"No good deed goes unpunished"

[Enterprise1981]

This is the story of how Sarina Douglas became part of the Jack Pack. As the story progresses, you'll see that Jack was the better than Julian in the hero role.

**************

Those boys were leering at her again. But like any sensory stimuli, she just responded to it with a soft nod before aimlessly wandering off. Her mind was like a computer designed to absorb new inputs faster than the average computer. The only problem was her brain was not equipped to process those inputs into comprehensible outputs. Every once in a while she could communicate through spoken words or written images. But for all intents and purposes she was a semi-cataleptic mute unable to react to or interact with the world around her.

Twelve-year old Sarina Douglas did not know what to make of this kind of attention. She knew she was at that age when boys became interested in girls and girls in boys. She knew that she was at that age where her own body would undergo a number of physical changes. But this "puberty" was just another fascinating biological phenomenon universal to many animal species. And the predatory facial expressions of those boys were stimuli no different than the humming sounds inside the walls of the institution's common area. Through sheer luck, she was able keep her distance from the three troublesome adolescent boys. Not this time. One of them swung around in front of her while the other two came at her from her left and her right.

"What's shakin', toots?" the boy standing in front of Sarina asked.

Sarina's expression remained blank. She looked down at the floor and started to walk away.

The boy who spoke to her grabbed left arm and pulled her toward him to look her in both eyes. "What?" he sneered. "You think you're too good for us?"

Sarina did not know how to react, but she was terrified that these boys would try to harm her. The other two boys began shoving her, hoping to elicit some kind of verbal response. "Come on, talk to us," they taunted.

"Hey!" a masculine voice bellowed from the other side of the room.

The boys turned around to see a young man perhaps in his late teens or early twenties. He slammed a padd down on the table and stormed away from his two companions. One was a middle-aged balding male with thinning blond hair. The other was a young woman with long flowing brown hair. The young man dressed in a dark blue jumpsuit, who had medium length black hair and a thin goatee climbed up onto the table and did a forward flip landing in front of the boys antagonizing Sarina. The older man scrunched his face, curious as to what would transpire next, while the woman rolled her eyes thinking her male companion was engaging in a foolish display of chivalry.

"Leave her alone," the young man snarled.

"She your sister?" one of the adolescent boys asked.

"No, but I don't like how you're treating her."

"Well, that's too bad," a second boy retorted, shoving the young man's right shoulder. "It's none of your business."

"That's no way to treat a lady," the young man persisted. "So back off."

"Make us," the third boy replied, shoving the young man's left shoulder.

"Fine," said the young man. He then slugged the boy on his right. Before the boy on his left could retaliate, the young man karate kicked him in the head. He grabbed the last of the three boys by the right hand and flung him to the floor.

The three boys gathered themselves and ran off in terror, knowing now not to cross this man. Two Starfleet orderlies walked into the room and escorted Sarina's savior away.

She just stood motionless, still struggling to compute this surprising chain of events. She did look in the direction of the man who charged to her rescue and smiled sheepishly before turning her gaze back to the floor and walking away. The stranger's companions walked over to Sarina. The woman was curious about what he found so fascinating about this girl, while the older man gave a fascinated stare as if he was a child always eager to make a new friend.

"Hi, I'm Patrick," the giddy older man said. "What's your name?"

Sarina did not answer.

"I'm Lauren," the woman added. "You'll have to excuse Jack. He gets a little carried away sometimes."

Patrick gave Lauren a confused glance wondering why the girl did not even give a non-verbal response. "What's wrong with her?" he worriedly asked.

"Something called catalepsy," Lauren answered. "She can't process information as fast as she can absorb it."

Lauren then gave Sarina a wicked grin thinking this beautiful, yet timid girl had great potential.

"Just stick with us," she told the girl. "We'll make sure those boys don't bother you again. You definitely watch out for fast boys like them. But I've learned they can be the most fun, so you should try one of them out every once in a while."

 

[Rush Limborg]

Nice intro to the Pack--and it shows, for all Jack's rants and temper-flares, he has a big heart.

 

[Enterprise1981]

Thanks. That scene was inspired by Jack and Lauren acting as Sarina's disapproving parents when delivering their explanation for why she was "regressing."

Now to the next scene...

