Rals Yevel wasn’t surprised to find Parze in the patient’s room an hour before rounds. She always took the stairs when a turbolift ride would do. Someone, somewhere, had clearly told her that gruelling effort was the only pathway to worth.

By contrast, Rals preferred to appear effortless. Life was too hard and too long already. Acting like he didn’t even have the energy to cross the threshold, Rals leaned against the doorframe.

He played dumb, asking, “What are you doing here, P?”

“Same as you,” Parze sing-songed. Her clawed finger continued to scroll through the patient’s medical chart on the wall LCARS panel. “Anticipating the questions I might be asked in rounds and formulating a question that makes me sound like I’m already an expert.”

Neither agreeing nor denying, Rals asked, “An expert in what?”

“Cranial trauma and neural shock,” Parze answered. At that, she turned her snout to face him. “You’ll need more hustle than that to make it here, ensign.”

Offering her a languid smile, Rals shook his head slightly. For all the intensity of her focus and care, Parze was usually also right. Infuriating.

Waggling a finger at the unconscious Bolian on the biobed, Parze said, “Lieutenant Trafar was injured when a Vaadwaur assault escort attacked her ship.” –Her brief moment of condescension was consumed by some compulsion towards being the town gossip– “As chief science officer, they’re relying on Trafar to open an aperture in Underspace where they’ve found an outpost causing the subspace blackout. Her crew is standing by to destroy the outpost nearest here, but nobody else understands the science behind the apertures.”

“And the blackout,” Rals said, as he stepped into the patient’s room, “isolates us from any other Underspace experts in Starfleet.”

Striding alongside the biobed, Rals put his focus on Trafar. A faint sheen of sweat clung to Trafar’s temples. A slight twitch in her lips made it look like she was caught in some terrible dream. Mounted above her head, the chiming of the biofunction monitor continued. Arrow indicators bobbed on the panel to indicate her vital signs. From his months as a nurse aboard USS Constellation, his gaze narrowed on any dropping arrows.

Rals posed, “Have you decided what question you’ll ask Doctor Aun?”

“I’ll tell you at the start of rounds,” Parze said, shooting him a toothy Saurian smile. “I promise to bring you a pastry for being so patient with me.”

As much as Rals wanted to smile at that, wanted to make a request, a bobbing arrow caught his eye. He rubbed the back of his neck. The vital signs were steady, but something was wrong. He’d cycled through enough ICU shifts to know that low could quickly mean slipping.

“Her neural activity shouldn’t be that low if she’s been prescribed inaprovaline,” Rals said. His hands dropped to Trafar’s life support frame, and he tapped at a couple of LCARS contacts.

“Sticky fingers!” Doctor Fahbee Aun shouted at Rals from the doorway. His voice boomed into the room with the force of a photon grenade. “There’s no reason for a medical student’s sticky fingers to go anywhere near my patient. Ensign Rals, what is the reason?”

Rals felt his face go hot. He trusted his instincts were right, but Doctor Aun’s stare could shatter Rals’s confidence, also like a photon grenade. Rals pointed out a medical gas and fluid connection point on the underside of the life support frame.

“The intravenous line was twisted,” was the first thing Rals thought to say. “I was checking the connection was secure.”

Doctor Aun “tut-tut”ed at Rals, and said, “How many times do I have to remind you your nursing license is no good on this station. Know your place. Now get out of here.”