Author Notes: Once again, sorry for the wait- It's not quite up to the quality of writing of the other chapters due to... issues. But, I should be capable of at least a monthly to bi-monthly schedule moving forward once I get back into the groove of things. Medical stuff really gets in the way of things.
I'm doing this in two chunks because I realized that it's easier on my editor.
To address the folks saying that the crew are being right jerks to O'Bannon? Well, yeah, at the start of Star Trek they were kind of a bunch of not so nice people and far, far too rigid as characters. This is, well, before they grew their beard so to speak.
Thank you, Shypunk, for pointing out that I had changed Yar's gender on accident.
Sickbay, Deck 12 - Stardate 41205.4 (15:25 hours)
Doctor Crusher had to admit that her newest patient was a fascinating man, scientifically speaking. His physiology was one part of it, but it was his willingness to undergo relatively invasive procedures that fascinated her the most. He was at ease in her office, and had a tacit trust in her ability that was surprising. Mister O'Bannon would explain that it came from 'white coat syndrome' and 'being trained to accept that a doctor was always there to help; just do as they say'. It was a novel experience for her with how reluctant most of the crew was to come to Medical, but she worried about how blasé he was. . O'Bannon had even gone through the proper channels to request an appointment. That wasn't out of line if he wanted to start having a medical record, but it was unusual.
Regardless, Right now she had him in her clutches, (with his permission to boot!), for some baseline scans. The scans of his brain and the networking of his neural activity were intriguing to say the least. His brain was overly active in all senses of the word, yet without the usual degradation of sanity expected from such enormous quantities of stimuli.
"John, I have to ask. What did you do as a profession before you woke up here?" She was quite curious about this mysterious passenger, so she used the opportunity to ask personal questions while she watched for memory association spikes in the scan readout. Her interest was not just in passing either; the man had an effect on people. The samples of tissue, he willingly offered were strange. Beverly had gleefully collected as many samples as O'Bannon allowed her, so she knew the odd readouts were no anomaly. According to these tests, he produced pheromones far in excess of what a normal human could. Although these levels were not nearly as elevated as an Orion's, they aided him in almost all facets of his interactions; whether he meant to or not. Factors like historical, longstanding bias and cultural conditioning, how he carried himself like a man of power and confidence, as well as other extenuating factors he really had no control over, this newcomer on her table often caused polarizing reactions among the crew.
O'Bannon was quiet. He appeared to be embarrassed if the color of his neck and ears were turning was any indication, and he muttered something unintelligible. He almost seemed to be trying to slink out of the chair. Doctor Crusher's eyes narrowed and a small smile twitched at the corners of her mouth. "John; answer the question please; A little louder if you would."
O'Bannon's pregnant pause before breathing out sharply was rather amusing, as was seeing the fairly confident man look at a loss for words. "I was a Customer Service Representative for a local pizza place in the city I was born in." The neuron activation in the pleasure and food sectors of the brain were off the charts! "Uh, in my defense, it was legitimately some of the best pizza I've ever had."
"I see." Doctor Crusher was looking at the ongoing scans and huffed. "Well, I can see that your memory of the place is either fond or stress related…"
"Alternatively, I just miss good pizza." O'Bannon's snarkiness returned with a broad grin, though it was forced. She'd made the man uncomfortable when she had intended to see how he reacted to different stresses in a controlled situation. O'Bannon's willingness to cooperate made this easy to do, but thanks to societal conditioning, she couldn't help but feel he was hiding some ulterior motive. Like most people, she had been educated about the Eugenics Wars and how the Augments were all megalomaniacal. How they suffered from an incredibly large range of psychoses.
O'Bannon seemed to… not.
The fact he seemed just as worried about the psychotic nature of Augments as everyone else put her at some relative ease. She had been rather surprised when he'd told her that Those psychoses had been the very reason why he'd requested the appointment in the first place! Beverly wasn't a Doctor of Psychology, but she was versed enough to know that someone being concerned about psychopathy typically meant they were not psychopathic, or at least very good at acting sane. "You mentioned the replicators have been uncooperative?"
