Welcome To The Ship

Welcome To The Ship

"Anderson! What have I told you about having female comrades in your personal quarters?" bellowed Captain Michaels as he stood near the doorway of Anderson’s private room.

"Well, not to do it I suppose" Anderson retorted in his usually smug tone, indifferent that the ship’s captain felt it necessary to speak with him.

Captain Michaels was a burly, Caucasian man who stood at Five feet and eleven inches tall. The Captain’s face was and always has been overwhelmed by his handlebar moustache, hiding the fact that he had greying hair, a nose which crooked to the left a little where it had probably been broken and brown eyes. In fact, his moustache was so profound, it was once noted that he looked very much like a 18th Century English royal guard.

"Then why do I hear reports that Petty Officer Danielle Thomas was in your quarters at 00:12 hours last night?" he asked, blocking the door so Anderson couldn’t escape.

"She had a problem with her environ-suit I believe, Captain." Anderson smiled, knowing he had done nothing wrong, annoying Captain Michaels greatly.

"Why was she not in medical to get her suit off and decontaminated like the others?"

"Well, sir, the thing is…” Anderson took a moment to chose his words carefully. “Clinic closes at 12 and as the lead doctor I was the only one allowed to see her after hours- I'm sure you can understand." Anderson smiled once more, this time a hint of arrogance was lingering on his lips and in his cheeks as yet again he scored another victory over Michaels.

The captain, accepting this minor victory over him grunted and growled. "You may be exempt from many rules Doctor, but when you are on MY ship, you do as instructed or so help me God, when we get back on Earth and we are fully de-briefed. I will tear your neck in two!" Needless to say, the Captain was clearly riled.

"My neck? That’s very specific, Sir." Anderson blinked innocently, rubbing his neck with both hands.

The captain let out a deep sigh before pivoting on his right foot and storming out of the room, muttering profanities under his breath.

"That went well." Anderson uttered to himself as he fell back onto his bed and reclined, resting his head against the headboard, smiling as he opened up his multi-tool and selecting the day’s paper.

"Thursday, August 12, 2145"
Language – English (Colonial)
Twelve fall sick on Teloit farms across Lessia... 11 dead...Doctors puzzled...sick number 312 "
"Teloit farms are grubby places anyway, everyone knows that." Anderson thought to himself as he skim read the Clusters segment of local news.

"Teloit farms are grubby places anyway, everyone knows that." Anderson thought to himself as he skim read the Clusters segment of local news.

Anderson scrolled down the side menu of his multi tool, bypassing his tempting selection of games, briefings and contacts and decided to settle with the Ships Radio station so he could listen to music as he began to ready himself for another long day at the Practise.

An hour passed by smoothly, with the almost silent hum of the ships engines being the only noise breaking through the sound-proofed walls of Anderson’s quarters. Not a footstep, not a knock, not a ping from his multi-tool; not even his own android maid disturbed the process of Anderson's morning. He did eventually leave his room of course; locking it with a swipe of his multi-tool, keeping all his precious commodities and government equipment securely within the room.

"Doctor Anderson, Commander Ericsson has invited you to the annual dinner summit of senior’s this Saturday. Will you attend?" It was the small voice from his multi-tool which broke the peace by just carrying itself over the clanging of his black, sized 11 boot against the steel flooring of the ship. It was a break that lasted long enough for the voice to distract Anderson for a moment from his dead gaze on the unknown cream material that covered the silvery metallic surface of the ships walls on either side. The sound was even loud enough to distract Anderson from the smells of Turkey bacon, powered eggs, bread rations and day old mushrooms that usually wafted down the ships many corridors every other Thursday morning from the canteen facilities.


"Martin!..uh.. I mean... Doctor Anderson!" A feminine voice muttered cautiously from a direction Anderson was unsure of, mainly because of his distractions, but this voice brought his focus back into reality and away from the common, useless uttering of his Multi-tool.

“Yes?” the doctor quizzed, looking around him for the unexpected guest. The only additional clue given to him was the sound of footsteps against the steel flooring in the corridor just behind him.

“Doctor Anderson!” The voice exclaimed again; this time a lot more confident than the last as the sound of the footsteps began to get louder, signalling whoever it was, was getting closer with every step, encroaching onto Anderson’s unclaimed turf.

“Anya!” Anderson exclaimed as the figure wafted effortlessly through the morning lighting of the dimly lit corridor; it was his assistant and he was clearly pleased to see her, evident from the beaming smile plastered across his face.

Anya was the Doctors assistant; a young woman in her early twenties, she had an unrealised beauty encapsulated within her deep hazel eyes and long brown hair. She presented herself in accordance with the regulations imposed by Anderson.
Her brown locks were regularly tamed behind a high bun at the back of her head. It was a regulation that had some logic on the surface since the Doctors reasoning was that if she had
her hair down, there was a real threat of it falling into her eyesight- “obscuring vision from not only ones work; but also from having the potential to spot any prospective perverts passing by the work bay window and gracing their eyes upon her feminine figure.” Why Anderson was noticing such actions does raise the question of what he did during the day, but Anya played by the rules - no matter how ridiculous they may have sounded to her.

