CMO LtJG Wolfgang Keller

The distance from the main ward to the clinical area of Sickbay was only a few paces away, and it only took the Doctor a couple of seconds to navigate himself to the correct examination room. He give the doorway a chime before opening, the more "high-tech" practice of 24th century doctors that had largely replaced the old practice on knocking on the doorway to announce one's presence to the patient.

As he stepped in, he found the Ensign seated patiently on the biobed in inticipation of his arrival.

"Good morning, Alexei. I trust that your physical exam went smoothly?" he asked with an air of informality.

{Assuming Alexei says something along the lines of yes}

"Good, I'm glad to hear that. T'Shara is one of our finest staff members here. It's why I could entrust her with handling the operation of this clinic while I await the arrival of a new MO." Keller finally tried to make an effort to stop running his mouth so he could get to the point. He sat perched himself onto one of the nearby worktables so that he could level his stature with that of Alexei so as to appear less condescending when he talked.

"Anyway, in know your time is valuable and you're probably wondering why I've kept you here," he said, judging by the Caitian's slight discomfort. "I just wanted to take a moment to clear the air between you and I and all of this nonsense about some mother needing help with a child that you have not even met before, and why people around here, including me I must admit, have been seeking you out in particular even though you just got here," he said, trying to make light of the awkward first few days Alexei had probably gone through.

"The thing is, the circumstances surrounding this child, Falyn, are unfortunately both extraordinary and tragic in a sense, both for her and her mother Katarina. It all started about a month ago - Valdivian was a brand new station then: I was there for the ribbon-cutting ceremony, back when I was an Ensign and an ordinary joe like any other. However, almost as soon we began to get settled, an infestation the likes of which I have never seen before in my professional career hit the Station's crew, disgusing itself as some sort of virus that was capable of resisting our scans. While I, the CMO, Zolar, and then-Lieutenant Waters attempted to discern the origin of the phage, the entire Senior Staff was ordered to board the Trinity to pursue a lost Bynar research vessel before the Romulans could secure it, leaving only me and Zolar as the highest ranking crewmen on the station. They couldn't have left at a worse time," the Doctor, said, emotion slowly beginning to flood his facial features. "It turned out that the phage that had been infecting a large portion of the crew was actually an ambush used by a race of part cybernetic, part organic lifeforms called the Necrodryads, which used human bodies as hosts to spawn new organisms. One of the infected, the Security Chief Ra'zii, died a horrid, painful death - right in front of my eyes, and there wasn't a thing I could've done about it..."

Keller looked down for a moment as images of the poor man being ripped apart by the mechanical beasts from the inside flooded his mind. Alexei could notice the fist in Keller's right hand beginning to form as he tried to disperse the painful memories from his thoughts.

"Unfortunately, Ra'zii was never given a chance to rest in peace. Although we didn't know it at the time, his body was transformed into a cybernetic abomination composed of both Caitian flesh and mechanical components. Luckily we were able to flee him and his lackies, escaping to Sickbay to try to form a plan to defeat the enemy, but we found that phasers and other conventional weaponry were completely ineffective against their drones. However, it was at this time that we met Katarina - a fourteen year old kid who had been stalking the abandoned corridors of the station during the midst of the Necrodryad attack. For all intents and purposes, I shouldn't have trusted her, yet the situation was so desperate, anyone who wasn't against us at that point was a valuable asset. And an asset she proved to be..." he looked Alexei straight in the eyes. "If it wasn't for Katarina, I don't believe I would be sitting here talking to you this day." He let the comment sit for a moment to let it soak in, to let it penetrate Alexei to make him understand why he was so invested in the kid.

"You see, she was the captain of a private research vessel, the S.S. Manitou, and she had been scouting this sector of space at exactly the same time the Necrodryads had attacked. She helped coordinate our evacuation efforts and offered us refuge on her vessel, where we were able to successfully fly clear of the enemy that tried to consume us. During that reprieve, she and our current Security Chief, Zolar, attempted to retake the station and use its defenses against the enemy since they had quickly abandoned the station after its crew escaped. However, while in mid-transport they were intercepted by Ra'zii. At the time, I had no idea what had happened to them, but I feared that they were already in the hands of the Necrodryads, and unfortunately, I was correct. By the time we finally got them back, Katarina and Zolar sustained substantial injuries from a form of torture that was purely harrowing to see the works of. Katarina was barely alive, and it was nothing short of a miracle that I was able to stabilize her. However, that proved to not be the only suprise that the Necrodryads left for us - as we peformed scans on the poor girl, we learned that there was a lifeform that was growing inside of her uterus at an incredible rate - a child! Falyn, Katarina's daughter, was a product of the sheer brutality of the Necrodryads. This is why things are the way they are," he said with a sigh.

"We had learned soon enough that Katarina's daughter was a hybrid - a mixture of her genes and the Caitian genes of the old security chief Ra'zii. I had feared that the child would serve as another conduit for the Necrodryads to begin reproducing themselves, but we found a way to detach Falyn's embryo from the cybernetic component that was controlling her. But, that didn't stop the real issue at play - Katarina, a teenager, was to have a child even though she had nothing to do with its conception. But here is the part that amazes me about Katarina's character: she accepted it, and determined to have the child and raise it even though she knew it wasn't hers. Now, she is a struggling mother, struggling to deal with the hard lessons that motherhood teaches a woman so very early in her life, struggling to deal with a child that was of a race that requires specific needs that need to be catered to that she must now deal with, and struggling now to explain to her family why she has this mysterious child. Yet through it all, she perseveres. However, I can't find myself sitting idly by while she goes through those challenges. But I'm only one man, and a man with no experience in fatherhood and in child-upbringing to boot, let alone teaching a Caitian child the fundamentals of her kind."

He paused for a moment, thinking about what to say next. "That, I suppose, is why I have been looking for better solutions for the two so that their burden might be lessened. That was why I was eager to approach you about it, because your situation is similar to Falyn's. However, I do not want you to think that I am ordering you to help me with this - far from it. Rather, I merely appeal to your good conscience to consider this struggling family. You won't need to be too involved with helping Kat and Falyn - all I ask is that you be open to advising her whenever the need arises. So, what do you say?"

CMO Lieutenant JG Wolfgang Keller, MD
Valdivian Station / USS Trinity
Player Name: Stephen O'Dette
Email: sodette123@yahoo.com