Object

Corridor Floorboards Outside Sickbay

A run of removable floorboards forming the corridor surface just outside Sickbay: narrow composite panels with faint scuffing, seam lines, and recessed hand-grips for lifting. The panels sit flush with utilitarian joinery, hiding a shallow underfloor void used for cabling and maintenance. Characters finger the seams and peer into the shadowed gap; Picard orders the boards lifted, treating them as a practical concealment point and a possible hiding place for tampering or planted evidence.

2 appearances

Purpose

To form the corridor surface while providing removable access to the ship's underfloor maintenance channels; in the current material they function as a potential concealment site and investigative clue.

Significance

These boards convert suspicion into action: Picard's command to 'look beneath the boards' reframes a baffling incident as deliberate sabotage, turning a decorative seam into the locus of a search that propels the investigation forward and raises the stakes for crew safety and authority.

Appearances in the Narrative

When this object appears and how it's used

2 moments

S2E13 · Time Squared

Picard Calls the Trap

The removable corridor floorboards outside Sickbay are explicitly ordered to be inspected by Picard; they function narratively as the immediate locus where physical tampering or concealed evidence might be hidden, and practically as the first directed search point that converts suspicion into action.

Before: Panels sat flush with the corridor floor, scuffed and unexamined, concealing a shallow underfloor void used for maintenance and cabling.

After: Targeted for inspection — Picard has ordered them checked, so they move from passive environment detail to active forensic focus (likely to be lifted and examined next).

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S2E13 · Time Squared

Crossing into Sickbay — When Command Cracks

The removable corridor floorboards are explicitly named by Picard as a likely hiding place; he orders Troi to 'look beneath the boards,' turning the mundane panels into potential concealment for sabotage or planted evidence and redirecting immediate action to a physical search.

Before: Flush with the corridor surface, unlifted and passively present as normal maintenance panels bordering Sickbay.

After: Designated for inspection — singled out as a targeted search location — though not yet lifted in this moment; their role shifts from ordinary to suspect.

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