Looks like things aren't going too well for Natasha... Thanks!! rbs
Star Trek: Bounty - 7 - “One Character in Search of an Exit”
- Thread starter BountyTrek
- Start date
Part Three (Cont'd)
The Son’a officer flew through the air in a perfect parabolic arc, landing with spectacular style on top of a workstation, sending various medical implements flying across the local vicinity.
The growling Klingon that had sent the officer on his trip had no time to take in the dramatic results of his efforts, as he was immediately grappled from behind by another of Ahdar Lit’eh’s men.
On the other side of the vast medical bay, Denella felled one of the Son’a medics with a forceful elbow to his stomach, combined with a quick sweep of his standing leg.
The Son’a had been able to keep the details of their trap a secret until they had arrived at one of the Syatonen’s numerous medical bays. Even though the cruiser was small, a significant volume of its internal space was taken up by various treatment rooms, rehabilitation areas and surgical bays.
And, while Denella and Klath had followed Lit’eh down to the bay in question, ostensibly to collect their medication, things had quickly become more complicated. Although Lit’eh had been insistent that he didn’t expect any sort of payment for the help he was providing, they discovered that wasn’t quite true.
While the Son’a commander didn’t want their latinum or their supplies, it had become apparent as soon as they had entered the bay and seen the ugly weapons that Lit’eh’s waiting medical staff had been holding that they definitely wanted something.
Precisely what hadn’t been clear. Their blood, their skin, their plasma, something that the Son’a seemed aware they were going to have to take by force.
Except the Son’a medics, along with Lit’eh and the two officers that had followed them from his ready room, had all reckoned without the Klingon and the Orion’s determination not to have their bodily fluids forcibly removed for whatever life-extending experiment the Son’a were cooking up.
Klath ran backwards and slammed the Son’a that was grappling him into the gunmetal wall of the bay, forcing the breath from his body and causing him to sink to his knees. He broke free of the man’s grip and rendered him unconscious with a swing of the blunt edge of his bat’leth.
Denella landed a punch on another of the Son’a as he charged at her, pausing slightly when the force of her blow had the unfortunate secondary effect of splitting open a section of stretched skin on the other side of the man’s face, sending a splatter of dark blood across the deck.
“Ew,” she managed, as the stunned medic slumped to the ground.
She spun back around in time to see Klath’s bat’leth making contact with one final Son’a, who was sent careening over another stack of medical equipment. The Klingon swiftly returned to a defensive posture, but there was no need. The battle was won.
He met Denella’s gaze, who silently nodded in the direction of the far side of the bay. Klath turned in that direction to see the formerly proud and welcoming Ahdar Lit’eh cowering in the corner, one arm outstretched towards a comms panel on the wall.
In an instant, Klath raced over and brought the sharpened edge of his bat’leth up to Lit’eh’s face.
“I wouldn’t,” Denella called out with a tight smile.
The Son’a commander reluctantly retracted his hand from the panel, his last desperate attempt to call for reinforcements having been thwarted.
“W--We were not going to kill you!” he stammered, “We were just going to extract some of your genetic material!”
The look on Lit’eh’s face suggested that he genuinely didn’t consider that to be an unfair request, while the look that Klath shot back at him suggested that he was wrong in that assumption.
Denella glanced around at the unconscious forms of the other Son’a, and shrugged.
“We didn’t kill any of your men either,” she pointed out.
“But you--!”
Whatever the latest protestation was going to be, a slight nudge from Klath’s bat’leth was enough to make him think twice about continuing.
“So, we’re gonna be keeping our genetic material today,” the Orion engineer continued, “But, more importantly, we’re gonna need that medication we came for. And please don’t tell me and my friend here that you were lying about having that.”
Klath deepened his glare, fitting right into the bad cop role. It was a role he often found himself playing, and one that he usually took on with relish.
Lit’eh managed a slight nod, and slowly extended a shaking arm out, gesturing across to the other side of the room.
“O--Of course. It’s all over there.”
Denella walked over to where he had gestured and picked up a small container, seemingly undamaged from the fight that had just raged. Still not trusting the terrified commander, despite his obvious tactical disadvantage, she grabbed the tricorder that was clipped to her belt and gave the container a quick once-over, verifying the results against the list of supplies the Bounty’s medical computer had requested.
“It is all there?” Klath asked, keeping his attention, and his weapon, trained in Lit’eh.
“Tricorder thinks so,” she replied with a guarded shrug, praying that there was no further piece of treachery at play. Given her absence of medical knowledge, she had no choice but to trust the tricorder’s interpretation of the vials and chemicals inside the container.
Klath nodded, but replied back to Lit’eh himself.
“We will be taking that which we came for,” he explained patiently, “And you and your crew will not attempt to stop us.”
Lit’eh considered the possibility of trying again to call for additional men to overwhelm their incongruous adversaries. After all, his last stretching treatment had not gone well. His own chief medic suggested that his skin was reaching a point of no return. That soon, he wouldn’t be physically able to undergo any further treatments.
Which was why Lit’eh had turned his attention to the more extreme types of medical research, looking for willing - or often unwilling - volunteers from other species whose genetic material might hold the key to prolonging his life further.
He had placed Klingons and Orions near the top of his lists of species to study. After all, both were among the strongest species in the galaxy. If he was looking for the key to boosting his own ailing body, they seemed like ideal candidates to start with. And how fortunate that he had not only found a relatively underpowered ship with one of each of them onboard, but that they were actually desperate enough to come straight to him.
The good news hadn’t stopped there. Another species he had identified as a study candidate were Vulcans, known for living for two centuries without much need for medical intervention. And what were the odds that this ship also had one of those onboard as well.
So, on the one hand, Lit’eh potentially had the key to extending his life right here in his grasp, which was surely enough reason to risk the lives of more of his men.
But, on the other hand, while he only had a finite number of treatments left available to him without some sort of genetic intervention, at least he would still be alive. A trait of his that he might not be able to guarantee if he pushed matters with the armed Klingon any further.
“That all sound good to you?” Denella added as she strode back over to them, “We’ll leave you alone now, in return for what we came for?”
After a moment of further contemplation, Ahdar Lit’eh decided that he was still more of a pragmatist than a gambler. After all, there were plenty more Klingons and Orions out there.
He nodded back meekly.
“A wise choice,” Klath noted.
Denella couldn’t help but agree. Though as she looked down at the priceless container of medicine, her bigger worry wasn’t Lit’eh or the Son’a any more.
It was whether or not they were going to get back in time.
The Son’a officer flew through the air in a perfect parabolic arc, landing with spectacular style on top of a workstation, sending various medical implements flying across the local vicinity.
The growling Klingon that had sent the officer on his trip had no time to take in the dramatic results of his efforts, as he was immediately grappled from behind by another of Ahdar Lit’eh’s men.
On the other side of the vast medical bay, Denella felled one of the Son’a medics with a forceful elbow to his stomach, combined with a quick sweep of his standing leg.
The Son’a had been able to keep the details of their trap a secret until they had arrived at one of the Syatonen’s numerous medical bays. Even though the cruiser was small, a significant volume of its internal space was taken up by various treatment rooms, rehabilitation areas and surgical bays.
And, while Denella and Klath had followed Lit’eh down to the bay in question, ostensibly to collect their medication, things had quickly become more complicated. Although Lit’eh had been insistent that he didn’t expect any sort of payment for the help he was providing, they discovered that wasn’t quite true.
While the Son’a commander didn’t want their latinum or their supplies, it had become apparent as soon as they had entered the bay and seen the ugly weapons that Lit’eh’s waiting medical staff had been holding that they definitely wanted something.
Precisely what hadn’t been clear. Their blood, their skin, their plasma, something that the Son’a seemed aware they were going to have to take by force.
Except the Son’a medics, along with Lit’eh and the two officers that had followed them from his ready room, had all reckoned without the Klingon and the Orion’s determination not to have their bodily fluids forcibly removed for whatever life-extending experiment the Son’a were cooking up.
Klath ran backwards and slammed the Son’a that was grappling him into the gunmetal wall of the bay, forcing the breath from his body and causing him to sink to his knees. He broke free of the man’s grip and rendered him unconscious with a swing of the blunt edge of his bat’leth.
Denella landed a punch on another of the Son’a as he charged at her, pausing slightly when the force of her blow had the unfortunate secondary effect of splitting open a section of stretched skin on the other side of the man’s face, sending a splatter of dark blood across the deck.
“Ew,” she managed, as the stunned medic slumped to the ground.
She spun back around in time to see Klath’s bat’leth making contact with one final Son’a, who was sent careening over another stack of medical equipment. The Klingon swiftly returned to a defensive posture, but there was no need. The battle was won.
He met Denella’s gaze, who silently nodded in the direction of the far side of the bay. Klath turned in that direction to see the formerly proud and welcoming Ahdar Lit’eh cowering in the corner, one arm outstretched towards a comms panel on the wall.
In an instant, Klath raced over and brought the sharpened edge of his bat’leth up to Lit’eh’s face.
“I wouldn’t,” Denella called out with a tight smile.
The Son’a commander reluctantly retracted his hand from the panel, his last desperate attempt to call for reinforcements having been thwarted.
“W--We were not going to kill you!” he stammered, “We were just going to extract some of your genetic material!”
The look on Lit’eh’s face suggested that he genuinely didn’t consider that to be an unfair request, while the look that Klath shot back at him suggested that he was wrong in that assumption.
Denella glanced around at the unconscious forms of the other Son’a, and shrugged.
“We didn’t kill any of your men either,” she pointed out.
“But you--!”
Whatever the latest protestation was going to be, a slight nudge from Klath’s bat’leth was enough to make him think twice about continuing.
“So, we’re gonna be keeping our genetic material today,” the Orion engineer continued, “But, more importantly, we’re gonna need that medication we came for. And please don’t tell me and my friend here that you were lying about having that.”
Klath deepened his glare, fitting right into the bad cop role. It was a role he often found himself playing, and one that he usually took on with relish.
Lit’eh managed a slight nod, and slowly extended a shaking arm out, gesturing across to the other side of the room.
“O--Of course. It’s all over there.”
Denella walked over to where he had gestured and picked up a small container, seemingly undamaged from the fight that had just raged. Still not trusting the terrified commander, despite his obvious tactical disadvantage, she grabbed the tricorder that was clipped to her belt and gave the container a quick once-over, verifying the results against the list of supplies the Bounty’s medical computer had requested.
“It is all there?” Klath asked, keeping his attention, and his weapon, trained in Lit’eh.
“Tricorder thinks so,” she replied with a guarded shrug, praying that there was no further piece of treachery at play. Given her absence of medical knowledge, she had no choice but to trust the tricorder’s interpretation of the vials and chemicals inside the container.
Klath nodded, but replied back to Lit’eh himself.
“We will be taking that which we came for,” he explained patiently, “And you and your crew will not attempt to stop us.”
Lit’eh considered the possibility of trying again to call for additional men to overwhelm their incongruous adversaries. After all, his last stretching treatment had not gone well. His own chief medic suggested that his skin was reaching a point of no return. That soon, he wouldn’t be physically able to undergo any further treatments.
Which was why Lit’eh had turned his attention to the more extreme types of medical research, looking for willing - or often unwilling - volunteers from other species whose genetic material might hold the key to prolonging his life further.
He had placed Klingons and Orions near the top of his lists of species to study. After all, both were among the strongest species in the galaxy. If he was looking for the key to boosting his own ailing body, they seemed like ideal candidates to start with. And how fortunate that he had not only found a relatively underpowered ship with one of each of them onboard, but that they were actually desperate enough to come straight to him.
The good news hadn’t stopped there. Another species he had identified as a study candidate were Vulcans, known for living for two centuries without much need for medical intervention. And what were the odds that this ship also had one of those onboard as well.
So, on the one hand, Lit’eh potentially had the key to extending his life right here in his grasp, which was surely enough reason to risk the lives of more of his men.
But, on the other hand, while he only had a finite number of treatments left available to him without some sort of genetic intervention, at least he would still be alive. A trait of his that he might not be able to guarantee if he pushed matters with the armed Klingon any further.
“That all sound good to you?” Denella added as she strode back over to them, “We’ll leave you alone now, in return for what we came for?”
After a moment of further contemplation, Ahdar Lit’eh decided that he was still more of a pragmatist than a gambler. After all, there were plenty more Klingons and Orions out there.
He nodded back meekly.
“A wise choice,” Klath noted.
Denella couldn’t help but agree. Though as she looked down at the priceless container of medicine, her bigger worry wasn’t Lit’eh or the Son’a any more.
It was whether or not they were going to get back in time.
Quite the satisfying ass-kicking and a great jump-start to the scene. The son'a are quite dangerous with weapons. In hand-to-hand combat - not so much. The stupid part is that if Lit'eh had negotiated instead of trying to take their genetic material by force, he might have gotten some of what he wanted. But people are stupid and desperate people are desperately stupid...
Getting off the ship will be no problem. Getting away from it, on the other hand...
Thanks!! rbs
Getting off the ship will be no problem. Getting away from it, on the other hand...
Thanks!! rbs
Part Three (Cont'd)
Merchant ship Bounty
Stardate 52049.2
Natasha Kinsen should have been uncomfortable. Deeply uncomfortable.
But she wasn’t uncomfortable. She was way past uncomfortable. Given everything that she’d been through, uncomfortable was a dot to her.
Because she was fully aware that regardless of where it may seem like she was, she was actually in the medical bay on the Bounty. She was sick. And she was running out of time. And everything else that was happening, wherever it seemed like she might be, was just a random moment from her own memory.
She wasn’t really on Wrigley’s Pleasure Planet, or Archanis IV, nor was she at her family home in London, or in San Francisco, or New Berlin. She wasn’t even where she thought she was now.
Which was actually reassuring. Because as far as her memory was concerned, right now she was onboard the Bounty, mere hours after she had first come aboard.
Specifically, she was inside Jirel’s cabin. Shortly after she had made what she was now sure had been the mistake of choosing to seek a night of companionship with the Trill after her rescue from six long months alone on a desolate planet in the Kesmet system following the Navajo’s destruction.
When the previous memory of her childhood back in London had started to fade and her headache had intensified, she was sure she was destined for the same memory onboard the Navajo all over again. But this time, instead of forcing herself out of that memory when she was in it, she had managed to avoid it altogether. Somehow.
If she had been fully in control of where her mind was taking her, she probably wouldn’t have chosen this particular moment as an alternative. Especially given who she was sharing said memory with once again.
Fortunately, the good news was that she was well past being uncomfortable.
“All I’m saying, doc, is that this is now two of these memories of yours where I’ve ended up in bed with you…”
With a sigh, the mostly comfortable Natasha forced herself to look at the latest incongruous form she was tasked with interacting with. Namely Sunek’s face on Jirel’s body.
This time, she hadn’t needed to explain any of the context to him. The familiar ship, the spots on his newly adopted body, and the fact that her night with Jirel had quickly become common knowledge on the Bounty meant that it didn’t take all of Sunek’s Vulcan intellect to piece it together. And once pieced together, he had reacted to her latest unintentional moment of oversharing with a typically Sunek-ian level of immaturity.
