BOO! okay so this was not the story I thought I would be updating this week. possibly a double update even. wonders will never cease.
"I wonder what it all means…" Troy frowned, as Atlanta finished filling them in on the snap of conversation she'd heard. And, despite her reservations, about the grey and red mysterious little craft. "It seems like too much of a coincidence doesn't it?"
The others agreed it was. "Has anyone been sent out to intercept this vessel?"
Atlanta shook her head. "It vanished when Stingray returned home. And it is technically outside of Manville's waters in a fishing area."
"so, unless it actually does anything, we've no grounds to act." Troy summed up. "I don't like the idea that it could be spying on us though. Even if it is only able to watch the ocean door."
"We'd be more likely to scare it off if we go take a look, skipper." Phones pointed out. "And it could be another booby trap."
"It's too dangerous." Atlanta argued. "especially the shape Stingray is in at the moment!"
"And we can't leave." Fisher mumbled. "We can't."
"He's right. We can't leave Marina here right now." Phones agreed. "I'm with Fisher, I ain't going anywhere unless I'm ordered too."
"I wasn't planning on doing so!" Troy said, "All the same… once we get some news, maybe we should head out there-?"
"And maybe you four should stop putting your heads together." The commander snapped, making all four insubordinates jump.
"This hospital could do with an assistant receptionist on the front desk; don't think I won't sub-cond one of you here for a week if you keep plotting outside of the map room!"
"Yes sir." Troy said, feeling unfairly scolded and cut down.
"...Any news on Marina?"
This time he didn't get a telling off. Instead the commander shook his head. And explained he'd gotten the same spiel that the doctors were very busy and working hard yah dah yah dah. He did however manage to get out of them a promise a doctor would see them shortly.
"Now think about it. And think real hard." The commander asked. "Is there anything you four can think of that might have caused this? Anything at all?"
"not that I know of." Troy said. Atlanta and Fisher both shook their heads.
"We've been racking our brains so much that mine's beginning to rattle." Phones said sadly. "we don't what it is she's come down with."
"Can't have been anything she ate, or else the doctors would have worked that out already." Troy said.
"Could she Been bitten by something?" Atlanta suggested. "or stung, when you've been in the ocean?"
"maybe? But we haven't been swimming in the sea for nearly a week? Bar this last mishap." Troy pointed out.
"unless it's slow acting?" Atlanta countered.
"That's a possibility. Could she have been stung by something on land?" Troy pondered. "a bee or a wasp- like a real one I mean? Lots of people are allergic aren't they?"
"Scorpions and snakes are poisonous? And we're not too far from the desert?" Atlanta agreed.
"Marina would have shown or told us if she'd seen one, let alone been bitten or stung." Phones frowned. "Maybe Oink has rabies and nipped her?"
"Rabies would make a person avoid water, not seek it out or dunk themselves in a bathtub." Troy scoffed.
"Well, have you got any other ideas, skipper?"
Troy did not. Phones, realising he'd snapped more than spoken, apologised. Which Troy ignored and sulked.
"don't start arguing again." Atlanta pleaded. Troy sat back down at that. It's just he was a man of action and waiting had never been a strong suit. And he hated worrying. Especially when worrying became a group activity.
"Marina had a medical when she first arrived, didn't she?" Shore asked. Troy confirmed it. "But did they give her any shots? Or was it just a standard check-up."
"Sort of. she was given one of them tabs; Nebula seven five? the one they give babies and non-world government refugees nowadays?" Phones said. then mumbled, "Suppose Marina kind of was in a way…"
The commander whistled through his teeth. Sometimes the medical advancements this half of the twenty first century was impossible made real. especially after the pharmacy revolution of the twenty thirties. Even the ones he'd witnessed with his own eyes made his head spin.
oxygen pills for emergency space use?
Radiation pills to stave off exposure?
Artificial organs on the Inter-National Health Service?
Diseases that had put kids in iron lungs and whole continents in wards a hundred years back, almost wiped out overnight?
Heck, if his accident had been ten or even five years earlier; they'd never have saved his spine, never mind keeping his legs! And boosters, the sort he remembered having to repeatedly soothe a baby and toddler Atlanta down for on numinous occasions; now came in a single handy patch you dissolve on your tongue. Like the N75 one Marina had been given, covering the bases against many of the worst aliments' mankind had ever seen.
"You kids are lucky. My day you'd been made a pincushion before going abroad anywhere. Now? you just have to pop a pill once or twice a decade." Shore said.
"I mean it though, has Marina ever been ill before though? I don't recall anything this bad."
Neither could his team. And they went back to throwing theories around. Although Fisher was unusually quiet, head still in one hand.
"No sir. Marina was a bit rough after the medical. But that's normal, right?" Troy said.
"Yeah. those things are good but still knock you for six. What about after the Island of Bal incident? With the electric chair gadget?" Phones suggested.
"yeah...but that was more of an injury?"
"the odd headache but nothing I can think of?"
"Summer was pretty rough on her with the heat wave?"
"So was winter. Ice cold water she's a natural but Marina really felt the cold on dry land and that freak snowy weather, I thought."
"Fizzy drinks don't agree with her. They make her feel dizzy." Atlanta put in. "especially if mixed with alcohol. and some candies and real rich things like red meat have given Marina a stomach ache before now? but … not sick like this."
"She wouldn't be immune to all of our illnesses though?" Troy pointed out. "Just the big ones? so she could have just caught a bug."
"and because she's from under the sea, it's affecting Marina differently. Is That what you mean, Tempest?" Shore asked.
"Yes sir."
" Why, then this could be just a cold or the flu!" Atlanta frowned. "Poor thing, she must feel like it's killing her."
Phones whistled. "gee and I thought Troy with man-flu was bad!"
"HEY-!" Troy started.
"What is it doc?" The Commander interrupted suddenly. and the group turned to see a doctor finally approaching them…
(its been seven freaking years wtf.)