On her readout, the sectors of the brain typically associated with humor and anger flared as he let out an exasperated sigh. "Yes, the replicators keep saying I am eating too much - which I didn't realize was a thing until it rebelled when I tried for more than three strips of bacon and three eggs."
"Oh?"
"Yes, like…" He gesticulated rather wildly for a moment, calmed, and tried again. "Like, I looked up how much Khan ate while on the first Enterprise, right? And turns out he ate nearly twice what a normal man did."
"Does that match up with how you feel after a meal?" Doctor Crusher's eyebrows raised in curiosity. "Unsatisfied?"
He worried his lip. Areas of the brain used when he might try to lie, bluff, or conceal popped up, but then they all disappeared as a different section glowed and he nodded. "Yes. Ravenous, really"
Beverly frowned at that. Going hungry on a starship was unheard of; there were plenty of rations to go around. Rations were sorted by the average consumption of each race, however, and that system ensured the ship loaded enough for every creature on board. The one race they hadn't accounted for was Khan's - O'Bannon's. At the rate his metabolism burned through calories, his allotted rations for the day wouldn't last one meal if he was doing any type of physical training. Beverly nodded. The request made sense, and John's stomach grumbled loudly as if to confirm it. "I'll see if we can't get your dietary needs registered and allotted. It might take a couple of days though."
O'Bannon didn't seem worried about that. "Not a problem. What could possibly go wrong in a few days?"
Guest Suite 3024, Deck 3 - Stardate 41209.28 (04:27 hours)
As it turns out, getting permission to attend classes required a lot of deliberation on the part of the civilian members of the crew. That was totally understandable, since I was going to be in classes with their it was, I had just woken up. The alarm was set for roughly six in the morning, but I usually woke up far earlier. Today was no different; I had gotten up at around four, so I was taking my time in the bathroom.
Looking in the mirror was still a little disorienting for me. You would think waking up in a body that was supposedly perfect would be fine, but it was the little things that threw me. My nose, my eyes, even my lips or chin - they were all off in little ways. The result was amping the Uncanny Valley effect to a degree I hadn't experienced often, and it was wearing on my nerves. My last session with Deanna had covered the fact I was suffering a form of dysphoria with my body, but that didn't stop me from getting the heebie-jeebies when I saw my reflections .
She had said that I would, soon enough, settle into thinking this body was my own and that there was no set period of time for the healing process to finish. This body, however, seemed to be adapting to stress related to something it couldn't naturally combat. I was more comfortable than I had been at the beginning of this strange new life. I was able to feel myself growing more comfortable every moment that I stared at this stranger in the mirror.
My morning brooding done I set about getting breakfast taken care of. Replicators were vastly different than in the show. In the show they synthesized the glassware and dishes with the item. But the real deal they had a set of 'replicator safe' items that allowed for ease of use. Sure- it might 'save space' to have the items all replicate and then be reabsorbed; but it wasn't efficient. If anything it drained more power from the ship to do that than was needed.
Thus the plates, forks, and knives were all ceramics of some sort. It was weird to me that this was starting to feel almost normal. The real reason that I wasn't worried however was the fact it was too out of my wheelhouse of control to be able to care about my circumstances. I was on a starship in a universe, until a little over two weeks ago, I had thought fictional flying through the void of space at speeds that would drive Einstein to conniptions.
But here and now? I was trying to get the replicator to make some of the breakfast food I was used to- for some reason it was saying that what I wanted was 'unsafe'. It was merely two strips of bacon, three eggs, and two pieces of toast with whole milk.
"C'mon, the Doc said she'd have had it done in 'a couple of days'." I was rather concerned and… it took ten minutes for me to understand why I was being denied my typical breakfast- well, typical was a bit of a stretch but it was a hearty breakfast that I could generally get away with in most places was, apparently, pending medical review. This didn't really surprise me too much considering that I had jinxed myself…
So, I had a feeling I'd need to speak to Doctor Crusher, again, about my caloric intake. I'd need to reiterate that Augment bodies required more calories than your standard human, they could adapt, but I'd rather not have to deal with what amounted to Keto Flu for however long that took for me to deal with. So, that was scheduled when I had time later today.
