Checkup for Dustin

Dustin came around in the medbay, a cold pack resting on his head and Meli looking at him with a worried expression from the seat next to his bed. “What…” he began, drawing his fiance’s attention. “Doctor, he’s woken up” she said, resting the back of her hand on his neck. “Temperature seems to have gone down and vitals are all nominal.” The brunette’s visage was swiftly joined in looming over him by Bleu’s form, green ripples dappling the otherwise azure woman. “How are you feeling captain? Any significant pain or dizziness anywhere?”

Lifting himself up on his elbows, Dustin looked around the room and shook his head. “No, nothing. How long was I out for? And what was that?” Meli sighed and Bleu waved a scanner in his direction. “Everything seems to be functional. Chief science officer, you did explain to him about piloting sickness and it’s ramifications, didn’t you?” Meli’s ears flickered between annoyance and embarrassment. “Yes. Although it was early in our time together, and he was easily distracted at that point so it’s entirely possible he wasn’t paying attention. What happened Dustin is that your body wasn’t used to the strain piloting put on it. If we’d spotted that snag in the weave in advance, I wouldn’t have let you fly through it for your first time.”

Sitting up further, he looked from one face to another. “Is it likely to happen again? And I just had a little fuzzy vision after we dropped out of the weave, why did Bleu knock me out?” The doctor sighed at that, before gesturing vaguely in the direction of Dustin’s head. “Precautionary measure. Your stats looked fine, however you encountered more strain than is recommended for new pilots. As a result, I deemed it sensible to minimize the amount of sensory information you had to deal with while your brain got used to just thinking in three dimensions again. The science officer agreed with me, if it helps.”

Meli looked guiltily at Dustin as she nodded “it really was for the best, li’ah’a.” Bleu sighed again. “Rest assured, it is as Meli’a says. And it shouldn’t happen again - your next piloting trip should be far smoother, with just the severe nausea afterward; the trip after that will have neither unless there’s a lot of tangles to avoid. This, for the record, is why we use pre-planned routes where possible.” Dustin frowned at that. “How do you know all this doctor? When Meli was talking about how weave jumps work when Rye started working on the buffer, you didn’t seem to know much about it?”

The doctor frowned at him, and her tone when she spoke was acerbic. “I didn’t know how the engineering aspects of it worked, because I am a doctor captain, not an engineer. I do however know about the impact weave piloting can have on sapient physiology, because I am a doctor and because I read up on the relevant details when it looked likely that you would fulfil my requirements to serve on your ship. I am a professional; please do not let any slip-ups in my behaviour when we were at the tourney dissuade you of that.” Dustin winced. “My apologies, doctor Bleu. I have nothing but respect for you and your role on my ship.”

That seemed to calm the Queri medic, and she began prodding at her scanner once more, seemingly checking to make sure that there truly was nothing wrong with the captain. Dustin meanwhile was happy just to lean back on the bed and chat with Meli, who visibly relaxed the more they spoke. Eventually, Bleu gave a vague gesture in the direction of the door. “Right, that’s it. You’re fine for now. I’d like to see you for a further check-up after dinner - sometimes issues can take a while to start to show up but…” and here she stared at Meli who had begun to open her mouth to speak “…I don’t think that likely in this case. Dustin appears perfectly healthy, and so we can all stop worrying.”

Dinner that evening was a cheerful affair - Naera had opted to dip into their limited remaining supplies of Earth products to cook up something delicious in a red wine sauce that filled the room with a mouth-watering aroma. Conversation was largely on the next two planets and their activities there - Dustin’s weave skip bringing them far closer than they’d planned to the first of the worlds. The missions themselves were simple enough - some research, a little light recruitment for both Sola and for the larger human fleet as they would be jumping to Earth afterwards. “We’ve got the space aboard for five or six hundred extra people for a couple of days without too much difficulty, if we’re just heading to drop them off.” Dustin had decreed; the general consensus was that it made sense to fill that number if at all possible.

It was in good spirits then that Dustin made his way back down to the medbay, accompanied by Meli who seemed to have decided to not leave his side after the weave-jump. He did his best to reassure her, and she seemed to understand that he was fine - she just didn’t want to let him out of her sight. On entering the medbay, he was waved over to one of the private rooms by one of the junior staff; Bleu had apparently informed them that he would be coming in for a check-up. Stepping through the door, he found the doctor sat at a low table, working on something on the console there.

“Ah, captain, one second.” She said, without looking up. Behind him, the door slid shut with a gentle hiss, and the light in the room flickered - he knew why of course; these booths had privacy glass that could be toggled to stop the wider medbay from looking in, or could be turned transparent to allow more eyes to monitor a particularly worrisome patient. Currently, the glass was set to solid; a green wall that prevented anyone on either side from looking through it. Bleu tapped one more button then turned and smiled at the pair of them. “Please take a seat on the bed.”

The tests were largely the same as earlier; while Bleu ran scanners over him, Dustin and Meli talked idly, making the occasional joke when the doctor request he twist into one particular angle or another. The jokes turned into jovial banter as Bleu moved from scanning to asking questions, glancing occasionally down at her tablet as she did so. So casual was the atmosphere that Dustin started to relax - causing the doctor to remark “please try to be serious captain, these tests are designed to let me check that you are fully healthy.”

Despite the rebuke from the medic, he couldn’t help but drift back into humour - which had to be the reason for what happened next. Bleu had just concluded a series of questions about how his arms felt, helping him hold them up and testing various motions when she glanced between Dustin, Meli and her tablet. “The next question - have you been able to be intimate since you were ****?” Dustin’s tongue worked ahead of his brain as he deadpanned the answer. “Why, are you offering to help with that too?” Time slowed down as Dustin’s thoughts caught up and he realized the Queri medic had frozen, one hand halfway towards her tablet to move to the next section of the test.

The pair of them froze, eyes suddenly locked on each other; ripples of colour flickering through the Queri woman like tropical fish on a reef. Dustin opened and closed his mouth a few times, before managing to stammer “I’m so sorry doctor…” right as the woman said “would you like me to?” in a very small voice. Both of them blinked, before Bleu shifted backwards, coughing uncomfortably. “I apologise captain, that was uncalled for. It was only a joke - if you’ll excuse me, I will just take a moment and… Meli’a, what…”

As the Queri woman turned to leave the room, she found her way blocked by Meli, her ears flickering between delight and amusement. “Doctor, if you wish to leave you can. However, you should know that you are not the only very observant woman on this ship. I’ve seen the way you have been looking at the captain. As a fellow scientist, I strongly recommend you stay and discuss this matter in depth with my li’ah’a.” Then, the Velca leaned closer to the woman and whispered something in her ear that Dustin couldn’t catch, but which caused Bleu to take a half step backwards. Glancing past the Queri, Meli smiled at Dustin. “I’m going to step outside myself for a little bit while you and the doctor talk, li’ah’a. Oh, and just in case your human sensitivities kick in - we’ll all be fine with however you resolve… everything.” That final comment being accompanied by a wave of her hand up and down in the direction of Bleu’s figure, the doctor still seeming to be in a state of shock at the turn of events.