Posted by Lieutenant Helena Laursen (Helm/Nagivation Officer) in Memory: Oh, It’s You Again

Posted by Captain Marceau Renault (Commanding Officer) in Memory: Oh, It’s You Again

Posted by Lieutenant Helena Laursen (Helm/Nagivation Officer) in Memory: Oh, It’s You Again
Posted by… suppressed (11) by the Post Ghost! 👻
Things were going well for Marceau, better than the day he’d flown in. He was settled into his place, had everything sorted out, and a date for the weekend. There hadn’t been much to unpack. Just clothes and some things from home. Not that there was space for much. He’d started classes at the academy as well, and that was exciting. He was out of class for lunch, getting something to eat on campus.

~ Renault

Academy was amazing! Helena, to the irritation of some of the older cadets, places out of several of her basic flight courses and one of the engineering/maintenance courses. She’d picked up a job tutoring some of her fellow cadets, with the instructors’ permission. Her roommate was great but a bit…messy. She was an engineer and was constantly tinkering with things. She got letters from her parents and brother, and she had heard of a little local bar that was for pilots and another local hangout for cadets.

Helena was also volunteering for anything she heard about. This week it was for practice patients for the first year med cadets. Helena didn’t mind. She got to get out, meet new people and experience everything she could at the academy. Right now she was headed for lunch before her pretend medical appt. She got in line at the mess to get her food and then would find a table.

Laursen

Marceau was a few tables away from Laursen and nearly done by the time she sat down. He stood, tossed the remainder of his food, and headed to the next place he needed to be for the day. Next class he was supposed to be practicing basic stuff like medical histories, taking vitals, listening to patients and picking the pertinent information out, stuff like that. The class hadn’t been told they would get to work with volunteers pretending to be patients, they thought they were going to have to pretend for each other. Marceau would be excited either way. He headed off to class ready to go.

~ Renault

Helena sat at her table with a couple of the other first year cadets that she had a study session in warp theory with. Not exactly her area of study but it was adjacent and she was enjoying the topic. She was caught up in the discussion when the alarm on her watch went off. She glanced at it and shot up from her seat, disposed of her tray and set off at a light jog for the infirmary.

She got there and was handed a clipboard with forms to fill out. She sat and jotted things down on the paper. Like most cadets she had already filled these out, and so missed somethings she should have put because she assumed they had access to her medical file. This was what the instructors were hoping for. This way the medical cadets would really have to dig, exam, and question to get the full picture. When her name was called she handed the clipboard back to the nurse and followed her to a room where she was left alone to change into an exam gown. A few minutes later there was a knock on the door, “Come in.”

Laursen

When she said ‘come in’, Marceau hesitated briefly and then opened the door, heading in. He was in a Cadet’s Medical uniform which did not look all that different from a real medical uniform. He was only given the name and file when he went in so he was just reading the name as he entered and when he did, he looked up in surprise. “It’s my friendly pilot!” He exclaimed excitedly.

~ Marceau

Helena glanced up and grinned. In truth after the first few days she hadn’t had time to think about her nervous passenger overly much. She had looked for him, wondering if they would run into each other, but first year cadets were kept very busy. “It’s my flying buddy! Bonjour!” First it was late afternoon so the term was wrong, but even worse was the pronunciation - bun-jow-er. Part of it was her very prominent Icelandic accent, and the other was she was just that bad. She turned red knowing she’d messed the pronunciation up and then sighed, “I really botched that didn’t I?”

Marceau grinned and then pronounced the word slowly and clearly in his French accent, “Bonjour.” The ‘on combined into a nasally ‘ohn’, the j made a ‘zh’ sound, and ‘our’ became ‘oor’ like in ‘boot’ ending with a nice sounding French R. “But it is afternoon so… We may say bonjour or ‘bon après-midi’.” It sounded like ‘apray-meedee’. “It means good afternoon.” He smiled then and shook his head “But I am off topic.” He sighed nervously and shook his head. “I am not much of a flying buddy. Those things… Scary.”

Helena tried. She really did, silently at first and then very softly over and over. It was better, but she was never going to get that classic French R sound. “Bon après-midi?” It was easier hearing it rather than trying to read it. Again she said it several times, very slowly trying to imitate him. She knew it was horrible, but she put effort into it anyway. She nodded thoughtfully, “They can be scary, but you made it! You did great, you were a wonderful buddy. I would be happy to have you on any of my flights.” He might have been scared but he didn’t freak out or try to grab the controls or move about in the cabin and upset the balance.