But she was determined not to feel uncomfortable. Because she wasn’t uncomfortable. So, instead, she decided to give as good as she got.
“I mean, if we’re keeping score like that, you’ve also ended up dead in two of them.”
Sunek’s grin faltered slightly as he mulled this over.
“Touche,” he nodded eventually, switching his attention to glancing around the cabin, “So, this is the time when you--?”
“Scratched an itch. Yes. Let’s move on.”
She took a moment to reluctantly take in the memory. Remembering how she had chosen this cabin based on a simple coin toss in her search for a moment of companionship. How brash a wannabe space captain he had initially been, and still could be. How awkwardly he had jumped to the wrong conclusion about that night, and how she had had to let him down, not entirely gently.
But she also thought about what Sunek had told her. About how Jirel was now apparently watching over her back on the Bounty. And how strangely comforting that felt. Not for the first time, she struggled to square all of that together in her head.
Still, there were significantly bigger issues to worry about.
“I’m dying, aren’t I?”
For once in his life, Sunek seemed to think before he replied, not entirely sure how to respond. At the very least, the doctor’s sudden moment of frankness served to pull him right back into the serious side of their situation, all thoughts of trying to cheekily discuss this latest personal memory entirely forgotten.
“Well, you’re, um…yeah,” he managed in response, “How could you tell?”
She sighed again and stared down at her toes poking out of the end of Jirel’s bedsheet. She felt oddly becalmed for someone who was dying.
“Just a hunch,” she offered back, “The memories have been…I don’t even know how to describe it. Breaking down. Bleeding into each other.”
She didn’t go into any more details as far as which one in particular was bleeding across her other memories most strongly. Even given all that Sunek had already seen of her private side, she was praying that she could keep the Navajo's final moments from him.
“How do you mean?” the Vulcan asked.
“Just…some parts of my memories are starting to get mixed up with the others. And it feels like I’m jumping between them a lot faster.”
Sunek considered this for a moment, then nodded.
“Well, I didn’t wanna say anything, but it is getting harder to…find you in here. Like I said, first time, I just initiated the meld and ended up in one vivid memory. But this last time, I had to do a bit of…searching.”
Natasha forced herself not to think too much about what that meant. About how many of her other memories he might have already seen. She rubbed the side of her head as a sharp needle of pain lanced through her temples.
“You ok?” Sunek added, “I mean, aside from the whole…dying thing.”
“Just a headache.”
“Heh. If I had a slip of latinum for every time I’d heard that when I was in bed with a girl, I’d--”
One of her patented withering glares stopped the Vulcan’s latest train of thought.
“--Not the time. I know.”
As the pain in her head increased, she started to wonder whether this was it. Whether this was how she was destined to die. Right here. In bed with Sunek. Again.
No, she decided to herself with renewed conviction, there’s no way that it ends here.
She swivelled back to the uncomfortable mash-up of Bounty crew members next to her with an altogether more determined look in her eyes.
“Ok, Sunek, I need more information. What’s changed about my lifesigns? My brain patterns? What about the Son’a? Anything?”
Sunek paused in the middle of his inspection of yet another set of borrowed fingernails, these ones considerably less manicured than most of the others.
“Ok. Right. Yeah. The Son’a? Klath and Denella are working on that. But we need to buy some more time. We gave you the antipsychotic, just like you said--”
“The promazine?”
“--That’s the one. Gave you that, and your brain activity seemed to stabilise. I guess.”
“You guess?”
Sunek shrugged Jirel’s shoulders.
“All the readings on the medical computer dropped back from the redline. Even the spikes around the hippocampus seemed to calm down. Everything looked good."
Natasha couldn’t help but feel some detached amusement at the roundabout way that Sunek/Jirel was leading her to his conclusion. She always assumed this sort of medical report was something that doctors like her developed over years of training.
“But then…?”
“But then, I guess, something else happened,” the Vulcan shrugged, “Weird readings, lots of alarms, and your lifesigns took another nosedive.”
She suppressed a sigh, sitting up in the cramped bed and glaring at Sunek intently, trying to will some more detail about the situation back in reality out of him.
“What sort of weird readings? Give me something to work with here--!”
She flinched as another stab of pain lanced through her head. Sunek watched on with a surprisingly sympathetic look.
“I don’t really know,” he sighed, “Neither did the computer. But it was similar to the first sets of readings we got. Just, I dunno, more intense? Like it was--”
“Like it was spreading,” she whispered.
“Um, I guess?”
Her brain, or whatever passed for her brain in this sort of context, kicked into gear. She realised with a sense of dread what was happening.
“The toxin,” she continued, “It’s spreading. We tried to stop whatever it was doing in my brain with the antipsychotic. But…what if that was the wrong call? What if that was stopping it from spreading further, somehow?”
“How?” Sunek asked, slightly perplexed.
“No idea. But the diagnosis was all wrong. The promazine is only treating the effects, not the cause. I think all we’ve done is speed up whatever else the toxin is doing to me.”
“Oh. Whoops?”
She didn’t react to that assessment. Because she already knew what this all meant. It meant that she’d made the wrong call. And she might be about to pay the ultimate price.
“The antidote, Sunek. How long?”
The Vulcan looked back at her with a rare serious expression. She didn’t even really process how odd it was to see a look of stoic solemnity on this particular Vulcan.
“Honestly?” he sighed, “Denella and Klath are getting the materials now. We hope. After that, we’re still gonna need a couple of hours for the computer to do its thing and get the whole thing prepared for you.”
“Ok. So I need to hold on for that long.”
“Might help,” Sunek offered, still without any overt humour.
She drew the bedsheets up around her and chewed her lip thoughtfully. The headache flared up again.
“Stop the antipsychotics,” she said eventually with a firm nod, “Hopefully that’ll slow down the spreading. And go back to Plan A.”
“Right,” Sunek nodded, before adding, “Um, which one was Plan A, again?"
“The cordrazine. Give me a bigger shot of the stims than last time. Start with 20 ccs, and give me a second shot if you need to.”
Sunek studied her face, seeing something underneath the overt determination of her plan.
“You sure?” he asked warily, “Given what happened last time we did that, it kinda sounds a bit…suicidal?”
“I’m dying,” she pointed out, “Feels like we’re at the point where I’ve got nothing to lose. Besides, this isn’t a treatment. We’re getting that from the Son’a. All this is gonna be is the best way to keep me alive for long enough for you to give me the antidote.”
She paused for a moment to hold back the latest wince-inducing lance of pain in her head.
“Last time, the cordrazine gave my lifesigns a shot in the arm, and seemed to slow the toxin down. That’s what I need right now.”
“So,” Sunek mused, “Instead of letting the toxin kill you, we’re gonna let the stims kill you?”
She mustered a wry smile.
“At least this way, I’m in control--”
“Warning. Structural integrity failure in progress.”
The sound of the Navajo’s computer filling the air sent a fresh shiver down her spine, and a fresh stab of pain through her skull. It was happening again.
On the other side of the bed, the Vulcan/Trill hybrid seemed entirely oblivious to what she had just heard. And she still wanted to keep it that way.
“Go, Sunek,” she urged, “Now.”
Sunek took one last look around the latest memory she had unwittingly shared with him. But she was still way beyond being uncomfortable. At least about this particular memory. She was far more uncomfortable about the memory she was heading for.
The red alert sirens got louder, as she put all of her focus back into trying to end up anywhere but the corridors of the Navajo again. Just as she had done to get here.
She thought she saw Sunek’s mouth move, as if he was saying something else to her, but she couldn’t hear him any more.
And before she could try to say anything back, everything started to blur…
Merchant ship Bounty
Stardate 52049.2
Natasha Kinsen should have been uncomfortable. Deeply uncomfortable.
But she wasn’t uncomfortable. She was way past uncomfortable. Given everything that she’d been through, uncomfortable was a dot to her.
Because she was fully aware that regardless of where it may seem like she was, she was actually in the medical bay on the Bounty. She was sick. And she was running out of time. And everything else that was happening, wherever it seemed like she might be, was just a random moment from her own memory.
She wasn’t really on Wrigley’s Pleasure Planet, or Archanis IV, nor was she at her family home in London, or in San Francisco, or New Berlin. She wasn’t even where she thought she was now.
Which was actually reassuring. Because as far as her memory was concerned, right now she was onboard the Bounty, mere hours after she had first come aboard.
Specifically, she was inside Jirel’s cabin. Shortly after she had made what she was now sure had been the mistake of choosing to seek a night of companionship with the Trill after her rescue from six long months alone on a desolate planet in the Kesmet system following the Navajo’s destruction.
When the previous memory of her childhood back in London had started to fade and her headache had intensified, she was sure she was destined for the same memory onboard the Navajo all over again. But this time, instead of forcing herself out of that memory when she was in it, she had managed to avoid it altogether. Somehow.
If she had been fully in control of where her mind was taking her, she probably wouldn’t have chosen this particular moment as an alternative. Especially given who she was sharing said memory with once again.
Fortunately, the good news was that she was well past being uncomfortable.
“All I’m saying, doc, is that this is now two of these memories of yours where I’ve ended up in bed with you…”
With a sigh, the mostly comfortable Natasha forced herself to look at the latest incongruous form she was tasked with interacting with. Namely Sunek’s face on Jirel’s body.
This time, she hadn’t needed to explain any of the context to him. The familiar ship, the spots on his newly adopted body, and the fact that her night with Jirel had quickly become common knowledge on the Bounty meant that it didn’t take all of Sunek’s Vulcan intellect to piece it together. And once pieced together, he had reacted to her latest unintentional moment of oversharing with a typically Sunek-ian level of immaturity.
But she was determined not to feel uncomfortable. Because she wasn’t uncomfortable. So, instead, she decided to give as good as she got.
“I mean, if we’re keeping score like that, you’ve also ended up dead in two of them.”
Sunek’s grin faltered slightly as he mulled this over.
“Touche,” he nodded eventually, switching his attention to glancing around the cabin, “So, this is the time when you--?”
“Scratched an itch. Yes. Let’s move on.”
She took a moment to reluctantly take in the memory. Remembering how she had chosen this cabin based on a simple coin toss in her search for a moment of companionship. How brash a wannabe space captain he had initially been, and still could be. How awkwardly he had jumped to the wrong conclusion about that night, and how she had had to let him down, not entirely gently.
But she also thought about what Sunek had told her. About how Jirel was now apparently watching over her back on the Bounty. And how strangely comforting that felt. Not for the first time, she struggled to square all of that together in her head.
Still, there were significantly bigger issues to worry about.
“I’m dying, aren’t I?”
For once in his life, Sunek seemed to think before he replied, not entirely sure how to respond. At the very least, the doctor’s sudden moment of frankness served to pull him right back into the serious side of their situation, all thoughts of trying to cheekily discuss this latest personal memory entirely forgotten.
“Well, you’re, um…yeah,” he managed in response, “How could you tell?”
She sighed again and stared down at her toes poking out of the end of Jirel’s bedsheet. She felt oddly becalmed for someone who was dying.
“Just a hunch,” she offered back, “The memories have been…I don’t even know how to describe it. Breaking down. Bleeding into each other.”
She didn’t go into any more details as far as which one in particular was bleeding across her other memories most strongly. Even given all that Sunek had already seen of her private side, she was praying that she could keep the Navajo's final moments from him.
“How do you mean?” the Vulcan asked.
“Just…some parts of my memories are starting to get mixed up with the others. And it feels like I’m jumping between them a lot faster.”
Sunek considered this for a moment, then nodded.
“Well, I didn’t wanna say anything, but it is getting harder to…find you in here. Like I said, first time, I just initiated the meld and ended up in one vivid memory. But this last time, I had to do a bit of…searching.”
Natasha forced herself not to think too much about what that meant. About how many of her other memories he might have already seen. She rubbed the side of her head as a sharp needle of pain lanced through her temples.
“You ok?” Sunek added, “I mean, aside from the whole…dying thing.”
“Just a headache.”
“Heh. If I had a slip of latinum for every time I’d heard that when I was in bed with a girl, I’d--”
One of her patented withering glares stopped the Vulcan’s latest train of thought.
“--Not the time. I know.”
As the pain in her head increased, she started to wonder whether this was it. Whether this was how she was destined to die. Right here. In bed with Sunek. Again.
No, she decided to herself with renewed conviction, there’s no way that it ends here.
She swivelled back to the uncomfortable mash-up of Bounty crew members next to her with an altogether more determined look in her eyes.
“Ok, Sunek, I need more information. What’s changed about my lifesigns? My brain patterns? What about the Son’a? Anything?”
Sunek paused in the middle of his inspection of yet another set of borrowed fingernails, these ones considerably less manicured than most of the others.
“Ok. Right. Yeah. The Son’a? Klath and Denella are working on that. But we need to buy some more time. We gave you the antipsychotic, just like you said--”
“The promazine?”
“--That’s the one. Gave you that, and your brain activity seemed to stabilise. I guess.”
“You guess?”
Sunek shrugged Jirel’s shoulders.
“All the readings on the medical computer dropped back from the redline. Even the spikes around the hippocampus seemed to calm down. Everything looked good."
Natasha couldn’t help but feel some detached amusement at the roundabout way that Sunek/Jirel was leading her to his conclusion. She always assumed this sort of medical report was something that doctors like her developed over years of training.
“But then…?”
“But then, I guess, something else happened,” the Vulcan shrugged, “Weird readings, lots of alarms, and your lifesigns took another nosedive.”
She suppressed a sigh, sitting up in the cramped bed and glaring at Sunek intently, trying to will some more detail about the situation back in reality out of him.
“What sort of weird readings? Give me something to work with here--!”
She flinched as another stab of pain lanced through her head. Sunek watched on with a surprisingly sympathetic look.
“I don’t really know,” he sighed, “Neither did the computer. But it was similar to the first sets of readings we got. Just, I dunno, more intense? Like it was--”
“Like it was spreading,” she whispered.
“Um, I guess?”
Her brain, or whatever passed for her brain in this sort of context, kicked into gear. She realised with a sense of dread what was happening.
“The toxin,” she continued, “It’s spreading. We tried to stop whatever it was doing in my brain with the antipsychotic. But…what if that was the wrong call? What if that was stopping it from spreading further, somehow?”
“How?” Sunek asked, slightly perplexed.
“No idea. But the diagnosis was all wrong. The promazine is only treating the effects, not the cause. I think all we’ve done is speed up whatever else the toxin is doing to me.”
“Oh. Whoops?”
She didn’t react to that assessment. Because she already knew what this all meant. It meant that she’d made the wrong call. And she might be about to pay the ultimate price.
“The antidote, Sunek. How long?”
The Vulcan looked back at her with a rare serious expression. She didn’t even really process how odd it was to see a look of stoic solemnity on this particular Vulcan.
