The Vomit Comet

Posted on Sun Aug 22nd, 2021 @ 8:49am by Lieutenant JG Miraj Derani & Commander Sthilg

Mission: Season 5: Episode 2: Operation Save Humanity
Location: Runabout Lethe
Timeline: MD 03 1400
1998 words - 4 OF Standard Post Measure

Sthilg looked over his list of duties he still had to do for the day. Top of the list was he had to check out the new medical runabout the USS Lethe they'd received recently.

The lizard paused at that. True the medical equipment was clearly his area, but he knew only the basis of the ship's engines and inner workings. Knowing who would he tapped his combadge. " Sssthilg to Miraj if your free i could ussse sssome help giving the new medical runabout a tessst would you be up for it?" he asked in his caml and friendly voice.

Miraj had been reviewing the crew flying experience to check for anyone who needed updating. As it wasn't actual flying she' was ready to drop it like a hot rock. "Absolutely. Is now a good time?" She was already heading for the door of her small office.

" I'll meet you down in the hanger bay. " The gorn said into his comm as he made his way over. It took him a few minutes to arrive before he stepped out into the hanger. " Hello Miraj it'sss good to sssee you." He said as he saw the ensign.

She skipped over to him, pink bunches swinging. "Hello doctor. You want to take Lethe for a spin?" She indicated the bright white danube class on the other side of the main flight deck. "We've run all the base lines, so we can break her in properly. We don't have to be gentle."

The gorn nodded. " I'll jussst need your hand with one thing first. " the gorn said as he walked over. " Need to make sssure the bio bed sssecure feildsss are working before we take off."

"Okay. How do we do that?" Miraj turned to the Lethe, and opened the hatch and walked into the command section, before turning left into the mission section that had been tricked out to offer a small surgical area, recovery beds and a small lab.

" Ah very nice and roomy." The gorn said looking over the small area he had to work with. " Asss for the tessst that'sss quite easssy my dear." The gorn said as he tapped something on his wrist computer. With a few seconds, some bags of laundry materialised at the Gorn's feet. " One of thessse on each bed. If it fallsss off we know the ssstabiliser isn't working."

Miraj started hefting the bags up on to the bio beds. "So, try and throw them off. No problem. Hope you don't get motion sickness."

"I'm sssure they won't mind me dear." The gorn replied with a chuckle as he placed a few bags onto the biobed. " This remindsss me of my old medal bay of the bird of prey i ssserved on back in my days in kdf. All that's missing is a Klingon with a beer gut that has it's own gravitation pull." He said as he placed the last bag on the bio bed.

"Well, don't say you weren't warned." Miraj skipped off to the pilots seat and started the engines. "I plan on giving those fields a real workout."

"I wouldn't want anything elssse." The gorn said as he activates the fields before heading to the cockpit himself. He had to duck slightly to get under the doorframe before taking a seat. " Ssso how have you been my friend. I've not ssseen you in sssickbay recently."

"Well, fine, obviously," she stuck her tongue out at him. "Its not been busy to be honest, I'm mostly trying to work the kinks out of the stick controls for the QSD. I'm almost there. A few more flights we can use to create scenarios for testing, and I think I'll have enough to ask the captain for conversion."

" That'sss good. " the gorn said as he felt the runabout power up beneath his feet. " How'sss the foot any complaintsss?" he enquired remembering the injury his mirror had given her.

"Nope." They moved out of the shuttle bay, passing out of Elysium's Warp bubble and dropping back into normal space. Everything's been fine." She paused, as she dialled down the gravity and inertial dampers. "Is that normal? Everything being fine?"

"No it'sss not my dear. " The gorn said with a jokingly tone in his voive. " It meansss the universsse is going to throw sssomething elssse at usss sssoon."

"I don't mind that." Miraj said, snapping the clasps on the five-point restraints that emerged from the pilots seat. "Means the flying gets more fun. Buckle up."

The gorn did so his big hands moving to secure the restraint as he began to feel the effects of gravity. "I do miss the old flying consoles with all the flash nobs and buttons." What half of them did was still a mystery to him to this day.

"I don't know why we ever moved away from stick. Took all the fun out of it." Miraj cancelled the internal gravity entirely. "How are our patients, still where they should be?"

"All laundry isss in place." the gorn said as he opened up the cameras in the back. The biobeds safety field had jumped into life when they detected the lack of gravity.

"Then hand onto your hat!" And with a flick of a wrist, she sent the runabout spinning to port, the danube class rolling around its longitudinal axis. With the inertial dampers dialled back, the move sent their stomachs into freefall. The Miraj shifted her fingers on the conn, and they went back the other way, spinning like a drill bit

The gorn felt his breakfast move slightly though he managed to catch the gag in his neck. "How do you manage thisss without losssing your lunch?" he said remarkably calmly

She shrugged. "Probably the boslic bits." She pulled back, and the shuttle began to roll end over end as well as spin, "I'm good with G-forces too. I don't really get bothered until 15Gs, more with a suit." She looked over at him. "Are you okay?"