“Morning Sir!” Anya announced, taking her final few steps towards Andersons left hand side.

“Good morning to you too, I hope you slept well?” Anderson retorted cheerfully, his pleasant smile still present on his face.

“I did!” Anya puffed. “Sorry If I was distracting you from anything interesting, Doctor. I hope it was not a breakthrough…” she continued, standing there before the doctor. “..Not that I hope you are stuck or not having a breakthrough…” she panted, slightly flustered that she couldn’t articulate as well as she normally did.

“No, no!” Anderson replied as he looked up from his multi-tool, scratching his head lightly; “You’ve done nothing of the sort…”

“Oh good!” A sigh of relief escaped her lips which she quickly covered with a genuine smile. “I hope you don’t mind if we were to… walk together?” her tone was cautious as despite working with Anderson for a while, she was still unsure on where she stood with him, particularly in situations involving social conventions.

Anderson looked at her, puzzled from not only the unusual request, but also because Anya was usually already at the Practise at this time.

“Sure… I guess I could use the company.” He shrugged, eyes still fixated on her, trying to be ‘cool’.
Anya laughed; “You make it sound like your morning walk is a little lonesome.”
Anderson chuckled back to her; “Lonesome? I guess you could describe it like that.”

The pair began to trot briskly towards the ‘M wing’. The trotting of boots against the steel reminisced that of a scene of a horse’s hooves slapping against a wet tarmac road, a common scene in the vids at the time.

“Well, what about your morning walks with Michaels?” asked Anya, curious as to what was different this morning.
“Michaels?” Anderson chuckled awkwardly, rubbing his left shoulder. “Ah, we only walk a few wings together, not like it’s the whole journey.”

travelling with someone you do not despise always seems to make time tick faster and Anderson’s morning stroll with his assistant had obeyed these same rules. As the pair walked through wings, the usually tedious task which was riddled with security procedures and diabolically steep flights of stairs was tolerable on this particular morning.
What was stopping Anderson from enjoying the journey however, was the half-hearted greetings from tired guards and intermittent mutterings of his aging multi-tool, did tarnish the incrementally small moments of peace he would have before beginning work.

Arriving at the Practise, the intial inspection indicated nothing was out of ordinary since it was tidy as it always was. The glass surfaces clean and without clutter of bulky equipment like microscopes or even computers, those days of old were far gone. Now was the age of the single device and the multi-tool was the current innovator in such design. Sleek and silent, it felt right besides the quiet humming of the ships engines, which too felt natural against the backdrop of the near silent operation of the semi-autonomous medical droids as they attended to the few hapless victims of the last mission’s fire fight who’s injuries were not considered sever enough to have them admitted to the ships hospital.

“Good Morning, ESA.” Anya peeped, tapping the medical droid on its flat, cylindrical head, causing the droid to spin quickly in a circle, bleeping and booping at various pitches; showing its excitement at Anya’s greeting. Anya, not done with greetings, replicated the same genuine emotion she showed ESA and greeted her patient, Mr Phelps with a wide beaming smile. “Good morning, Mr Phelps.”

The somewhat sickly patient sat upright against the flat, hard and somewhat useless pillows which propped him up against the backboard, alleviating the pain in his back from the uncomfortable, thin sheeted mattress which the clinic provided. “Please, call me…”
“PATRICK!” Anderson exclaimed, interrupting the previously exclusive conversation between Anya and Patrick Phelps by bursting through the canopy that surrounded the patient. He too had a smile plastered across his freshly woken face.

Patrick arched forward and coughed, spluttering small amounts of mucus into his loosely clenched fist which covered his mouth.
“Take it easy friend; we don’t want you hurting yourself even further when you’re in MY care.” Anderson chuckled to Patrick, patting his tense, brutish shoulders before fluffing his pillow slightly as Anya read the file on her multi tool about the patients’ condition.

“It says here that you never took your medicine?” Anya inquired, screwing her face as she scrolled through the document on her multi tool.

“Your… human medicines never work!” Phelps spluttered, the words churning and slurred on his tongue as he spoke.

“We both know that’s not true!” Anderson retorted, standing by Anya’s side so he could peer over her shoulder whilst she poured over the pages of notes with her fountain of medical knowledge.

