A Sick Little Kitten

Posted on Sun Jun 15th, 2025 @ 8:20am by Commodore Elias McEntyre & Emery Tyris-McEntyre & Commander Gil’an Tyris & Commander Cressida Vale MD

1,655 words; about a 8 minute read

Mission: Prologue
Location: Sickbay
Timeline: 2387

The Guinevere glided through the swirling miasma of the Briar Patch. The clouds of Metreon gas giving off a bright red glow. On ships time it was the middle of the night. Most of the crew was asleep, though for the Commodore and his husband, their peace was shattered by cries of a small Caitian, up in the night and calling for his parents.

“Daddy!! Papa!!” Emery called out from his room. The cries of a sick Caitian child, accompanied by the sounds of a terrible gunky cough.

Although Elias was a much heavier sleeper than Gil, both parents were awakened by the cry in the dark of their offspring. By the time the tall Caitian was out of bed, Gil was already at Emery’s bedside. He sat down on the edge of the bed, reaching out to feel their son’s forehead.

“What’s wrong, kitten?” asked the Bak’u pointedly.

Elias was behind his husband shortly after.

The young Caitian/Bak’u coughed again, with tears in his eyes. Clearly in pain. The coughs here sounded worse. “I…I don’t feel goood” He managed to speak, a child like cadence, clearly sick with what might be flu.

“He’s sounding worse. I think a trip sickbay is in order, my little solider” Elias says to his son, paternally as he kneels down at his bedside.

Gil pulled his hand away from the child’s forehead. It was noticeably warm. Emery’s unique blended physiology meant that his average body temperature was somewhat on the higher side, typically around 38 Celsius. “Agreed. It feels like he’s running a fever of about 40 Celsius.” Gil scratched the child behind his left ear, a gesture that always brought the youngling comfort. “Come on, kitten. Let’s go see who is on duty in sick bay. Put on your slippers, you know how cold the deck plating is on your paws.”

Emery slowly clambered out of bed as Elias grabbed the young boy's slippers and helped him to put them on his paws. When that was done, Elias gently picked the kitten up, carrying him out and to sickbay with Gil close behind him.

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Sometimes it was nice to take the night shift. It was…well, quiet wasn’t the right word…quieter? It permitted Cressida to meet the crew that worked — and occasionally got injured or sick — on those same late shifts. It also ensured she knew all of those in her department, not just the ones that worked in the daytime. And during the longer downtimes, she could catch up with her paperwork.

She was standing nearest to the door, talking with the engineer whose sprained ankle she just mended and was sending back to his quarters, when in came some familiar faces, one of whom looked poorly. “Hi there, little guy,” she said softly, her voice up an octave. “What’s going wrong?”

Emery looked at the doctor, with sad eyes. He was clearly not feeling well by the sound of the terrible cough he made.

"He hasn't been feeling all to well, Doc." Elias explained, gently rubbing the kittens back.

“Oh, that’s no fun,” Cressida said, her higher tone taking a sad note. “Come on, dads, let’s bring him to biobed one.” She led them there and set about getting her tricorder and a hypo ready. “Sit him down please, I’ll just be a moment.”

Elias gently sat down his kitten who was still coughing terribly. A hacking phlegmy cough. It echoed through the quiet sickbay. Elias looks at his kitten with concern, gently patting his head.

“How long as he been feeling like this?” Cressida asked the parents while standing behind the boy and scanning him with her tricorder.

“He complained of not feeling like himself about 36 hours ago,” said Gil, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. “At the time, he was not running a temperature. I gave him 220 mg of naproxen for body aches and 15 mg of tirazine for mild congestion.”

“A good start,” Cressida said. “Well, little man, looks like you’ve caught quite the cold!” She looked up at the parents. “We’ve diagnosed a few cases in the past two days, I was going to bring it up at tomorrow’s staff meeting. Probably one of the new transfers was pre-symptomatic.” She closed her tricorder and set it down. “I normally don’t recommend naproxen for young kids, so I’m going to switch him to ibuprofen. We’ll also up the dose of tirazine but not by a lot. This decongestant is kid safe but not for long stretches.”

