It was a friendly match, honest!

Posted on Wed May 13th, 2026 @ 5:38pm by Lieutenant Rio Kholin MD & Lieutenant Commander Aidan Datari & Ensign Icarus To-Ennien

1,836 words; about a 9 minute read

Mission: Short Treks
Location: Sickbay

Icarus stood ready as the pale and barely clad Trill appeared in the middle of sickbay. Her soft tail snakes around him to keep him on his feet as the feline gently wrapped soft paws around him. "I got you," she purred as she lead the stricken officer to a bed. "Doctor Kholin!" She called out towards the office.

Fresh out of the academy, the Sivaoan felt a little insecure having only just arrived on the flagship. She watched her bruised patient, observing how he held his right arm clutched to his chest, his eyes filled with pain and his body marked with a wide variety of bruises. "What happened here," she asked as she waited for the chief to arrive.

"Training accident," the Trill answered absently, "I landed wrong."

Kholin approached the new intake, automatically appraising what she could see. She smiled at the two very different visitors and stopped in front of them just as the Trill was stating what had occurred.

"Welcome to Sickbay" she greeted them. "How can we help you? Did I hear you say there was a training accident? Could you fill me in with more details please?" Rio was looking at the Trill, encouraging him to go on."

The brightly furred feline assisted the Trill towards a bed. "I'm Icarus to-Ennien, I've just been assigned to your medical staff doctor," she explained. "I happened to catch him as he arrived."

Aidan hissed as his arm was jarred as he got onto the bed. "Commander Bernadotte and I were sparring in the holodeck," he reported painfully, "we used blunted weapons." His sweaty and bruised appearance was indicative of having spent quite some time in their session. "I tripped when I got unbalanced in one of her last engagement and I made a bad landing." He indicated his right arm which he still held closed to his chest.

As Aidan was speaking and struggling his 'assisted' way up onto a bio-bed, Rio had already set the bio arch to raise over him and scan his whole body. "Well, I don't know what you were training for Sir but your injuries and bruising appear to be enough to teach you how to take a beating" she smiled. "I'd hate to see the other combattant .... er.... trainee." she began registering all the damage and prioritising what needed to be regenerate first, second and later. "In fact, I suspect it's probably likely we will be seeing that other person without a lot of delay."

"Welcome Ensign To-Ennien, thank you for your help with this patient." Rio acknowledged the new medical assignee with a smile, quickly turning straight back to the patient. Then, with the whole body scans taken, the CMO was ready to run through her treatment plan with the Lt Cmdr.

Aidan chuckled painfully. "I doubt that she'll come in," he answered, "she's bruised, not broken." He shifted, wincing in the process, in an attempt to get more comfortable. "It was a sparring match, nothing more, a physical workout if you will. Her rapier and dagger against my swords." Swords that had been left behind in the holodeck as he was beamed out. Aidan hoped Sora had secured his replicas before departing.

Icarus watched the interaction with interest, her ears twitching as she listened. Her tail swayed softly as she waited for instructions, not wanting to interrupt the conversation.

Rio's fingers moved quickly across the LCARS panel and initiated basic scans to see what was happening inside the Trill before her. As seemed likely from the physical clues on the exterior of his body, the scans showed a good deal of deep bruising, as well as a lot more superficial surface impact sites. There was a very obvious break in Aidan's Radius, just below the anterior oblique line and the ulna was also fractured, but only a hairline at least. She would have no problem regenerating those. His flexor profundus had been perforated by the break in the bone and would also need some attention, possibly a refixing close to his elbow.

"There's an unpleasantly positioned break in your left arm which I will have to regenerate but with the peripheral tearing of the muscle and tendons, I'll probably have to take some time re-attaching and regrafting that. I think a little soft-surgery could be on the cards there. I'll see how well I can fix it under regeneration first and then we can make decisions from there." the CMO explained her thinking, based on the first scan results.

"I know you keep telling me it was only a friendly but I'd hate to see what would be likely to happen if you two ever got serious with each other. I also know that you have to train like all other combatants but there's training and then there's beating the living cell-base out of each other. I can regenerate all your welts, grases, gashes, smashed skin and haematomas, but did it truly benefit your skills so much that it was worth all this damage that your body now has to heal and regrow?" she rolled her eyes.