“Honestly?” he sighed, “Denella and Klath are getting the materials now. We hope. After that, we’re still gonna need a couple of hours for the computer to do its thing and get the whole thing prepared for you.”
“Ok. So I need to hold on for that long.”
“Might help,” Sunek offered, still without any overt humour.
She drew the bedsheets up around her and chewed her lip thoughtfully. The headache flared up again.
“Stop the antipsychotics,” she said eventually with a firm nod, “Hopefully that’ll slow down the spreading. And go back to Plan A.”
“Right,” Sunek nodded, before adding, “Um, which one was Plan A, again?"
“The cordrazine. Give me a bigger shot of the stims than last time. Start with 20 ccs, and give me a second shot if you need to.”
Sunek studied her face, seeing something underneath the overt determination of her plan.
“You sure?” he asked warily, “Given what happened last time we did that, it kinda sounds a bit…suicidal?”
“I’m dying,” she pointed out, “Feels like we’re at the point where I’ve got nothing to lose. Besides, this isn’t a treatment. We’re getting that from the Son’a. All this is gonna be is the best way to keep me alive for long enough for you to give me the antidote.”
She paused for a moment to hold back the latest wince-inducing lance of pain in her head.
“Last time, the cordrazine gave my lifesigns a shot in the arm, and seemed to slow the toxin down. That’s what I need right now.”
“So,” Sunek mused, “Instead of letting the toxin kill you, we’re gonna let the stims kill you?”
She mustered a wry smile.
“At least this way, I’m in control--”
“Warning. Structural integrity failure in progress.”
The sound of the Navajo’s computer filling the air sent a fresh shiver down her spine, and a fresh stab of pain through her skull. It was happening again.
On the other side of the bed, the Vulcan/Trill hybrid seemed entirely oblivious to what she had just heard. And she still wanted to keep it that way.
“Go, Sunek,” she urged, “Now.”
Sunek took one last look around the latest memory she had unwittingly shared with him. But she was still way beyond being uncomfortable. At least about this particular memory. She was far more uncomfortable about the memory she was heading for.
The red alert sirens got louder, as she put all of her focus back into trying to end up anywhere but the corridors of the Navajo again. Just as she had done to get here.
She thought she saw Sunek’s mouth move, as if he was saying something else to her, but she couldn’t hear him any more.
And before she could try to say anything back, everything started to blur…
Hanging on by a thread... I've been enjoying the first part of this story, which begins with her on the Navajo...
Thanks!! rbs
Thanks!! rbs
Part Three (Cont'd)
If he’d felt somewhat useless before, Jirel definitely felt useless now.
With Sunek in the middle of his latest meld, the Vulcan positioned next to where Natasha lay in the middle of the medical bay, and Denella and Klath away on the Son’a vessel they had intercepted, he was still in exactly the same place. Uselessly worrying himself sick about the safety of their unnervingly tranquil patient.
Once again, he had found himself holding her hand. He was still self-conscious about the act, but had passed the point of caring too much if he was caught again doing something quite so curiously irrational.
He wished that the readings on the medical computer would improve, even as they were slowly growing even weaker. He wished that they had never altered course for the Son’a, and had kept their focus on reaching a proper trustworthy medical facility.
Above all else, he just wished he could talk to her.
And then, something curious happened. For reasons that he couldn’t entirely rationalise to himself, even as it was happening, he started talking to her. To the woman lying unconscious on the bed in front of him. The one who was still clearly in a deep coma.
“Hey,” he heard himself say to someone who couldn’t possibly hear him, “You’re gonna be ok, you hear me? We’re gonna fix all this. Trust me.”
He stifled a smile at those words, even as the entirely somnolent Natasha offered no reaction from where she lay. The coma still preventing her from responding to his words.
“Heh,” he continued, “Remember the first time I asked you to trust me? When we were after the Jewel of Soraxx, trapped in the middle of some weird ancient temple full of booby traps? We were staring death in the face, so I fixed you with my best space captain look, and asked you if you trusted me. And you just flat out said no. I mean, what was I supposed to do with that? I was trying to be a big hero!”
He mustered a chuckle. The woman in the coma remained understandably silent.
“Guess you had me down as an idiot right from the start. Which is probably accurate. But…you know what?”
The woman in the coma didn’t answer. Which was fine. He’d meant the question rhetorically.
“We got through those booby traps. Somehow. We got through all that. Somehow. And we’re gonna get through this as well, ok? Somehow. So, if you--I mean, I’m pretty sure you can’t, but--If you can hear me saying this then…please, trust me, ok?”
He paused, not entirely sure what sort of reaction he was expecting to get from the woman who had been entirely unresponsive to stimuli for the last eighteen hours.
In the end, he didn’t get any reaction. Which he figured was the reaction he should have expected.
Still, apparently undeterred by the slightly farcical nature of the one-way conversation, Jirel felt his voice starting up again.
“Also, I guess I have something else to tell--to say to you. In case you don’t--I mean, you’re definitely gonna wake up, ok? I just went over that. I was very clear about--”
He took a moment to contemplate the added ludicrousness of him not even being able to talk to her about his feelings when she was in a coma.
I am really bad at this, he sighed.
“It’s just--And I know you don’t feel the same way. But I’ve been thinking about it a lot, about how I feel, and I think--I mean, I’m pretty sure that I--”
The door to the medical bay opened, and Denella and Klath hurried in, both looking a little more bruised and bloodied than the last time Jirel had seen them. He instantly shut up and let go of Natasha’s hand, swinging back around to them with all the casual innocence of a teenage Ferengi getting caught with his hands in his father’s tin of imported beetle snuff.
“I wasn’t talking to her.”
Denella gave him a mildly amused look as she strode over to the medical computer, while Klath merely looked at him with confusion.
“What?”
“Um,” he managed, “Nothing. I was just--I wasn’t doing anything. That’s all.”
Klath’s look of confusion deepened.
“I remember when I used to think you were cool,” Denella couldn’t help but chime in.
Jirel suppressed a wince and deflected the Orion’s quip by gesturing to the state of the pair of them as a means to move the conversation on.
“What the hell happened to you?”
“The Son’a drove a hard bargain,” Denella offered, as she held up the small container she was carrying, “But we got what we needed.”
“They gonna make things any more difficult for us?”
Even as she began to unpack their supplies, Denella’s mouth curved into a slightly satisfied smile.
“They could try,” she replied, “But we’re warping back away from them, and Ahdar Lit’eh is going to be without his weapons for a while.”
“Huh,” Jirel nodded at his engineer, “An encryption program?”
“A bat’leth,” Klath replied with a proud nod, indicating that it wasn’t just Denella who had the proficiency to sabotage another ship’s weapons controls.
In different circumstances, Jirel would have allowed himself a moment or two of further banter with the gruff Klingon, whether Klath had wanted to or not. But he made do with a nod and a smile before joining Denella at the computer.
“You sure we’ve got everything for the antidote?”
“Bit late to go back now,” she replied as she finished unpacking their somewhat ill-gotten gains and placed the vials into the medical computer’s prep area, “Just got to hope the computer can work through the recipe.”
Jirel bit his lip with worry as the Orion tapped the computer’s controls.
“How long?”
“Little bit longer every time you distract me.”
The Trill reluctantly took the hint and took a step back. He contented himself with the fact that things were starting to move in the right direction.
And then a familiar voice chirped up from behind him.
“Might wanna hurry that up.”
The trio of conscious Bounty crew members turned to see Sunek, post-meld, gesturing down at Natasha on the bed.
“Things are getting worse in there.”
Jirel left Denella at the computer and stepped over to the Vulcan.
“What the hell does that mean?”
“It means she’s running out of ideas. She’s asked for another hit of stims.”
Sunek idly reached over to a hypospray sitting next to the bed and double checked what it was filled with. Just as he was about to press the cordrazine to Natasha’s neck, Jirel reached out and grabbed his wrist.
“Why would we do that?” he growled, a little too intensely, “It nearly killed her last time!”
Sunek raised a quizzical eyebrow. While Jirel was hardly causing his Vulcan physiology any pain with his grasp, his harsh tone was doing some minor damage to his feelings.
“This is what she wants us to do. She knows it’s dangerous, but she thinks it’s the only hope we’ve got of slowing down the toxin’s progress. And she knows if we don’t do this, she’ll be dead before we’ve got our antidote.”
The frankness of Sunek’s comments carried enough weight to cause Jirel to grind his teeth.
“That’s what she said?”
Sunek nodded. But he hadn’t needed to. This had been another rhetorical question from Jirel. He knew that Sunek wasn’t messing around.
Slowly, Jirel released his grip around the Vulcan’s wrist and allowed him to proceed.
Even though the entirety of the Bounty’s usually talkative crew were present inside the medical bay, the only sound in the room was the hiss of the hypospray.
End of Part Three
If he’d felt somewhat useless before, Jirel definitely felt useless now.
With Sunek in the middle of his latest meld, the Vulcan positioned next to where Natasha lay in the middle of the medical bay, and Denella and Klath away on the Son’a vessel they had intercepted, he was still in exactly the same place. Uselessly worrying himself sick about the safety of their unnervingly tranquil patient.
Once again, he had found himself holding her hand. He was still self-conscious about the act, but had passed the point of caring too much if he was caught again doing something quite so curiously irrational.
He wished that the readings on the medical computer would improve, even as they were slowly growing even weaker. He wished that they had never altered course for the Son’a, and had kept their focus on reaching a proper trustworthy medical facility.
Above all else, he just wished he could talk to her.
And then, something curious happened. For reasons that he couldn’t entirely rationalise to himself, even as it was happening, he started talking to her. To the woman lying unconscious on the bed in front of him. The one who was still clearly in a deep coma.
“Hey,” he heard himself say to someone who couldn’t possibly hear him, “You’re gonna be ok, you hear me? We’re gonna fix all this. Trust me.”
He stifled a smile at those words, even as the entirely somnolent Natasha offered no reaction from where she lay. The coma still preventing her from responding to his words.
“Heh,” he continued, “Remember the first time I asked you to trust me? When we were after the Jewel of Soraxx, trapped in the middle of some weird ancient temple full of booby traps? We were staring death in the face, so I fixed you with my best space captain look, and asked you if you trusted me. And you just flat out said no. I mean, what was I supposed to do with that? I was trying to be a big hero!”
He mustered a chuckle. The woman in the coma remained understandably silent.
“Guess you had me down as an idiot right from the start. Which is probably accurate. But…you know what?”
The woman in the coma didn’t answer. Which was fine. He’d meant the question rhetorically.
“We got through those booby traps. Somehow. We got through all that. Somehow. And we’re gonna get through this as well, ok? Somehow. So, if you--I mean, I’m pretty sure you can’t, but--If you can hear me saying this then…please, trust me, ok?”
He paused, not entirely sure what sort of reaction he was expecting to get from the woman who had been entirely unresponsive to stimuli for the last eighteen hours.
In the end, he didn’t get any reaction. Which he figured was the reaction he should have expected.
Still, apparently undeterred by the slightly farcical nature of the one-way conversation, Jirel felt his voice starting up again.
“Also, I guess I have something else to tell--to say to you. In case you don’t--I mean, you’re definitely gonna wake up, ok? I just went over that. I was very clear about--”
He took a moment to contemplate the added ludicrousness of him not even being able to talk to her about his feelings when she was in a coma.
I am really bad at this, he sighed.
“It’s just--And I know you don’t feel the same way. But I’ve been thinking about it a lot, about how I feel, and I think--I mean, I’m pretty sure that I--”
The door to the medical bay opened, and Denella and Klath hurried in, both looking a little more bruised and bloodied than the last time Jirel had seen them. He instantly shut up and let go of Natasha’s hand, swinging back around to them with all the casual innocence of a teenage Ferengi getting caught with his hands in his father’s tin of imported beetle snuff.
“I wasn’t talking to her.”
Denella gave him a mildly amused look as she strode over to the medical computer, while Klath merely looked at him with confusion.
“What?”
“Um,” he managed, “Nothing. I was just--I wasn’t doing anything. That’s all.”
Klath’s look of confusion deepened.
“I remember when I used to think you were cool,” Denella couldn’t help but chime in.
Jirel suppressed a wince and deflected the Orion’s quip by gesturing to the state of the pair of them as a means to move the conversation on.
“What the hell happened to you?”
“The Son’a drove a hard bargain,” Denella offered, as she held up the small container she was carrying, “But we got what we needed.”
“They gonna make things any more difficult for us?”
Even as she began to unpack their supplies, Denella’s mouth curved into a slightly satisfied smile.
“They could try,” she replied, “But we’re warping back away from them, and Ahdar Lit’eh is going to be without his weapons for a while.”
“Huh,” Jirel nodded at his engineer, “An encryption program?”
“A bat’leth,” Klath replied with a proud nod, indicating that it wasn’t just Denella who had the proficiency to sabotage another ship’s weapons controls.
In different circumstances, Jirel would have allowed himself a moment or two of further banter with the gruff Klingon, whether Klath had wanted to or not. But he made do with a nod and a smile before joining Denella at the computer.
“You sure we’ve got everything for the antidote?”
“Bit late to go back now,” she replied as she finished unpacking their somewhat ill-gotten gains and placed the vials into the medical computer’s prep area, “Just got to hope the computer can work through the recipe.”
Jirel bit his lip with worry as the Orion tapped the computer’s controls.
“How long?”
“Little bit longer every time you distract me.”
The Trill reluctantly took the hint and took a step back. He contented himself with the fact that things were starting to move in the right direction.
And then a familiar voice chirped up from behind him.
“Might wanna hurry that up.”
The trio of conscious Bounty crew members turned to see Sunek, post-meld, gesturing down at Natasha on the bed.
“Things are getting worse in there.”
Jirel left Denella at the computer and stepped over to the Vulcan.
“What the hell does that mean?”
“It means she’s running out of ideas. She’s asked for another hit of stims.”
Sunek idly reached over to a hypospray sitting next to the bed and double checked what it was filled with. Just as he was about to press the cordrazine to Natasha’s neck, Jirel reached out and grabbed his wrist.
“Why would we do that?” he growled, a little too intensely, “It nearly killed her last time!”
Sunek raised a quizzical eyebrow. While Jirel was hardly causing his Vulcan physiology any pain with his grasp, his harsh tone was doing some minor damage to his feelings.
“This is what she wants us to do. She knows it’s dangerous, but she thinks it’s the only hope we’ve got of slowing down the toxin’s progress. And she knows if we don’t do this, she’ll be dead before we’ve got our antidote.”
The frankness of Sunek’s comments carried enough weight to cause Jirel to grind his teeth.
“That’s what she said?”
Sunek nodded. But he hadn’t needed to. This had been another rhetorical question from Jirel. He knew that Sunek wasn’t messing around.
Slowly, Jirel released his grip around the Vulcan’s wrist and allowed him to proceed.
Even though the entirety of the Bounty’s usually talkative crew were present inside the medical bay, the only sound in the room was the hiss of the hypospray.
