Pulaski Orders Medical Override — Riker's Leg Scan Reveals Foreign Residue
Plot Beats
The narrative micro-steps within this event
Pulaski materializes, checks herself, snaps open a medical tricorder, and moves to Riker, shifting into immediate triage.
Pulaski demands a quick brief; Riker reports a routine geological sweep cut short by a sharp sting and confirms numbness without pain.
Pulaski probes for the source as Riker can’t identify it; Geordi admits their search has turned up nothing while Pulaski keeps scanning.
Pulaski’s scan flags that something remains in Riker’s leg; she makes the call and triggers a medical-override transport to Sickbay, which O’Brien immediately acknowledges.
Who Was There
Characters present in this moment
Coolly urgent — outwardly clinical and in control, internally activated by concern and the need to stop further harm.
Pulaski materializes, checks herself briefly, withdraws and holds her medical tricorder over Riker's leg, interprets diagnostic readouts aloud, states a clinical finding of foreign residue fused to tissue, and authorizes an immediate medical-override transport to Sickbay via her communicator.
- • establish the nature and extent of Riker's injury
- • prevent further biological spread or complication
- • secure rapid transport to Sickbay for definitive treatment
- • assert medical authority to override field mission priorities
- • the tricorder's readings are reliable and demand immediate action
- • Riker's understatement of symptoms cannot be trusted to guide treatment
- • swift evacuation to Sickbay improves chances of containment and cure
- • standard away-team search protocols yield to medical necessity
Understated calm that likely masks concern — trying not to alarm the team while testing whether the wound is serious.
Riker reports how he was struck and downplays his condition as only a little numb; he stands as the scanned patient, accepts Pulaski's authority without argument but minimizes outward alarm.
- • minimize disruption to the mission and crew
- • avoid unnecessarily alarming others
- • be assessed and treated efficiently if needed
- • maintain composure and command dignity
- • the injury is minor and manageable
- • medical staff will take appropriate action if necessary
- • not making a fuss is preferable to overreaction
- • his report will be trusted unless clear evidence suggests otherwise
Concerned and attentive — professionally calm but privately alarmed that an unknown foreign agent may be present and that they haven't located it.
Geordi reports that the away team has been searching for the object without success, stands by while Pulaski scans Riker, and remains focused and procedural as Pulaski moves to authorize evacuation.
- • locate the object that caused Riker's injury
- • ensure crew safety and containment of hazards
- • support medical evacuation and follow Pulaski's instructions
- • translate field findings into actionable support for Sickbay
- • if they haven't found the object on the surface, it could be embedded or biologically active
- • protocols and clear communication are essential to crew safety
- • medical opinion (Pulaski's diagnosis) should direct the next steps
- • better to remove the patient to Sickbay than to risk further exposure in the field
Objects Involved
Significant items in this scene
Pulaski's medical tricorder is used as the diagnostic instrument that converts an anecdotal injury into concrete clinical evidence: she scans Riker's leg, listens to emitted diagnostic tones, and reads a result indicating foreign residue fused to tissue. The tricorder's finding is the narrative trigger that shifts the scene from search to emergency evacuation.
Geordi's portable communicator (used by Pulaski) functions as the immediate lifeline between planet surface and ship: Pulaski touches it to send a medical override to Transporter/O'Brien, converting a clinical judgment into an executed evacuation. The device turns Pulaski's authority into action within seconds.
Location Details
Places and their significance in this event
Enterprise Sickbay functions as the immediate destination and institutional authority invoked by Pulaski's order; although the action occurs on the planet surface, Sickbay's protocols and capacity for containment and advanced diagnostics are the reason for the evacuation, and its presence exerts a stabilizing institutional power over the field team.
Narrative Connections
How this event relates to others in the story
No narrative connections mapped yet
This event is currently isolated in the narrative graph
Key Dialogue
"Pulaski: Fill me in."
"Riker: I was walking along, minding my own business, making a simple geological sweep... and something stuck me in the leg."
"Pulaski: Well, whatever it was, it left something behind... I'm going to bring you up to Sickbay. (into communicator) O'Brien, this is Doctor Pulaski. Medical override is authorized. Beam us directly to Sickbay."