*********************

Jack was pounding on the door, shouting at the security guards to let him out of solitary confinement. This wasn't the first time he was placed in this small sterile room. He knew the consequences of assaulting others. The tranquilizers he had been administered were starting to wear off. He was becoming increasingly agitated since he had already been in solitary two minutes and thirteen point zero four seven seconds longer than he was the last time he was incarcerated.

A tall heavy-set Capellan male with a dark buzz-cut was seated to the left of the door. He looked over to his human male colleague seated on the door's right. He was new to the Institute, so he often deferred to his more experience cohort in these kinds of situations. "Looks like the tranks are wearing off," he remarked.

"No kidding," the human guard quipped. "Just ignore him. He'll tire out eventually."

"Heeellooo?!" Jack cried out. "I know you can hear me. That volcano on Selcundes will erupt any day now? And when that happens, all life on the planet will be eradicated!"

"How long does he carry on like this?" the Capellan guard asked his partner.

"About ten minutes," the human guard answered. "Sometimes a bit longer.

Jack had banged on the door demanding to be released for nearly thirty minutes. After he had calmed down, Doctor Al'Naris ch'Tarik stood outside the door of the holding cell, accompanied by two human female nurses. He pushed a button below the small rectangular window on the door to activate a communications link to the inside. "Jack," the tall skinny Andorian chan called.

"It's about time you got here," Jack snarled, wagging his right forefinger at the door's window. "Were those guards just going watch me try to scratch and claw my way out of this prison for their entertainment? I've been in here thirty-six minutes and twenty-eight seconds longer than last time."

"Don't have it down to the thousandth of a second this time?"

"Sure I do. But you slow-minded types find that kind of precision annoying?"

Ch'Tarik sighed, not sure how to explain to Jack why his behavior was inappropriate. Each time Jack was placed in solitary, he said he understood the error of his ways, but he would soon find himself confined yet again. "Jack," he said with slight hesitation. "Clearly, putting you in solitary is not working. This is the third time this week. You have to understand you cannot assault people."

Jack looked away in contempt, crossing his arms and holding his right hand to his chin. "But you heard what they were doing to that girl? You heard? You heard? You weren't there, but you know what happened. Right? Hm, hm? But that's beside the point. Someone has to stop that volcano on Selcundes from erupting or everyone living on that planet is doomed."

"Experts are looking into that," ch'Tarik said plainly, hoping that would calm Jack.

"Really? Really?" Jack snapped, charging at the door. "Or are you just humoring me? I know when you are lying to me, Doctor! You can't fool me! Those 'experts' most likely don't know what we know!"

Ch'Tarik and the nurses walked away leaving Jack to continue ranting. He was so caught up in his tirade he did not see them leave. After a quick glance, he saw his audience was gone. He gave a derisive snort and began pacing frantically around the room.

 

[Enterprise1981]

During the night, one guard stood watch outside Jack’s cell. The pudgy Tellarite figured he could head down the hallway to grab a quick bite to eat from the replicator. Jack was secure in solitary, and anyone who tried to enter the six-digit combination would be caught almost immediately after the second or third attempt. He was not counting on Sarina to try to break Jack out of solitary. Her ability to make sense of the world around her was severely limited. She could not be described as completely catatonic. She could respond to certain sensory stimuli. Her condition was more analogous to a form of attention deficit disorder where certain sensory inputs were absorbed faster than others. When those boys harassing her began shoving her, that certainly elicited an immediate fight or flight response.

Sarina tiptoed towards the door holding a big-screened padd. She snuck a quick glance at the guard to see that he still had his attention on the replicator. She punched in six digits on the keypad, and the lock instantly unlatched. As the door to the cell opened, Jack sat up on a cot sensing his impending freedom. Only a guard was not letting him out in the middle of the night, but the adolescent girl he stood up for the day before.

The girl motioned for him walk out of the cell. He was momentarily hesitant to oblige. The institute’s security personnel were authorized to release those patients in solitary. But he was in no position to refuse this rare opportunity. This girl probably felt she owed him after he charged to her rescue. He used his genetically enhanced athleticism to slide off the cot and stand upright in one motion, and then quietly slipped out of the cell. Once out of the cell, he took a left down the corridor. All this happened in the span of four point six seconds. But for someone with Jack’s understanding of the passage of time, that seemed like an eternity.

Jack poked his head out from an adjoining hallway and snickered at the dumbfounded look on the Tellarite guard’s face. Sarina grabbed him by the back of his collar to keep him from getting the guard’s attention.