She prepared the hypo and showed it to the parents. “This is 150mg of ibuprofen and 25mg of tirazine. I’ll administer this one, and give you refills for at home. He can take a dose every six hours, but only the first two will include the decongestant. Is there enough of space in his room for a humidifier?”

Gil gave Elias a questioning look. Both of them nodded together. “We can accommodate that, no problem. Since his physiology tilts more toward the carnivorous end, what type of dietary support can we give?” Although Gil was a vegetarian by choice, Elias’s felinoid biology necessitated more meat protein than most and their son definitely took after his Daddy in that respect.

"He probably won't be feeling too hungry for a few days," Cressida told him. "Chicken soup is something humans have eaten to nurse a cold for generations. The broth is soothing on the throat and the heat of it can help clear congestion. It's easy for bodies of all sizes to digest and is rich in a lot of the nutrients the body needs. For Emery's physiology, you can have the replicator double the meat content."

She walked around the table holding two hypos, one containing the medication and one with a saline solution. She showed them to the poor sick boy. "Hi Emery," she said softly. "Your dads and I are going to do everything we can to make sure you feel better fast okay. I'm going to give you some medicine that will help. I'm going to put this hypospray on your neck, okay? But it doesn't hurt at all, see?" She took the placebo hypo and put it to her own neck. The hiss of its activation showed the sickly boy that it was indeed harmless.

The tiny Caitian nods, holding tight to the small stuffed animal in his paws, looking up at both of his fathers. Elias gently pats his sons head, smiling softly in reassurance.

"You're very brave," Cressida told her patient as she applied the hypo to his neck and activated it. Hiss. "There you go."

She looked first at Gil, then at Elias. "Repeat every six hours, but don't wake him if he's asleep for it. He can take the next dose as early as four hours, but he shouldn't exceed four doses in a day, so keep that in mind. A nice meaty chicken soup, lots of water. Warm milk right before bed. Replicating a humidifier to keep his room humid will help too."

The Bak’u Science Officer nodded. His weird eidetic memory would of course remember every letter of this interaction, down to the inflections of Dr. Vale’s speech pattern. He squatted down slightly, bringing himself to his son’s eye level. “Tonight, you were not a kitten. You were a tiger. Daddy and Papa are both very proud of you.”

Cressida opened a drawer next to the biobed and pulled out a very special sheet. "Kids that come to sickbay always get to pick a sticker before they leave," she said with a big smile. "Which one would you like?"

Emery smiles, picking out a big one that looked like a big tiger, showing it off to his parents beaming.

"An excellent choice," Cressida said. She peeled the sticker off of its backing and gently stuck the edge of it on one of Emery's paw pads, so he could stick it wherever he wanted.

She looked back to the parents. "By the time you get back to your quarters, the prescription file will be in your replicator records. Ask for 'Tyris-McEntyre Current' and it'll synthesize a hypospray with the correct dose. It won't let you replicate early, so there's no risk of giving him too much."

“Fair enough,” said Gil, standing back up straight. “I can work from our quarters tomorrow, just to keep an eye on things. I’ll need to use the telepresence module to conduct a meeting at 1300; otherwise, my schedule is all administrative stuff.” He leans down, scratching the youngling’s ear. “Looks like it’s you and me tomorrow, kid.”

"Don't forget me, my loves" Elias beams, scratching the other ear of his kitten, and smiling at his husband.

"Commander Pheylin can handle most of my work load."

“Splendid!” exclaimed Gil. “No better way to spend a Tuesday than with my favorite people. As always, Doctor Vale, you have our thanks.”

“Any time,” Cressida assured him. “Bring him back if he gets any worse, but I don’t think he will. Not with such loving people to help him through it.”

“Let’s thank Dr. Vale for helping us” Elias said as he picked up his kitten. Emery turned to look at the doctor as he was held.

“Thank you, Doctor Vale” He said with a child like cadence as he puts his head on his father’s shoulder. Turning to leave with his husband, Elias nods at the doctor before he took his husbands hand in his and they all left sickbay.

—————

Commodore Elias McEntyre
Commanding Officer
USS Guinevere

Commander Gil’an Tyris
Chief Science Officer
USS Guinevere

Commander Cressida Vale, MD
Chief Medical Officer, USS Guinevere

Emery McEntyre
Civilian
USS Guinevere

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