Personal Log for Doctor Dai O'Malley. Medical Officer on the "White Griffin"

[pendragonman]

Personal Log for Doctor Dai O'Malley. Medical Officer on the "White Griffin"

The following is an excerpt from Doctor O'Malley's journals up to joining the ship's company of the "White Griffin".

Let's see, where to start. Well, I am Dai O'Malley, but my friends call me Thumper (yes, after that damned rabbit from the Disney crystals). That business started when I was in grade school as I had a habit of "tapping" my foot when I was nervous, and none to quietly. I hated it at first, but grew to tolerate it. I finally took the moniker for my own when I started playing baseball. It seems I have a talent for hitting doubles off the walls---THUMP! 2 bags!---almost any time I wanted.

I was born and raised on Utoland (Jewell, Spinward Marches). Being a colony world, children finished schooling by age fourteen then joined an apprenticeship. Since I showed an aptitude for it (i.e.I didn't faint at the sight of blood or vomit) I was apprenticed to one of the local general practice doctors. When I turned eighteen, the colony manager signed me to a contract to pay for regular medical schooling in exchange for coming back and being a doctor for the colony for the same number of years as schooling took.

Medical school was on Tremous Dex (Vilis, Spinward), and was uneventfull. I finished faithfully in the dead center of my class. Two years of residency on Arden (Vilis, Spinward) and it was back to Utoland to finish my contract. Normally this would have been a series of patients with lung problems and broken bones, but the Zhos changed all that with their most recent expansion push into Jewel. My contract was commuted to service with the Arden defense militia and a busy but exciting few years ensued. With the end of the conflict and the granting of Arden's freedom, my contract ended and I elected dual citizenship with the Federation and the Imperium. (Editor's note: The 3rd FW is the conflict that the doctor refers to.)

While working for my keep at the Utoland hospital, I began a search for off world employment. I don't plan to leave Utoland forever, I just have a bad case of happy feet. Finding an add in the Colony Tattler, I applied to and was accepted by Universal Export Express. UE2 is a small but growing concern moving cargos and people around between the Imperium, Zhodani space and points between. They hired a crew off of Utoland to facilitate a new venture into Vargr space.

The "White Griffin" is a modified A2. While I don't know all of the technical details (that kind of info is for the chip heads and engineering freaks) I do know that the "Griffin" has a full med bay complete with beds for 3 patients. Further, it is offering considerable travel to visit interesting cultures and biohazards . I look forward to our travels.

 

[pendragonman]

Shake down cruise and first jump.

After a brief discussion with the company rep (a bit of a nervous Nellie that one, I am gonna have to watch him for mental break downs) and the Captain, I have established a health protocol for the ship:

1) All passengers (high, mid or low) must undergo a complete physical exam by me before boarding to establish their baselines and to ensure that no communicable diseases are carried by the ship.

2) All crew will undergo complete physical work ups after each departure for the same reasons. Extra endocrinal work is required of any crew person who has more than a brief conversation with star port personnel. Especially those crew member involved in away teams or "cultural exchanges".

I firmly believe that prevention will keep the crew healthy and the name of the ship clear of any "plague" designations.

The shake down portion of our current cruise seems to have satisfied the Captain. We are headed towards the 100d limit and a jump to Zircon to pick up our first job-a charter of University types to Cantrel for an archeology expedition. should be an interesting trip, Cantrel is firmly in Zho space.

 

[pendragonman]

Arrived Zircon. Uneventful approach to the starport.

After some thought during the time in jump, I have decided that there will be regions on almost every planet that don't see physicians regularly enough to keep the local populace, specifically the local children, in the peak of health. To that end I have made arrangements with the Captain and the Company Man to do a little field health care wherever possible. Company Man has even agreed to pay for the medical supplies that I use. I would like to focus my efforts in the following priority of areas:

a) industrial disaster sights
b) natural disaster sights
c) war zones
d) economically disadvantaged regions

Company Man has decided that I shouldn't go to my field work with out protection. To that end, I am required to take one of our two security people with me when I go. These guys are ex Imperial Marines, both of them with experience from the siege of Jewell. I just hope they are not typical Marines in that they have some sort social skills and won't scare off my potential patients.

 

[pendragonman]

After checking with the Captain, I have taken my leave of the ship to do some work. Loading my gear into the air raft, I have been taken to a rural area of Zircon to do some work. The security droid, one "Shrimp" Lomein (gotta be a nickname, his parents can't be that cruel, can they?) drove me out to the work sight. Seems he prefers to see a loophole in the Captain's security instructions; after dropping me and my gear off, he headed back to the ship to do some dirtside stuff on his own. Suits me fine, those jarheads scare the back woods people easy.