Marceau smiled. “That’s not bad.” It was better than others he’d heard. “Then I will fly Laursen airlines any time I need to fly.” He joked, smiling at her. Though he hoped he did not have to fly anytime soon.

Helena perked up at that. It felt like an extreme compliment considering how scared he had been. “I promise it will always be just as safe as the first time.” She couldn’t promise smooth, she had no control over the weather but it would be safe.

Marceau smiled at that, it was reassuring. “No parachutes.”

Helena wagged a pointer finger at him, “And no floatation devices.”

“Did they have your luggage when you got there? I tried to catch up to make sure, but the mechanics were being jerks.”

Helena

Marceau smiled then and nodded. “Oui, merci!” Then he translated, “Yes, thank you. It was waiting at the office as soon as I got there.” He looked down at the clip board and paper in his hand and then up at her. “You volunteer to be practice for medical cadets? You must be brave.”

~ Marceau

“I’m glad. I would have felt bad if your bags had been transferred back or lost. I’m glad I could help.” Helena shrugged. “Not really. Everyone has to practice and there are instructors checking behind you. So no real risk.” She looked around the room not seeing anything too scary sitting on the shelves, “So you’re in charge this time, Doc. What do you need me to do?”

Helena

“We are practicing regular, routine check ups. Like a ship on boarding evaluation.” Marceau said, looking at his notes from class. “So… Ehm.” He said nervously, shifting a little bit. “They didn’t tell us we were having real patients.” He looked at his notes again, “I’m supposed to start with…” Medical history. And I do that… “Do you have any pre-existing medical conditions or any… Ehhh…” What else was he supposed to ask? His nervousness was making it hard to remember. Oh! “Recent symptoms not in your file?” In this case her ‘file’ was the form they’d made the volunteers fill out. It was definitely missing info the examples from class had in them. Hmm....

~ Marceau

Practice onboarding? Oh so they have nothing? “I am allergic to lactose. Not just intolerant, and uh…new symptoms?” Helena thought about it, “I’m jittery, and some times my stomach is upset, and I have trouble falling asleep.” She grinned, she was nervous and excited about being at the academy and she was sure most of the first year cadets were the same way. But in the interest of helping she listed those symptoms out anyway.

Helena

“You didn’t put your allergy on the sheet.” Marceau said, looking it over again. He wrote it in. The cadets had already been shown medical tricorders and allowed to scan each other for fun, now it was time to use it ‘for real’. He didn’t know what all the results meant yet but he knew enough to blurt, “You’re anxious.” Then he looked up and blinked and shook his head. “Uhm, I mean, it’s the start of our first years and everyone is nervous.” Clearly that included Marceau. The poor guy looked nervous. He wrote the symptoms in anyway, they had an assignment to take their patient’s symptoms and find every disease that could cause them (or at least 5 of them but the more the better), but they were taught to give the least serious idea first so they didn’t freak the person out.

~ Marceau

“Sorry. I assumed you had my medical file and it’s in there. But then you said ‘on boarding’ and I realized no possession.” It was a strange turn of phrase that showed English was not her first language either. She nodded, “I am very nervous. AND excited and there is so much to study. Sometimes it’s too much and then other days I can’t get enough.” She tried to stop herself from asking him questions, but she just had a bubbly personality. “How is the medical program for you?”

Helena

Marceau nodded, making a point later to ask her about her language. English was definitely not her first either. “It’s a lot. I mean, I’m very busy. There’s a lot of learning to do between now and in four years.” He said. “But I’m excited too and I like learning it.” He looked down at the paper and then, “Is there anything else you want to ask? About the medical assignment I mean. This is our first one so they are going to ‘grade’ us but it doesn’t go on official record.”

~ Marceau

“I think they do it to keep us out of trouble. I don’t mind the work though. There is so much to learn, and so much is hands on. I really enjoy that part.” She stopped talking as he checked the papers he had. Her lips pursed as she thought and then she shook her head slowly. “I don’t think so. It’s supposed to be just a normal full physical, right?”

“By all means proceed. I am here to help.”

Helena

Marceau finished the medical stuff for the assignment. He seemed nervous and he kept checking his notes but he got everything done. When he was finished he smiled at her. “It was good seeing you again.”

~ Marceau