Patrick grunted, rolling away from the pair as he uttered obscenities to himself in Mahallian. “I just need to get better. I have a mission soon.”
“Oh really? Tell me about it.” Smiled Anderson, keen to be re-introduced back into the loop of things.
“I really want to, friend, but I really can’t. It’s not even been fully authorised yet.” He coughed, trying to roll over so he could lay back once more in a hope it would lift the pain from his back.
Anya who had now finished her quick analysis of the notes, pulled back the curtain and asked to speak with Anderson alone in a rather nervous and hushed tone. “Can I talk to you in private please, sir?”
Anderson nodded his head almost instinctively. “Sure thing, give us a moment will you?” he smiled, stepping back and drawing the curtain behind him, thus allowing it to drape neatly towards the ground, causing the material to brush against the pristine floor.

“I’m worried about his condition, Sir.” Anya whispered, desperately trying not to alarm Phelps who could more than likely hear what she was saying anyway.
“What for? Patrick is tougher than Bukharin’s Fortress!” retorted Anderson, oblivious as to what Anya had already read.
“He might, but look at this…” Anya opened the document. “ His heart rate is dropping, but his blood pressure is increasing; that isn’t normal.”
“Do a test then”
“I’ve taken a number of samples- done the test several times, I’m telling you sir – this is a cause for concern.”
“Then use some older equipment if you’re that worried, there could be a bug in the system or something. We both know these systems are not installed by the best of engineers.”
“yes –but they aren’t as accurate though, sir- that’s why I was about to ask-”
Andersons infamous temper grew short and he cut her sentence swiftly with a certain venom that most people would only display to those they had no interest in seeing ever again. “If you had another idea, you wouldn’t be asking for my advice. So just do it.”

The look exchanged between Anderson and Anya was one of Anger as his boiling emotions seemed to bubble up and rock the very bridge of trust two colleagues rely on. Well, that was only the case on Anderson’s behalf: Anya simply stared back; reluctant to say another word in fear she would spark a violent response, something she learnt through experience whilst working with Anderson. The previous assistant used the analogy that his tempers were very much like dropping potassium into a body of still water. Explosive and brief encounters which seemed to always be over exaggerated when compared to the severity of the situation.

Eventually Anya broke the gripping glare of Anderson which seemed to grow stronger with every passing second. She stepped back into the loose protective veil of the curtain; queuing a heavy set of footsteps which headed towards the clinic door.

“Sorry about that, Mr Phelps” Anya stammered as she stepped closer to the bed, running her finger on the inside of her shirt collar, loosening its clutch around her neck slightly. She did expect some delay in the response, but it was only when she could not even hear her patient’s breath rasp against his scaled lips did she quantify the gravity of the situation.

“Mr Phelps? Mr Phelps?” she hummed softly, rolling Patrick onto his back whilst touching his forehead; his navy blue scales were hot and the ridges between the scales on his face began to perspire. “Can you hear me, Mr Phelps?” Anya kept calm as she prized open his fish like eyes with her thumb and forefinger; revealing that a cream had glazed over his eyes, much like a puddle on a kitchen counter or the topping on a doughnut.

“ESA!” Anya squealed, alerting the small medical droid’s attention towards her. “Contact Anderson and get me something to stabilise our patient!” she bellowed as the droid beeped and zoomed around the room, gathering various medical supplies and placing them onto the silver tray balanced between its two front facing pincers which extended from its cylindrical body.

Anya Began to restrain the now violent shaking of Phelps by placing his arms into the bedside restraints and his legs to the restraints at the end of the bed, bracing him for the emergency procedure. Other droids were now shuffling around Anya too and the medicines shook slightly within the confines of the tray as ESA’s small wheels rolled between the cracks of the practises’ tiles, unbalancing the droid at brief moments.
“Thank you, ESA.” Anya declared as she retrieved a syringe from the tray.
“Fully tested.” ESA squealed in its monotone radio voice. “Message from ‘Doctor Anderson’, would you like to listen now or…” ESA was interrupted.
“Play!” she shouted over the straining metal which kept back the monstrous soldier. The other pieces of medical equipment also shaking as they bounced up and down on the tray.
“‘Doctor Anderson’ is unavailable at this time; please call again later.”
Anya rolled her eyes as she searched for a vein between the scales of her Mahallian patient, stabbing the skin beneath the scales through a crack with a swift, decisive jab, pushing the chemical mixture directly into his blood stream.

Phelps’s violent trembling had now stopped and Anya wiped her brow, congratulating her synthetic team with duly deserved pats on the head.
“Vitals Check, ESA.”
ESA scanned the throat and forehead of Phelps; bleeping and booping frantically whilst the transparent light being emitted from its head scanned his vitals.

Anya begun to inject Phelps with multiple doses of cooling agents and stabilizers as ESA gave a grave print out of the situation.

“Body temperature, High: 40.9 °C. Normal: 38.9.
Systolic blood pressure, Low: 60 mmHg. Normal 90.
Platelet count, Low: 90,000. Normal: 100,000 mm³”

Anya took one look at the readout and announced the grave news; “He’s falling into toxic shock.”