"Weak ssstomach my dear." He replied giving her a weak smile as he did his best to hold in his breakfast.

"You do look a little green." She agreed with an impish smile, and added in the last axis, so the ship was spinning like a gyroscope in three directions.

The gorn gulped but managed to hold his stomach. Reaching into his pocket he pulled out a sick bag from his pocket just in case. Glancing back he looked a the laundry bags. "Ssstill holding." he managed before having to gulp hard again.

Miraj brought the Lethe back to center with one hand whilst she checked the laundry bags herself by looking over her shoulder. "I don't know. Those bags look a little light. Maybe we should try something heavier." She gave Sithilg a look. "Maybe about 75 kilos?"

"A good idea my dear." the gorn said trying to settle his stomach.

Miraj restored gravity, but left the inertia dampners down - as they were stationary it didn't matter - so that the doctor could get onto a biobed and bring up the field. "Just say when, And I'll do my best to try and make you lose your lunch."

The gorn nodded as he carefully made his way back stopping to grab a few space sickness pills from the replicator before bringing up the field. "There we go. Ssstart her up." He said as he began making his way back.

The shuttle lurched as she put it in a dive relative to their position, the gravity and minimal inertial dampening making it feel like a plunge, and then she threw the Lethe into a crazy slalom, always fiddling with the inertia or the gravity to make it a deliberately awful choppy ride., including rearing back and bouncing along on Lethe's rear end.

The gorn had managed to hold his stomach as he strapped himself into the seat. " I'd hate to be the pilot who hasss to keep up with you little one."

"No-one keeps up with me." It was a bald statement of fact made without boasting. "Not at helm. Anywhere else though?" She shrugged. "I thought you were going to climb into a biobed?"

"My dear would you like my fat ssself bouncing around if the sssheilds did fail?" The gorn replied with a grin.

"Isn't it kind of the plan? testing them to see that you don't. I bet laudry doesn't wriggle like scared patients either."

"Good point. Jussst give me a seconed." He said as she grabbed a bag before climbing ont to one of the biobeds. "Ready to go." He yelled to the cockpit.

Miraj grinned. "Do you know how they used to train pilots and astronauts back on earth before World War Three? To get them ready for zero g?" She started adjusting the inertia and gravity settings to replicate the conditions of a high altitude flight.


"Very fassst planesss and throwing them over waterfallsss in a barrel?" The gorn thought and said.

"Close. Parabolic flight." With a twitch Miraj sent the shuttle into a steep dive, that pulled on the body, and causing anything not locked down to float free. After a few seconds, she changed course, pulling in a steep climb to mirror the dive, and then dropped down again. "You can get ten, twelve seconds of effective zero-g if you're good. But the best bit is what these flights were called."

"What did they call them?" The old gorn replied nervously.

"Vomit Comets!" She shouted back with glee, and just for sheer fun, added a fast spin into the dive and climb.

Sthilg did his best to lay still as the ship tossed and turned. The shields were working exceptionally well as he was barely feeling the ship's movements. Still, the old gorn stomach wasn't settling well and after a few moments, his stomach emptied. Catching it in a bag with all the skill of a trained doctor the old gorn was yet still puzzled as a rough metallic feeling touched the back of his throat. Gagging slightly he turned his hand into a thin wire to extract it.

Hearing the retching sounds from the back, Miraj threw her hands in the air. "Woot! Made you puke! And you were doing so well!" She righted the shuttle with one hand, whilst looking back at the doctor, who was definitely greener than he was before. "Want me to get you some water? Or a breath mint?"

"Yank you." the gorn said softly as he finished withdrawing the foreign object. A very faded gold watch and chain that was very faded. " How long hasss that been in there?" he puzzled to himself.

A glass of water and a wrapped breath mint was presented to him. "You held out longer than most - is that a pocket watch?"

"Looksss like it. It mussst have been ssstuck in my first intestine. No idea how long it's been in there." He said as he carefully placed it down and took the breath mint and water. "Ssso how did the girl do?" He inquired.

"Huh?" Miraj was still staring at the watch. "She's fine, no one went bump. That's a watch."

"Indeed it isss. Where could it have come from." The gorn said as he placed it into a dish that poped up from the biobed.

"But you swallowed it!" Surely he would have noticed it going down?

"Indeed i thought i would have. I'll have to get it looked over when we get back to the ssship." The doctor replied.

Miraj shook her head, not getting at all how he puked up something almost as big as her palm and not seem that bothered by it. "Heading home now then. And you can tell me how you can swallow a pocket watch and not remember it."

"I hope i can give you an explanation asss well my dear." The very puzzled doctor replied as he wobbled back on unsteady legs for his seat back to the ship.