Meeting the Shrink

Posted on Mon Jan 17th, 2011 @ 10:11am by Lieutenant Walter Suder & Captain Nathan Cowell MD

Mission: Hippocratic Hijacking
Location: Captain's Ready Room, USS Arizona

The Chief Counselor stepped off the Turbolift and smiled at their boyish First Officer while walking across the bridge, "Is the Captain still in his ready room?"

Mantell simply nodded his head boyishly before his gaze returned elsewhere. Suder tapped the interface next to the door waiting for the Captain's reply.

Captain Cowell looked up from his book and frowned. He wondered how many times he'd been interrupted while reading in the years he'd spent as Captain of a starship. With a sigh, he slid the small ribbon he used as a place holder and closed the book before shouting "Come!"

Suder entering the ready room, "Hello Captain."

Nathan gave the man a once over before grumbling, "Hello yourself... Who are you anyway? I'm sure I don't know you and even if I can't remember names all that well, your face doesn't look at all familiar."

"We haven't met before Captain," the Chief Counselor smiled. He made the gesturing offer of his hand, "I'm Lieutenant Walter Suder, Chief Counselor."

"Oh good, then I wasn't just forgetting you. Sit down, Mister Suder, and tell me what it is you came all the way up here for. Not that I care, mind you, but I don't remember needing my head shrunk this morning so I'm sure I didn't asked you to break away from your busy schedule of nodding and muttering," Nathan said, not bothering to take the hand or to even move.

'A serious case of the grumps,' Suder evaluated. "I left my head shrinking equipment in my office. Perhaps we should arrange an appointment?" Walt said teasingly.

"Sure, and you'll waste a whole hour waiting for me not to bother showing up," Nathan remarked flatly, "Is there anything I can help you with, kid?"

While Nathan wasn't overly busy, that fact obvious by the rather clean appearance of his desk, he was intent to get back to his reading, even if it was a book he'd actually read more than a hundred times in 600 years.

Suder laughed while he took a seat, "There's nothing I need help with, Gramps. I'm just making my rounds. See the ship some more, get myself acquainted with the townspeople. The same old."

Doc Cowell frowned at being called 'Gramps' by the new guy. Had he been on the ship a while or otherwise had earned that kind of 'banter' it might have been different. However, having admitted he had not even been aboard long enough to have met his Captain, he was pushing things a little.

"Then you are in the wrong place. The towns folk are down in the bowels of the ship. This is the throne room, no one here but us kings of the castles. Maybe you should go play with the peasants and leave the kings to their reading..."

"I won't keep you from it," Suder rose to his feet. "Enjoy your reading, Captain."

Before the man retreated, Nathan suddenly had an idea, "You know something, if you're so intent on putting yourself out there, I have a task for you. Get with Mister Sweeney and find out what the hell is wrong with that creepy bastard. Put him on some meds or something... He's too high spun and I'm afraid his head isn't on too tight... Think you can handle that?"

Suder turned to face the Captain, "Mister Sweeney, Captain?"

"My Yeoman, Petty Officer type, creepy as all hell. He shouldn't be that hard to nail down," Nathan clarified.

"I am pretty sure he has some form of psychosis. He's your Yeoman, after all." Suder laughed, "Kidding of course, Captain."

"He was like that before he got here, I can assure you..." Nathan said dryly, "And now it's your job to fix him. Good luck with that."

"I will schedule an appointment with him," Walter said as he exited the Captain's Ready Room.