End of Part Three
Great little scene - classic manga interruption of a love profession.. Thanks!! rbs
Part Four
Starbase 218, Callax Sector
Stardate 50893.2
Natasha Kinsen was at peace.
The medical basis for the five stages of grief had been hotly debated ever since it had first been proposed on Earth in the late 20th century, and the current prevailing medical opinion was that the entire concept was too simplistic and reductive.
Firstly, centuries of research had failed to uncover any real empirical evidence to back up the existence of such a theoretical process, from denial, through anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. Nor had any psychological studies suggested that such a process happened organically in grieving individuals.
And then there was the wider issue that such a rigid model simply no longer made sense in the context of the wider universe. Space exploration had uncovered a myriad of differing approaches to grief. From the Klingon Death Howl, to the Ferengi ritual of pre-selling one’s own remains, through to the Rakahki people of Rakhar VII, whose best psychiatrists had developed a theory that grief was actually a thirty-nine stage process, meaning that it was common among the Rakahki for one to pass away from old age while still in the middle of grieving one’s great-grandparents.
All of which rendered the Terran-centric five stage model somewhat archaic in the modern day Alpha Quadrant.
Still, some therapists made use of the old system from time to time, as a jumping off point if nothing else. The ship’s counsellor onboard the Navajo had helped Natasha to get over her father’s death some months ago by using the five stage model as a framework for their sessions.
And right now, Natasha was using it herself. And she felt that she had definitely reached acceptance. Both inside this particular memory, and in the wider context of her plight.
She wasn’t disorientated, even though it felt like only moments ago she had been in Jirel’s bed. Or in her family home on Earth. Or any number of other places. She knew what was happening. She was dying. And, as she told herself, she had reached a point of acceptance with that.
She also knew what was happening in this particular memory. The latest trip that her brain had sent her on as she had somehow steered herself away from the Navajo. And she remembered that when she had been here in reality, she had reached acceptance as well.
She sat alone, at a table in one of Starbase 218’s outer lounges. Along the inner wall was a bank of self-service replicators, while the main floor area of the lounge was filled with tables and chairs, as well as some more casual sofas in various orthogonal arrangements.
Next to her, the outer wall of the lounge was one huge curved sheet of transparent aluminium, offering an unimpeded view of the inky blackness of space.
The Navajo was out of sight of the lounge, the Excelsior-class ship ensconced on one of the base’s spindly docking arms towards the bottom of the main cylindrical structure. But she could see another Federation ship from here, tethered to the end of another of the base’s docking arms. The unmistakable shape of the Cheyenne-class USS Ticonderoga.
Her husband’s ship. And also, as it turned out, the ship of Lieutenant Gina Ramirez.
He’d be here soon. She’d arranged to meet him right here, in this very bar, once the Ticonderoga had docked and he had been cleared to head station-side. Or, at least, that was what had happened when this had happened in reality. What was happening now wasn’t actually happening.
And that was fine. She had accepted that as well.
Still, as far as Lt Commander Cameron Kinsen was concerned, he was heading for dinner with his wife, who he hadn’t seen for several months. And then he was planning to take her back to the executive quarters on the base he’d managed to wrangle for the duration of their layover.
It had been a typical Cameron move. On the face of it, thoughtful and romantic, getting both of them away from their stuffy starship accommodation to turn this frustratingly rare crossing of paths into something memorable.
But there was something else that she could now see underneath that thoughtfulness. It was also a chance for him to show off. The newly-promoted second officer of a Federation starship pulling rank to score the fanciest quarters available to underline his status.
As she contemplated this particular memory, she had to admit that, had everything been equal back on Starbase 218, she’d have gone along with it. That was the man she had married, after all. The red flags had been there all along, and she’d chosen to ignore them.
They had even been there when he had proposed. He hadn’t chosen a personal or private moment to pop the question, or chosen a specific location with any personal meaning to them. Instead, he had gotten down on one knee in the middle of his own brother’s birthday party, during shore leave back on Earth. In front of his extended family, while she had been wearing the little black dress and the Folnar jewel necklace he had bought for her just days before.
The whole thing had been as much an exercise in him showing off in front of everyone, and stealing his brother’s thunder, than it had been about the two of them. And, in fairness to him, it worked. The proposal, and her saying yes, had delighted everyone present at the party. With the possible exception of his brother.
And she had accepted it all. She had said yes. Because she loved him.
Even as she had felt like she was being shown off to everyone, with her elegant dress, her dazzling necklace, and now an engagement ring topped off with a gemstone the size of a small asteroid on her finger, she had accepted it all.
Because she was sure that people could change. At least, that was what she had told herself.
Except Cameron hadn’t really changed. And neither had she. Looking back around at this particular memory after so many years had passed, she could now see that she had never really fully trusted him. Which, in an odd way, had proven fortunate.
In front of her was a small padd, containing the evidence that was going to end her marriage.
Because, while Cameron was expecting dinner and a night in the executive quarters, he was actually heading for something quite different.
As she stared at the padd, she wondered if Sunek had given her the cordrazine yet.
She had first become suspicious about Cameron and Lt Ramirez some weeks ago, and it hadn’t taken much digging to confirm those suspicions. It turned out that Cameron’s healthy ego seemed to give him a zealous amount of overconfidence in everything he did, to the point that he had barely even bothered to cover his own tracks.
The final piece of the puzzle had been delivered via one of her old Academy friends onboard the Ticonderoga, who had let slip the fact that she had seen Cameron and Ramirez spending more and more time together onboard.
Apparently, things had come to a head when a holodeck malfunction had forced a team of engineers to spend hours rescuing the pair from what had turned out to be a couples massage program. The malfunction, precipitated by a spatial anomaly that the Ticonderoga had been studying, caused the holomatrix to fuse that program with one designed for advanced tactical training.
And while she had gained some small amount of amusement at the mental image of Cameron and Ramirez, clad in little more than paper-thin towels, suddenly finding themselves having to spend several hours fending off a hoard of armed Gorn soldiers with massage oil and seaweed wraps, the story merely served as confirmation of what she already suspected.
He was cheating on her. Their marriage was over.
Still, for some reason, she hadn’t informed him via subspace, or sent him a simple message. Instead, she had carried on as normal, waiting for their rendezvous at the starbase.
She winced slightly as she felt another headache starting up, wondering what carnage the extra boost of stims were wreaking on her physical body right now.
In the distance, she heard a red alert siren.
Trying to keep her focus on this memory, she focused back on the padd. Remembering why she had decided to handle Cameron’s infidelity in person.
In truth, she had done it for the irony. After he had proposed in such a public manner, and spent most of their relationship favouring performative actions over genuine ones, she had decided to at least take satisfaction in finishing things in a similar way.
Still, even though the look on his face when she had calmly, but firmly, explained what she had found out had been particularly priceless, it hadn’t satisfied her as much as she had hoped. Whether she wanted to admit it or not, it always felt like part of her had died on that day. And now, she thought with a hint of irony, the rest of her was joining it.
She felt another surge of pain in her head. The alert siren was becoming persistent.
She heard footsteps approaching from behind her. Just as she had heard them back when this had really happened. She looked up to see Cameron’s reflection in the window as the smiling second officer of the Ticonderoga reached her table.
Part of her had almost been expecting to see Sunek’s face instead of Cameron’s. But the Vulcan was nowhere to be seen. She recalled what he had said about it being harder to ‘find her’ with the last meld, and suppressed a shudder as she contemplated whether or not she was now completely cut off. All alone, inside her own memory.
Cameron leaned down and kissed her cheek. She didn’t react.
The red alert siren grew in intensity. Her head began to pound.
Her husband sat down opposite her at the table. He began to talk.
“Warning. Structural integrity failure in progress.”
And she knew she couldn’t hold back the sirens any longer.
****************************
“It’s not working, is it?”
Jirel didn’t direct the question at anyone else in particular. His focus was on the freshly loaded hypospray in his hands. Another shot of stims. On standby.
In fact, the tiny vial of liquid inside the hypospray represented the remains of the cordrazine supply on the entire Bounty. That was all they had left from the Bounty’s meagre supply.
Elsewhere in the medical bay, Denella stood over the computer, waiting on the synthesis of the antidote, while Sunek watched the readings from Natasha on a separate screen.
Klath had temporarily left the room, returning to the cockpit to get the Bounty back to maximum speed towards the medical facility on Beta Ramis. It was far too late for them to get there in time now. They were entirely reliant on the supplies they had taken from the Son’a. But still, they had to fly themselves somewhere, and that seemed as good a place as any.
After a moment, Jirel looked up, and repeated his question.
“Is it?”
Denella didn’t answer, keeping her focus on the progress on the screen in front of her. Sunek glanced up from his own screen and shrugged.
“She’s getting worse,” he reported glumly, “The stims don’t seem to have given her lifesigns the same boost that they did before.”
“Why?”
Sunek bit his tongue before offering a more productive answer than the sarcasm that his brain had initially planned to opt for. He didn’t need to remind Jirel that anything he told him was mostly going to be guesswork.
“Dunno,” he shrugged apologetically, “But I’d assume it’s got something to do with the toxin spreading further after we gave her the promazine. The stims aren’t controlling the situation as well, now there’s more to deal with.”
The Trill looked down at the hypospray in his hand, then back up at the Vulcan, who picked up on the details of the unspoken question.
“If we give her another shot, I have no idea what that might do to her.”
“If the toxin has spread,” Jirel countered, “A bigger dose might help to fight it.”
“True,” Sunek shrugged, “It might also completely overload what’s left of her systems. Still not a doctor, but my honest advice would be to maybe save that shot until her lifesigns really start to flatline.”
Jirel grimaced and chewed his cheek, looking over at Denella.
“How long on the antidote?”
Denella decided against reminding him that it had only been a few minutes since he’d last asked her that question. Like Sunek, she could tell that it wasn’t really the time.
“About an hour, give or take.”
Jirel fixated on the hypospray again, as he considered how much the crew had come together in this particular crisis. How quickly Natasha had become such a vital part of the crew as a whole, for everyone on the Bounty.
As he thought about that, and Denella and Sunek returned their attention to their respective screens, the door to the medical bay opened and Klath returned.
“We are sixteen hours away from Beta Ramis,” he announced.
None of the others took much visible solace from that news, with good reason. Klath acknowledged the silence, and then stood awkwardly in the doorway, not entirely sure what else he could offer the current situation. Eventually, and more than a little reluctantly, he stepped across the room, over to Jirel and the hypospray.
“The remaining stimulants?” he asked, gesturing at the device in the Trill’s hand.
Jirel nodded back, forcing himself to look up at the hulking Klingon.
“We were just…debating whether to give them to her or not.”
Klath considered the matter in silence for a moment. Another of those silences that he didn’t realise held such power over the rest of the Bounty’s crew.
And then, something curious happened. The least medically-minded person on the entire ship, possibly in the entire quadrant, offered a diagnosis.
“You should give them to her.”
Jirel stared back at the looming face of the Klingon, even as Sunek turned back from his screen with an edge of displeasure.
“Hey, Doctor Bat’leth MD, maybe now isn’t the best time to start your pitch for the chief medical officer vacancy?”
Klath didn’t look over at the Vulcan, keeping his attention on Jirel, though he did acknowledge his general point.
“I cannot offer a medical opinion,” he conceded, “But I can offer that of a warrior.”
“Yeah, cool,” Sunek’s sarcasm persisted, “Don’t tell me, we should try to hit the toxin with really sharp objects.”
“I do not understand a great deal about medicine,” Klath continued, in what was a strong contender for the understatement of the century, “But I do know plenty about how to fight. And that seems to be what the doctor needs to do with this…toxin. We should give her every chance to win.”
“This shot,” Jirel half-whispered, twirling the hypospray around in his hand, “Could also kill her, Klath.”
“Any warrior knows that is a possibility in battle. She is no different.”
Klath looked over at the human woman on the bed, as Jirel regarded his Klingon confidante. After a thoughtful second, he turned back to Denella and Sunek, who had both looked up from their respective screens.
“He does know his battles,” Denella pointed out, “And we need to buy ourselves at least an hour.”
“Just FYI,” Sunek offered as a counterpoint, “If I’m ever in a dire medical emergency, I do not want Klath operating as my primary physician. And I will put that in writing.”
Jirel considered the range of opinions he’d been offered. And then he looked down at Natasha’s still-prone form on the bed.
And he prayed he wasn’t about to make a big mistake.
Starbase 218, Callax Sector
Stardate 50893.2
Natasha Kinsen was at peace.
The medical basis for the five stages of grief had been hotly debated ever since it had first been proposed on Earth in the late 20th century, and the current prevailing medical opinion was that the entire concept was too simplistic and reductive.
Firstly, centuries of research had failed to uncover any real empirical evidence to back up the existence of such a theoretical process, from denial, through anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. Nor had any psychological studies suggested that such a process happened organically in grieving individuals.
And then there was the wider issue that such a rigid model simply no longer made sense in the context of the wider universe. Space exploration had uncovered a myriad of differing approaches to grief. From the Klingon Death Howl, to the Ferengi ritual of pre-selling one’s own remains, through to the Rakahki people of Rakhar VII, whose best psychiatrists had developed a theory that grief was actually a thirty-nine stage process, meaning that it was common among the Rakahki for one to pass away from old age while still in the middle of grieving one’s great-grandparents.
All of which rendered the Terran-centric five stage model somewhat archaic in the modern day Alpha Quadrant.
Still, some therapists made use of the old system from time to time, as a jumping off point if nothing else. The ship’s counsellor onboard the Navajo had helped Natasha to get over her father’s death some months ago by using the five stage model as a framework for their sessions.
And right now, Natasha was using it herself. And she felt that she had definitely reached acceptance. Both inside this particular memory, and in the wider context of her plight.
She wasn’t disorientated, even though it felt like only moments ago she had been in Jirel’s bed. Or in her family home on Earth. Or any number of other places. She knew what was happening. She was dying. And, as she told herself, she had reached a point of acceptance with that.
She also knew what was happening in this particular memory. The latest trip that her brain had sent her on as she had somehow steered herself away from the Navajo. And she remembered that when she had been here in reality, she had reached acceptance as well.
She sat alone, at a table in one of Starbase 218’s outer lounges. Along the inner wall was a bank of self-service replicators, while the main floor area of the lounge was filled with tables and chairs, as well as some more casual sofas in various orthogonal arrangements.
Next to her, the outer wall of the lounge was one huge curved sheet of transparent aluminium, offering an unimpeded view of the inky blackness of space.
The Navajo was out of sight of the lounge, the Excelsior-class ship ensconced on one of the base’s spindly docking arms towards the bottom of the main cylindrical structure. But she could see another Federation ship from here, tethered to the end of another of the base’s docking arms. The unmistakable shape of the Cheyenne-class USS Ticonderoga.
Her husband’s ship. And also, as it turned out, the ship of Lieutenant Gina Ramirez.
He’d be here soon. She’d arranged to meet him right here, in this very bar, once the Ticonderoga had docked and he had been cleared to head station-side. Or, at least, that was what had happened when this had happened in reality. What was happening now wasn’t actually happening.
