Recalling Rikka

Posted on Tue Nov 7th, 2017 @ 8:24pm by Captain Tim Williams & Doctor Rikka Takanashi M.D.

Episode: Out of Sequence
Location: Starfleet Medical, Earth
Timeline: BACKPOST - Before Completion of Refit

Rikka leant on the balcony overlooking the large gardens down below at Starfleet Medical. For the past few weeks she had been transferred back to the medical complex. She took a sip of the orange juice in her hand as she watched the medical cadets wander through the doors. For some strange reason, she had been given the job of teaching those new young recruits the art of surgery. A gentle breeze blew across the complex, her hair wafting gently.

Although, she enjoyed being back on Earth. She was far more interested in medicine in space. She knew that the Highlander, her previous ship was in for a refit. She however, had no idea who would be taking that ship's medical position. From the rumours she had been hearing, the ship was due to head into the Delta Quadrant with a few other ships to form a new task force on the Final Frontier.

She let out a sigh as she turned back to face the small office she had been given. Although a little bigger than the one on the Highlander, she was still a little unsure about her abilities as a teacher. Only yesterday one of her students fainted when being shown how to peform a basic medical procedure without the use of advanced technology. The training holograms were realistic, and even though Rikka had been close to losing the patient altogether, she had tried to explain that medicine always carried a risk and no matter what technology could do, it couldn't always be relied upon.

"Doctor Takanashi" her comm badge chirrped. "Your class begins in ten minutes. Medical teaching room sixteen". Rikka tapped her comm badge.
"Understood. I'm on my way now" she answered.

Finishing her orange juice, and placing the empty glass into the replicator she grabbed her lab coat and made her way to the classroom. She had a very different lecture planned for today. Today involved a practical demonstration and workshop on how to peform a caesrian section on several species, including Humans, Trill, Klingons, Vulcans and even a Gorn. Of course she had planned to show them this without the use of a transporter, and with good old fashioned equipment.

Tim hadn't been around Starfleet Medical for years, but it still had the same overly clean feel to it, as though every dust mite was sterilised instantly throughout the whole facility. The last time he had been here had been before he and Laura had divorced for brief visits as she checked in on old friends and colleagues. She'd been briefly posted here after their divorce as a civilian doctor, but the last he'd heard through his daughter was that she'd taken early retirement. Not that he was concerned about running into her - they'd long ago buried the hatchet and moved on from their past relationship.

Today Tim was here on a personal mission, to reclaim his medical officer and save him having to hunt around for a new one who'd be willing to follow him to the other side of the galaxy. She'd been reassigned as a tutor after the Highlander went in for a refit, and Tim was supposed to be searching for a replacement. Instead he decided to find out where Doctor Takanashi was to be teaching today and sneak in ahead of time. Finding somewhere inconspicuous in a corner behind the rows of seats, he took his place as the students began to file in and waited.

Several of the medical students who noticed Tim were a little suspicious at his presence at the very back of the room. Eventually after a few minutes, Rikka walked in. She simply stood at the front of the room, waiting for everyone to quiet down.

Thankful not to have caught Rikka's eye yet, Tim smirked to himself from his corner as he watched the class. They muttered between themselves for a little while until they noticed their teacher had arrived and quietened down. It took them less than a full minute before they were all silent, waiting patiently for their tutor to begin imparting her wisdom.

"Right then" Rikka said holding up a hand to everyone. "Today, as you all should know..." she glanced around several of the students. "We are going to be looking into how to do a caesrian section on several species" she began to explain. "Now" she paused for a few seconds. "You are all doctors here, so you will be learning how to do this without the use of a transporter" she explained.

There was several hushed chattering voices around the room in confusion. "But, professor? Why?" one of them dared to ask.

Rikka's face turned into a somewhat evil grin. "Lets imagine, you are stranded on an alien planet with the rest fo your crew. Your starship has crashed, and is laid in wreckage. You've only just got over the fact that the remains of the crew are scattered amongst the surrounding area. Luckily for you, you got out in time. The pregnant officer with you is heavily injured, the only way to save her is to deliver her baby or watch her drown in her own blood..."

"Good enough?" she asked.

Some of the cadets faces turned rather pale at her description. "Right then" she said simply as she tapped on the console nearby to bring up a training hologram of a heavily pregnant Human woman. "We'll be starting with one of the easiest species. A human..." she explained.

"Easiest?" one of the students piped up. "I've seen some vids of human births from before natal transporters became common, and it does not look easy," she said looking around at the rest of the class for confirmation. "I mean, when you look at a lot of the other species out there, the head of a human baby is disproportionately bigger than the space it has to fit through. And given that old-style c-sections mean you'd have to not only cut through the abdomen, but avoid damaging any of the soft organs there... how is that easy?"

