Post 17

Posted on Wed Jan 7th, 2015 @ 9:29pm by Captain Christina Curtis & Doctor Maya

Mission: Begin with a Bang
Location: Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, Earth
Timeline: May 13th, 2155 - 0900 hours

Ever since its founding in 1893, the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine had always ranked in the top three research-centered medical schools. Even in the 22nd century it was on the cutting edge of medical practice and innovation. For over a century, physicians and interns had come from all over the world to teach and learn, and with the implementation of the Interspecies Medical Exchange that statement now extended to extraterrestrials.

In a spacious chamber under Johns Hopkins Hospital, Doctor Maya was teaching a number of medical students extraterrestrial medicine while conducting an autopsy of a bona fide extraterrestrial. Doctor Maya was a short, slender woman of indeterminate age. She had allowed the rather severe haircut favored by most of her people to grow out a bit and now her pageboy haircut had grown enough to hide the pointed tips of her ears. Likewise, she had allowed her dark bangs to grow enough to hide the severe slant of her eyebrows. Her almost egg white skin indicated that her ancestors had lived very close to the poles of her home planet of Vulcan.

"As you can see the subject of our examination is a male Denobulan of apparently middle age," she said in a mezzosoprano voice with a strange Irish-sounding lilt. "At this point I must warn you that the Denobulan anatomy is considerably more complex than that of the terrestrial human. Even without cutting in, we can see many differences. Note the prominent facial ridges running down either side of the forehead to the cheeks, the enlarged brow ridge under a high receded hairline, that vertical crevice in the center of the forehead, and the ridged chin. These ridges are also found on their backs, along the spine. This is indicative of their advanced nervous system and musculature tissue which finds even more ingenious places to hide fatty cells than the Terran or Vulcan norm."

She paused and addressed her students. "Now before we start cutting, I want you to examine the exterior of the body and propose your best hypothesis on how the subject lived and died. This will be an exercise in observation and analysis."

Captain Curtis had stepped into the back of the chamber quietly whilst the doctor had been speaking, and stayed quietly at the back in the shadows; observing. She had spoken with Admiral Gardner after her conversation with Archer the night before, and this doctor was at the top of his list of members of the interspecies medical exchange program that was qualified for service aboard a starship. Doctor Maya had served with her native Vulcans as a doctor before joining the program, and since the Xindi event had been teaching xenobiology and medicine to students here on Earth. She was a prime candidate according to her record, but Christina wanted to observe her first, in the limited time that she had. It was well known in Starfleet that very few Vulcans had been able to serve aboard human ships for extended periods; Commander T'Pol being the only current exception to that rule. Observing the doctor in a teaching environment with other humans present and interacting with her would allow Curtis to determine whether Maya would be capable of working well with her own crew.

Maya's three students huddled around the Denobulan's remains and examined them. Maya herself noticed Christina and glided over to her. Up close the slender Vulcan was revealed to be half a foot shorter than Curtis and in addition the slender Vulcan looked extremely delicate. Only the knowledge that the planet Vulcan's higher gravity gave its natives the comparable strength of a human six inches taller assured Christina that Maya could pass the physical to serve in space. Well, that and Maya's military record with the High Command.

Maya's large hazel eyes scanned the new arrival, not only studying the face and but also moving downward and left and right. After a moment she spoke.

"Hello Captain, I didn't expect someone from the command division to visit me on this fine day," the little Vulcan greeted with an almost-smile. "I'm curious, did you ride the shuttlepod to the landing area here at the hospital or did you take a cab?"

"The shuttlepod landed here at the hospital," Christina responded, somewhat hesitantly, wondering how the doctor had been able to determine that she had been in a shuttlepod this morning. Perhaps there was some sort of particular smell associated with the craft - she had always heard that Vulcans had a much more sensitive sense of smell than humans. Or perhaps the doctor had happened by a window that looked in the direction of the landing area as Curtis was getting off. Maybe it was just a good guess on the doctor's part. "I came to observe your lesson," she said by way of explaining her presence, having not yet quite decided which of her three options was the more likely explanation.

"Unfortunately, I won't be giving a lesson," Doctor Maya replied. "I won't be giving a lesson that involves cutting in any case. The matter is now one for the authorities. It seems our middle-aged Denobulan was murdered. Any dissection of the tissues would be tampering with the evidence."

"Murdered?" Christina asked, shocked at the sudden declaration. Surely if such an end for the unfortunate Denobulan had been in the file, the body would have been sent to a coroner or other forensic physician, and Maya wouldn't have told her students that they would begin cutting after their external observations. "I thought that the bodies donated for study were all cleared of any wrongful deaths before they came to the classroom?"

"The medical examiner missed a puncture wound in the victim's nasal cavity," the little Vulcan replied casually, "not that I blame him. The puncture was nearly indistinguishable from the interior pores that litter the Denobulan nasal cavity. If I hadn't taken my sabbatical on Denobula two years ago I would have missed it myself. It wasn't eating the food on your lovely planet that caused this man's fatal allergenic reaction. Someone injected him with extract from your peanut, which is as fatal to Denobulans as confections created from the beans of your cocoa tree is to your Terran canines. This man had a poison injected into his bloodstream and it went straight to his brain. He would have died in seconds."

"I guess we'd best call Starfleet Security to handle him from now on then," Christina said after a pause, suitably impressed. Any doubts that she had held about asking a Vulcan to come aboard Discovery as Chief Medical Officer evaporated pretty quickly in the face of the woman's attention to details others equally as trained would have probably missed. "Your Starfleet file says that you're well versed in human medicine as well as xenobiology," she said after a pause, prefacing her next question. "Do you have any interest in working on a starship again? My ship is due to depart tomorrow, and we're missing a chief medical officer. I'd like you to join us, if you're willing".

"I would be honored," the little Vulcan replied with a respectful nod. "I consider my people's response to the Xindi crisis a shameful one and I will do what I can to make amends. What are the mission parameters of our voyage?"

"Discovery's mission is one of exploration; the same as the three other NX class ships before her," Christina said. "But we're leaving dock early on a security mission." She glanced over towards the students, some of whom had stopped looking at the Denobulan body and were looking with curiosity in their direction. "I can't really say much more about it here, but the entire crew will be briefed before we depart. You might be needed to provide emergency care when we get to our destination, but if we can get there on time we can hopefully prevent that." She knew that she was asking the doctor to take a bit of a leap into the dark without telling her the full details of the mission, but Admiral Gardner had asked that she keep the details of their mission contained until they were on their way, to stop Mosstaff from being alerted ahead of time.

"Very well," Doctor Maya replied with another respectful nod. "We will need to send someone to collect my things."