"It's a false rumour that we're bored in Sickbay and need self-destructive patients to keep us in practice." her smile was pleasant enough but her exhausted shoulders were definitely tight. "Could you get some padded weapons for next time perhaps?" she asked hopefully. "Or how about padded clothing to save your beautifully crafted, natural cellular stability from being smashed and rebuilt too many times?" she began her regenerative work on his arm, having established while she was talking, that there were no other broken bones, no marrow leaking, no crush damage, no dangers of any other kind that might be serious and ticking away un-noticed.

Rio had scoured the scans with her experienced eye and noted all the organs, including the brain to be certain this crazy person hadn't taken a blow to the skull (well, at least not post starting this contest! She couldn't certify that there hadn't been something of the kind prior to him and his companion deciding to try to batter one another to pulp.

Aidan underwent the scolding in silence, nodding in understanding where desirable. "We did use the holodeck ma'am," he explained softly, "and not real weapons to avoid actual damage to ourselves. But I made a wrong move on my last defense and I took a nasty tumble. Commander Bernadotte looks just as bruised as I do, and will no doubt feel as sore as I will in a few hours. Barring the accident, we actually had a great workout."

His smile was genuinely sheepish if not embarrassed as he leaned back on the bed. "I don't mind surgery ma'am," he added, "I even won't mind required rest as long as I regain full use." He seemed to gesture with his healthy hand, but if someone paid closer attention one would notice they weren't random gestures. "It's not my dominant side but..." He hesitated. "I never thought sickbay staff would ever be bored," he added slowly, looking sideways at the motionless feline.

Icarus purred softly, her tail snaking around the patient's healthy wrist in an attempt of comfort. "If there's some way I can assist?" She queried, casting questioning eyes onto her new boss.

Rio didn't notice the different gestures towards the feline although she did see the sideways glance but later regretted not having paid more attention to it.

"How long will it take?" The Trill enquired, glancing between the two medical officers but finally settling pleading eyes onto the chief medical officer for an answer.

"Don't worry, I can have the surgery done on in about half an hour, then another half probably for all the regeneration so about an hour tops." she smiled. "You'll need to rest for the day afterwards but you should be able to use it fairly normally by morning. If not, or if it remains a bit sore or weak then we could do another couple of regenerations and with reasonably careful awareness of it for a week you should be good as new. It's not like in the dark ages, Centuries ago when it used to take months to heal a broken bone."

"Thank you doctor," Aidan answered gratefully, "I don't mind being sore, it'll serve as a reminder to be more careful in the future." He was glad this doctor didn't resort to archaic methods to remind patients of their shortcomings. "I'll try to be more careful in the future," he promised.

"Deal!" she grinned but thought better or offering to give him a high-five.

True to her promise, the CMO had the surgery done and complete within an hour and the Trill Lt. Commander was able to return to his quarters to rest. "Could you please accompany our patient and see he gets to his quarters Ensign To-Ennien? I'd like to be sure he gets safely there and starts his rest and recovery right away. Once you're done please come back here and I can rustle you up something useful but hopefully fun to do next." she said to the new medic. "... and thank you for your help with this case. Once again, welcome to Sickbay".

The Sivaoan purred in delight as she assisted the spotted patient back to his feet. "I can't wait to see your usefuls," she stated brightly, completely misunderstanding that in this case it didn't concern a cloth application.

Aidan chuckled at the miscommunication but didn't clarify. This was between the two doctors. "I'm sure I can find my own way doctor," he offered, "it's not far."

"Doctor's orders," Icarus purred, her long agile rail snaking around his waist. With a little push, she ushered the surprised Trill out the door and made sure he got home safely. Once more she instilled the CMO's order to rest, before returning to sickbay. There, she walked right up to the female Trill. "You were going to show me your useful," she said, her ears twitching in eagerness.

"erm....." Rio was a little surprised but could see where that might have gone awry. "Well, first of all, thank you for taking the patient to his quarters for me." she went on, organising the words inside her head before she explained gently and with lightness so as not to make a thing of the way the word 'useful' changes from an adjective to a noun and back again. She put her arm around the shoulders of the new medic and smiled encouragingly. "I don't actually have A useful object as such, because I was saying that I'd find you something useful to do.....useful and hopefully fun..... to do..... The pair walked along the corridor until they were out of earshot, continuing their comparisons of how each would have more likely used the word and how funny it was that their differences seemed to come out with a large mismatch.

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