Ghosts of the Battle of Bruxa Bay

Posted on Thu Mar 23rd, 2017 @ 4:56pm by

Mission: Mission 3 - Negligence
Location: Deck 8 - Laboratory
Timeline: (Backpost)
993 words - 2 OF Standard Post Measure

Asking to borrow equipment was a new experience for Olsam Mott. In Starfleet, you filled out a requisition form and someone from the operations department used the industrial replicator. Usually within half an hour whatever you ordered was delivered to your office. But here on the Mary Rose, things were a little different... So far he'd located only three replicators: one jealously guarded by the chief engineer, another in the wardroom, and a small one in the briefing room. The latter two didn't seem to have access to any sort of useful materials database. They could barely produce a decent pastry. And so, he was forced by necessity and the captain's demands to go into the den of a creature so heinous and cruel that tales of it would set Bolian children to shivering in the night.

Standing just inside the door of the standard lab on Deck 8, Olsam announced himself, "I'm Dr. Olsam Mott, and I need to speak with the red-headed fiend responsible for this department."

Finn was hard at work trying to get another workstation up and running from scavenged parts when the 'doctor' arrived. The Captain had mentioned the possibility, but Finn had been hoping he could arrange to have himself sucked out an airlock before the man arrived. It would have been a quicker and more pleasant way to go. He let his eyes roll, a bit over dramatically as he was flat on his back and halfway into a bulkhead at the moment, then started sliding himself out. The quicker this got done, the sooner it would be over.

He stood and wiped his hands off on his pants. "That would be me," he called from the corner of the lab as he walked toward the Bolian. "And I was given to understand you want something from me. That 'fiend' crap sounds to me like you don't need my help after all. So I'll wish you a good day, and a pleasant journey. I need to get back to work." He stopped near the man, looking through a box of tools. At random he picked up a magnetic wrench. He didn't really need it, but it gave him something to do while he let the man think about his behavior.

Seeing Finn take up the wrench, Olsam's pudgy right hand went to the holster containing his Dai-Matsa Consolidated Polarized Phase Blaster MK IX, also known as "the PPB" or "the Mark Nine." When dealing with these sorts of duplicitous people, one had to make clear that you were prepared to meet aggression with aggression. He'd even been practicing with the weapon, which had a considerable discharge kick, so he was pretty sure that if he aimed for center mass he might actually be able to hit him.

"There's no need for violence here," Olsam said, somewhat contradicting his own stance. "All I need is an electron resonance scanner and a phoretic analyzer to start addressing the illness aboard the ship. Just hand over the items and nobody has to get hurt. I don't want another Battle of Bruxa Bay on my hands, okay?"

"What are you..." He looked down at the tool in his own hand and the gun almost in the doctor's. "Are you deranged? You SEE that I'm working." He motioned toward the open bulkhead he'd just been inside of. "Is it that unclear to you how work happens? And rather than coming in here and behaving civilly, you start insulting me then demanding things from me. Honestly? I might just rather die of whatever this is than reward your attitude. But this isn't just about me. There are good people I hope to call friends suffering, too. I wish you'd get over whatever fairy tale you're holding against me and treat me with a little respect," he opened a cabinet where he'd stored the equipment the doctor needed, "but until then I'll just invite you to get the hell out of my lab."

Olsam huffed. He might concede that maybe he'd gone about this whole thing the wrong way, but only in private and only to himself. To say it out loud would be to admit weakness and invite aggression from the red-headed scientist, who was surely no less disreputable than the red-headed Flaxian who'd once led the people of Bolarus to the brink of extinction. After all, every red-head had the same dubious character. On Bolarus, this was known.

"Okay," Olsam said, removing his hand from the holster. "You're right. I should be civil. I'm usually very civil. It's just that... I don't like you. So, it's difficult." He shifted from one foot to the other and rubbed his hands together in front of him the entire time he spoke, "Can I have those things now? I'll bring them back when I'm finished. I promise."

"Of course you can have them," Finn sighed. He felt like he'd been run over by a grav sled, so he just wasn't up to carrying on the fight right now. "And maybe once this is all over you can tell me what the hell I ever did to you. As far as I know we've never met, so I just don't get how you can already not like me. I mean, there are lots of things to not like about me, just ask my sister or my ex...wait, don't ask him, he's a dick...but you don't know any of those things yet."

Olsam listened without comment while he gathered up the equipment that he needed to help diagnose the illness traveling around the ship. Only once he'd gotten everything he needed and shuffled near the door did he stop, look at the chief scientist with narrowed eyes, and say in a deadly serious voice, "You know what you people did..."

Olsam Mott, M.D.
Ship's Doctor
SS Mary Rose

Robert 'Finn' Bek
Science Technician
SS Mary Rose