Today's the third cycle Yngvir failed to return to their bunkroom. If it wasn't the anxiety eating away at his mind during the night, it was the ugly nausea in the morning wondering where the fuck his bunkmate was. Ever since Cassio had paid Yngvir a visit, Yngvir hadn't been sleeping. He wouldn't go to his work shift, which probably wasn't the best idea, since you really only get three unassigned days off work before the droids come knocking and asking questions.

The droids hadn't come but Yngvir had vanished. No one, in the mess hall had seen any sign of him. Nor had Yngvir taken any of his belongings, so there was definitely some foul play at work.

He shouldn't really go asking questions about something like this, but he had to. He needed to sleep so he could get to his shifts on time. He needed to go back to not throwing up every meal thanks to worry. Yngvir was his only friend. It gave him chest palpitations thinking about all the horrible ways he might have been taken.

Only one person in the ship would know what might have happened. Cassio.

But the only way to enter the medic department, was if he was injured. Cassio working in the trauma facilities, so this would require some skill. Skill he hoped he had enough of so that he wouldn't end up deceased before he makes it to Cassio.

He hobbled to the storage sector, sticking close to the populated areas in the halls. Large exposed pipes ran along the top two corners of the tunnels. One of the few places in the ship that didn't have paneling. The pipe on his right didn't look much different than a standard utility pipe, probably for water. The other however, had a thin layer of frost in certain valve joints. These were the pipes that gave the storage sector it's nickname. The Winter sector. He took a deep breath and yanked one of the leaking pipe valves out of place, making sure it was on his burned side.

A burst of liquid sprayed across his face and shoulder, filling the corridor in a cloud of steam as it contacted his skin. It simply rolled off his body, boiling before it did any damage. Not enough to send him to the center. He gritted his teeth. The alarms had already gone off, as soon as he'd made contact with the piping. In three minutes, droid would roll down the halls and haul him to the trauma center. He need to do something fast.

He closed his eyes and grabbed the leakage with his bad hand. At first, it did not feel like anything was happening until he felt the burning sensation spread from his palms to his fingers. Holding on was harder than withstanding the pain of the liquid nitrogen burn. He screamed as he waited for the droids to appear. Three minutes elongated into an eternity as the nitrogen seemed to burn a hole into his arm. His hand joints were aching from the freeze and he had to let go.

He cradled his hand against his chest and he stepped out of the spray of the liquid nitrogen. He couldn't feel anything but the burning and the swelling of the irritated area in the middle of his palm. This was definitely among the top 3 stupidest things he's ever done. All for Friendship right?

The droids finally beeped down the hall. Three of them. One began chirping at the open valve and with extended suspension began the process of soldering the gap closed. The other two locked cuffs around his elbows and wrists and led him down the halls to the medic facilities. He had been too far gone to know what the medic facilities had been like during his recovery from the burns, but he remembered the spray of antiseptic vapors that puffed at him once he crossed into the threshold into the decontamination chamber.

The droids led him to a chair and sat him down, the cuffs detaching and then attached to the arms of the bolted chair. A fresh set of cuffs appeared in place of their old ones and they beeped as they exited through the decontamination chamber again.

A medic droid scanned him and then disappeared down the hall. A medic padded towards him, but it wasn't the one he was hoping for. Words were limited while the medic poked at his hand and then scolded him, "What in Psion's name made you decide to grab a liquid nitrogen pipe. You could lose your hand!" Her tone was sharp, yet full of motherly concern.

He shrugged, playing off his low pool rank. "Dunno, it just started leaking so I thought I'd plug it."

"And you suddenly forgot that there's a reason we have droids on this ship for those sorts of things?" She stomped on the lever at the left side of the seat which popped up onto a flat roller cot. His arms stuck up in the air, still cuffed to the arms. "Maybe we should send you to psych after we fix this mess you've made."

He smiled weakly, and they rolled down the corridor. Damn, he needed to get to Cassio. "Is Medic Cassio around today?"

She tutted him and rolled her eyes, her head lolling up to the ceiling. "Oh god. No. You're not one of those people. You could face serious time if it's discovered you intentionally injured yourself to gain access to the medic ward."

He swallowed down the lump in his throat of nausea that was rolling over him. He hadn't been thinking of those kinds of consequences. He also hadn't known about the punishment. She pulled his cot into a clear tube. "Medic Cassio is not on shift today. He's been out all week. No idea when he'll be back, not that you would be looking to come back to the medic ward, right?" She jabbed him with a thermometer and he opened is mouth, nodding meekly.

"Good. Now just wait a jiffy and the scan will do its thing. You've got so many burn scars that traditional healing might not work." He also did not know that. Again, he felt like throwing up.

The tube glowed blue and a band of light went from the top of his head to the bottom of his feet. Medic Mignonette returned with a bop to her step. His cot was pulled out of the tube and she smiled down at him. "Well, it seems the burn isn't as bad as it looks. We're going to put a patch around your hand. Should work within a cycle." She disappeared and returned, slapping the wet patch on his palm. She pulled a glove overtop of it then patted the back of his hand.

Medic Mignonette sat him back in the original place he'd been placed. He nodded once the cot converted back into a chair. The cuffs dug into his wrists in the transition. "Droids will be back for questioning. I hope all goes well for you two."

"Two?" She was gone before he'd choked the number out. The droids had indeed returned, the timing working uncannily precise, though this time with their third friend.

In the tinny voice everyone knows as the 'standard augmented communications" module, aka the SAC voice, the droid expressed the conditions of his punishment. "For causing damage to the storage coolant pipelines in sector W-i2SG, Hemlock will serve 14 cycles of Biomatter Reprocessing Service time."

He groaned. No. No. No. This was not happening.

Biomatter Reprocessing Service was just the terrible euphemistic term the ship used for plumbing maintenance in the sewages. Aka, unplugging those nasty pipes from human faeces and piss. Fuck.

This was definitely the worst idea he'd ever had.