And that was fine. She had accepted that as well.
Still, as far as Lt Commander Cameron Kinsen was concerned, he was heading for dinner with his wife, who he hadn’t seen for several months. And then he was planning to take her back to the executive quarters on the base he’d managed to wrangle for the duration of their layover.
It had been a typical Cameron move. On the face of it, thoughtful and romantic, getting both of them away from their stuffy starship accommodation to turn this frustratingly rare crossing of paths into something memorable.
But there was something else that she could now see underneath that thoughtfulness. It was also a chance for him to show off. The newly-promoted second officer of a Federation starship pulling rank to score the fanciest quarters available to underline his status.
As she contemplated this particular memory, she had to admit that, had everything been equal back on Starbase 218, she’d have gone along with it. That was the man she had married, after all. The red flags had been there all along, and she’d chosen to ignore them.
They had even been there when he had proposed. He hadn’t chosen a personal or private moment to pop the question, or chosen a specific location with any personal meaning to them. Instead, he had gotten down on one knee in the middle of his own brother’s birthday party, during shore leave back on Earth. In front of his extended family, while she had been wearing the little black dress and the Folnar jewel necklace he had bought for her just days before.
The whole thing had been as much an exercise in him showing off in front of everyone, and stealing his brother’s thunder, than it had been about the two of them. And, in fairness to him, it worked. The proposal, and her saying yes, had delighted everyone present at the party. With the possible exception of his brother.
And she had accepted it all. She had said yes. Because she loved him.
Even as she had felt like she was being shown off to everyone, with her elegant dress, her dazzling necklace, and now an engagement ring topped off with a gemstone the size of a small asteroid on her finger, she had accepted it all.
Because she was sure that people could change. At least, that was what she had told herself.
Except Cameron hadn’t really changed. And neither had she. Looking back around at this particular memory after so many years had passed, she could now see that she had never really fully trusted him. Which, in an odd way, had proven fortunate.
In front of her was a small padd, containing the evidence that was going to end her marriage.
Because, while Cameron was expecting dinner and a night in the executive quarters, he was actually heading for something quite different.
As she stared at the padd, she wondered if Sunek had given her the cordrazine yet.
She had first become suspicious about Cameron and Lt Ramirez some weeks ago, and it hadn’t taken much digging to confirm those suspicions. It turned out that Cameron’s healthy ego seemed to give him a zealous amount of overconfidence in everything he did, to the point that he had barely even bothered to cover his own tracks.
The final piece of the puzzle had been delivered via one of her old Academy friends onboard the Ticonderoga, who had let slip the fact that she had seen Cameron and Ramirez spending more and more time together onboard.
Apparently, things had come to a head when a holodeck malfunction had forced a team of engineers to spend hours rescuing the pair from what had turned out to be a couples massage program. The malfunction, precipitated by a spatial anomaly that the Ticonderoga had been studying, caused the holomatrix to fuse that program with one designed for advanced tactical training.
And while she had gained some small amount of amusement at the mental image of Cameron and Ramirez, clad in little more than paper-thin towels, suddenly finding themselves having to spend several hours fending off a hoard of armed Gorn soldiers with massage oil and seaweed wraps, the story merely served as confirmation of what she already suspected.
He was cheating on her. Their marriage was over.
Still, for some reason, she hadn’t informed him via subspace, or sent him a simple message. Instead, she had carried on as normal, waiting for their rendezvous at the starbase.
She winced slightly as she felt another headache starting up, wondering what carnage the extra boost of stims were wreaking on her physical body right now.
In the distance, she heard a red alert siren.
Trying to keep her focus on this memory, she focused back on the padd. Remembering why she had decided to handle Cameron’s infidelity in person.
In truth, she had done it for the irony. After he had proposed in such a public manner, and spent most of their relationship favouring performative actions over genuine ones, she had decided to at least take satisfaction in finishing things in a similar way.
Still, even though the look on his face when she had calmly, but firmly, explained what she had found out had been particularly priceless, it hadn’t satisfied her as much as she had hoped. Whether she wanted to admit it or not, it always felt like part of her had died on that day. And now, she thought with a hint of irony, the rest of her was joining it.
She felt another surge of pain in her head. The alert siren was becoming persistent.
She heard footsteps approaching from behind her. Just as she had heard them back when this had really happened. She looked up to see Cameron’s reflection in the window as the smiling second officer of the Ticonderoga reached her table.
Part of her had almost been expecting to see Sunek’s face instead of Cameron’s. But the Vulcan was nowhere to be seen. She recalled what he had said about it being harder to ‘find her’ with the last meld, and suppressed a shudder as she contemplated whether or not she was now completely cut off. All alone, inside her own memory.
Cameron leaned down and kissed her cheek. She didn’t react.
The red alert siren grew in intensity. Her head began to pound.
Her husband sat down opposite her at the table. He began to talk.
“Warning. Structural integrity failure in progress.”
And she knew she couldn’t hold back the sirens any longer.
****************************
“It’s not working, is it?”
Jirel didn’t direct the question at anyone else in particular. His focus was on the freshly loaded hypospray in his hands. Another shot of stims. On standby.
In fact, the tiny vial of liquid inside the hypospray represented the remains of the cordrazine supply on the entire Bounty. That was all they had left from the Bounty’s meagre supply.
Elsewhere in the medical bay, Denella stood over the computer, waiting on the synthesis of the antidote, while Sunek watched the readings from Natasha on a separate screen.
Klath had temporarily left the room, returning to the cockpit to get the Bounty back to maximum speed towards the medical facility on Beta Ramis. It was far too late for them to get there in time now. They were entirely reliant on the supplies they had taken from the Son’a. But still, they had to fly themselves somewhere, and that seemed as good a place as any.
After a moment, Jirel looked up, and repeated his question.
“Is it?”
Denella didn’t answer, keeping her focus on the progress on the screen in front of her. Sunek glanced up from his own screen and shrugged.
“She’s getting worse,” he reported glumly, “The stims don’t seem to have given her lifesigns the same boost that they did before.”
“Why?”
Sunek bit his tongue before offering a more productive answer than the sarcasm that his brain had initially planned to opt for. He didn’t need to remind Jirel that anything he told him was mostly going to be guesswork.
“Dunno,” he shrugged apologetically, “But I’d assume it’s got something to do with the toxin spreading further after we gave her the promazine. The stims aren’t controlling the situation as well, now there’s more to deal with.”
The Trill looked down at the hypospray in his hand, then back up at the Vulcan, who picked up on the details of the unspoken question.
“If we give her another shot, I have no idea what that might do to her.”
“If the toxin has spread,” Jirel countered, “A bigger dose might help to fight it.”
“True,” Sunek shrugged, “It might also completely overload what’s left of her systems. Still not a doctor, but my honest advice would be to maybe save that shot until her lifesigns really start to flatline.”
Jirel grimaced and chewed his cheek, looking over at Denella.
“How long on the antidote?”
Denella decided against reminding him that it had only been a few minutes since he’d last asked her that question. Like Sunek, she could tell that it wasn’t really the time.
“About an hour, give or take.”
Jirel fixated on the hypospray again, as he considered how much the crew had come together in this particular crisis. How quickly Natasha had become such a vital part of the crew as a whole, for everyone on the Bounty.
As he thought about that, and Denella and Sunek returned their attention to their respective screens, the door to the medical bay opened and Klath returned.
“We are sixteen hours away from Beta Ramis,” he announced.
None of the others took much visible solace from that news, with good reason. Klath acknowledged the silence, and then stood awkwardly in the doorway, not entirely sure what else he could offer the current situation. Eventually, and more than a little reluctantly, he stepped across the room, over to Jirel and the hypospray.
“The remaining stimulants?” he asked, gesturing at the device in the Trill’s hand.
Jirel nodded back, forcing himself to look up at the hulking Klingon.
“We were just…debating whether to give them to her or not.”
Klath considered the matter in silence for a moment. Another of those silences that he didn’t realise held such power over the rest of the Bounty’s crew.
And then, something curious happened. The least medically-minded person on the entire ship, possibly in the entire quadrant, offered a diagnosis.
“You should give them to her.”
Jirel stared back at the looming face of the Klingon, even as Sunek turned back from his screen with an edge of displeasure.
“Hey, Doctor Bat’leth MD, maybe now isn’t the best time to start your pitch for the chief medical officer vacancy?”
Klath didn’t look over at the Vulcan, keeping his attention on Jirel, though he did acknowledge his general point.
“I cannot offer a medical opinion,” he conceded, “But I can offer that of a warrior.”
“Yeah, cool,” Sunek’s sarcasm persisted, “Don’t tell me, we should try to hit the toxin with really sharp objects.”
“I do not understand a great deal about medicine,” Klath continued, in what was a strong contender for the understatement of the century, “But I do know plenty about how to fight. And that seems to be what the doctor needs to do with this…toxin. We should give her every chance to win.”
“This shot,” Jirel half-whispered, twirling the hypospray around in his hand, “Could also kill her, Klath.”
“Any warrior knows that is a possibility in battle. She is no different.”
Klath looked over at the human woman on the bed, as Jirel regarded his Klingon confidante. After a thoughtful second, he turned back to Denella and Sunek, who had both looked up from their respective screens.
“He does know his battles,” Denella pointed out, “And we need to buy ourselves at least an hour.”
“Just FYI,” Sunek offered as a counterpoint, “If I’m ever in a dire medical emergency, I do not want Klath operating as my primary physician. And I will put that in writing.”
Jirel considered the range of opinions he’d been offered. And then he looked down at Natasha’s still-prone form on the bed.
And he prayed he wasn’t about to make a big mistake.
I'm with Klath on this one... Let's see if it works... Thanks!! rbs
Part Four (Cont'd)
USS Navajo, Kesmet Sector, near Cardassian space
Stardate 52749.3
The deck shook wildly beneath her feet as another wave of firepower struck the crippled vessel.
She couldn’t help but stumble as the ship lurched around, her head slamming into the cold metal wall to her side.
And despite the sudden disorientation she felt, she was exactly where she had expected to be.
For whatever reason, wherever her memory had taken her, whatever treatment or drug she had been given, she had always ended up back here. And once again, even though she knew everything around her was just a memory, from the noxious fumes to the wildly pitching deck, she still felt terrified.
Her head pounded, both from the trauma it had suffered from the impact with the wall, and also from the now ever-present headache. She choked back a lungful of the toxic soup that now passed for atmosphere on the stricken starship.
“This is the bridge,” Captain D’Vora’s measured tone sounded out through the havoc, “I repeat: Abandon ship. All hands to the escape pods.”
She staggered on along the deck, approaching her darkest moment all over again.
From somewhere down the corridor, back the way she had come, she heard a plaintive cry of agony that triggered a fresh rush of guilt inside. She remembered it from when she had been here in reality, one of several such cries that she had ignored. Because she had been too busy running away.
She grabbed the corner of the intersection she was at as the Navajo pitched around again.
I don’t want to be here, she thought to herself. If I’m dying, I don’t want this to be the last thing that I remember.
But maybe this was the only place she deserved to be.
She stifled a rush of emotion and felt the ever-present pain in her head. She had stopped trying to guess how her symptoms inside her mind might have corresponded to her deteriorating condition back on the Bounty.
She made out the vague shapes of two crewmen desperately scurrying about through the smoke, running back the way she had come. Back into the fight, not away from it.
At this rate, the growing sense of shame she was now feeling was threatening to finish her off long before the toxin had a chance to.
Another volley of weapons fire smashed into the ship, and the deck fell away from underneath her as the entire vessel lurched violently again. She hit the ground with a thud, and felt the snap of the same rib that had snapped back in reality.
Even if it was just a memory this time, the fresh rush of pain felt real enough.
“Warning,” the voice of the computer calmly reported amidst the ongoing wail of the red alert sirens, “Structural integrity failure in progress.”
She gritted her teeth, slowly but surely forcing herself back onto her feet, and struggled on towards the intersection. Once again, she prepared herself for what awaited her just around the corner.
Despite where she knew she was, despite the fact that this was all just a memory, she wondered if she could change it this time. If she could actually bring herself to do the right thing, and help the desperate ensign in the corridor.
It seemed ridiculous to even contemplate. After all, this wasn’t happening to her because of time travel, or because she had wound up in an alternate dimension. This was just her own memory, apparently tormenting her to the bitter end.
As another choking plume of smoke from a nearby plasma fire threatened to overwhelm her, she staggered forwards and around the corner.
And she gasped in shock.
“You know, you were totally right. Ham and pineapple, it just works.”
The smiling form of Salus Hadren, dressed in a luxurious silk robe from the Splendour Island Resort, calmly stood amongst the fiery carnage of the Navajo’s final moments, holding out a slice of pizza in his hand.
She stared at him, mouth agape.
And then she felt herself falling.
****************************
USS Navajo, Kesmet Sector, near Cardassian space
Stardate 52749.3
The deck shook wildly beneath her feet as another wave of firepower struck the crippled vessel.
She couldn’t help but stumble as the ship lurched around, her head slamming into the cold metal wall to her side.
She shook her head in confusion. Hadn’t she just been here? Or had she just been on Archanis IV? Or Starbase 218?
Her head pounded in searing pain as the choking smoke filled her vision. Almost through muscle memory alone, she staggered onwards all over again, on the well-trodden path towards the next intersection in the corridor.
Towards the bank of escape pods. And the dying ensign. And the ham and pineapple pizza.
No, she thought to herself, that’s not right.
“This is the bridge. I repeat: Abandon ship. All hands to the escape pods.”
Captain D’Vora’s words pulled her back into the immediacy of the memory. She grimaced and clung on for dear life as the once proud starship pitched to one side once again, as another volley of weapons fire tore into its body.
She clung on for dear life, just as she had done in reality. But she couldn’t stop herself from being thrown to the ground, where she landed with a sharp thud and the sound of snapping bone, just as she had done in reality.
Trying to ignore the pain, she clambered back to her feet with renewed determination. She could picture the ensign, just around the next corner. And she no longer cared that this wasn’t really happening. This time, she was going to save him.
She didn’t care that this was all a vivid memory. This time, she was going to drag that battered and bloodied young officer into the escape pod with her. She was going to do what she should have done. She wasn’t going to leave him behind.
She reached the fateful intersection and gripped the corner of the wall tightly. The precise timing of the computer voice’s monotonous interjection was so familiar that she found herself mouthing along to it.
“Warning, structural integrity failure in progress.”
She took a deep breath, and turned the corner. She saw the body.
Except it wasn’t the bloodied ensign. It was a Bzzit Khaht. Or a holographic recreation of one, at least. Complete with a wide opening in its chest cavity, and an ugly splatter of dark brown-green blood all around it.
Standing next to the dead patient was Doctor Rahman.
She gasped.
“Very disappointing,” he said with a slight shake of his head.
She had no time to respond. Because suddenly, she was falling again.
****************************
USS Navajo, Kesmet Sector, near Cardassian space
Stardate 52749.3
The deck shook wildly beneath her feet as another wave of firepower struck the crippled vessel.