Rikka let out an evil smile. "Because, in some species" she began. "It could take hours to remove an unborn child" she explained. "For example, in a Gorn you have to remove each egg by hand, one by one with being very careful not to crush the shell, or knock them into each other. Plus their scales are incredibly tough. But once your inside, their intenal organs are fleshy, weak and can tear easily" she paused.

"And in Vulcans" she began. "Their wombs are close to their heart. A pregnant Vulcan has their heart moved inside them when the embryo grew inside them" she explained. "You have to be careful not to rupture the arteries into the heart" she told them. "Humans are one of the easiest" she ended. "Any more questions?"

Starting to get a little bored with the class, Tim pulled out his PADD and - careful to keep its brightness low enough not to attract attention, started hacking his way into the class files for today. He quite easily found Rikka's lesson plan once he was in the class database, and found the holograms that she was planning on using. As she'd told the class, the first on the list was a human female. Accessing the program, Tim adjusted the gore settings to be significantly higher than would be realistic. He then accessed his personal database and brought up the holographic remake of the 20th century classic Alien, and transplanted the chest burster from that movie's iconic scene into the class holoprogram, setting the subroutine to activate shortly after the first incision spurted blood onto the class. Satisfied with his modifications, and sporting a mischevious smirk, he backtracked his way out of the files and turned his attention back to Rikka again.

Rikka who was just starting the demonstration stepped back from the hologram. Holographic blood and gore flew all over the place, landing on her and the front row students.
"This isn't supposed to be happening!" she called out. "This isn't the hologram that I programmed" she assured them. She began to freak out slightly. "Wait, what is this thing?" she said. A few of them screamed at what was happening infront of them.

"Thats not a baby!" one of them said nervously, turning as white as a sheet.
"Obviously" Rikka replied sarcastically. "It looks like someone is trying to pull some sort of clever prank on me" she said. It was obvious this was some sort of staged event that wasn't supposed to have occured. Rikka was clever enough to work out when someone was messing around.

She walked over to the control console and powered down the training holograms. She began to quickly look through the program to find what was going on, but she was no engineer or computer scientist.
"Damn technology" she muttered. "Right" she said turning to the rest of the class. "Until I get this looked at, you're all to report to the study hall" she ordered. "Obviously this was some sort of prank by one of you" she looked around the hall at all the rather confused faces.

"Therefore. Whoever it is has just earned you all a five thousand word paper on interspecies assisted birth" she said her eyes narrowing. "You best hurry up and get there quick. You have until the end of the week to hand it to me, and you will use your own research" she paused. "Dismissed!"

There was a groan and a few complaints muttered as the class began to wander out of the room. Rikka shook her head as she returned to the control console trying to work out what exactly was going on.

Tim had been sniggering since the alien had burst from the chest of the hologram, and as the class left, he burst out into all-out laughter.

A book went flying across the room towards the source of laughter. "Cadet!" Rikka shouted. "What on Earth do you think you're doing? Who is your superior officer, we need to have a little chat with him!".

"Oh relax, Doc. You know I can't resist a good opportunity like that. Besides, seeing a human birth the once was enough for me," Tim interjected, stepping down to join Rikka near the console. "I had to do something to cut the show short."

Rikka looked up at her old commanding officer. She rolled her eyes and let out a sigh, before pulling out a scalpel from her jacket pocket and showing him it. "I should carve you up for that!.... Sir!"

Tim shrugged, as though being threatened with a scalpel was nothing new. "Eh. I've already got Melony trying to examine my brain lately; what's a few more organs on someone's examination table?" he joked. "So aside from you clearly losing your touch in predicing when pranks are coming your way - how are you liking things stuck down here planetside? Gotten bored of trying to gross out all the young cadets yet?"

"Sometimes" Rikka replied. "Its not like serving on a Starship where every moment is different" she explained. "Why?" she asked curiously.

"Ever fancied practicing medicine in the Delta Quadrant? The Highlander will be shipping out to join the new task force there soon; I'd hate to have to leave you here as Starfleet Medical's resident cadet-sitter."

Rikka simply smiled. "Delta quadrant huh?" she asked. She had read some of the reports from the Starship Voyager's holographic doctor on the different and new medical encounters the ship had come across, everything from dream invading aliens, aliens whom experiment on others in secret to a macrovirus expanding from microscopic to bigger than life. "Sounds exciting" she said with a slight squeal, before snapping back to her normal self.

She cleared her throat. "Where do I sign up?"