Captain gave me 48 hours to do my thing. He needs to refuel the ship and load up the Charter. I figure to make it more of a one day deal this time so that I can run physicals on all of the passengers.

(later) Small rural town with the standard issues found in any small colony: a few broken bones, some stitches, a couple of rashes that the locals were unfamiliar with and some respiratory issues all coupled with low levels of malnutrition from not a varied enough diet. Dosed and stitched those who needed it and left enough multivitamins for all the inhabitants for a year.

Lomein came back and retrieved me and the gear. Returned to ship to notice that there certainly are more antenae than normal. Also, oddly, the charter needs to keep several of their cargo containers connected to ship's power. Weird.

Passengers (one old PhD, one youngish PhD, and a handful of grad students) all healthy. Grad students processed into the freezers for the trip.

Post ground crew physicals are all clean.

 

[pendragonman]

Arrived Gougeste. Captain restricted the entire crew to the ship do to a civil disturbance/war on the planet. Refueled and left.

Gonna have to either convince the Captain that I will be fine in these situations or I am gonna have to find a way to sneek off the ship. These kinds of emergencies are just what my trauma skills are for and the poor and disadvantaged are always hurt the most in these things.

 

[pendragonman]

Arrived Plaven. Turns out the work I do here is very much like the work I was doing on Utoland. Plaven is a small colony too, with the same kinds of medical needs.

Post physicals included only me and my driver. No one else had any interest in seeing another colony.

 

[pendragonman]

Arrived Narval. Refueled at gas giant. Jumped on for Nerewhon.

Geologists and planetologists would love this place. Very active techtonically from have the surface broken up by Mass Drivers during the war.

 

[pendragonman]

Arrived Nerewhon.

Apparently, right after the Zho conflict came to a close, the planet underwent a civil war that went nuclear. Further, after peace was rained down on all parties, the central government was overthrown in favor of semi local autonomy. The "world government" as a result is balkanized.

The star port in in one of these relatively new state lets, this one smaller than most but holding a significant technological edge in military and economic hardware. Further, this edge is easily maintained by this state let from trade thru the star port. Fortunately, this government seems more democratic that some of the others on the planet.

While most of the high level radiation has dissipated, there is still significant low levels irradiating large area of the planet. As a result, cancers (both dermal and sub dermal) abound.

Convinced the Captain to make this stop an entire week, as I thought I could do alot of work here. After some research, I picked a truly economically blighted area in a state let some 5 hours by air raft to the East. The local population makes do with shelters contrived out of rubble and what vegetation that can be recovered that also happens to not be edible. Skeletal masses are very low, a result of the continuous low level radiation. Overall masses are low due to poor nutrition.

Went thru 2 tons of medical supplies during my stay. Worked primarily on the children and the early teens as they are the future of this region. Would have stayed longer but that damned charter had to be delivered. The cancers I found on the children would break your heart.

Despite their deprivations, the locals are irrepressibly cheerful. Every night they arranged an impromptu dance where the remaining elders played whatever instruments they had and the younger generations danced and sang. Touched by this spirit, and knowing that my ministrations would not truly help their plight without some effort to fix their economic problems, I traded my TL 12 carpentry kit for an excellently made fiddle of local manufacture. It didn't seem to bother the locals when they found out that I had no skill with the thing, they just took me in hand and showed me the ropes. Leaving a year's supply of anti rad medicines and powerful vitamins, I was made to promise that I would practice with the instrument at least an hour a day before they let me go back to the ship.

One final note. Lomein again escorted me to the region. During the unloading of my supplies, he noticed a cockroach the size of a large coffee table. Taking my cues from the fact that the local children were riding it, I affected to not be shocked by it. Lomein tracked it with his weapons for almost an hour. I found out later from the headman that several species of bug have grown truly gigantic like that cockroach. Seems to be a result of the radiation. The headman assured me that they are mostly harmless, just watch out for the 10 kilo mosquitoes. I laughed.

After the week, we headed out for Whenge.

 

[pendragonman]

Arrived Whenge.

Much like the old Terran Celtic tribes, this planet's government is a bit anarchic with the heads of tribes getting together to agree on an offworlder acceptance policy. The discussions behind these agreements seem to go through a bit of personal feuding and tribal warfare before any resultion comes to hand. Fun stuff, politics.

Anyway, this planet suffers from poor pollution controls ( and thus the main health hazard is intense areas of industrial pollution) and is broken up into tribal regions, the tribes varying from semi-stationary to semi nomadic. Driven out to one of the mostly stationary tribes by the other marine, D'Grave. He really tried to "interpret" the Captain's orders to be just to drop me off. Got him into significant hot water when the Captain found him on board a day later. Not like I try to dissillusion these people about the Captain's orders. I get alot more access to the populace without those stuffy, trigger happy wonks around. Unfortuneatly, they are gonna figure out they are supposed to stay with me. I guess at that time I will start training them in field medecine to distract them from their weapons a bit. With luck, they will pick up some civilian-freindly attitudes.