She couldn’t help but stumble as the ship lurched around, her head slamming into the cold metal wall to her side.
And the cycle continued.
USS Navajo, Kesmet Sector, near Cardassian space
Stardate 52749.3
The deck shook wildly beneath her feet as another wave of firepower struck the crippled vessel.
She couldn’t help but stumble as the ship lurched around, her head slamming into the cold metal wall to her side.
And despite the sudden disorientation she felt, she was exactly where she had expected to be.
For whatever reason, wherever her memory had taken her, whatever treatment or drug she had been given, she had always ended up back here. And once again, even though she knew everything around her was just a memory, from the noxious fumes to the wildly pitching deck, she still felt terrified.
Her head pounded, both from the trauma it had suffered from the impact with the wall, and also from the now ever-present headache. She choked back a lungful of the toxic soup that now passed for atmosphere on the stricken starship.
“This is the bridge,” Captain D’Vora’s measured tone sounded out through the havoc, “I repeat: Abandon ship. All hands to the escape pods.”
She staggered on along the deck, approaching her darkest moment all over again.
From somewhere down the corridor, back the way she had come, she heard a plaintive cry of agony that triggered a fresh rush of guilt inside. She remembered it from when she had been here in reality, one of several such cries that she had ignored. Because she had been too busy running away.
She grabbed the corner of the intersection she was at as the Navajo pitched around again.
I don’t want to be here, she thought to herself. If I’m dying, I don’t want this to be the last thing that I remember.
But maybe this was the only place she deserved to be.
She stifled a rush of emotion and felt the ever-present pain in her head. She had stopped trying to guess how her symptoms inside her mind might have corresponded to her deteriorating condition back on the Bounty.
She made out the vague shapes of two crewmen desperately scurrying about through the smoke, running back the way she had come. Back into the fight, not away from it.
At this rate, the growing sense of shame she was now feeling was threatening to finish her off long before the toxin had a chance to.
Another volley of weapons fire smashed into the ship, and the deck fell away from underneath her as the entire vessel lurched violently again. She hit the ground with a thud, and felt the snap of the same rib that had snapped back in reality.
Even if it was just a memory this time, the fresh rush of pain felt real enough.
“Warning,” the voice of the computer calmly reported amidst the ongoing wail of the red alert sirens, “Structural integrity failure in progress.”
She gritted her teeth, slowly but surely forcing herself back onto her feet, and struggled on towards the intersection. Once again, she prepared herself for what awaited her just around the corner.
Despite where she knew she was, despite the fact that this was all just a memory, she wondered if she could change it this time. If she could actually bring herself to do the right thing, and help the desperate ensign in the corridor.
It seemed ridiculous to even contemplate. After all, this wasn’t happening to her because of time travel, or because she had wound up in an alternate dimension. This was just her own memory, apparently tormenting her to the bitter end.
As another choking plume of smoke from a nearby plasma fire threatened to overwhelm her, she staggered forwards and around the corner.
And she gasped in shock.
“You know, you were totally right. Ham and pineapple, it just works.”
The smiling form of Salus Hadren, dressed in a luxurious silk robe from the Splendour Island Resort, calmly stood amongst the fiery carnage of the Navajo’s final moments, holding out a slice of pizza in his hand.
She stared at him, mouth agape.
And then she felt herself falling.
****************************
USS Navajo, Kesmet Sector, near Cardassian space
Stardate 52749.3
The deck shook wildly beneath her feet as another wave of firepower struck the crippled vessel.
She couldn’t help but stumble as the ship lurched around, her head slamming into the cold metal wall to her side.
She shook her head in confusion. Hadn’t she just been here? Or had she just been on Archanis IV? Or Starbase 218?
Her head pounded in searing pain as the choking smoke filled her vision. Almost through muscle memory alone, she staggered onwards all over again, on the well-trodden path towards the next intersection in the corridor.
Towards the bank of escape pods. And the dying ensign. And the ham and pineapple pizza.
No, she thought to herself, that’s not right.
“This is the bridge. I repeat: Abandon ship. All hands to the escape pods.”
Captain D’Vora’s words pulled her back into the immediacy of the memory. She grimaced and clung on for dear life as the once proud starship pitched to one side once again, as another volley of weapons fire tore into its body.
She clung on for dear life, just as she had done in reality. But she couldn’t stop herself from being thrown to the ground, where she landed with a sharp thud and the sound of snapping bone, just as she had done in reality.
Trying to ignore the pain, she clambered back to her feet with renewed determination. She could picture the ensign, just around the next corner. And she no longer cared that this wasn’t really happening. This time, she was going to save him.
She didn’t care that this was all a vivid memory. This time, she was going to drag that battered and bloodied young officer into the escape pod with her. She was going to do what she should have done. She wasn’t going to leave him behind.
She reached the fateful intersection and gripped the corner of the wall tightly. The precise timing of the computer voice’s monotonous interjection was so familiar that she found herself mouthing along to it.
“Warning, structural integrity failure in progress.”
She took a deep breath, and turned the corner. She saw the body.
Except it wasn’t the bloodied ensign. It was a Bzzit Khaht. Or a holographic recreation of one, at least. Complete with a wide opening in its chest cavity, and an ugly splatter of dark brown-green blood all around it.
Standing next to the dead patient was Doctor Rahman.
She gasped.
“Very disappointing,” he said with a slight shake of his head.
She had no time to respond. Because suddenly, she was falling again.
****************************
USS Navajo, Kesmet Sector, near Cardassian space
Stardate 52749.3
The deck shook wildly beneath her feet as another wave of firepower struck the crippled vessel.
She couldn’t help but stumble as the ship lurched around, her head slamming into the cold metal wall to her side.
And the cycle continued.
Wow - really liking this passage. Very Jacob's Ladder. Thanks!! rbs
Part Four (Cont'd)
“Readings are off the charts!”
Sunek called out the warning over the sound of several alerts chiming out of the computer monitoring Natasha’s condition.
At the same time, the comatose woman, who had remained eerily still for so long on the bed, started to gently shake and convulse.
“Crap,” Jirel snapped, “What the hell’s happening?”
“Brain activity is spiking again,” Sunek replied, “Must’ve been that extra shot of cordrazine.”
Jirel stared down at the empty hypospray in his hand in horror, then looked helplessly back up at the shaking form of Natasha on the bed.
“So…what the hell do we do? Go back to the sedatives?”
Sunek looked over at the Trill and found himself unable to offer much more than a shrug. He was well and truly out of answers.
In desperation, Jirel raced over to the stack of hypospray vials on one of the medical bay’s counters and began to search for another shot of sedatives. As he searched, he felt a bulky Klingon hand land supportively on his shoulder.
“We should not interrupt the battle, Jirel--”
“It’s not a battle, Klath!” he snapped as he tried to place a vial into the hypospray with a shaking hand, “It’s a goddamn medical emergency!”
Klath was unperturbed by the passion and anger in his friend’s voice.
“We have given her the strength to fight on until the cure is ready,” he pointed out, “If you weaken her again, she will lose the fight.”
The Trill stared up at the towering Klingon, fighting to control his own emotions while simultaneously wondering when exactly he started taking Klath’s medical advice as gospel.
Although, based on Sunek’s response, he didn’t seem to be the only one doing that.
“I really hate to say it,” the Vulcan offered, “But the big dumb idiot might actually have a point.”
As Klath decided precisely how he was going to take that most backwards of compliments, Natasha seemed to settle slightly on the bed, and Sunek gestured to the hypospray to clarify his point.
“We don’t have any more stims left, remember?”
Jirel looked back down at the dose of sedatives in his hand, then to their patient.
“So, what the hell do we do?” he asked eventually, his voice sounding quiet.
Neither Sunek nor Klath had much of an answer to that question. But fortunately, Denella had one ready to go.
“We could give her this?”
She turned around from the medical computer and held up another vial of liquid.
“The antidote?” Jirel asked, his eyes widening with hope.
To his side, Sunek couldn’t help himself.
“No, she’s scored some street grade Trellium-D and wants us all to take a bong hit. Of course it’s--!”
Before Sunek could finish his unnecessary comment, Jirel shoved his way past the Vulcan and grabbed the vial from Denella’s hand, jamming the tiny container of liquid into the waiting hypospray in his hand with fresh urgency.
“Just remember,” Denella managed as he turned back to their patient, “The core of the Bounty’s medical computer is getting on for thirty years old. This might not be perfect.”
She capped off her comment by looking around at the ship itself.
“No offence, ok?”
Jirel ignored that part of her comment, though Klath found time to roll his eyes again.
“We don’t have any other options,” the Trill pointed out, as he stepped over to the bed and placed the hypospray next to her neck.
He said a silent prayer, though he wasn’t sure who he was saying it to, and depressed the button with a gentle hiss. For a moment, nothing happened. Nothing seemed to change. Natasha lay where she was, still slightly convulsing.
“Now what?” Denella whispered, cutting through the nervous silence that had descended with an edge of concern.
Sunek rushed back over to the readouts on the console next to the bed and studied them with as much confidence as he could muster in his own abilities.
“It…might be working,” he concluded.
“Might be?” Jirel snapped.
“Again, I’ll walk you through my medical qualifications later. But the computer is definitely detecting a slight drop in toxin levels around her brain. Which is better than anything else we’ve done.”
Jirel glanced at Sunek, and then at the positive smile on Denella’s face, and he felt himself relax slightly. But not by much. To his side, Klath looked down at their patient and nodded proudly.
“She is fighting.”
Jirel fought off the urge to fire back another retort at Klath’s continued efforts to frame the ongoing crisis in more Klingon-style terms.
Because he was too busy staring helplessly down at Natasha, slowly realising that there was now nothing more to do but wait and hope. Hope that she could win the fight.
“Yeah,” he managed back to the Klingon eventually, “I guess she is.”
“She’s on her own now,” Denella whispered.
Jirel began to nod, then stopped himself and looked back up at Sunek, who raised a curious eyebrow.
She didn’t have to be on her own.
“Readings are off the charts!”
Sunek called out the warning over the sound of several alerts chiming out of the computer monitoring Natasha’s condition.
At the same time, the comatose woman, who had remained eerily still for so long on the bed, started to gently shake and convulse.
“Crap,” Jirel snapped, “What the hell’s happening?”
“Brain activity is spiking again,” Sunek replied, “Must’ve been that extra shot of cordrazine.”
Jirel stared down at the empty hypospray in his hand in horror, then looked helplessly back up at the shaking form of Natasha on the bed.
“So…what the hell do we do? Go back to the sedatives?”
Sunek looked over at the Trill and found himself unable to offer much more than a shrug. He was well and truly out of answers.
In desperation, Jirel raced over to the stack of hypospray vials on one of the medical bay’s counters and began to search for another shot of sedatives. As he searched, he felt a bulky Klingon hand land supportively on his shoulder.
“We should not interrupt the battle, Jirel--”
“It’s not a battle, Klath!” he snapped as he tried to place a vial into the hypospray with a shaking hand, “It’s a goddamn medical emergency!”
Klath was unperturbed by the passion and anger in his friend’s voice.
“We have given her the strength to fight on until the cure is ready,” he pointed out, “If you weaken her again, she will lose the fight.”
The Trill stared up at the towering Klingon, fighting to control his own emotions while simultaneously wondering when exactly he started taking Klath’s medical advice as gospel.
Although, based on Sunek’s response, he didn’t seem to be the only one doing that.
“I really hate to say it,” the Vulcan offered, “But the big dumb idiot might actually have a point.”
As Klath decided precisely how he was going to take that most backwards of compliments, Natasha seemed to settle slightly on the bed, and Sunek gestured to the hypospray to clarify his point.
“We don’t have any more stims left, remember?”
Jirel looked back down at the dose of sedatives in his hand, then to their patient.
“So, what the hell do we do?” he asked eventually, his voice sounding quiet.
Neither Sunek nor Klath had much of an answer to that question. But fortunately, Denella had one ready to go.
“We could give her this?”
She turned around from the medical computer and held up another vial of liquid.
“The antidote?” Jirel asked, his eyes widening with hope.
To his side, Sunek couldn’t help himself.
“No, she’s scored some street grade Trellium-D and wants us all to take a bong hit. Of course it’s--!”
Before Sunek could finish his unnecessary comment, Jirel shoved his way past the Vulcan and grabbed the vial from Denella’s hand, jamming the tiny container of liquid into the waiting hypospray in his hand with fresh urgency.
“Just remember,” Denella managed as he turned back to their patient, “The core of the Bounty’s medical computer is getting on for thirty years old. This might not be perfect.”
She capped off her comment by looking around at the ship itself.
“No offence, ok?”
Jirel ignored that part of her comment, though Klath found time to roll his eyes again.
“We don’t have any other options,” the Trill pointed out, as he stepped over to the bed and placed the hypospray next to her neck.
He said a silent prayer, though he wasn’t sure who he was saying it to, and depressed the button with a gentle hiss. For a moment, nothing happened. Nothing seemed to change. Natasha lay where she was, still slightly convulsing.
“Now what?” Denella whispered, cutting through the nervous silence that had descended with an edge of concern.
Sunek rushed back over to the readouts on the console next to the bed and studied them with as much confidence as he could muster in his own abilities.
“It…might be working,” he concluded.
“Might be?” Jirel snapped.
“Again, I’ll walk you through my medical qualifications later. But the computer is definitely detecting a slight drop in toxin levels around her brain. Which is better than anything else we’ve done.”
Jirel glanced at Sunek, and then at the positive smile on Denella’s face, and he felt himself relax slightly. But not by much. To his side, Klath looked down at their patient and nodded proudly.
“She is fighting.”
Jirel fought off the urge to fire back another retort at Klath’s continued efforts to frame the ongoing crisis in more Klingon-style terms.
Because he was too busy staring helplessly down at Natasha, slowly realising that there was now nothing more to do but wait and hope. Hope that she could win the fight.
“Yeah,” he managed back to the Klingon eventually, “I guess she is.”
“She’s on her own now,” Denella whispered.
Jirel began to nod, then stopped himself and looked back up at Sunek, who raised a curious eyebrow.
She didn’t have to be on her own.
I now officially declare a cliff-hanger war between you and CeJay. (Which is a serious compliment - CeJay is the master of cliff-hangers...)
Thanks!! rbs
Thanks!! rbs
I boarded the Bounty during episode 3 - The Other Vulcan Hello. I've now gone back and read the first two adventures.
Star Trek: Bounty - 1 - "Where Neither Moth nor Rust Destroys"
I think the first episode kind of became my favorite so far in the series. It has a strong whiff of Indiana Jones to it and is written so cinematically that reading it kind of feels more like you're watching it. If you have't read this one, treat yourself to it.
Star Trek: Bounty - 2 - "Be All My Sins Forgiven"
Episode 2 is a totally screen-worthy, bloodthirsty Klingon revenge story, with a fun new location, complete with a fun new species or two. You actually start to care for the assassin, which is a good trick. And there are some forehead slapping Sunek maneuvers.
