lieutenant - a dark blue man holding an older, pale blue woman - her face a mask of grief, her antennae drooping.

“You picked Sam because he’s the best… 8th in his class at Star Fleet Medical… Graduated with honors,” Boles said. “Let him do his job, Tali. Nothing good will happen if you barge in there now.”

19.5