Only two decks of the station were completed and Karla and Durnit were shown to the very modest quarters that were assigned to them.

“Small,” Durnit noted, placing his bag in the locker at the foot of the bed.

“Cosy,” Karla replied, “I guess we’ll have to cuddle up together in bed.”

“Unless we are on different duty shifts here,” Durnit replied, “guess we’d better go and see the CO.”

A short time later they tried to see the officer in charge, but he was unavailable and they were instead instructed to see the officer in charge of personnel .

Both were put to work, Durnit was stocktaking the medical supplies, while Karla was checking the medical tricorders, making sure they were all working properly, and then she was moved onto the surgical suite before finally the biobeds.

Not even her grumpy protest of, “I’m a doctor, not a logistics officer …” had any positive effect.

The officer disinfecting the walls in sickbay turned to her and said, “Well Doctor, I’m the 2IC on the station. You don’t hear me complaining about having to do my bit to get sickbay and the station ready, do you? I can get you reassigned to cleaning the power couplings with a nailbrush if you aren’t careful.”

Karla stopped complaining at that point and went on with her job. Durnit looked up from his stocktake at one point after that and looked at the 2IC and said, “had I known the complaints could have been ended so easily, I would have done that years ago, thank you Sir.”

-Karla, Durnit & Nameless 2IC