The Eigth Level of Hell they didn't tell you about...

Posted on 18 Oct 2016 @ 6:12pm by Lieutenant JG Seras & Commander Paul Toddman & Ensign Daisy Peters

Mission: Prelude; Breakfast at Curmudgeon's
Location: Sickbay
Timeline: MD 0: 0200 hours

Seras stifled a heavy yawn as she made her way through the corridors along side the grav sled loaded with medical supplies. She had spent a long night with the Cargo Bay crew getting all four Cargo Bays stocked and organized, a daunting task considering that their usual stock had been doubled, but they had made exceptional headway given the overstuffed, chaotic state the bays were in when she arrived on the ship. After all the deliveries from the station had been received and the majority of the clutter was dealt with, Seras and the crew decided to call it a night, or morning as the situation now stood. She just wanted to deliver a few essential supplies to Sickbay before punching out, but she expected that she was going to crash hard once she finally got back to her quarters to get some rest.

The doors to Sickbay opened and Seras guided the grav sled in, maneuvering it through the main bay and back towards the supply room. The bay seemed empty at first glance, so Seras decided to announce herself with, "Supply Delivery!" to catch the attention of anyone who might be elsewhere in the bay. While she waited, she retrieved the PaDD sitting atop of the supplies to pull up the requisition order so that it could be signed for as delivered.

A blonde woman almost matching the Lieutenant's height came bounding like a gazelle from the office area of sickbay with a winning smile and an aura of radiant happiness that could not be ignored. She bounced up beside Seras and issued the most honeyed smile any face could possibly muster and maintain, though it was a mystery how.

"Good morning!" Ensign Peters said, clasping her hands out in front of her, "Isn't it such a wonderful morning, Lieutenant? What have you got here with you?"

Seras was visibly taken aback by the overly sunny disposition of this woman, which was really saying something considering the Cairn were a race of hippie pacifists (as her Academy roommate once described them). She was sweet, too sweet, the kind of sweet that made one's teeth hurt, and Seras didn't know how to respond to her.

"Medical supplies..." Seras finally replied in an uneasy tone, extending the PaDD to get Daisy's thumbprint to confirm the supplies were received.

The Ensign sucked in a breath like she'd just been given the best present she'd ever received in her entire life, "Supplies?! Wonderful! Let's see what you brought us... This is so much like Christmas! I can't wait to open everything!"

Ignoring the PaDD completely, the woman leaped... actually and emphatically launched herself into the air and landed next to the crates, throwing the first one open like the child she most likely was, mentally. She squealed... a high pitch warble that probably could have shattered anything short of transparent aluminum, and started tossing things onto the floor with reckless abandon.

"Oh!" the Ensign turned to Seras, "Have you met our Captain yet? Isn't he just the nicest man you've ever met?! He reminds me of my grandpa... and looks about the same age too. Usually I don't care for men in their 60s but our Captain just has this... aura, you know? Like he just would take super good care of you even if you are old enough to be his grandkid. And he's pretty smart too. Never thought he would know as much about medicine as he does. I thought Captains only knew how to do paperwork and stuff..."

For a Cairn, there was an art to reading non-telepathic species. Humans in particular had brains that were so primitive compared to the Cairn, it was like trying to network an Isolinear-based computer with an old phonograph and expecting them to work together. But Seras had lived around humans long enough that she had learned how to read them, and it varied from person to person the ease with which she could read them, but for some reason this unusual woman was an open book to Seras. This unnatural cheerfulness was not just a show, Daisy was so happy all the way through, and the thoughts and imagery Seras was picking up from her was making her visibly uncomfortable.

"Yes, I've met him," Seras replied, shifting on her feet uncomfortably. Seras generally considered herself to be a cheery person, but this girl put her to shame, what was wrong with her?! "Can you please sign for the order so I can go, please?" she continued, eager to get out of Sickbay and away from this crazy person as quickly as possible.

"You're leaving already?" the Ensign said with an exaggerated pout, "But we were just starting to really bond... I know! How about we have lunch together today! Then we can sit down and have all kinds of girl talk, wouldn't that be just the funnest thing ever?!"

"I have work to do..." Seras replied slowly as further sign of her unease and discomfort. Cairn did not lie, it was a concept most of them didn't even understand, but this was something Seras had learned in her years on Earth and then going through the Academy; sometimes there was a thing as too much truth, so holding back, while maybe not exactly a lie, was sometimes preferable than the pain of the truth. Knowing it might hurt the girl to hear exactly what was on Seras' mind right now, Seras bit back the response she wanted to scream out. "Someone will come by later to pick up the grav lift and any overstock you can't fit into your supply room. Please sign the receipt so I can finally end my shift and go to bed," she said instead with a hint of desperation, trying to keep the topic related to work, but somehow she got the feeling that Daisy wasn't going to take the bait.

