Will you be my date?

Posted on 05 Jan 2015 @ 8:20am by Ensign Jaana Voutilainen & Lieutenant Olsam Mott

1,520 words; about a 8 minute read

Mission: Episode 07 - Sojourn
Location: Starbase 84 - Friendly Fishes
Timeline: MD 6 - 1300 hrs

ON:

Jaana walked around the Starbase. She was looking for the ship's assistant CMO, and after looking at the logical place, she had the brilliant idea to start looking at the restaurants. Starting with the restaurants serving fish.

When she arrived she noticed her idea was a good one. There were multiple Bolians eating there. She quickly skimmed the room and located the person she was looking for. She approached his table and said. "Doctor?"

Olsam looked up, half a fish spine sticking out of his mouth. When he recognized the woman, the spine slowly sucked into his mouth and disappeared, presumably swallowed into a digestive system renowned for being able to digest anything.

"Oh, hi, Ensign Voutilainen! Would you care to join me? They've got some lovely jellied Thesian fish," Olsam said, shuffling his chair around the table to make room for her to sit down next to him.

"Uhm yes, sure" She took the offered seat and sat down.

Olsam flagged down the server, placed an order on Jaana's behalf (because who is better suited to make a culinary decision - a Bolian or a human?) and then pushed his plate to the side a bit so he wasn't rudely eating in front of her. "How's shoreleave going for you? Are you all right? Do you need medical advice? Is it something of a personal nature that you don't feel comfortable going to your sister about? Are you pregnant? Don't worry, I'm discreet. I won't tell her. Who's the father?"

Jaana sighed and decide to let the doctor rand. There was no way to get a word in anyway. When he had finished rambling she replied in her calm self, "I'm not pregnant, not am I here of a personal matter. Well, it's about my sister."

"Is she pregnant?" Olsam asked, look bewildered. "You'd think I would have noticed..."

She looked at the doctor. "No, she's not pregnant either as far as I know. What is it with you that you think everyone is pregnant?"

"Hm? Oh, well, people usually come to me for medical advice, and if they do it outside of Sickbay it's almost always about pregnancy, illicit drug use or murder," Olsam said, counting off the things on his fingers. "Sometimes it's regular stuff, like friendly advice or a favor. I just like to rule out pregnancy at the outset because there's so much paperwork involved. I don't know who sets the prenatal guidelines at Starfleet Medical, but they must really love paperwork. So if you're not pregnant and Tuula's not pregnant, what can I help you with?"

The waiter brought the food Olsam had ordered for her. It looked hideous, but since joining Starfleet she learned that looks can be deceiving. "I need a date for my sister," she started, took a bite of her food and explained the whole plan of giving her sister a evening of dancing. "As you can understand, I need someone to dance with her."

"Oh," Olsam said, taking his napkin out of his lap and dabbing at the corners of his wet eyes. Jaana's plan was moving and touching and reminded him of how siblings were supposed to be with one another, not the hysterical and dysfunctional mess that was the Mott family. "That's so sweet, ensign. Would you like me to draw up a list of suitable dance partners for her? I can analyze her personal logs and other information in her files to gather a set of traits she finds desirable and then cross-reference it with the ship's manifest. If we can't find anyone there, maybe we can move on to the starbase personnel. And if that doesn't work we can just make a hologram. She won't know the difference anyway."

"Well, actually. I was hoping that you would be her date?" she said a bit shy suddenly. "She would probably kill me for arranging a date for her. I thought if I asked a friend of her, she wouldn't hate me as much. You are friends right."

"What? Of course we are," Olsam answered immediately, then fell to think over the request. They were friends, but also colleagues. More importantly, he was her mentor and responsible for her residency aboard the ship. There were doubtless ethical implications but ethics had certainly never stopped him from doing what was right before. "All right, I'll do it. Uh, shall I ask her? Or did you want to talk to her first?"

"Oh, no, not jet." Jaana said. "She doesn't know I'm arranging all of this. I want to surprise her on the eve of the ball. I have something to make up. I didn't reacted as I should have." Jaana started. "She told me something very important that had happened to her life a few years back and all I could think about was my own opinion, not about how difficult and painful and hard it must have been to my sister. She's not only my sister, she's also my best friend, you know. And instead of support her I only hurt her more." She explained. Why was she even telling him this? she wondered.

"Do you mean your reaction to her decision to terminate the pregnancy at the end of the emotionally and physically abusive relationship she had with Petty Officer Zuwtt?" Olsam asked, sounding as casual as if he were remarking on the weather. He slurped a tentacle into his mouth, chewed thoughtfully, then continued talking while he struggled to impale another of the tentacles arrayed on the plate with his fork. "How does me taking her to the dance help make up for that? I mean, I am a charming gentleman and I'm a pretty good dancer, but..."

Jaana stared at him. "You know about that?" she asked in disbelief. Am I the last to know? She pushed her food around her plate. "Ever since she had her accident I've been researching for solutions for her to walk again. So far, all I've found is a exoskeleton that makes that possible. Only she won't be able to use it all the time. So I never told her and kept it for special occasions."

She finally took a piece of salmon and eating it. "I'm asking you because you are her friend. I don't think introducing her to an unknown guy is a good idea, as the evening will already offer her enough challenges."

"Interesting solution," Olsam remarked, looking reflective. An exoskeleton was an interesting approach, and there were certainly a number of new and innovative technologies out there now. Many new species from worlds with unusual or non-standard gravity had joined the Federation over the past 50 years, necessitating the development of new technology to overcome the challenges of visiting other Federation worlds. "Of course I'd be happy to take her to the dance, but do you know if she even wants to use an exoskeleton? Some of my patients who have faced physical abnormalities chose not to see it as a disability to overcome with some mitigating technology but rather something to be embraced as part of themselves." He shrugged. "Everyone is different - it's not something that I've really discussed with her - but I thought you'd know better."

"I know she has accepted her disability, but we've never discussed this option." Jaana said.

"Okay! I'd be happy to go with her to the dance. And what better person to have along than a doctor? Especially if the exoskeleton malfunctions. It doesn't have any artificial intelligence, does it? I once participated in a holonovel about an exoskeleton that went crazy and started killing people and the person inside couldn't do anything to stop it... I think it was written by a Kesprytt, though, and I don't need to tell you how paranoid they are. But maybe you should build in a kill switch just in case. To kill the suit, not Tuula, of course. That would be murder," Olsam said plainly, as if murder actually needed to be defined.

Jaana shook her head. Was he just pretending to be nuts, or was he a real nut case. She pushed her plate aside, assuming the doc would know what to do about it. "I'll let you know when and how, as soon as I know myself" she said and stood up.

"Okay," Olsam said enthusiastically, eyeing the plate of half-eaten fish she'd pushed aside. His hand slowly crept toward it, latched on and dragged it over in front of him. "I'll replicate a tux and brush up on my dance moves in the holodeck."

She laughed at the image that that last comme gave. "Goodbye Doctor."

Olsam waved a fork at her and smiled before quickly turning his attention back to the plate she'd abandoned. It was beyond him why someone would leave perfectly good twice-baked deep fried jellied ulsicithin fish, but he certainly got to benefit.

OFF:

Lieutenant Olsam Mott, M.D.
Assistant Chief Medical Officer
USS Galileo

Ensign Jaana Voutilainen
Stellar Cartographer
USS Galileo

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