Caitlyn perches on the edge of her seat, drumming her fingers on her bag. Excitement and nervousness twist in her gut as the station comes into view. It's stunning, with arching spires and dramatic lines in bright silver, accented in blue and orange. She's so distracted that she doesn't notice the shuttle coming to a stop until it meets the docking ring and the inertial dampeners aren't fast enough to stop the resulting acceleration from nearly pushing her out of her seat. Steadying herself, she gathers her things and goes to see her new home.
Her first impression is that Deep Space Nine is slightly overwhelming. The crowd of passengers from the transport melds seamlessly into the crowd on the Promenade, and the space echoes with countless voices, footfalls, and assorted background noise. It smells of unknown foods, sweet and spicy, with the faint tang of sweat. Caitlyn stares in awe at the shops, filled with exotic goods she couldn't begin to name, and the people, half of whom belong to species she's never met. For the young scientist, it's perfect. There must be so much to learn here… It could take months just to to find the right questions! But for now, she'd best start with finding her quarters.
The next morning, she grabs a quick breakfast at the replimat before reporting for her first shift. She stammers as she introduces herself, but Lieutenant Dax just smiles and gives her the reports on the Wadi to analyze. That went better than expected, and her first assignment doesn't look too bad: this is something she knows how to do, and she's at least vaguely acquainted with this species. Their diplomacy caused a few dramatic misunderstandings during and shortly after First Contact with the Federation, but now both sides are learning to understand each other. Squaring her shoulders, Caitlyn digs into the first incident report.
The next few hours pass in a blur of diplomatic rituals, alien cuisine, and translator ambiguities. Evidently a few existential markers got lost in translation; the UT will have to be updated to better reflect those nuances. It may sound a bit clunky at first, but Starfleet tends to aim for function over aesthetics. She'll forward that to the linguistics department; if they're anything like the ones on the Nova, they'll be thrilled to debate the incredibly nerdy grammatical miscellanea. Caitlyn always loved that about them.
"Ensign Delmirev," Dax interrupts, "Would you take this report to Doctor Bashir for me? We've got the Raa'Pel ambassadors coming next week and he needs to know about their physiology."
"Of course, sir."
"And Ensign? Don't worry, you're doing fine."
Smiling nervously, Caitlyn heads towards sickbay, trying not to feel like everyone is staring at her. This station gets hundreds of visitors every day, one awkward ensign isn't going to make much of an impression. But her anxiety insists that not only are they staring at her, they think she's weird and doesn't belong here and what is she doing on the promenade in the middle of the day, shouldn't she be at work? Shut up, she tells the voice in her head, I don't have time for your bullshit. Fortunately, she's soon distracted. Unfortunately, said distraction comes in the form of the deck quaking under her feet. That doesn't seem like a good sign. I'd better deal with this report and get back to my post.
Sickbay is quiet, occupied only by a Bajoran crewmen and a tall man in Starfleet blue who must be Doctor Bashir. He looks busy with something on his console, so the ensign stands awkwardly for a moment at the edge of his field of vision until he's finished with it.
"Oh, hello! I'm sorry, how can I help you?"
"Uh, I- I have the report on Raa'Pel physiology from Lieutenant Dax for you, sir."
"Thank you, Ensign…?"
"Delmirev, sir. Caitlyn- gah!" She interrupts herself as the ground lurches beneath their feet and all the lights go dark. The shaking continues for several seconds, and when it's over Caitlyn finds herself sprawled on the ground with a few new bruises and someone's boot uncomfortably close to her face. The emergency lights have come on, bathing the room in a dim red glow.
Just as she's starting to re-orient herself, it happens again, the boot smacks her in the face, and she goes crashing into the wall. Ouch. What the hell?
"Is everyone alright?" Doctor Bashir asks from somewhere off to her left. She thinks it was probably his boot in her face, but she's not about to mention it.
"Fine, sir!"
The only response from the Bajoran nurse is a pained groan. The doctor is on his feet in an instant, rushing towards the noise and calling orders over his shoulder: "Caitlyn, find a medkit please!"
"On it!" The steel in his voice scares her. She rushes to the supply closet, eyes sweeping over the now-chaotic shelves until she sees the case with the caduceus symbol.
The Doctor is now kneeling beside his injured colleague, who appears to be bleeding from a head injury, scanning the young man with a tricorder he somehow hung onto despite the turbulence.
"Thank you, Ensign. Hold this, please." He hands Caitlin a flashlight, positioned to let him see the injury. She holds the light steady, watching Bashir run an instrument over the wound. She doesn't speak, too paralyzed by fear and the increasingly panicked thoughts racing through her head. What could have happened to shut the power off? What if we're under attack?
"Varis, can you hear me?" Bashir is saying to his colleague-turned-patient as he presses a hypospray to his neck. Varis's eyes open, although he looks dazed. "There you are," Julian reassures, "It's alright. You've got a concussion, and a few other bruises, but you're going to be fine. Don't try to move too much, alright? We're just waiting for the power to come back on."
Caitlyn can hear them, but it's like the sound is coming from underwater. She can't focus. Her breath is becoming fast and shallow, and she's getting lightheaded. She reaches out to steady herself on a console, trying to focus on the sensation of cool metal beneath her fingers. The room is spinning, and she doesn't think it's the inertial dampeners this time.
"Caitlyn?" The Doctor's voice cuts through the silence, "What's wrong?" He sounds alarmed, and Caitlyn feels bad for distracting him when he should be worried about Varis, but she can't speak to tell him that. She's struggling to breathe.
Then she must have blacked out for a second, because the next thing she knows she's gone from leaning on the console to sitting up against it, and Doctor Bashir is next to her instead of several feet away. He's talking to her, she thinks, although her hearing is a bit wonky at the moment.
"-Hear me?... -feeling?-" A tricorder is beeping somewhere near her left ear. She groans and tries to shift away from it, although she doesn't have the strength to move very much.
She feels a cold pressure on her neck, and hears a hypospray hiss. The Doctor is still speaking to her, and although she can't really understand what he's saying, his voice is soft and comforting. Slowly her head clears, and the sounds resolve themselves into words: "-I'm sure Ops will get all this sorted out soon enough, it's probably just a small malfunction, Chief O'Brien is still working on getting the Cardassian and Federation systems working together." He pauses when he realizes her eyes are open. "Caitlyn, are you with me?"
"Yeah, I'm here."
"How are you feeling?"
"My head hurts. Still a little disoriented, but nothing's spinning anymore, so that's a plus."
He smiles reassuringly, "Yes, it certainly is. But next time, try to tell me that you're hurt before you pass out."
"Sorry. You were busy; I didn't want to interrupt"
His gaze softens, but there's steel in his voice when he says, "Caitlyn, listen to me. You're important. You'll be fine this time, but it's very dangerous to keep something like this to yourself. It's my job to take care of you, but I can't do that if you don't tell me what's wrong."
Her face burns with shame at the realization of how foolish she's been. "I'm sorry. I won't let it happen again."
"Hey, it's alright. You're going to be fine, I promise." He squeezes her shoulder, and then the lights come back on.