DL - Civilian Sh'eik - "the cat came back, the very next day"

Posted on 241412.31 @ 9:02am by Cadet Sh'eik

Mission: Holy Cow

=/\= Deck 24, Junior Officer's Quarters =/\=

Sh'eik sat at the table, ears folded sadly, reading the terminal.
It had been an ever depressing afternoon.
With the access to public nets, provided by commander Dhej, he was able to look up his family. Or rather, what happened to them.
His clan had been rather small to begin with, and was all but decimated in a disastrous plague on Grantu IX, where they'd settled as part of a new colonization project.

In fact, he had only one surviving extended family member, and she was very elderly, and hospitalized for mental issues and failing eye sight. Sh'eik thought the better of it, and didn't look her up. He'd only be a burden to such a person, and having never previously met, he would likely bring her more confusion than comfort, if he visited.

He sat back, tired from digging around the nets, ears drooping exhaustedly. He turned his attention to how he could be useful to Enterprise and her crew. He wasn't sure how long he could stay here, but was fairly certain he'd need to remain useful if it were for any extended amount of time.

"What am I good at?" He wondered aloud, left ear flicking a few times.
The computer extrapolated, chirped and brought up a battery of aptitude tests.
Sh'eik blinked, "smart machine."
He wasn't quite in the mood for testing just yet. His stomach announcing it's disgruntlement, was most likely the cause, he mused.

Sh'eik rose from his chair, he felt stir crazy too. Perhaps he could go somewhere else to eat?
"Computer.... Uhm... Is there any place else I can eat besides my quarters?"
"A crew lounge is available on deck 6. Would you like directions to Shakers?"
Sh'eik grabbed a nearby PADD, "transfer aptitude tests and directions to PADD number, uh..." He looked at the side for a moment "three nine two two six"

The computer chirped and the terminal shut down, it's contents flashed up on the PADD in the Cait's handpaws before hiding behind a lamens overlay of deck 24 and how to get to shaker's on deck 6. Sh'eik's ears perked as his mood rose somewhat. Food definately sounded good right now, and the path the computer showed him wasn't complicated at all.



=/\= 2 hours later in Shakers =/\=

Sh'eik purred softly as he sipped something called a smoothie, that a bartender had suggested to him. He would have to read up on what lychee and raspberries were later.

At the moment he was finishing the third aptitude test of about twelve. They weren't as hard as he was expecting at all. He'd noticed a few people observing him, but being out of touch with other people for so long, he wasn't sure why they had an interest. He wasn't sure if there were any other Caitians on board, and if not, maybe the crew hadn't seen a member of his anthropomorphic cat lookalike species before.

Sh'eik set the PADD down, ending the third test and finishing his smoothie. He wasn't in the best of spirits but the tasty drink, and light walk had helped somewhat. He'd expanded the little map the computer had provided and found the ship had an arboretum. Which, the computer told him, was basically a walking garden with live plants.

Being able to walk in an area, with unrecycled air, also seemed appealing. Persephone had been Oberth class and lacked these seemingly fancy facilities... Sh'eik was almost excited to check it out.

He collected his things from the table and went to stand, when, it seemed to Sh'eik, the universe blinked around him and he had a moment where he literally felt like he was falling out of his own body. He abruptly cancelled standing, sitting back down as his consciousness snapped back to his body, leaving him feeling extremely disoriented.

His right ear then drooped and a heavy pulsing started just behind his right eye, and his equilibrium went out completely. He braced himself on the table.
'What's happening to me?' He wondered as the pulsing became a powerful, painful throbbing.

'I need to get to sickbay.' Why couldn't he open his mouth and say something?
Using the table to stabilize himself, as crewmen started noticing his mild distress, Sh'eik tried to stand again.
The moment he put weight on his right footpaw, pain lanced across the top of it, like all the tendons were being stepped on at once. A catlike shriek came from his lips as his right leg buckled and he crashed to the deck. His vision went out then, on the right side, as he went into a full blown migraine.

He lay in a heap of mewling pain as officers quickly surrounded him. The commbadge on his chest chirped sharply and, in the room, an EMH fizzled to life.
"Please state the nature of the medical emergency?"

Sh'eik cried openly. The pain was so intense he didn't care who saw it. He gasped for breath as his chest tightened, his heart racing.
And then he remembered where he'd seen this all before...
His brother, D'Triiq, had gone through the same thing when the parasite had taken hold...
He couldn't speak, couldn't breathe, couldn't tell the concerned people around him or the EMH what he was feeling.

"He tried to stand, screamed and collapsed, he's not responding to our questions and isn't breathing well," one of the officers said, stepping back out of the way of the EMH.
Said EMH, pulled out a medical tricorder and kneeled down to the ailing Cait.
"What on earth...? That wasn't there before..." The EMH tapped his commbadge, "this is the emergency medical hologram, to sickbay. Medical emergency, prepare to receive patient in serious condition, breathing difficulties and borderline cardiac arrest, via site to site transport."

The crew stood out of the way as the EMH rolled the, now convulsing, Cait on his back, for transport and then both shimmered out of existence.


=/\= End log =/\=

Sh'eik
Civilian
USS Enterprise