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• Star_Geek Member

  February 2021

  Baby Steps

  Location: Rehabilitation Center, San Francisco Bay Area, Earth

  
  

  "The boredom was what surprised me," she said. "The terror, the anger, fear that turned into panic late at night, all that I expected but not the boredom."

  
  

  The counselor made a tentative touch, mind to mind, and saw her head turn immediately in his direction. Her hazel eyes narrowed and he felt the mental door slam shut. He watched her return her attention to the shoreline, tracking seagull aerobatics while the moment lengthened into an uncomfortable silence.

  
  

  "There were twenty of us in a room that couldn’t have been more than twenty by twenty. No windows. No furnishings.”
  

  “I remember,” the counselor said, “back at the Academy. We all trained for this kind of situation though I suspect the reality is far different, is it not?”

  
  

  She nodded. The side of her mouth that he could see twisted up into a sort of grimace and for a long moment, she took refuge in the ocean and in the waves rolling into the shoreline.  “We had jobs. The ones the Orions gave us, digging and hauling debris, that sort of thing, and the ones the Captain gave us. Some made sure that the food was distributed evenly and that we did what we could for the ones who were sick. Some watched for surveillance equipment. Others watched the guards, timed their patrols."

  
  

  “What was your job,” he asked. An elderly Betazoid, his black hair long since turned silver, his face a latticework of lines, he sat quietly in the deck chair beside her, enjoying the warmth of the sun while he waited for her answers.
  

  
  

  “To remember,” she said and while he couldn’t see her face from this position, he heard the way her voice dropped, whisper-soft, tinged with pain you didn’t have to be Betazoid to know was there. She tapped her temple, “eidetic memory. What I see and hear, I remember. All their faces. Every report. Everything that happened. My job was to remember, to help the Captain make a plan.”

  
  

  "You were planning to escape," the counselor said.
  

  
  

  "Yes, of course. It's what you do, right? Just what they expected as well. So, there were attempts but the price we paid was ... high ..." Her voice dropped lower, barely registering as sound, as she bent her head; long blond hair falling forward to give the illusion of privacy, shielding her face from view for a moment. "The system is designed to prevent it, you see, to ... actively discourage it."

  
  

  “Go on,” he said after a bit. The gentlest of nudges, a tiny prick into the tightly held pain she held close to her. “Please.”
  

  “They killed the weakest. Tortured the officers. The captain said we had to keep trying.” She nodded as if agreeing once more to a tactic that had such a high cost. “And every time, we learned more. Figured it out. Got away.”

  
  

  “Five lost, wasn’t it,” the counselor asked.
  

  
  

  “Yes. Five souls. Two in failed attempts, three in the successful one,” she said. Her voice turned flat, reporting what she knew from memory, bypassing the pain that welled within her.
  

  
  

  “And how have you been sleeping since,” the Counselor asked.

  
  

  “It was hard at first,” she said. “I’d close my eyes and I’d be right back there. Watching it all happen. I won’t say that its gotten easier but time helps. I wake up every morning and give thanks for the good things. That I’m still breathing. That most of us survived. That we took down a major component of that family’s operation and freed over 200 slaves in the process.” She tugged the corner of her blanket up around her, cocooning herself, and nodded. “That’s another thing that surprised me. There’s a Vulcan here, another counselor, and he showed me a meditation technique that’s been helping as well.”

  
  

  “As I told you,” the counselor said, “it's my job to figure out whether you’re ready to return to duty. Make a recommendation. I understand that’s what you want? To go back to your ship?”

  
  

  She tucked her hair behind her ears and turned toward the counselor, bringing the weight of her hazel eyes to bear, and allowing her shields to drop. “Yes,” she said. “I do. Sooner or later, you have to pick yourself up off the deck and get back to work.” She shrugged lightly, the blanket slipping slightly, to reveal the edge of her pajamas. “I’m not entirely healed. That will take time but I am ready to get back to work.”

  
  

  The counselor, who recognized what she offered, slipped into her mind. Orderly and brilliant, shadowed with trauma, but whole. Yes, she’s ready, he thought. He withdrew immediately and smiled warmly. “I hear you play chess,” he said as his gaze dropped to the board on the low table between them. “Up for a game?”

  
  

  She smiled and it struck him that it was the first time, in three weeks of visits, that he’d seen her smile. The shadows clung to the depths of her eyes but the smile was genuine. She picked up two pawns, one black and one white, and put them behind her back, mixing them up, and then held her fists out for him to choose.
  

  
  

  Baby steps, he thought, and each one brings her that much farther back.

  
  

  A post by:

  Lieutenant Eden Redstone
  Chief Operations Officer, USS Nottingham
  

  Lt. Commander Ardelan Rei, Ph.D.
  Counselor