Sickbay

tw//injury, sex without a condom (under the assumption they have more effective forms of birth control in the future)

An uncontrollable shudder seized my body as another phaser blast whizzed right over the barrels I was hiding behind. They'd seen me. They knew I was here. Well, there was only one thing left to do. There were three of them, and one of me. I had to go on the offensive. Heart pounding, I gripped my own phaser tightly and I shot up from behind the barrels. In the split second I had to register my surroundings, I saw four shadows bearing down on me that looked vaguely Cardassian. I knew, however, that one of them had to be a decoy. A stack of barrels, likely. I shot at three of the humanoid figures in a panic. I hoped I'd made the right choice. Two of the man sized shadows groaned and fell to the ground, the noises sounding canned, unrealistic, but still shaking me inside. However, my third valuable shot hit a stack of metal barrels rather than the fourth man sized shadow. Shit. I'd made my gamble, and clearly I hadn't won this time. If only I'd had enough time to hit the fourth target.

I tried to duck back behind the barrels but before I could, the sharp sound of a phaser blast rung in my ears and I felt a sharp burning sensation as the beam grazed my arm. I swore as I hit the ground, cradling my limb. It felt so real, I almost didn't make anything of it, but then my senses hit me. Hold on. That wasn't right.

"Computer, freeze program!" I called out. The computer made a noise of acknowledgement over the com, and I slowly rose from behind the barrels. This was meant to be a training exercise. How could I have gotten a phaser burn?

"Computer, are safety precautions in order?" I asked, leaning against the barrel.

"All safety precautions are in order," the feminine voice answered back. I scoffed and looked down at my arm. That burn looked pretty nasty.

"Then why did I just get a phaser burn?" I asked, my tone less than appreciative. The computer faltered a moment, the voice interface trying to come up with an answer.

"Unknown," it responded after a moment. I groaned and stood up cautiously. Fortunately, I could see the Cardassian's shadow standing stock still in the mist. He wasn't shooting. Good.

I slowly approached the humanoid until I could see the details of his face. He was shockingly still, too still to be considered alive in absolutely any capacity. He didn't blink. He didn't breathe. He didn't move. At least he was functioning properly now. Strange, I thought to myself. Seeing the enemy up close like this. Even if he wasn't real, he wasn't distinguishable from a genuine Cardassian by the naked eye. I looked away. Now that the Cardassians had joined the Dominion, it was frightening how quickly I was finding myself inclined to xenophobia. To racism. I thought, maybe, looking at their features, thinking about them in an empathetic way... it might help. I couldn't imagine how poor Garak was feeling.

I looked down at my forearm, which was throbbing painfully. Part of it was starting to bleed, and some whitish yellow pus was gathering in the center of the wound. The burn had to be second degree, and dilly dallying was only going to make it worse.

"Computer save and end program," I said. The scenery around me vanished so that all that I could see was a black room covered by a yellow grid. At least the computer was functioning in that capacity. I headed towards the arch and cradled my arm as I exited the holosuite.

"Quark," I called out once I had trotted down the stairs. He looked up at me as I approached the bar, and his eyes widened when he noticed the fact that I was wounded. "Quark, you gotta get engineering to look at holosuite three. Something's up with the safety."

"Shit," he sighed, his head drooping. "I'll get right on that. You want a free drink to compensate—"

"Thank you, but I'm fine," I said slightly passive aggressively. "Drinking isn't going to help a phaser burn. I'm going to do the responsible thing and head over to sick bay." He put up his hands, not forcing the issue.