Sarina let Jack hide in her room; since his room would be the first place security would look. She let Jack sleep on the wall-mounted cot, while she used the spare pillow on the cot to sleep on the floor. Sarina figured that was the least could do for him after all Jack had done for her at great risk to himself.

Jack lay down on his back, still not able to fall asleep. The predicted volcanic eruption on Selcundes was weighing heavily on his mind. When that did happen, many lives would be lost. But no one was willing to take his calculations seriously. He looked at the girl curled up on her pillow and saw that she was also not falling asleep. “I didn’t catch your name,” he said, even though he knew she was highly unlikely to give a verbal reply.

“Sarina,” the girl answered. Her voice was toneless and devoid of emotion. The voice was that of a one-year old infant randomly blurting out individual words.

“Appropriate name for someone so quiet,” Jack mused. “S-E-R-E-N-A or S-A-R-I-N-A? Never mind. I’ll figure it out eventually.”

He gazed at the girl as her eyes were blinking shut. He was enamored by her beauty and her innocence. As much as he had an overly simplistic and perhaps warped view of right and wrong, he knew rules existed for a good reason. Though she thought of him as her Prince Charming, Jack certainly could not act on his attraction to her. Those old fairly tales took place during a time in Earth’s history when life was a lot shorter and girls got married before they were legally adults by present-day standards. To act on any infatuation now would make him a pedophile. Or, since she was in the early stages of puberty, hebophile would also be the more accurate term.


****************************************


Doctor Karen Loews took a sip of red-leaf tea and turned her attention back to padd in front of her. Doctor ch’Tarik took a seat across the table from the thirtyish medical resident letting out a frustrated sigh. “Rough day?” Loews asked the Andorian psychiatrist.

“I just got out of a meeting with the administrative board,” ch’Tarik answered. “I told them that Sarina meant well. Jack did her a huge favor and she wanted to help him out of a bind. They told me that’s no excuse for what Sarina did or how Jack stood up for her and that ‘Jack needs to learn that actions have consequences.’”

Loews sensed her supervisor did not agree with that reasoning when he let out a derisive snort. “No amount of putting him in solitary has imparted that important life-lesson on him,” she retorted.

“They’ll make their decision on Jack and Sarina tomorrow,” ch’Tarik added. He arched his head to the right to make out the contents of the padd Loews was reading. He had mastered speaking Federation standard, once known as the Earth language English, but he still struggled with reading the written language. “Psych journal?” he asked.

“It’s about that volcanic eruption on Selcundes,” she corrected. “The one that Jack was so obsessed with. It destroyed the nearest city today. Luckily, it was evacuated and no one got hurt.”

Ch’Tarik smirked; remembering Jack’s claim that all life on that planet was in jeopardy. “Despite his superior intelligence, he does still have a talent for hyperbole,” he remarked.

“True, but he made out schematics for a set of seismic regulators. The technology is only theoretical. I’m no seismologist, but he had some good ideas of how to make theory reality.”

“You can’t be serious, Karen.”

“I am. As neurotic and eccentric as he and his cohorts can be, they have insights into things not all of us with ‘normal’ intelligence can master. Now, I know Jack can’t go around assaulting other residents. That’s why I think keeping them separate from the other residents is a good idea. To my knowledge, he has never physically assaulted Patrick and Lauren.”

Ch’Tarik gave a skeptical sigh. “You seriously are considering allowing them to contribute to society.”

Loews nodded sheepishly. “None of them would make it in the outside world,” she said. “But they could eventually, if they at least felt in some useful.”

“I could suggest it to the administrators. Though I can’t guarantee they’ll agree with this suggestion.”

Ch’Tarik stood up and walked away, leaving Doctor Loews to mull over how to implement her suggestion in solitude.

TO BE CONTINUED…​

In “One Person CAN Make a Difference”​

 

[kes7]

Very enjoyable story. Felt very true to the Jack Pack while expanding on them and making them much more than comic relief. I would love to read a series from you focused on them ... I think you really have their voices. Nice work.

 

[Enterprise1981]

Thanks for the reviews, guys. I wanted to convey how Jack handled being a hero a little differently than Bashir fifteen years later. He was Sarina's "knight in shining armor" but he didn't take advantage of her because she was just a kid in the sense of her chronological age.