#I need them euthanised your honour

[goldcleaver]

mydei thinking phainon is worthy of having his back… and phainon attacking from the back… oh.

[uss-edsall]

Crew of 2,350. Maximum passenger occupancy of 7,600. Twenty decks (eleven of them passenger) with seven pools, nine hot tubs, six water slides, fifteen bars, eight “neighbourhoods” aboard of venues and amenities, an ice skating rink, rock climbing wall, casino.

Your honour, I think she is an affront to G-d and needs to be euthanised

It would be an insane disaster in every possible way, but christ, it’d be so fucking funny if the Icon of the Seas ran aground and sank

[lswritingdesk]

Chlorophyll

Captain Kirk was leading his away team out of the Tonnang Research Facility on Chikkra when shots began to come out of nowhere. He whirled around in confusion, hand on his phaser, as did several of the security officers. Five figures were running towards them from the main doors that they had just come through, dodging the shots coming from the guard towers at the gates. A hand shot out from one of the figures and grabbed him roughly by the arm, spinning him back round.

“Run,” the person said, and Kirk was being propelled forward towards the gates, which were beginning to close. Others of his team were similarly grabbed by the figures in white, and suddenly the whole party was running pell-mell towards the gates. They skittered through, still avoiding shots from the guard towers, just as the gates shut behind them. Miraculously, everyone had gotten through, but still the figures urged them to keep running. There were shouts from the research facility behind them, and more people poured out in pursuit.

“Kirk to Enterprise, 10, er, 15 to beam out?” Kirk said into his communicator, changing the number at the last second. Hopefully Scotty would be able to grab them all, and hopefully this person gripping him rather painfully by the forearm would have a very, very good explanation for their actions.

The whole group landed forcefully upon the beaming platform as the result of their fleeing the guards that had suddenly poured out of the facility. Kirk finally had a chance to look at the person who had grabbed him and forced him to start running. She collapsed on the platform, eyes glassy as she looked around, counting silently with her mouth open. He saw her count to five, and she released her grip on him at last.

“I beg of you to protect us,” she said, looking up at him with fear in her eyes. She and Captain Kirk alike looked at the red shirt who rushed in and said that someone was hailing them from the surface. Kirk hauled the young woman to her feet.

“You are coming with me. Security, get the rest of these people to medbay.”

-

The head of the Chikkran research facility that they had just left was on screen when Kirk marched onto the bridge, and he was irate. The moment he saw Kirk, he began to shout.

“You have kidnapped valued workers from our facility! This will not be tolerated!” Kirk side-eyed the young woman, who had pulled the white cap from her hair and was now twisting it in her hands. She was shaking her head furiously, at the screen or at him, he wasn’t sure. “Return the five who you have now, and this will all go away. Otherwise, we will take this as an act of war.”

“Uhura, put him on mute.” Kirk turned to the young woman.

“You better have a really good explanation for this, young lady.”

“We are not workers. We are property,” she said. She was standing on one foot, pulling off a white slipper and a sock. She showed Kirk the bottom of her foot. Property of Tonnang Research Facility. 04064-29456. “My name is Aya. I was sold to the facility when I was six years old for medical research. The others came through similar circumstances. None of us are there willingly.” Kirk frowned.

“We were not informed of any medical research being performed on actual Chikkrans.” Aya scoffed at him coldly.

“As if they’d show outsiders the full facility. Your medbay can confirm that I was experimented on. I am asking for protection.” Kirk made up his mind quickly. He would have to trust the word of this Aya- and the reactions of the Chikkrans when she and the others fled the facility. 

“Uhura, unmute the facility director.”

“Director, I will not be returning your...people to you. They have asked for asylum, and I am providing it based on disturbing reports that they have given me.” The director sputtered.

“Consider yourself at war with the Chikkran people, Captain.”

“Mr. Sulu, warp us out of here before they decide to direct any of their planetary defences at us, please.