"No! You should stay here," Ensign Peters locked an arm around Seras', "You can just use one of the beds here and that way, we can keep talking until you finally fall asleep. People always tell me that my wonderful stories are simply the best when they can't sleep! You'll be snoozing away in no time and I'll have company while I work. Wouldn't that be just totally fun? Like a sleepover... OH! We should have one of those, like a real one. We can replicate popcorn and talk about the guys we like..."

"Please, no," Seras replied with a frightened squeak, her fingers working frantically over the surface of her PaDD to key in a message to Commander Toddman, "Please help, emergency in Sickbay!" Seras extricated herself from Daisy's grasp and staggered back a few steps. "I haven't even seen my quarters yet, I want a shower, a quiet meal, maybe unpack a little... But I need you to sign the work order so I can go!" Seras pleaded.

Undaunted, the woman Captain Cowell had ironically named Bubbles continued her pursuit, "I can always replicate something for you, and we have a sonic shower in the nurse's station. We could even have a nice chat while you were washing up!"

"Please, it's procedure, it's how we account for where our supplies are; I need to log that Sickbay has received the supplies, please sign it!" Seras said, desperately hoping she could get through to this woman. It was like Daisy wasn't even hearing her, surely this kind of mindset wasn't healthy! How did a person like this ever make it through the Academy?! "I appreciate your interest in accommodating my needs here," Seras continued, her first outright lie so far as she didn't appreciate Daisy's insistence at all, "but I really do want to go back to my quarters. If I promise to have lunch with you later, will you let me go?" And now she felt the need to resort to bargaining to escape; oh, she hoped Toddman would get here quickly to rescue her!

Toddman had been very close by when he got Sera's message and had a good idea what the problem was. He silently entered via a doorway at the furthest end of Sickbay which was no where near the scene taking place between the Cairn and the person Paul had previously bumped into and characterized as a "bampot". Taking care not to be seen or heard he snuck up to the wall the divided the main Sickbay ward from the room the two officers were occupying. He peaked around the doorway and saw Sera's pinned to the wall with the bampot talking to her in the most horrendously high pitched, teeny boy band fan voice he'd ever heard. She was talking so fast, it was just a warble of noise.

Paul grabbed a hypospray and quickly charged it with the strongest sedative the dispenser deemed safe for a human. Standing by the door way, keeping himself hidden, he spoke up, remembering that his Scottish accent had been of particular interest to the hyperactive woman.

"Excuse me, is anyone here?" Paul said loudly, cupping his spare hand to make his voice sound more distant.

There followed a noise that would wake the dead 30 light years away. A high pitched squeal of delight that would put the fear of god into anyone.
The bampot came bounding like an antelope. As she drew level with the doorway, Paul extended his arm, made contact with the hypospray and delivered a vital dose of STFU. Ensign Peters stopped in her tracks....wobbled for a moment then fall over backward into Toddman's waiting arms, completely out for the count.

Seras came over to find out why the squealing had suddenly stopped and saw Toddman bundling the Ensign onto a bio bed.

"There you go, lassie. She'll be out for most the night".

With eyes wide with the kind of relief one might expect from the rescue of a Borg or a Jem'Hadar attack, Seras ran to Paul and gave him a squeezing hug. "Oh, thank you thank you thank you!" she rambled on for a while, though she quickly let him go and and blushed when she realized that she was a grown woman and a Starfleet Officer and that this kind of behavior was unbecoming. "Apologies Commander, but I have never before met a person or felt a mind quite like that. Her head was so... sunny and full of flowers and rainbows and... I saw some kind of white equine with a horn? It was all very bright, disturbingly so, and her insistence for a friendship made me quite uncomfortable," she explained in a frazzled rush.

"Quite all right, Seras. How long did she have you pinned down?" Paul questioned as he set up a restraint field on the bio bed Peters was now occupying.

"Far too long," Seras replied with an exasperated shake of her head. "I'm sorry for calling you in, but I did not know how to deal with her." Then again, no amount of training could properly prepare anyone for that kind of personality... "I was unable to get her to sign for the delivery, do you mind if I log it without a thumbprint?"

"It's OK, I happened to be on the same deck taking a stroll. Give me the PaDD a moment," Paul asked, gesturing to place it in his left hand, which Seras obediently did.

Paul grabbed the left hand of Ensign Peters and pressed her thumb against the PaDD which beeped a happy sound. Paul then handed the PaDD back to Seras.

"Right, there you go. Call it a day and go do whatever you do when off duty," Paul said with a smile.

"Thank you, sir!" Seras said, resisting the urge to hug him again. Instead she practically bolted from the bay, unable to get away from that creepy woman fast enough. Now all she had to do was get her duffel and personal cargo from the cargo bay and she could finally find her quarters and get some rest, with several lock in place on the door in case the crazy lady decided to come find her!