Even a Little Bit of Chocolate Can Be Bad For You

Posted on Sat Sep 28, 2019 @ 10:17pm by Lieutenant Commander River Morgan & Civilian 'Key Holder' Yolanthe Ibalin
Edited on on Mon Oct 25, 2021 @ 2:45pm

1,461 words; about a 7 minute read

Mission: Doors of Perception
Location: Andorian groups guest quarters
Timeline: MD10 0030

[ON]

=^="Shorting to sickbay. Medical emergency, Deck 54. We've got an Andorian male, fitting and coughing up blood. Assistance required urgently."=^=

=^= Morgan here, on my way, transmit your location codes please =^= River replied snatching up her Med Kit from the side where it sat ready for such an emergency call, should one come in. They often did so it was a no-brainer to keep a kit ready. She received the codes and tapped her comm badge, instructing the computer to send her on an Emergency Medical Priority Site to Site Transfer which it instantly did. River had just time to pull the kit close to her before she was dematerialising in a shimmer of blue lights and the reforming in a different location, still clutching the bag and blinking as she reorientated quickly.

Instantly seeing the casualty on the floor, writhing and foaming at the mouth, River noted that he was alternately holding his stomach and then his throat. Putting together those two clues with the smell that was on his breath as she moved her face closer to him, she detected the acrid scent of his retching with bile now as he seemed to have emptied all the contents of his stomach already. Tipping the Andorian over slightly so he could empty his vomit onto the floor rather than having it roll back into his gaping, gasping mouth, River ripped her Med Kit open and pulled out a hypospray, loading it quickly for a selection of vials in the stays all across the two angular lid parts of the sturdy kit. She applied the spray to the Andorian's neck and pulled the kit closer, shut it and used it as a support for his head as he reacted violently at first then calmed as the infusion took effect.

Exhausted and semi conscious the Andorian melted into a limp form and River turned his head gently, extracting his tongue and supporting it with a soft strip of cloth that held it gently down into the bottom of his mouth to prevent it choking him. He seemed to slip into unconsciousness but she tilted him upwards at the shoulders, opened the kit again underneath him, took out a different vial this time and allowed the kit to close again and the patient to lay back. She loaded the new vial to the hypospray which had been put slightly to one side once it was empty, and applied it to the Andorian's neck on the other side this time.

He opened his eyes wide, coughed, tried to sit up alarmed but gave in easily as River spoke gently and reassuringly to him. She got him stable and then just sat beside him, keeping him calm as the antidote worked and the stim that she had applied afterwards began to restore his consciousness properly so he could recentre himself enough to be transported to Sickbay for further treatment.

River looked up to see who had summoned her here and to see if anyone else had been affected. "I suspect he ate or drank something he shouldn't have, knowingly or unknowingly, planted or by accident" she declared her findings and diagnosis.

The betazoid, who'd hovered nearby full of concern, one hand holding the wall so the she wouldn't bump into things took an uncertain step forward. Her blind eyes looked at a point just to the left of River. "We couldn't get back to sleep after someone came to upgrade the replicator, so we decided to get some hot chocolate. Th'kerin knows how much I love chocolate. He just ordered a standard chocolate, something rich, with a little cream."

Indeed, there were the stains from two spilt mugs across the rug, the Andorian collapsed on top of one, adding his vomit to another.

"Narira?" River asked, recognising the Betazoid woman from her sessions in Sickbay after her burn out.

"It looks as if Th'Kerin must have tried the chocolate himself. Clearly it was poisoned. Let me help you sit down" she offered, hoping the shock wasn't going to be too much for Narira. She stood and helped the blind woman to a chair before patting her hands gently and reassuringly before returning to her friend's side. "If you just sit there please, i must return to Th'Kerin. I'll be just a few feet away."

She returned to the Andorian and checked he was still stable and then tapped her comm badge to request an emergency medical transport for him to Sickbay for a system purge and neutralisation. Then she went back to Narira's side again and rested a hand on her shoulder. "How are you doing?" she asked. "That must have been a very frightening shock for you. Who was it who came to ... what did you call it.... upgrade? the replicator? Did they identify themselves and was Th'Kerin careful to check who made the appointment?" River was thinking perhaps this had been an attack on Th'Kerin or maybe it had been an attempt on Narira's life, the attacker(s) hoping to trick her because of her blindness.

She didn't verbalise this right now as she didn't want the poor woman even more terrified and she certainly didn't want her good response to treatment to be compromised in anyway from all the stress.

"No," the betazoid shook her head. "They were female I think."

At that moment TH'Kerin began to vomit, a thin trickle of bile mixed with traces of chocolate and blood. The heaves wracked his body, but he settled again.

River let him expel whatever had been clearly intended to harm him. She could have given him an anti-sickness hypospray dose but whatever it was, it was better out than in and she would only then have to pump his stomach so, she let him throw up, reasoning he needed to get it out and then she could test it and offer him a neutraliser once she knew more about its composition. She took a sample to test and had it dispatched to the lab straight away .

"Will he be alright?" Narira asked. "What happens now?" She was trying to reach out to her companion, but wasn't sure where he sat.

River reached gently towards the blind woman's outstretched fingers and guided them to the Andorian's hair softly. "Th'Kerin is over here" she said quietly. "yes, there. He's not aware of much at the moment, he's very weak and not at all himself." she explained, trying to soften the scene before Narira's hands as they were outstretched to try to ascertain the situation with her friend.

"Will he live? will there be damage?" The betazoid sounded very anxious.

"I'm going to do my best to make sure he does live, I can promise you." River reassured her softly. "I'm just going to transfer him to Sickbay now he's stable enough to be moved. I'm going to need those results from the lab and I want him in a bio-bed so if he shows signs of any internal harm happening, I can put him onto life support. Would you like to come too?" she offered, not wanting to leave Narira alone as although she didn't seem to have consumed the liquid in the mugs, she was clearly in shock and afraid.

Narira nodded. "Yes, please. I don't want to leave him./"

=^= Morgan to Sickbay - prepare for emergency medical transport. Patient has ingested a toxic substance. Prepare to administer counter measures and neutralisers. =^= she sent to her colleagues, repeating the basic instruction to the computer to action as well.

=^= Three to transport to Sickbay - Medical emergency - Morgan, acting CMO =^= and they all vanished in a blue shimmer, reassembling molecule by molecule at their destination where there was a white coated lab tech waiting for River, presenting her with a PaDD with some read outs on it.

"Thanks" she said and studied the PaDD for a while "So.... this was deliberately aimed at TH'Kerin personally. Oxyribathyrin is seen in the remnants of that chocolate drink. It's a substance specifically poisonous to Andorians. Clearly someone was attempting to murder him." She explained to Narira, patting her hand. "Andorians have cobalt based blood which makes them vulnerable to Oxyribathyrin. Humans and Betazoids who have iron based blood, wouldn't be affected like this. Someone put this together to get to him and not to you by accident."

River set about reporting the findings of this incident and the situation of the Andorian, right away. She was very worried about the trauma this had been to Narira as well as the bad way that her patient was in. A wholly bad and despicable attack had been launched.

tbc......



A JP between:

Lt Cmdr River Morgan
Acting CMO - DS5

and


Narira and Th'Kerin
Andorian Rebels
[NPCs by Soran]

 

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