On our way out to the field work, we were attacked by a sniper. He hit the windscreen of the air raft right in front of D'Grave, who was driving. Not a great sniper, he moved and gave away his position. I threw off a snap shot with Thumper, and somhow my first grenade landed close enough to deal with the would be sniper. Talk about luck

D'Grave had apparently not noticed that I even was armed before this. He asked where I got an old break-open single shot grenade launcher. So I told him about a company of ship's troops who had been assigned to help protect our field hospital during the war. During a Zho surge on Utoland, this company had been almost overrun, which would have meant the hospital would have been captured too. Since the company's medical team had been taken out early in the fighting, some of us cutters were out on the lines with the boys (most of em could not have been more than 19). I was one of those cutters on the line.

During one stretch of hot close combat, I hand been running from man to man out in the open trying to keep these boys from bleeding to death. At some point (I don't remember when) a little hand grenade ping pong started. These sons a bitches were trying to killthe men they already wounded! One landed nearby and enough was enough, I scooped it up like the infielder I am and threw it back. Then another came in, and another, and another. It started to feel like a viscious game of pepper. Eventually, I scooped up one of the wounded men's rifles, which had a grenade launcher on it. Right after throwing back the most recent grenade, I fired the RAM launcher at the area where the hand grenades kept coming from. That put an end to the game.

I found out later, during a quiet spot in the fighting, that my fielding of those grenades had put a stop to a surge by the Zhos. Later, after the Zhos pulled out of our sector, the platoon I was with presented me with the old grenade launcher. after asking aroundabout me, they had heard about my nickname. The platoon sarjeant then had the little bunny engraved into the pistol grips and a set of replacement grips for my autopistol. The presentation nearly caused me to break down. I love those guys. I hope they are ok, wherever they are now.

Anyway, I had chosen an area in the hill country that had severe chemical runoff in the water supply. The tribal region I chose had several little hamlets sort of close to each other. As a result, there was a lot of work for me with the youngsters, from poisonings to chemical burns and general malnutrition.
Worked for a week solid, and made a good dent in the local medical needs.

Every night was an orgy. The locals had come up with a way to "improve the breed" of humans by doing as much cross pollinating as possible, and as I was a new source of pollen, I was quite popular. Used these opportunities to kill off several strains of V.D. that had been running around.

During my packing up to leave, a neighboring tribe had sent a raid in to steal whatever they could. Hearing the impending attack (I'm not sure they understand stealth, or perhaps this was a ritual attack), I whipped off another snap shot with Thumper. Right on target again, ending the attack. I fixed up the wounded aggressors and turned them over to the village headman.

Found a good family man who had some metal working skills but no tools. I found a way to give him my tech 12 metal working kit in exchange for a really nice home made marriage quilt (with a quiet promise to his wife to look for a bride to share it with) a gallon of moonshine and 3 kilos of really good herbal tranquilizers.

I think, that since my field work is generally with disadvantaged children, I should get some toys to hand out. Also, more tools would help get more of these people back on their feet economically. I have made a note to look into acquiring these items as soon as I can.

D'Grave then took us back to the ship.

 

[pendragonman]

Arrived Gesenton.

Prior to coming out of jump, Flood (the Company Man) and the Captain advise all crew and passengers to wear psi shields at all times.

I happen to be on the bridge when we exit jump space (discussing crew and passenger dietary changes). We come out of jump at slightly more than the regular exit point-more like 110 diameters instead of 100, which is a bit odd. Glancing at the passive sensors, I notice a large cluster of targets at the extreme range of the sensors. Since we seem to be loitering in the area (basically making no real headway towards the planet), I ask what the targets could be. It is then that the Captain informs me that the edge of this system is a naval training area for the Zho fleet.

Upon making contact with the starport, we are informed that while refueling is possible at the starport, regulations prohibit any of our personnel from disembarking for any reason here. Any needs will be met by starport personnel coming out to the ship. Upon landing, one of said officials place seals upon all of our airlocks.

Interesting place, this.

Within 48 hours, we depart for Cantrel and delivery of our charter.

 

[pendragonman]

Arrive Cantrel

This wonderful low law level planet will be all right by our security people. They sure do love those heavy weapons.

At Whenge, Mr. Lomein bought a surplus Zho light machine gun, some spare parts, and enough ammo to cover two layers on a pallet in the cargo hold. Paranoid much?