Now, on to more important things, I had realized that I needed a passing familiarity with the local Space Powers and other various races in the galactic arm via reading. This would, definitely, insure that any other passing familiarity I had with the local space fauna- people included, so it wouldn't be seen as strange that I knew anything. I didn't want to explain to the crew of the Enterprise D that they were part of a Television Series in my world and that they were, honestly, a bunch of screw ups for the first year of their journey.
Commander Riker caused so many problems with his penis…
I also realized early on that this was the first season of the show. Not exactly how I'd expected as everyone prefers the second season where it really grew it's beard, but I wasn't complaining too much, mostly I got to annoy Lieutenant Yar which always yielded hilarious results. I'd definitely need to figure out a way to prevent her death to the sentient sludge monster, I liked the woman too much to let that happen.
However, that left issues with Worf not becoming Security Chief and becoming a trusted advisor to the captain. This left wide ranging problems that… I probably wouldn't have to deal with at all? I remembered a very good phrase from something I had read, 'It's not about continuity if your survival is paramount, things don't need to go as canon and you should do what your gut tells you'. So; breathing deeply and letting my breath out slowly.
I ordered some coffee and simply hoped it didn't give me ReCaf like some of the shows depicted it doing.
That was when the power on the ship fluxed which caused the automatic shutdown of the replicator. Thankfully I was fast enough to keep the replicator from closing itself, which would have meant no coffee… and I was still getting my damn cup of coffee. Come Hell or High Water.
The replicator itself had other plans. It locked me out with an error code involving not enough power. "Well… fuck."
Right as I thought things weren't going to be too terrible, I heard Captain Picard's voice over the intercom. "Attention all decks and all divisions. Effective immediately, I have handed control of this vessel to acting Captain Wesley Crusher."
My mouth gaped in horror. "Oh no…"
Just as Wesley Crusher's voice slunk over the intercom with all of it's Wheatony aplomb, "Thank you, Captain Picard, thank you." You could hear all the intoxicated smarm in his voice, "And with that order dawns a brave new day for the Enterprise."
I tuned out Wesley's monologue- something about food or another asinine subjects. But I was concerned. I didn't know precisely what dates the episodes were on but… if I was a betting man I'd say I was in the Episode 'The Naked Now'. Now- I could just stay in my quarters and everything could probably be alright… but I was a bit livid.
My coffee had been taken from me. I was now operating on sheer spite- well… I truthfully didn't need the coffee but I still wasn't a morning person- despite the new body. So; I decided to check outside my door for the escort that was supposed to be there.
When I saw that no one was there I had a deep frown on my face. And being that I didn't want to anger the captain over this- I decided to comm the bridge from my door.
"What is it, O'Bannon, we are a bit busy." Picard all but shouted. Thankfully I didn't cringe at this. I knew the stress he was dealing with.
It was do or die time. "Captain, I noticed my escort isn't here…"
"That would be due to an… ongoing sit-"
"Captain, I heard the Doctor's kid literally say he was in charge of the ship. Do you want my help?" I tried to be as sincere as possible there. After all, it was the only way I was getting coffee anytime soon…
"And why would you help, exactly? You're a guest." Picard asked, an eyebrow raised. Despite the man looking like he was boiling in his britches he was as well composed as you'd expect in this situation.
I thought for a moment. Allowing myself a moment of petty amusement for amusement sake , "Yeah, so there are power fluxations going on, my coffee is a victim of circumstance, and my tour guides aren't here- can I please go see what I can do for Engineering? Because instead of yelling about it, I'd rather do something useful."
That took the captain aback a little bit. But at the moment he was running out of options very quickly thanks to just how virulent the spread of the contagion was. So, he let loose a semi-defeated sigh, "You have permission to assist, O'Bannon, try not to break anything?"
