Stardate: 60819:1705
Title: Capstone
Author: Lt. Vilmer
Time: After "Building Bridges Part 3"
Scene: Relentless Sickbay


Kal closed his hand tightly around the dog tags that held the device he'd use to fool Starfleet medical scans for decades. The engineer thought back over recent years of service within the fleet and was grateful that no event had happened to him that would have necessitated the removal of the tags.

The blonde's thoughts were in uncharacteristic disarray as he tried to make some sense out of the last few days. The thing that pushed him over the edge so to speak was the reaction of the alternate Relentless' crew. He wondered what he had done in this universe to make him so despised. The mistrust, disgust and some outright hatred that the other engineers had greeted him with opened his eyes. While the blonde had no idea what his alter ego had done in this dimension he could sure change what he did in his own.

Relentless' Chief Engineer thought the best place to start would be with the new ship's doctor for a number of reasons. One of the foremost being that he was new and might not have had time to form any opinions of Kal or at least not any strong ones that would react strongly to the change Kal was about to unleash. The fact that the doc was the closest thing the ship had to a counselor at the moment narrowed the decision down, not to mention doctor-patient privilege. And for the first time in a long time the blonde had to talk to somebody.

"Something I can help you with Lieutenant," Doctor Ialius asked.

"Uhh yeah, doc, I guess," Kal answered. The engineer was a little taken aback at the doctor's compact size but Tobias had a steady strong voice and seemed comfortable in his own skin.

Tobias sensing the engineer's discomfort said, "well have a seat Lieutenant, and lets start with introductions shall we?"

Kal was relieved at Tobias' manner, he seemed to lack at least for the moment that "microscope" manner some doctors get when they have you in their clutches.

"Right, sorry," Kal said, regaining some of his composure, "I'm Kal Vilmer CEO."

"Pleased to meet you, I'm Tobias Ialius, ship's doctor, but that part I think you've deduced."

Kal managed a small smile.

"Now what seems to be the trouble?"

"A couple of things really, and I'm not sure where to begin, but ever since the jump and more recently since we've met ourselves, I haven't been able to concentrate. I know this sounds odd at this point but several things have happened that I just can't explain. Things with the ship."

"Go on," Tobias said, reaching for a tricoder.

"Uhh just one question before you start with the scan doc."

"Shoot."

"How is it that you guys make the scan feel cold? And is that really necessary?"

"How, is a secret that I can't reveal even on pain of death, and its absolutely necessary to be cold. All the best instruments are cold," Tobias returned with a straight face, "Look I even have settings for coldness: normal, Command Staff, and Engineers."

Tobias' easy manner set the engineer at ease and the doctor started his scans. Not having had time yet to study the crew's health the doctor was unsurprised by the readings on his tricoder showing Kal to be a fairly young El-Aurian in nearing the halfway mark of his second century.

"Now then, I'm guessing you've been seen by doctors before. So why don't you just tell me what's on your mind. From these initial scans you seem to be a young El-Aurian in excellent health."

"Well that's part of what I wanted to talk to you about. When you get a chance to study my records in full, you'll find me labeled throughout my career in Starfleet as human. The other part of problem is I think the ship is talking to me."

Tobias nodded, thinking to himself a moment, "let's table the whys of your decision to keep your race secret and the fact that you’ve chosen to reveal yourself to me at this time for a while and concentrate on the more immediate problem."

"Can you give me some specifics?" the doctor concluded.

"It happened the first time when I came in contact with the bio-neural gel packs during the installation of the jump drive."

The doctor looked at the engineer quizzically and Kal added, "Its what we nicked named the progenitor device. Although the word jump in this case is a bit of a misnomer."

Ensign Ialius nodded, "so what happened when you contacted the gel pack?"

"I thought I felt a female presence, not without a trace of humor. It's kind of like where you watch a vid and one lover playfully runs from another?"

"Interesting, I don't have enough pysch training to help you with that one I'm afraid, maybe the EMH…" Tobias jibed.

It took Vilmer a couple of seconds to realize that the doctor was only joking, maybe at least somewhat.

"Doc, I've checked, rechecked, and checked again, every system on this ship. I've traced her neural network and run level one diagnostics on every system that didn't make me get signed orders from the Captain to do it. I've got requests into him for the ones that do."

"Find anything interesting?"

"Only the fact that the astrogation systems and lab have been altered and from what I can tell will allow us to map our course across dimensions and find our way home."

"That's comforting," Tobias said continuing to scan Kal.

"Is there anything else I need to know about your background? You've really put me in the dark here. I don't have a good baseline to measure against," the doctor concluded.

"I'm a nexus survivor," Kal answered.

"This just gets better," Tobias muttered, "best I can do for you at this point is to get you something to help you sleep. You'll have to watch yourself and if anything else happens get down here immediately."

"Will do," Kal said, and then hesitated, "can you keep the El-Aurian thing between us?"

"I can for the mean time, I'm going to have to do some thinking and come to a decision. So I can't commit either way."

"Fair enough, thanks for the help."

"Anytime."


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Lieutenant Kal Vilmer
CEO
USS Relentless
NCC-11966
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