DISCLAIMER: The characters and situations of the TV program "SPACE: Above and Beyond" are the creations of Glen Morgan and James Wong, Fox Broadcasting and Hard Eight Productions, and have been used without permission, but gratefully and with high esteem. No copyright infringement is intented.

This story is not to be published on any ftp site, newsgroup, mailing list, fanzine or elsewhere without the express permission of the author.
The character of Dr. Pincers belongs to me, nurse Daniela belongs to herself. I want to thank Marilyn and Susi for reading and correcting. :-)
Dedicated to Daniela Schweda

The Wildcards were sitting in the briefing-room and waiting for today's mission, when their CO plodded into the room, with a VERY furious expression on his face. Well, all along the last days McQueen had spread a light atmosphere of displeasure, an atmosphere that had slowly turned from fist pale-grey over charcoal to deep-black, and it wasn't wise to come into his sky with dirty boots, stains on the flightsuit or even with a trace of jam in the corner of the mouth. Especially not with a trace of jam. But today he looked like a sled-dog who had to find out that he was harnessed right behind a dog with flatulence. And if one would think away the cross expression on his face and look at him very attentively, he would find McQueen's face somehow different, a little bit unproportionate and pretty asymmetrical.

"5-8!" he mumbled. Well, it's quite difficult to mumble if one only speaks out two numbers, but for McQueen there was nothing that would be impossible, except perhaps to be tickled under his right foot. "5-8, today'f miffion if... murmur, murmur, murmur, and I efpect good work. And don't let me hear again fat ftuff about pilotf being deployed af ground pounderf. Fat fuckf!!" With these words he dashed out of the room, leaving behind some confused Wildcards, which now crawled out of their chairs and set out to execute their orders - or at least what they believed to be their orders.

McQueen turned around the corner on which other side Commodore Ross was just about to do the same, what lead to a strange sound as two noses met in the middle, followed by two crashing chins. "Fir, I'm forry, Fir!" McQueen stammered after he had picked himself up from the floor and stretched out his hand to do the same with his commander. "Ty, that's enough! I'll make an appointment for you with Dr. Pincers, now!" Ross snapped, and while carefully groping his jaw he added: "And I'm afraid I need one also! And I won't accept a protest. Colonel, that's an order!!"

McQueen managed to sigh, which actually isn't so difficult if one has suffered from pain in the 7th tooth on his lower left side for days, and which absolutely isn't so difficult if one imagine Dr. Pincers, who was the dentist on the Saratoga and who had an unbelievable preference for the dentistry of the early 19th century and who detested narcosis. And on top Dr. Pincers had the strange look of a Dr. Jekyll - AFTER his transformation into Mr. Hyde. But an order is an order, there was nothing for McQueen to do but to obey.

Red mist darkened McQueen's glances when he stood in the ordination of Dr. Pincers. He had enough time to think that the word "ordination" probably can't originate from the word "ordinary", because this room was everything but ordinary. On the walls were displayed gaudily coloured pics of wide opened mouths in some different perverted variations, and around him were placed preserving jars with human and other teeth. McQueen started shivering. He hated doctors. And especially he hated dentists. The only thing he ever was grateful about to his maker were his healthy teeth. "Damn. Perhaps I shouldn't have called my maker a 'geek in a lab coat' before my nice meeting with Chiggie von Richthofen. I'm afraid that is his revenge..." he thought with a breath of despair when a - nicely put - ugly, fat, old woman appeared, who's sadistic grin hinted without a doubt to her plan to lead him to the shambles.

The word "shambles" would definately come into one's mind if he looked attentively at the seat, on which McQueen had to occupy now. In its arms lots of tortured people had left deep scrapes, looking at it carefully he also could find some broken fingernails, where he had to place his heels where deep bumps (McQueen didn't want to imagine the sound of drumming heels), and that thing that was placed to his right side and was made of former white china - no, he absolutely doesn't want to think about what had left there those marks and this rust-red patina.

McQueen closed his eyes when he heard a scraping behind him and sent a fast prayer in the air above him. He didn't know to whom, but he hoped that there would be a person feeling responsible and listening. Once he had read something about a fairy who had a special preference for teeth - perhaps she would feel responsible and would help him to lose consciousness right in time.

The scraping repeated, and then he felt a bib placed at his throat, and he heard a soft voice saying: "Sir. You may open your eyes and shut your mouth, the doctor isn't here yet!" He tried to move his head, but it was kept in position by two steel-headrests. A figure floated around his chair, dressed in beaming white, a smile on the velvet lips... McQueen stared, and at the same time he felt his jaw flapping down. "You... Er... Who?" he managed to say. (And "ARGH!" he thought, and then: "Well, at least I didn't mumble..." and his eyes flashed in silent triumph.) "Colonel McQueen, I'm nurse Daniela, Dr. Pincers assistant. The doctor will soon be with you, try to relax!" - with these words she floated away.

He saw her again only one minute later, but unfortunately she returned in the company of the man McQueen had tried not to bump into since their first meeting. To describe this specimen of the kind "Homo sapiens" isn't easy. Try to imagine an angry gorilla with the mouth of a toad and the smile of an alligator, hands like vises and a breath that was mixed of garlic, cigarrs, dirty feet and wasted eggs. If you have this picture in front of your inner eyes - forget it! Reality was much, MUCH worse!

The only thing that kept McQueen from jumping out of the chair, loudly crying, was the smile on Daniela's face - and the massive ties of solid steel around his ankles and wrists. Doctor Pincers approached, took an instrument that might have come right out of an LSD-nightmare - and then McQueen decided not to recognize anything else but Daniela's smile. He ignored the clawes which forced his jaw down, he only felt a soft hand tenderly and easingly stroking his arm. He concentrated totally to this hand that gave him hold and comfort, managed to take a look past the, er, "face" that levitated above him to the encouraging smile on Daniela's face, forced his will to ignore the breath, which blew into his face and which seemed to come right out of hell, and to smell instead of this her soft scent. Even as he heard the doctor's voice like rust toothed wheels saying: "The 7th teeth must be pulled!" his brain synchronized this with her soft voice: "It'll be over soon!"

We want to cover the following moments with the coat of compassionate silence, we only say that after 45 minutes of deep-prospecting activities Dr. Pincers could add another specimen to his outstanding collection.

It isn't handed down which way McQueen came back to his quarters. He awoke from restless sleep and remembered a dream which was based on flying teeth, little mirrors and big pincers - and above all suspended this unbelievable smile, and he thought he could still feel the soft touch of her hand on his swollen cheek. "What the hell...?!" McQueen groaned and grabbed under his pillow. When he pulled his hand out there was laying a polished coin. In its one side was stamped HER face - and he could swear that it just had winked at him.

©Andrea G December, 1996