Cerulean Stars - Chapter 62

Cerulean Stars - Chapter 62

Stardate 48166.4 - March 2, 2371 - 17:39:00

The Emergency Medical Hologram was a true marvel of modern Federation technology, and Raine had wanted one for the Defiant the moment she had realized how stupid it was to have only a single medical specialist on board.

Also she was just a general fan of Voyagers Doctor and had always considered the fate of the other EMH's in Starfleet to be a colossal waste of resources.

So it was with baited breath that she waited for the engineering team to finish their final system checks before they could at last bring the Defiant's EMH online.

“You seem rather excited about this Brooks.” Sisko offered in an amused tone.

“Are you kidding!” Raine all but gushed, unable to really help herself given the circumstances. “The EMH is Doctor Zimmerman's greatest masterpiece, it possesses an adaptive matrix that allows it to actually grow in complexity the longer it's active.”

“And unlike most other holograms.” She continued as Sisko shot her a surprised look. “It possesses a self contained matrix which allows it to run on almost any computer system. So in theory we could even transfer it back and forth between the Defiant and Deep Space Nine as long as we installed some holo-emitters in the infirmary.”

“Should I warn Doctor Bashir that you're apparently planning to replace him?” Sisko asked her, very obviously holding back an amused grin at the thought. 

“What!?” Raine said in an affronted tone. “I'm not…”

She trained off, tilting her head slightly as she seemingly considered the possibility for a moment before shaking her head. “No, any sort of mobile holographic emitter is still decades away, so we'll still need him for away missions and the like.

“I'm sure Doctor Bashir will be relieved to hear that.” Sisko returned with a chuckle at her obvious joke. 

“But I didn't know you had such an interest in holographic technology.” He continued, giving her an intrigued look.

“For a while I wanted to be a holo-novelist.” Raine confessed, not particularly embarrassed about it given the skill-set was surprisingly widespread among high ranking security officers. “But younger me didn't really have the patience for the extreme level of detail work needed to actually make something original.”

Which was putting it more than a little mildly, and explained why most holo-programs tended to be historical reenactments, adaptations of long running series professionals could partially extrapolate into form, and various things related to sex.

“We should be ready to go.” The lead engineer offered to them as the team began packing up their tools.

“Do you want to do the honors?” Sisko asked Raine.

“Since you're offering.” Raine agreed with a smile as she turned her gaze to the center of the room. “Computer, activate EMH.”

With the light shimmering sound of the photonic field displacing air the instantly recognizable form of Doctor Zimmerman appeared in the recognizable blue and black sciences uniform of the style currently in use on Deep Space Nine.

“Please state the nature of the medical emergency.” The EMH recited as his eyes flicked across the medical bay.

“No emergency.” Sisko told the hologram as he looked it over. “We're just doing a test of your functionality.”

“Well.” The EMH began in a put upon tone as his eyes settled on them. “Outside of the distressingly limited looking sick-bay, I appear to be operating at peak efficiency.”

“Why don't you give the Commander here a quick physical so we can make sure.” Sisko instructed the hologram as Raine shot the man a look of betrayal.

“All right.” The EMH said, rolling his eyes in obvious annoyance at the request as he walked over and grabbed one of the medical tricorders from its charging station. “Take a seat on one of the biobeds Commander so I can perform a task any first year medical student should be able to do with their eyes closed.”

Trying not to grin at the snark, Raine followed the EMH's instructions and sat down on the nearest biobed as he walked over to her and began running the medical sensor over her body.

“Asari, age thirty-four.” He began, only to pause and glance up from his tricorder with a look that seemed to struggle between equal parts annoyance and confusion. “Are you aware your species medical files are far below the normally accepted standard?”

 “Yes. Raine answered with a nod, she'd done her best to remedy that over the years by allowing a nearly invasive level of testing on herself of course, but you could only do so much with a sample size of two.

“Very well.” The EMH said, giving her a nod as he closed the tricorder up and returned it to its charging station “Then outside of some minor muscle strain, you appear to be the literal picture of Asari health.”

“If that’ll be all?” He continued with an expectant look to Sisko.

“Computer, deactivate EMH.” Sisko ordered.

“It’s a bit terse.” He offered to Raine a moment after the hologram vanished with a considering look on his face.

“Its base matrix is speced for prompt medical care.” Raine offered with a shrug as she hopped off the biobed. “But it's adaptive, so the bedside manner should get better the longer it's active. Though to be honest I kind of prefer the snark and dry humor to listening to Bashir talk about this and O'Brien's newest holoadventure for ten minutes.”

“And well.” She continued with a grimace at what she was about to admit in light of Starfleet’s general view on things. “Given the Defiant class was designed with the idea of combat in mind, terse quick care feels like a general plus.”

“You'll get no argument from me on that.” Sisko agreed with a wry grin.

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“The largest challenge was surprisingly the pulse phasers.” Sisko told Raine with a look not unlike a proud father showing off this newborn as the pair examined one of the pulse chambers. “You see, the rapid charging and discharging of the power cells gave them a depletion time measured in days under any sort of prolonged combat conditions.”

