[center][h2]Reliability - Part I[/h2]
[sub]With [@Subject Zero] and [@Fuzzybootz][/sub][/center]

Ever since the return of the away team, the Vitae’s medbay had switched to emergency mode. While there weren’t many patients to treat, the wounds of most were severe enough to stretch the attention of the medical staff paper-thin. Which is why the sudden burst of security forces into the hall went all but completely ignored.

“Pardon - “ The senior officer tried again, looked at his escorts, and with a sigh of exasperation reached out and grabbed a male nurse by the arm. “There’s a prisoner coming in, I want a full physical evaluation, as urgently as you can handle.” The officer spat at the nurse before he had the chance to open his mouth. After spending a long moment looking around for help, the nurse gave up. “Look, you can see we’re overflowing, can’t it wait?”

“Admiral’s orders.”

“What? [i]For a physical!?[/i]” The nurse threw up his arms. “Can’t the admiral see we’re - “

“Just trying to do my job.” The officer said almost simultaneously with the nervous wreck in front of him. “This postpones everything but life-saving operations.” The nurse studied the officer’s face, realizing the man would never have enough clue about the inner workings of the medbay to make something like this up - he was quoting a senior.

“Okay - “ he rubbed his eyes, then extended his hands forward, “Okay. Bring them in. We’ll do it.”

The security guards shifted to the sides. A loud shuffle heralded the entry of two very large military droids, a smaller military droid between them. It looked at the nurse with eyes that were tiny glowing red dots in a sea of black, and smiled.

Feeling a sudden shiver run down his spine at the sight of the...whatever that was, the nurse took a barely noticeable step back before catching himself and doing his best to appear calm. He took another quick look around until he spotted something and yelled “Hey Red!”

Instinctively, Clara whipped her head around while sitting a patient with an injured leg down in a row of other wounded people. After she spotted who was calling her, she took a second to tell her patient “Someone will be right with you.” She rubbed his arm and gave him that characteristic reassuring Clara smile. He returned the smile the best he could, through his pain and nodded at her in acknowledgement that it was okay to leave.

Clara was quickly moving to her colleague, saying “Yeah. What do you—What!?” She stopped just short of the nurse as the people bustling about moved out of the way, giving her her first glimpse of Chizuru. She couldn't tell if what she was looking at was a droid or a human. She had met plenty of cyborgs but never any with the level of modifications this one appeared to have.

Understandably intimidated by the sight of Chizuru, Clara seemed to freeze as she looked her up and down. She was soon grabbed by the arm as the nurse pulled her forward and said “They need someone to perform a check up on the...” He paused for a second while he thought of the best term for Chizuru before finally settling on “...patient.”

Clara's expression shot from narrow eyed confusion to wide eyed surprise. “Me!?” she shrieked in a surprisingly high pitched tone. “But I'm just a medic!”

“And I'm [i]just[/i] a nurse,” he complained, rolling his eyes at her. “and I do check ups all the time. You're more than qualified.” He spun her around and pushed her towards the security officer.

“But--” was all Clara managed to get out before he cut her off again.

“I'll try to find a doctor who isn't busy but...” He threw his hands up to indicate the chaos all around and silently told her no doctor was coming. Before Clara had the chance to object again, he spun on his heels and left.

Clara watched him go until he was out of sight, just to see if he would come back,

He didn't.

With her back to the others, she tried to collect herself before spinning around and giving Chizuru and her guards a smile. She tried to think of something clever to say but all she could manage was a tentative wave, a smile and “...Hi.”

"It’s alright.” the cyborg said, conspiratorially. “I know you want to treat these guys as fast as you can before panic spreads. A failed first planetfall - it makes the simple citizen feel like a small fish who somehow got to the deep sea, where the playing field is strange and the players are even worse. It gets you that close for your imagination to convince you the entirety of space is filled with the stuff of nightmares, don’t you think?”

She (by the sound of her voice, at least) began to walk deeper into the medbay, but immediately held up a hand when the large military droids started to follow. “You can wait outside, boys. It’s impolite, and more importantly, pointless. All these people are already within the range of my core meltdown blast.”

The droids’ heads snapped towards her. “You know, we can reschedule this, Ms. Yama-uchi.” the senior officer said, taking a step forward. “And just go straight ahead to airlocking you.”

“Fine.” She threw up her arms. “Your sense of humor is inadequate and I should stop stepping on that proverbial foot. But seriously, stay out of the medbay. It will be fine. The medic here vouches for me. Won’t you, miss?” She turned to Clara, trying on her most uncreepy of smiles.

“Oh, definitely not.” Clara blurted out with a smile and a surprisingly cheery tone to her voice. “I'm a medic, not an idiot.”