"I've only had this body for a month, so no promises. But I won't hurt anyone." My answer seemed to mollify the captain. "O'Bannon out." So, with a line I had wanted to say forever, I slunk off to get to a turbo lift…
Now that I was moving out and around I realized that there were people sitting or laying on the ground. This wasn't too odd for the 'Carbon Infused Water Molecule' going around. However, seeing Kuv on the ground trying to nurse a house plant like a bottle of wine was not on my list of things I expected to see today. But- it did leave his communicator open for being snatched.
Given that I am clearly a magpie in human form I grabbed that shiney badge and put it on my own clothing. This also let me keep an idea of just what was going on. As reports for security team requests filtered in through the badge itself.
I quickly realized I should probably check in with the bridge to let them know I had secured a way to communicate with them, so- tapping the piece how I'd seen others do so before. "O'Bannon, Bridge."
Main Bridge - Stardate 41209.31 (04:44 hours)
Picard's expression was stormy, he could feel his thoughts jumbling as he realized that he had allowed the Augment to help. Although the man had been nothing but polite during his stay, the old prejudice against what O'Bannon was had eroded some. He felt the man himself was not nearly as much a danger as the books had made Augments seem- in fact he had been quite forthcoming and accommodating to the rather harsh treatment he'd been given. Why, Picard had been surprised to find out the man had not tried to do anything untoward. At all.
Which in Picard's career was incredibly rare in a shipboard guest, much less a technical prisoner.
O'Bannon asked permission for just about everything, whether through Kuv and Tik when it came to things the man, somehow, seemed to know were security issues. Alternatively he would ask through Beverly or Deanna when it came to things about his Health. However he had a suspicion that this was a ruse of some sort and the man was still a danger. He tried hard to not allow his bias to affect his decisions regarding the man, even after almost a full month and a half with them.
Jean-Luc felt that he might need to go to sensitivity training after he found a place to hand Mister O'Bannon off…
"Captain." Commander Data's head never really ever turned to look at anyone he spoke to, not out of rudeness but out of the fact that- as a machine he was far better at processing information and thus did not need to pause in what he was doing. "Did you not express concerns for Mister O'Bannon and his role on the ship due to his status as an Augment?"
"I did," Picard's response was automatic. "But it seems I am running rapidly out of people able to assist in the situation."
"I see." There was a pause as Data mulled the point over fully. "Would I not be a choice to go assist Commander Riker and Chief Engineer MacDougal?"
Picard's eyes boggled at the Commander for a moment. "I must be going mad, yes- Data, please see to Engineering…"
At that moment a commbadge chime was heard.
"Sir, it's from O'Bannon via Kuv's commbadge." Lieutenant Nikola stated, looking rather surprised.
"Right," Picard, speaking from a point of surprise. "This is the Bridge, O'Bannon, you have impeccable timing, we are sending Commander Data to Engineering.."
"Ah, where do you want me to help?" The augment's voice was calm. How could he remain calm in a time like this?
In th same moment, Picard realized, the man didn't want to appear scared and was putting on a front. Which was fairly likely considering his reactions were rather visceral when he had them. So, Picard thought for a moment. "Please assist Doctor Crusher in bringing people to Sick Bay, the Security Teams have their hands full at the moment."
There was a pause on O'bannon's end, "Uh…" Another pause. "Gross, I can see that they certainly do… Alright, O'Bannon out."
Captain Picard looked all the more worried at O'Bannon's words than he'd like to admit. Even as Commander Data set off on his task to assist in Engineering. Lietenant Worf looked to the Captain and then back to the sensor readouts on the weapon's panels.
"Sir, where is Lieutenant Yar?" Worf's voice didn't show concern, merely annoyed; but the Captain also had to wonder where his Security Chief had gone.
"Bridge to Security Chief."He paused when no one responded. "Lieutenant Yar, report."
A male voice, lazy and lethargic came up, "Hold your pants on…" There was a moment of shuffling and a muted 'ow' from the male Crewman.
Yar's own voice followed soon after, "I'm rather busy right now captain." Affecting a husk that didn't really suit her voice at all. All that did was make Picard's face turn pale as a sheet. Yar being infected was a bad situation all around. This meant there wasn't anyone except the Junior Officers coordinating capture efforts for those infected.
The situation had just gotten more dire, it seemed.