“Aye, aye, sir.” Kirk turned back to Aya, who had replaced her shoe and her now-wrinkled cap.

“Let’s get you to medbay and confirm this story of yours,” he said, sighing.

-

Medbay was in chaos when they got there. Dr. McCoy was hurried between biobeds containing Chikkrans, his eyes wide. Aya looked thoroughly nonplussed, but Kirk was concerned. McCoy stopped running about when Kirk walked in.

“Jim, you’re never gonna believe this!”

“Oh, something tells me I will. Aya here has been telling me that she and her friends were the victims of medical research at that facility.” McCoy stopped short and looked Aya over, as if he had x-ray vision that could tell him what kind of experiments had been performed on her.

“This little guy,” he said, pointing at biobed 1, “has implants in his brain and enough scars on his head to make you sick. He said they have been messing with his brain since he was 8 and that he’s been at the facility for at least ten years.”

Aya shrugged at this. “I was six when my family sold my sister and I to the facility. I think I’m about 23 or 24? I don’t know. There’s a big market for children in the biomedical research facilities. They pay families with extra children well. My sister and I were two of seven children, and our parents wanted sons.”

“That’s barbaric,” Kirk said.

“That’s life on Chikkra,” one of the others responded, almost nonchalantly. “Bet they didn’t tell you that in your tour.”

“Jim, each one of these people has been experimented on heavily. You did a good thing getting them out of there.”

“For each one of us, there are a thousand more in the various research facilities,” Aya said dully. Dr. McCoy eyed her.

“So…”

“So what’s up with me?” she asked, looking him in the eye. “My body produces chlorophyll. I’m photosynthetic. Which, umm, leads me to my next question- if you have an on-ship garden, I’ll probably need to sleep there tonight. And every night until you figure out what to do with us.” Kirk and McCoy stared at her. “I need a grow light to photosynthesise? Artificial light does nothing for me. The four of us in the facility who had the same...condition...used to sleep under giant grow lamps, for lack of a better word.”

“I’ll have someone from Engineering set up proper accommodations. Dr. McCoy will want to check you over, first, though. And yes, there is the matter of what we’re going to do with you. You have requested asylum, which we will honour, but we aren’t just going to drop you off at the nearest starbase, not with the chance that the Chikkrans might try to come back and get you.”

“They won’t come for us,” Aya said. “We were all slated for disposal by the end of the month.”

“I’m sorry, disposal?” Kirk asked.

“We had reached the end of our usefulness. Each of our experiments had come to an end. All of the other chlorophylls had already been disposed of. I was the last one. They probably would have studied our bodies, but they won’t send out a ship to come collect us just for that. We’re not that valuable to them.”

McCoy muttered under his breath, and for once, Jim was shocked into silence.

“And people just let this happen on your planet?” McCoy asked angrily. “They just sell their children to these labs, knowing that they’re going to be experimented on and eventually killed to be studied?”

“It is a blessing to be euthanised first and not vivisected,” Ava said quietly. “And as I said, the research facilities pay top dollar, so yes, it is accepted.”

“And there are no laws against it?”

“Not really. Maybe there used to be, but the facilities are too powerful, and the innovations they come out with are too lucrative and too cutting edge to shut them down, not that anyone is willing to try.”

“I’d like to try,” the boy with the implants said.

“As would I,” another one said.

Aya sighed. “Maybe in time our stories can make it out to your- what is it called? Federation? And maybe we can make change. But right now I am just thankful that you saved our lives.” She suddenly looked very tired, and McCoy ordered her into a biobed.

“Until we can get your lamp set up,” he promised. Aya gave him a weak smile. He looked around at the five Chikkrans. “I am not going to hurt any of you. Where I’m from, doctors take an oath to heal, not harm.”

“We will do what we can to set you up with the resources to thrive from here on out,” Kirk added. “Like I said, we’re not just going to abandon you on the next starbase.”