Thanks!! rbs
Star Trek: Bounty - 1 - "Where Neither Moth nor Rust Destroys"
I think the first episode kind of became my favorite so far in the series. It has a strong whiff of Indiana Jones to it and is written so cinematically that reading it kind of feels more like you're watching it. If you have't read this one, treat yourself to it.
Star Trek: Bounty - 2 - "Be All My Sins Forgiven"
Episode 2 is a totally screen-worthy, bloodthirsty Klingon revenge story, with a fun new location, complete with a fun new species or two. You actually start to care for the assassin, which is a good trick. And there are some forehead slapping Sunek maneuvers.
Thanks!! rbs
Thanks for the extra reviews!
I think the first episode definitely benefited from a few extra drafts compared to some of the others. Must’ve first started writing that one over a decade ago. But all that extra work definitely helped the pacing, I think. Which is one of my biggest weaknesses at times.
Also, definitely a useful episode to read because there might be a few characters from that one making a return later in the Bounty’s journey…
Part Four (Cont'd)
USS Navajo, Kesmet Sector, near Cardassian space
Stardate 52749.3
The deck shook wildly beneath her feet as another wave of firepower struck the crippled vessel.
She couldn’t help but stumble as the ship lurched around, her head slamming into the cold metal wall to her side.
Natasha didn’t know how many times that had happened to her now. How many times she had banged her head, how many times she had staggered through the corridor, how many times she had struggled around the corner, and how many times she had been confronted with a fragment of another memory.
But she did know that she didn’t want to be here.
Whatever the physiological reason was for her being stuck in this memory loop as it crumbled around the edges, she reasoned that it couldn’t possibly be good. It felt like a clear sign that her sense of reality was starting to disintegrate.
“This is the bridge,” Captain D’Vora intoned for the umpteenth time, “I repeat: Abandon ship. All hands to the escape pods.”
She was dying.
She reached the intersection again, and braced for what was inevitably about to happen. Seconds later, she was thrown to the floor, her rib snapping with unerringly precise timing.
The pain barely registered anymore. It had happened so often. Even the ever-present thumping headache had faded into the background. Instead, she tried to prepare herself for whatever lay around the corner this time. What out-of-place piece of her own past might be there.
Possibly Salus Hadren. Or Doctor Rahman. Or Commander Calvin, or T’Vess, Jirel, Blake, Cameron, Denella, or whoever else her mind decided to throw at her.
“Warning, structural integrity failure in progress.”
She gritted her teeth. That was her cue.
With some effort, she lurched around the corner. She saw the bank of escape pods, waiting to be boarded. She staggered over to the nearest one. And then she heard the voice from behind her.
Except, once again, it wasn’t the cry of help from the ensign she had heard when this had played out in reality. Nor was it a confusing non sequitur from another face from her past.
Instead, it was a confused voice from her present.
“What the hell?”
In an instant, her face turned ashen. Her stomach churned. She forced herself to turn around from where she stood next to the pod door. And instead of the terrified and bloodied face that had been burned into her memories, she saw the face of the Bounty's pilot.
He was here. Exactly where she had never wanted him to be. His face, etched onto the broken and twisted body of the ensign she had left behind.
Her darkest memory, now laid completely bare in front of Sunek.
She knew that she had already confessed the details of this memory to Jirel, but for all of his other foibles she was at least sure she could trust the Trill to keep a secret like that. She couldn’t say the same thing about the Vulcan.
She watched him trying to figure out where he was, and who he was. He stared down at the remains of the body he was now inhabiting, taking in the plasma burns on the skin of his temporary host, the twisted legs that dragged behind him, and the bloodied stump of an arm at his side.
All things considered, he should have been in agony. The fact that he wasn’t was equal parts relieving and disconcerting.
Natasha remained near the door to the escape pod. Pod NC-12. The same one that she had made her escape in during the Navajo’s real last moments. As Sunek returned his attention back to her, she couldn’t help but look away in shame.
“Hey, doc. No idea what’s going on here, but it took some serious work to find you, and I have no idea how long this meld’ll hold for. But we’ve given you the antidote. So you need to hang on, ok?”
She didn’t answer. Her hand rested lightly on the smooth control surface of the door to Escape Pod NC-12.
“So, yeah,” Sunek awkwardly concluded, “That’s what he wanted me to come here and tell you.”
She looked over at him, drifting back into the conversation.
“Who?”
“Who’d ya think?” the Vulcan replied with an out-of-place grin, “The dumb Trill idiot that hasn’t left your side all this time. No matter how completely useless he’s been in that medical bay.”
Her hand came off the panel, as she slumped down to the floor of the Navajo. As the thumping in her head intensified, a tear escaped her eye.
It felt as though time was moving slower now. Like the memory was slowing down.
Sunek mustered an awkward cough as he glanced around again, through the smoke-filled confines of the corridor, with the alarms and sirens ringing out.
She thought about Jirel, picturing him back in the medical bay, keeping watch over her. And thought about what Sunek had told her about Denella and Klath’s quest to retrieve the supplies they needed from the Son’a. And even considered the work that the Vulcan himself had been putting in to keep in somewhat unorthodox contact with her.
None of them had given up on her. Like she had given up on the ensign in the corridor. The fresh flash of shame hurt almost as much as the headache.
“Point is,” Sunek added, “It's working. We’re nearly there. I think. You just need to…keep fighting.”
She wasn’t sure she could keep fighting. But as she contemplated the possibility that she wasn’t going to get out of this one, she felt a fresh urge, despite who she was talking to. A deathbed confession. Something that she owed the young man she had failed.
“Daniel Cartwright.”
“I beg your pardon?”
She looked away from Sunek and the ravaged body again. But she kept talking.
“That was his name,” she explained, fighting to hold back more tears, “Ensign Daniel Cartwright. Graduated from the Academy in 2374. Engineering specialist, majored in warp field dynamics and antimatter flow calculations. The Navajo…was his first posting.”
Sunek took in the scene again, and began to piece together where he was.
“This is the Navajo--?”
“He was 22 years old,” Natasha forced herself to continue, “His parents were back on Earth, his sister worked for a civilian science group. He even had a partner. Lieutenant Paul Kelleher, posted to the USS Triton.”
A distant explosion from somewhere in the bowels of the ship punctuated her monologue.
“And I left him to die,” she concluded, failing to stifle the latest sob as she reached the crux of her confession, “Right there. On the deck of the ship. I ran and…left him to die.”
Sunek, for all of his emotional experiences in his life, struggled to figure out the best response to the turn that their conversation had taken. But he managed to hold up his tattered stump of an arm.
“I dunno, doc. Looks like he’s done for either way.”
“Doesn’t matter. I left him there. And he deserved better. Triage. Palliative care. Comfort. Something.”
Sunek dropped the stump back to the ground, looking for a different angle.
“How come you know so much about him? Were you close?”
Natasha stifled a bitter sigh and wiped a tear away.
“I’d never even met him. Didn’t even know his name when it happened,” she managed, “But, as soon as I resigned my commission, I started searching back through the list of the deceased from the Navajo’s loss. I knew his face, at least. That never leaves me.”
Another explosion. The pulsing in her head ratcheted up.
“So, I searched and searched. And one day, I found him.”
The walls of the corridor started to buckle.
“Sunek, if I don’t make it, there’s a…letter. On file, back in my cabin. I wrote it to his parents. And I’ve never--I guess I’ve been too scared to send it.”
“Hey, doc, come on. You’re gonna--”
“And I know why. I told myself it was because it felt like nothing I could say to them could ever make any difference. But…”
Further down the corridor, a bulkhead collapsed.
“...It was because I was scared. Of what they’d think of me.”
She stifled another, significantly more bitter sob.
“I didn’t send it because, even after everything that happened, I was still just…worried about myself.”
She sighed and leaned back on the doorframe of Escape Pod NC-12, staring up at the ceiling of the corridor, even as a huge rent opened up in it.
“If I don’t make it, Sunek,” she managed, as everything began to collapse, “Make sure they get that letter.”
“Hey, um, I’m sure you’ll be able to--”
“Please. Sunek. Promise me.”
She looked back at him. A plasma conduit ruptured somewhere nearby. A rare solemn look crossed the Vulcan’s face. And he nodded back.
“Yeah, ok,” he said, “I promise.”
She felt a fleeting moment of peace. But it didn’t last.
The scene began to distort. Sunek’s face disappeared, replaced by the agonised features of Daniel Cartwright. The pain in her temples flared white hot.
And, for one last time, she felt herself falling...
USS Navajo, Kesmet Sector, near Cardassian space
Stardate 52749.3
The deck shook wildly beneath her feet as another wave of firepower struck the crippled vessel.
She couldn’t help but stumble as the ship lurched around, her head slamming into the cold metal wall to her side.
Natasha didn’t know how many times that had happened to her now. How many times she had banged her head, how many times she had staggered through the corridor, how many times she had struggled around the corner, and how many times she had been confronted with a fragment of another memory.
But she did know that she didn’t want to be here.
Whatever the physiological reason was for her being stuck in this memory loop as it crumbled around the edges, she reasoned that it couldn’t possibly be good. It felt like a clear sign that her sense of reality was starting to disintegrate.
“This is the bridge,” Captain D’Vora intoned for the umpteenth time, “I repeat: Abandon ship. All hands to the escape pods.”
She was dying.
She reached the intersection again, and braced for what was inevitably about to happen. Seconds later, she was thrown to the floor, her rib snapping with unerringly precise timing.
The pain barely registered anymore. It had happened so often. Even the ever-present thumping headache had faded into the background. Instead, she tried to prepare herself for whatever lay around the corner this time. What out-of-place piece of her own past might be there.
Possibly Salus Hadren. Or Doctor Rahman. Or Commander Calvin, or T’Vess, Jirel, Blake, Cameron, Denella, or whoever else her mind decided to throw at her.
“Warning, structural integrity failure in progress.”
She gritted her teeth. That was her cue.
With some effort, she lurched around the corner. She saw the bank of escape pods, waiting to be boarded. She staggered over to the nearest one. And then she heard the voice from behind her.
Except, once again, it wasn’t the cry of help from the ensign she had heard when this had played out in reality. Nor was it a confusing non sequitur from another face from her past.
Instead, it was a confused voice from her present.
“What the hell?”
In an instant, her face turned ashen. Her stomach churned. She forced herself to turn around from where she stood next to the pod door. And instead of the terrified and bloodied face that had been burned into her memories, she saw the face of the Bounty's pilot.
He was here. Exactly where she had never wanted him to be. His face, etched onto the broken and twisted body of the ensign she had left behind.
Her darkest memory, now laid completely bare in front of Sunek.
She knew that she had already confessed the details of this memory to Jirel, but for all of his other foibles she was at least sure she could trust the Trill to keep a secret like that. She couldn’t say the same thing about the Vulcan.
She watched him trying to figure out where he was, and who he was. He stared down at the remains of the body he was now inhabiting, taking in the plasma burns on the skin of his temporary host, the twisted legs that dragged behind him, and the bloodied stump of an arm at his side.
All things considered, he should have been in agony. The fact that he wasn’t was equal parts relieving and disconcerting.
Natasha remained near the door to the escape pod. Pod NC-12. The same one that she had made her escape in during the Navajo’s real last moments. As Sunek returned his attention back to her, she couldn’t help but look away in shame.
“Hey, doc. No idea what’s going on here, but it took some serious work to find you, and I have no idea how long this meld’ll hold for. But we’ve given you the antidote. So you need to hang on, ok?”
She didn’t answer. Her hand rested lightly on the smooth control surface of the door to Escape Pod NC-12.
“So, yeah,” Sunek awkwardly concluded, “That’s what he wanted me to come here and tell you.”
She looked over at him, drifting back into the conversation.
“Who?”
“Who’d ya think?” the Vulcan replied with an out-of-place grin, “The dumb Trill idiot that hasn’t left your side all this time. No matter how completely useless he’s been in that medical bay.”
Her hand came off the panel, as she slumped down to the floor of the Navajo. As the thumping in her head intensified, a tear escaped her eye.
It felt as though time was moving slower now. Like the memory was slowing down.
Sunek mustered an awkward cough as he glanced around again, through the smoke-filled confines of the corridor, with the alarms and sirens ringing out.
She thought about Jirel, picturing him back in the medical bay, keeping watch over her. And thought about what Sunek had told her about Denella and Klath’s quest to retrieve the supplies they needed from the Son’a. And even considered the work that the Vulcan himself had been putting in to keep in somewhat unorthodox contact with her.
None of them had given up on her. Like she had given up on the ensign in the corridor. The fresh flash of shame hurt almost as much as the headache.
“Point is,” Sunek added, “It's working. We’re nearly there. I think. You just need to…keep fighting.”
She wasn’t sure she could keep fighting. But as she contemplated the possibility that she wasn’t going to get out of this one, she felt a fresh urge, despite who she was talking to. A deathbed confession. Something that she owed the young man she had failed.
“Daniel Cartwright.”
“I beg your pardon?”
She looked away from Sunek and the ravaged body again. But she kept talking.
“That was his name,” she explained, fighting to hold back more tears, “Ensign Daniel Cartwright. Graduated from the Academy in 2374. Engineering specialist, majored in warp field dynamics and antimatter flow calculations. The Navajo…was his first posting.”
Sunek took in the scene again, and began to piece together where he was.
“This is the Navajo--?”
“He was 22 years old,” Natasha forced herself to continue, “His parents were back on Earth, his sister worked for a civilian science group. He even had a partner. Lieutenant Paul Kelleher, posted to the USS Triton.”
A distant explosion from somewhere in the bowels of the ship punctuated her monologue.
“And I left him to die,” she concluded, failing to stifle the latest sob as she reached the crux of her confession, “Right there. On the deck of the ship. I ran and…left him to die.”
Sunek, for all of his emotional experiences in his life, struggled to figure out the best response to the turn that their conversation had taken. But he managed to hold up his tattered stump of an arm.
“I dunno, doc. Looks like he’s done for either way.”
“Doesn’t matter. I left him there. And he deserved better. Triage. Palliative care. Comfort. Something.”
Sunek dropped the stump back to the ground, looking for a different angle.
“How come you know so much about him? Were you close?”
Natasha stifled a bitter sigh and wiped a tear away.
“I’d never even met him. Didn’t even know his name when it happened,” she managed, “But, as soon as I resigned my commission, I started searching back through the list of the deceased from the Navajo’s loss. I knew his face, at least. That never leaves me.”
Another explosion. The pulsing in her head ratcheted up.
“So, I searched and searched. And one day, I found him.”
The walls of the corridor started to buckle.
“Sunek, if I don’t make it, there’s a…letter. On file, back in my cabin. I wrote it to his parents. And I’ve never--I guess I’ve been too scared to send it.”
“Hey, doc, come on. You’re gonna--”
“And I know why. I told myself it was because it felt like nothing I could say to them could ever make any difference. But…”
Further down the corridor, a bulkhead collapsed.
