[Artagus IV – First Injection Site]

The hypospray gave a satisfying click as it emptied its contents into the young woman’s arm. A brief discussion and a lollipop given and the girl ran to her mother excitedly. That had not hurt anywhere near what she had anticipated. Doctor Michelle Mueller set the now empty hypnospray, in a box which an Operations Officer sealed up, and the looked down the line satisfied. After a lot of work they had finished, they would remain for another day and run some educational campaigns to try to get the last of the stragglers but anyone who wanted treatment had now gotten it curtesy of Starfleet.

Turning she looked at the Chief Operations Officer Lieutenant Commander Tashai, “We can start taking crates back up to the ship. We’ll have to take them to Starbase 72 for resupply.”

A number of yellow suited Operations Officers stepped forward starting to load crates of empty hyposprays into the shuttle. Tashai nodded, “Sounds good. I’ll have my team working to collect these and bring them back aboard the Anaheim.”

The two women looked at the fledging colony city that they had just saved, though that seemed like too dramatic of a world for what they had done.

”Think they’ll be better at this this time,” Mueller asked, this was the third major health care intervention that Starfleet had to do for the colony, and all of them had come down to just not ordering medical supplies in time. Resources were tight but the citizens had built a water park instead.

Tashai shrugged, “Humans can be dumb, but they usually hang on. We’ll see.”

Mueller looked at the El-Aurian and decided not to comment on the answer. She did not want to seem universally offended on behalf of humans, and frankly the woman was right, there was a streak within humanity that made them stubborn and at times kind of dumb. Starfleet had run counter to that, but independent colonialists were not Starfleet. 

It had been quite a first mission. The Captain was a wanna-be explorer who saw himself more as a Picard, Kirk, or Pike type but had been stuck in a largely administrative role. The First Officer was a doctor who had been largely marginalized and the rest of the crew was freshly in their roles. While nothing unforeseen had happened, at least as of yet, Doctor Mueller (who was also a Lieutenant Commander) knew that things would not always run this smoothly. Granted the USS Anaheim was not the Enterprise, Defient, or Berlin and not about to get in shooting matches with Orion pirates or anything but things happened. Things could go wrong.

As if able to tell what she was thinking Tashai hit the Chief Medical Officer with a jovial backslap and said, “Stop worrying. You can a good mission. Let’s go make real booze in the medical lab.”

Mueller shook her head, “We’re not making moonshine in the medical lab.”

”Agree to disagree,” was the cryptic reply.

Back at the tent Crewman Nurse Jennifer Westbrook was helping clean things up, and loading the shuttle. This was her first posting and she had assumed that Starfleet would be more exciting than visiting provincial towns and handing out candy. Still it was something to do, and as she had done nursing school and not the Academy she could always quit and work as a civilian in a clinic somewhere if it got to be too much of a bummer. For now though she’d say, if only because she liked the uniforms.

[USS Anaheim – Ready Room]

It took a few hours for the shuttle to be loaded up with used crates and the majority of the crew, save for a small security detail, to head back up to the ship. Doctor Mueller washed up, having a sonic shower to get the grim of the surface off her and then at the request of Captain Nathan Hawthorne joined him in his ready room. The Captain rose as she entered the bridge signaling that he join her in his private sanctuary. 

“Good job Doctor,“ he said sitting behind his desk.

Mueller who had grown to not like the Captain very much nodded, he was suspicious of doctors likely because they held knowledge he did not, and that was bad in a captain of a ship full of mostly doctors.

”Thank you sir,” she said.

”Now comes the reward for a job well done. Commander McCleod know this, but for now keep it between us. We’ll be returning to Starbase 72 for resupply, and then traveling to the Hahana III which was just hit by Orion pirates. There’s a Galaxy class ship in orbit now providing the first emergency aid as well as security a USS San Paulo. They‘ll stick around as we come in, set up some longer term medical facilities from a team we bring in and shuttle there,” he said. Though the Galaxy class ship would do any fighting and likely scare off any pirates, it was easy to tell the idea of being in a potential active conflict excited the Captain.

”What’s our timeline?” Mueller asked.

”Expedite departure here. Two maybe three days at Starbase, and then off at top speed,” Hawkthorne said, he tapped a PADD, “I’m sending you what I have from the San Paulo on the situation on the ground. Draft up plans from that, though likely you’ll have to adapt once we get there.”

Mueller nodded, “Of course sir.”

”Leverage Commander McCleod as much as you can. He’s got experience, and not a lot to do,” Hawkthorne said.

 Though she admired the Commander she knew that he was not a warrior, or someone who brought a lot to this that she was not already bringing. Still it was nice to have a fellow Doctor around to bounce ideas off. She nodded, and after a few more details left to make her way down to sickbay. She had been planning on going through her Assistant Chief Medical Officer’s work running sickbay while she was in the field but for now Doctor Mueller had to rely on the fact that he seemed to know what he was doing and nothing had been reported to her that it had gone wrong.

Hahana III was deftly hard hit. Most of their infrastructure had been targeted in space based phaser fire causing floods, droughts, and electrical grid shortages that would be hard to work around. This was going to be a challenging deployment.