Anyway, I have identified my small town for medical services, and the Captain has detailed Mr. D'Grave as my driver. We depart from the star port as the ship takes off for a landing zone closer to the charter's goal of an archeology sight. We are asked to check in by radio regularly.

The medical necessities here are very standard and routine, leaving me and D'Grave to spend most of our time in "cultural and ideological exchanges". :devil:

During one of our radio checks, we learn of Lomein burning off about an entire belt of ammo into the bush trying to hit some of the local fauna. Fauna, I might add, that he has determined as hostile solely because it is pacing the column. No body or blood trail is found, so I guess he just did some defoliation.

At another radio check, we find that the first load has reached the sight. It appears to be a set of ancient dwellings. The first load consisted of most of the grad students (a couple died during the thawing process) some of the gear and a mobile bunkhouse. Reports are that there will need to be several more runs to get Griffin unloaded. I go back to our partying.

Late evening, between radio checks, we get a panicked call from Lomein that one of the grad students has been killed by something that pulled the student down a hole in one of the sights buildings. The only thing left of the student was a piece of leg and a blood smear. This find has so traumatized the rest of the expedition as to make them nearly hysterical, although I am betting is that the hysteria is mob induced as a result of big, strong, space marine Lomein goes to pieces. Lomein is in such a state that he is apparently unable to do anything until I am retrieved. He claims to not want to advance down the tunnel without medical support handy, but surely he remembers that the younger professor has some trauma skills; after all, he is the one who thawed out the grad students.

So, the Captain makes a quick trip to pick up me and D'Grave, who makes a nifty aerial docking with the air raft. We are wisked at maximum NOE speed to the sight, where D'Grave makes another neat aerial maneuver to land us (no room here for Grif). By then, Hendrix (our ship's gunner) who had been at the sight to a) add muscle to the unload and b) to study the sight (he has an interest in archeology, it seems), has moved passed the frozen and panicking Lomein and crawled down the tunnel after the thing that killed the grad student (sounds like a B triV). Upon landing, I calm people down as much as I can, medicating those that are hysterical. This, unfortunately means I have to medicate Mr. Flood. Apparently Company Man can't handle blood or stress very well.

The fact that a navy boy is leading the assault down the tunnel apparently unfroze Lomein right before D'Grave and I arrive. Looking for alternate ways down inside, I locate a chimney into the hill that the sight sits on. Hearing indistinct noises, I thump a grenade down there. Right after the explosion, Hendrix yells into the radio that I almost killed him and Lomein is shreaking for me to cease fire. D'Grave and I climb down the chimney to find a chamber with Hendrix and Lomein. There is a hall big enough for us to stand upright in, although we have to travel single file down it. Hendrix leads, followed by Lomein, then me, with D'Grave watching the rear.

After 30 meters or so, the hall opens into another chamber. On general principle, I thump a grenade into here also, passed the heads of Lomein and Hendrix. The flash of the explosion briefly illuminates the room, to show a six legged cat like thing springing at Hendrix. He shoots, and misses. Lomein sticks that LMG around and fires off half a belt, hitting the thing like 2 or maybe 3 times at most, killing it outright. The carcass hits Hendrix right in the chest.

We find in the room some sort of ancient altar that the professors in our charter get all excited about. I locate the remains of the student, D'Grave finds a nest that the cat-thing came from, with a litter of little cat-things. He puts them down with his ACR.

At this point, while I am working on his wounded ears, Hendrix gives me a ration about the grenade down the chimney. Hearing this, Lomein really starts tearing into me about it. Having had enough of his hysterics, I respond with "If you don't want fire support, don't call me out of a party." D'Grave hears this and, laughing, shortens it to "If you don't want fire support, don't call the doctor."

After the clean up of the sight and cleaning up after the excitement, D'Grave and I return to our town and our "cultural exchanges" for the remainder of our time on Cantrel.

 

[pendragonman]

Arrived Thengo

Ship quarantined by local Zho officials. I suspect it has something to do with our straying Gesenton.

The quarantine will be lifted after being examined by a "local doctor". This is in spite of the warrants of clean health I have for the officials. Smelling a rat, I suspect the "local doctor" of being Zho intelligence. As a result, our lead sensor ops person goes into hiding, and the Captain informs me that we are not to include her in the list of personnel to be inspected.

I arrange for the "local doctor" and his assistant to do their inspections in my sic bay. I am the first screened. They ask some very cursory questions, making no physical inspection other than to check my pulse. Questions like "how many aboard", "where did you come from", "where are you headed","have you been exposed to any major illnesses" etc. No problem.

With me present, the rest of the crew does quite well in not exposing our sensor operator. We are cleared, but choose to refuel and lift for Rio as soon as possible.