“...It was because I was scared. Of what they’d think of me.”
She stifled another, significantly more bitter sob.
“I didn’t send it because, even after everything that happened, I was still just…worried about myself.”
She sighed and leaned back on the doorframe of Escape Pod NC-12, staring up at the ceiling of the corridor, even as a huge rent opened up in it.
“If I don’t make it, Sunek,” she managed, as everything began to collapse, “Make sure they get that letter.”
“Hey, um, I’m sure you’ll be able to--”
“Please. Sunek. Promise me.”
She looked back at him. A plasma conduit ruptured somewhere nearby. A rare solemn look crossed the Vulcan’s face. And he nodded back.
“Yeah, ok,” he said, “I promise.”
She felt a fleeting moment of peace. But it didn’t last.
The scene began to distort. Sunek’s face disappeared, replaced by the agonised features of Daniel Cartwright. The pain in her temples flared white hot.
And, for one last time, she felt herself falling...
I had a feeling this was the nexus of this story - live or die, this is what Natasha had to resolve... Thanks!! rbs
Part Four (Cont'd)
USS Navajo, Kesmet Sector, near Cardassian space
Stardate 52749.3
The deck shook wildly beneath her feet as another wave of firepower struck the crippled vessel.
She couldn’t help but stumble as the ship lurched around, her head slamming into the cold metal wall to her side.
No matter how many times this scene had played out, she had never found a way to stop herself from stumbling. She had never found a way to stop any of this.
Everything around her still felt so visceral. The choking smoke, the wailing alarms, the lurching deck under her feet, and the screams of the dying all around her.
“This is the bridge. I repeat: Abandon ship. All hands to the escape pods.”
If she hadn’t been through this exact same memory countless times already, she would have believed it was all really happening.
A fresh spike of pain lanced through her head. She fought against it, trying not to wonder whether that was good or bad news given what Sunek had told her about the status of her treatment. Inside her memory, she staggered onwards. Towards the intersection. Just like she always did.
Another pitch of the deck. Another tumble to the ground. Another snapped rib. It didn’t matter. Not any more.
“Warning, structural integrity failure in progress.”
Because this time, she was going to save him. To hell with her memory. She was going to save Daniel Cartwright, if it was the last conscious thing she did.
She reached the intersection and turned the corner.
And again found herself staring down at a Bzzit Khaht hologram, bleeding out.
“Very disappointing.”
She spun around in shock. Doctor Rahman stared impassively back at her in the burning remains of the starship, shaking his head slightly.
“But--I tried my best!” she heard herself call out down the Navajo’s corridor.
Except it wasn’t the Navajo’s corridor any more. She was in San Francisco. At Starfleet’s Medical Academy.
Except, she wasn’t there either. She was in London. Her father handed her a gift.
Reynard Kinsen’s kindly weathered face smiled as she excitedly grasped the wrapped-up object in her small nine year old hands.
“Open it, Tasha,” he whispered.
She tore into the wrapping and opened the varnished wooden box inside. And picked out a slice of ham and pineapple pizza.
“This was supposed to be our vacation! We were supposed to be sti--hic!--cking together!”
She whirled around inside her suite on Wrigley’s Pleasure Planet, to find Ensign T’Vess pointing an accusing claw at her.
“I’m sorry!” she blurted out, “I just wanted to--!”
Her head started to spin.
Maybe this is what dying feels like.
“That’s what you want to do? With us? You want to run away from all this?”
Blake Aldridge appeared next to T’Vess, staring across the suite at her.
“No! I don’t want to--!”
She was in Cochrane Park, in New Berlin. T’Vess had vanished. She took a step towards Blake, and felt something squelch underfoot. She looked down at the ruined strawberry, then back up at the memory of her ruined relationship.
“I’m sorry, Blake, I didn’t mean to--”
A disruptor blast flew past her head. She felt her legs starting to buckle.
This had to be what dying feels like.
“Lieutenant Kinsen,” Commander Calvin called out, “We need covering fire. I can see Ensign H’Kar trying to fall back with some of the research team.”
“Commander! Don’t--!”
It was too late. Calvin made a break for Ensign H’Kar’s team. The disruptor blast tore through him.
She felt as though her head was about to explode. Was she on Archanis IV? Or Earth? Or onboard the Navajo?
“Very disappointing,” she heard Doctor Rahman say again, from somewhere.
She tried to focus on one memory alone. Something to give clarity to the tumult she was trapped in.
“Open it, Tasha.”
She wanted to go back there. To her family home. To the comforts, and the warmth of her parents.
“You know, you were totally right. Ham and pineapple, it just works.”
But she knew that there was only ever going to be one memory strong enough to latch onto. The one memory that plagued her every night. The one that she had been running away from ever since it had happened.
The red alert siren grew clearer. She forced herself to grip onto it, even as wherever she was right now started to blur and fade.
“Warning, structural integrity failure in progress.”
Everything began to coalesce. The Navajo’s final moments began to resolve. And this time, she told herself again, she was going to save him.
She found herself standing next to Escape Pod NC-12. Her hand was instinctively reaching out for the door controls, just as they had done before.
“Help me!”
Fighting back tears, she turned around. The ensign in the corridor stared back at her, reaching out towards her with his one remaining arm in desperation as he lay prone in the midst of the carnage.
Daniel Cartwright.
Her hand wavered above the control panel. Her head felt like it was about to burst.
“Doctor, help me!”
This time, I can save him, she told herself again with fresh determination. It doesn’t matter that this is all just a memory. I can fix this.
Ensign Cartwright grasped for her, his bloodied face a canvas of fear.
She felt her index finger moving down, gently making contact with the cold surface of the control panel.
“No!”
She cried out at herself, more than anyone else. She tried to move, to race over to help him, just as she should have done.
But that wasn’t how memories worked. She couldn’t fix this.
The pod door began to close. The young ensign stared up at her. She stared back.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered tearfully, “I’m so, so sorry…”
Her head pulsed in agony. Her vision started to fade. The pod door thudded closed, and a cacophony of voices rang out from all around her.
“This is the bridge. I repeat: Abandon ship. All hands to the escape pods.”
“We were supposed to be sti--hic!--cking together!”
“We need covering fire.”
“Warning, structural integrity failure in progress.”
“Doctor, help me!”
“Very disappointing.”
She heard herself screaming.
The Navajo exploded.
****************************
Darkness. Endless darkness.
Then, a flicker of light began to permeate through. Blurry forms started to coalesce. A scene began to form in front of her. She heard a voice call out.
“She’s coming around!”
The scene fully resolved itself, and Natasha saw four familiar faces staring down at her.
“Hey, Nat,” Jirel continued, “Can you hear me?”
Her eyes flickered slightly, and then fully opened. She blinked a few times at the harsh lighting shining down from the ceiling of the Bounty’s medical bay. She tried to speak, but her throat was arid. So she just nodded instead. Denella handed her a small canteen of water and smiled.
“Welcome back.”
She mustered a weak smile, as Jirel helped her to sit up and take a sip of water. Sunek glanced over at the readouts on the screen next to her and nodded.
“Looks like the toxin’s almost flushed out,” he confirmed, “Guess we should send the Son’a a thank you card.”
Natasha looked around at the others, still feeling groggy and decidedly weak.
“How long was I out?”
“Day and a half, give or take,” Jirel replied, offering her a freshly relieved look and forgetting himself for the moment, “You had me worried.”
He paused and self-consciously corrected himself.
“I mean--You had us all worried. All of us. Even Klath.”
The Klingon looked over at the Trill with a fresh look of confusion.
“I was not--”
“Not now, Klath,” Jirel interjected quickly.
Natasha couldn’t help but smile. In relief, more than anything else. She never thought she’d be this happy to see the Bounty’s tattered medical bay.
“So?” Sunek asked, “You feeling better?”
She paused and considered everything that had happened. The tangled mess of memories she had just been trapped inside. Everything she had just been forced to relive.
She looked back at the Vulcan. The one person who now, whether she liked it or not, probably knew more about her than anyone else in the galaxy.
“Yes,” she lied, “I’m feeling better.”
End of Part Four
USS Navajo, Kesmet Sector, near Cardassian space
Stardate 52749.3
The deck shook wildly beneath her feet as another wave of firepower struck the crippled vessel.
She couldn’t help but stumble as the ship lurched around, her head slamming into the cold metal wall to her side.
No matter how many times this scene had played out, she had never found a way to stop herself from stumbling. She had never found a way to stop any of this.
Everything around her still felt so visceral. The choking smoke, the wailing alarms, the lurching deck under her feet, and the screams of the dying all around her.
“This is the bridge. I repeat: Abandon ship. All hands to the escape pods.”
If she hadn’t been through this exact same memory countless times already, she would have believed it was all really happening.
A fresh spike of pain lanced through her head. She fought against it, trying not to wonder whether that was good or bad news given what Sunek had told her about the status of her treatment. Inside her memory, she staggered onwards. Towards the intersection. Just like she always did.
Another pitch of the deck. Another tumble to the ground. Another snapped rib. It didn’t matter. Not any more.
“Warning, structural integrity failure in progress.”
Because this time, she was going to save him. To hell with her memory. She was going to save Daniel Cartwright, if it was the last conscious thing she did.
She reached the intersection and turned the corner.
And again found herself staring down at a Bzzit Khaht hologram, bleeding out.
“Very disappointing.”
She spun around in shock. Doctor Rahman stared impassively back at her in the burning remains of the starship, shaking his head slightly.
“But--I tried my best!” she heard herself call out down the Navajo’s corridor.
Except it wasn’t the Navajo’s corridor any more. She was in San Francisco. At Starfleet’s Medical Academy.
Except, she wasn’t there either. She was in London. Her father handed her a gift.
Reynard Kinsen’s kindly weathered face smiled as she excitedly grasped the wrapped-up object in her small nine year old hands.
“Open it, Tasha,” he whispered.
She tore into the wrapping and opened the varnished wooden box inside. And picked out a slice of ham and pineapple pizza.
“This was supposed to be our vacation! We were supposed to be sti--hic!--cking together!”
She whirled around inside her suite on Wrigley’s Pleasure Planet, to find Ensign T’Vess pointing an accusing claw at her.
“I’m sorry!” she blurted out, “I just wanted to--!”
Her head started to spin.
Maybe this is what dying feels like.
“That’s what you want to do? With us? You want to run away from all this?”
Blake Aldridge appeared next to T’Vess, staring across the suite at her.
“No! I don’t want to--!”
She was in Cochrane Park, in New Berlin. T’Vess had vanished. She took a step towards Blake, and felt something squelch underfoot. She looked down at the ruined strawberry, then back up at the memory of her ruined relationship.
“I’m sorry, Blake, I didn’t mean to--”
A disruptor blast flew past her head. She felt her legs starting to buckle.
This had to be what dying feels like.
“Lieutenant Kinsen,” Commander Calvin called out, “We need covering fire. I can see Ensign H’Kar trying to fall back with some of the research team.”
“Commander! Don’t--!”
It was too late. Calvin made a break for Ensign H’Kar’s team. The disruptor blast tore through him.
She felt as though her head was about to explode. Was she on Archanis IV? Or Earth? Or onboard the Navajo?
“Very disappointing,” she heard Doctor Rahman say again, from somewhere.
She tried to focus on one memory alone. Something to give clarity to the tumult she was trapped in.
“Open it, Tasha.”
She wanted to go back there. To her family home. To the comforts, and the warmth of her parents.
“You know, you were totally right. Ham and pineapple, it just works.”
But she knew that there was only ever going to be one memory strong enough to latch onto. The one memory that plagued her every night. The one that she had been running away from ever since it had happened.
The red alert siren grew clearer. She forced herself to grip onto it, even as wherever she was right now started to blur and fade.
“Warning, structural integrity failure in progress.”
Everything began to coalesce. The Navajo’s final moments began to resolve. And this time, she told herself again, she was going to save him.
She found herself standing next to Escape Pod NC-12. Her hand was instinctively reaching out for the door controls, just as they had done before.
“Help me!”
Fighting back tears, she turned around. The ensign in the corridor stared back at her, reaching out towards her with his one remaining arm in desperation as he lay prone in the midst of the carnage.
Daniel Cartwright.
Her hand wavered above the control panel. Her head felt like it was about to burst.
“Doctor, help me!”
This time, I can save him, she told herself again with fresh determination. It doesn’t matter that this is all just a memory. I can fix this.
Ensign Cartwright grasped for her, his bloodied face a canvas of fear.
She felt her index finger moving down, gently making contact with the cold surface of the control panel.
“No!”
She cried out at herself, more than anyone else. She tried to move, to race over to help him, just as she should have done.
But that wasn’t how memories worked. She couldn’t fix this.
The pod door began to close. The young ensign stared up at her. She stared back.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered tearfully, “I’m so, so sorry…”
Her head pulsed in agony. Her vision started to fade. The pod door thudded closed, and a cacophony of voices rang out from all around her.
“This is the bridge. I repeat: Abandon ship. All hands to the escape pods.”
“We were supposed to be sti--hic!--cking together!”
“We need covering fire.”
“Warning, structural integrity failure in progress.”
“Doctor, help me!”
“Very disappointing.”
She heard herself screaming.
The Navajo exploded.
****************************
Darkness. Endless darkness.
Then, a flicker of light began to permeate through. Blurry forms started to coalesce. A scene began to form in front of her. She heard a voice call out.
“She’s coming around!”
The scene fully resolved itself, and Natasha saw four familiar faces staring down at her.
“Hey, Nat,” Jirel continued, “Can you hear me?”
Her eyes flickered slightly, and then fully opened. She blinked a few times at the harsh lighting shining down from the ceiling of the Bounty’s medical bay. She tried to speak, but her throat was arid. So she just nodded instead. Denella handed her a small canteen of water and smiled.
“Welcome back.”
She mustered a weak smile, as Jirel helped her to sit up and take a sip of water. Sunek glanced over at the readouts on the screen next to her and nodded.
“Looks like the toxin’s almost flushed out,” he confirmed, “Guess we should send the Son’a a thank you card.”
Natasha looked around at the others, still feeling groggy and decidedly weak.
“How long was I out?”
“Day and a half, give or take,” Jirel replied, offering her a freshly relieved look and forgetting himself for the moment, “You had me worried.”
He paused and self-consciously corrected himself.
“I mean--You had us all worried. All of us. Even Klath.”
The Klingon looked over at the Trill with a fresh look of confusion.
“I was not--”
“Not now, Klath,” Jirel interjected quickly.
Natasha couldn’t help but smile. In relief, more than anything else. She never thought she’d be this happy to see the Bounty’s tattered medical bay.
“So?” Sunek asked, “You feeling better?”
She paused and considered everything that had happened. The tangled mess of memories she had just been trapped inside. Everything she had just been forced to relive.
She looked back at the Vulcan. The one person who now, whether she liked it or not, probably knew more about her than anyone else in the galaxy.
“Yes,” she lied, “I’m feeling better.”
End of Part Four
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