“Huh.” Raine muttered, trying to recall what it was about that that sounded so familiar to her. “So I take it you finally solved that problem?”

“Somewhat.” Sisko answered her with the grin of a man getting to talk about one of their passions as he motioned to the small accessible portion of the weapons compartment. “You see, during the original design phase the team I was working with ran into the problem that the cooling necessary for the more standard pulse weapon capacitor systems just wouldn’t fit inside the space we had available.”

He gave an almost self pitying shake of his head at that.

“So we switched to standard Sarium-Krellide power cells and just accepted that we’d be replacing them on the regular.” 

Raine nodded, able to see the logic in the decision, you didn’t really need the standard level of longevity for an escort ship that should always have ready access to a starbase or larger vessel after all. But the Asari rather doubted Starfleet had felt the same way given their general design philosophy had always favored that kind of longevity.

“Funny thing is it wasn't even Captain Scott who figured out the solution.” Sisko continued in a tone that suggested he didn't quite believe it himself. “He claimed he tossed the problem to his cadets with the offer of a guaranteed pass for anyone that could come up with a solution that at least doubled the longevity of the phasers without sacrificing any performance.”

“I can believe it.” Raine returned with an amused snort at the memory of just what lengths she'd seen engineering cadets go to in the hopes of a passing grade during her years at Starfleet Academy.

“I take it Captain Scott’s been more than a little bit of a help then?” She probed, having been far too busy to keep up with what was going on with the Defiant outside of the broad strokes.

“Not sure how we would have managed without him.” Sisko confessed tiredly as they began heading back to the bridge. “Just sad he isn’t going to be able to make the trip back to DS9 with us.”

“You asked?” Raine inquired in surprise, not having really considered the option herself.

“Felt kind of bad for Miles.” Sisko returned in a cagey tone that left Raine to suspect the real reason was somewhat more embarrassing. “But apparently Admiral Nechayev had already made him an offer to help iron out some bugs with the new Sovereign class.”

“Lucky.” Raine muttered, feeling oddly jealous given how much she had always loved the class.

“Careful now.” Sisko warned, clearly holding back a grin as he stopped to pat one of the bulkheads almost consolingly. “Don’t want to get her annoyed at us before we’ve even left the dock.”

“She’s not the Enterprise D.” Raine returned in deadpan as her lips twitched at the effort of holding back a smile. “It should be several years at least before she gets taken over by an alien intelligence.”

“Though that reminds me.” She continued, annoyed at herself for forgetting to follow up on it. “Did O’Brien actually remember to transfer Pup over to the Daystrom Institute? Because I could see him forgetting, and I really don’t want a Moriarty incident on our hands.”

She actually had followed up on that one, Ironically because the Pup encounter had reminded her of it, and had been relieved to find that Picard had actually transferred the memory module to the Daystrom Institute in an attempt to actually keep his promise to the miraculously sentient hologram.

“I… Don’t actually know.” Sisko admitted uncertainly, his brows furrowing slightly in concern as the pair of them entered the empty bridge. “Remind me again when we get back to the station.”

“Of course sir.” Raine acknowledged with a smile and nod as she pulled the small padd out of her pocket and jotted a quick note down so she would actually remember to do that.

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Stardate 48182.4 - March 8, 2371 - 13:49:00

The roughly five day trip back to Deep Space Nine on the Defiant, was highly preferable to Raine compared to the eight days it had taken them to get to Earth on the runabout. Though she had a feeling that Saya would be a lot more annoyed with her by the end of it, given her daughter was functionally restricted to the mess hall and their quarters for the entirety of their voyage back to the station.

But the only other option was sending the young Asari back on the runabout with the poor pair of ensigns they had returning it to the station for them, and Raine wasn’t willing to trust her daughter alone with the unsuspecting pair, after all, who knew what she might be able to convince them to do.

“Sub-commander.” Raine greeted the Romulan woman with a light smile as she walked past her to take up her temporary position at the tactical station behind the captain's chair, where Sisko was already seated and focused on running through final checks via his command interface.

“Commander.” T’Rull returned with a quick nod before returning her focus to the console in front of her.

“Your team settle in okay?” Raine asked as she brought up the weapon systems and ran a quick double check just in case one of the others had missed something.

“The accommodations are somewhat more cramped than we are used to.” T’Rull admitted with a shrug that was almost undetectable through the stiff shouldered design of her uniform. “But we well understand the reality of such limitations.”

Which might as well have been Romulan for a full on complaint about having to double up in quarters, and Raine made a mental note to talk to Sisko about assigning the six their own quarters on the Defiant when the ship wasn’t running at functionally twice its normal crew capacity.

“Are we ready to head out Ensign?” Sisko finally put forward, looking up to the officer at the helm with an expectant look in his eye.

“Engines are reading green and the yard has given us the go ahead.” The Benzite woman told him with a quick glance over her shoulder.

“Then take us out.” Sisko ordered with a grin.