Venting

Posted on Mon Oct 9th, 2023 @ 7:12pm by Cadet Senior Grade Toareth Darqa & Cadet Senior Grade Naltar Jerane

2,470 words; about a 12 minute read

Mission: **ARCHIVED** 1 - Cruising through the galaxy
Location: Naltar's Quarters, Deck 2, USS Stardancer
Timeline: Just after briefing - will be updated

Naltar couldn't wait to leave the bridge once the briefing had ended. Personally he wasn't very happy with the engagement he'd seen from the captain or the commander and felt like the whole thing had more or less descended into chaos. The captain had specifically asked what regulation governed the situation, he provided it, and the only other person that voiced confirmation of what he said had been debated to no end. As a result he felt it best to keep what he felt as his most likely ally in the situation as close as possible.

Toareth followed Naltar away from the bridge after the conclusion of the briefing slash debate. She was clearly fuming about something and it, whatever it was, had such a hold of her mind that she followed him blindly. Naltar could have lead her to the nearest airlock, lead her inside, and started the decompression process and she might not have thought anything was wrong.
 
He'd led her back to his quarters and offered his couch for her to take a seat on while he went to his desk and worked to bring up what had been shown on screen on the bridge, only in a three dimensional form from his holoprojector. "Going in without a plan is nothing short of suicide."

"Oh there will be a plan," she said immediately, automatically. When the time comes, there will be a plan. That was all a test. A test to see how we come up with a plan, how we act as a team. That and...pirates!" Toareth looked at Naltar with an incredible look of disbelief. "A ship full of cadets, going on their cadet cruise, and our mission is pirates! No, not cataloging gaseous anomalies. Not saving fuzzy wuzzies from an ion storm." She paused. "Pirates. Organized, determined, violent pirates."

"Ya and if we don't have something that's going to keep them from putting us into their sights and blowing us away, we're gonna get our asses kicked. Pirates aren't going to put up with waiting for us to decide who gets what or saved. It'll be the shortest cadet cruise that ever happened in the history of StarFleet." He walked over to the replicator and ordered himself a small coffee. "Care for something to drink?"

"Yes. Thank you. El-Aur spiced tea. The computer knows what it is. I programmed it myself." She said all that automatically again and in a single breath. All the while, something remained eating at her. "Pirates. I..." and she looked up at Naltar briefly. Her empathic abilities could tell he was genuinely concerned, that he cared, that he could be trusted. "I...have had some experience dealing with pirates. Warlords, tyrants, whatever you want to call them. I've..." she breathed. "I know what it means to be under their thumb."

After punching in the tea order and waiting for it to appear, he picked it up and walked it over to Toareth, handing it to her before taking a sip of his own drink. Something with the fact they were dealing with pirates really didn't seem to sit well with her, although he did fear prying and upsetting her further. "Well, hopefully you stay on the ship at least, it'll be safer. Although I plan to rig up a small signal enhancer in case I have to beam out through this radiation to give myself a chance to potentially make it out alive."

Toareth nearly inhaled her tea as she sipped at it, looked up at Naltar questioningly, almost disgusted.

"If you like," he continued, "I can probably put on together for you too, just in case. But I really hope something more concrete goes into place, because if not I'm going to have a very hard time assigning any of my people to the away team if needed, and if it ends up being me..well...it's going to become obvious as to why this is my second cruise."

Toareth was stuck on what he said that nearly made her choke. "And you could do that?" No, she was not talking about him building a portable signal enhancer, but, "Cut and run. You could do that?"

Not hearing an immediate answer from him, she sat back with a sigh and slurped greedily at her tea. "I've actually done that." She shrugged and then admitted, "more than once." And, before allowing him the chance to speak, "Just make sure everyone dies, especially your allies. If one were to survive and you cross paths later...well...nothing good will come from that conversation."

"Me? Cut and run...no. Probably closer to the lines of what would be considered insubordination. I'd refuse to send anyone or myself from operations, probably be relieved and placed before a captains mast. Spend a short time in confinement and go on with my life. But I don't think I've ever cut and run from anything in my life." Her other comments did bother him however as he took another sip following suit before continuing. "Why would someone want their allies to die? I'm in the business of making sure we're all as safe as possible in the line of duty.... are you okay Toareth?"

"I'm sorry Naltar." She almost moved to stand up but didn't. "I do apologize. I do not mean to suggest anything. It's just..." She looked at him, back at her tea; took a sip. "I've cut and run before as I said. Nothing I am proud of. And...no," she finally answered his question. "I'm not okay." Toareth took a brief moment to collect her thoughts, to decide if she really wanted to get into this or not. She turned to Naltar. "I've run into pirates before. Not these...hopefully not these pirates...and..." Toareth winked at Naltar with her right eye.

That wink turned into another wink. It happened again.

From behind Toareth's right eye and slightly above, in the depths of her brain came a pinch. The first visible reaction was a twitch in her right eye. Toareth placed the tea down on the table beside her, on the edge of the table, perfectly balanced between falling off and staying put. The second visible reaction was her pressing her palm against her head. "No. Not now."

That pinch in her brain began to squeal, a squeal only she could hear. Her right eye attempted to look back into her head and she let out a long, "aaahhhhhh," as pain exploded in her head. It hit her with such a suddenness of pain that her equilibrium was thrown off.

Setting down his drink on the table, Naltar made his way to stand next to the woman to help her put her feet up and lie down. If need be he considered calling medical too.

Toareth felt weightless very briefly as she slid off the sofa as Naltar came to her side, but found the floor with her knees. Her free hand likewise found the floor and provided stability. She pressed hard against her own forehead, moving in circular motions as though that would massage the pain away. She felt the sound of words being spoken but did not hear the words themselves. "I'm Ok...will be OK." Toareth grunted under the pain. "Just one minute."

At this point the Cardassian had knelt next to the woman and had his hands on her shoulders to help stabilize her. The last thing he needed was her passing out and hitting her head "Toareth, why don't you lie down? I'll call for a nurse."

She started breathing heavy as she tried to cope. This one was a bad migraine; long lasting and severely painful, the rare kind. "Ooowwwow, just go away," she nearly yelled. She shot up into a kneeling position and looked forward, at Naltar, around the room, both eyes open, her breathing erratic.

At this point without waiting further for either permission or for her to ask, Naltar took it upon himself to lean her back and placed one arm across the middle of her back and under the arm closest to him so he could lift her. His other arm then was able to go behind her knees and with ease, he was able to pick the woman up and lie her down on the couch.

Toareth did not resist.

"Never mind the nurse, I'm calling one of the other doctors." A moment later he tapped his com badge but was interrupted just before he could speak.

She still did not hear his words, but said, "No. No doctors," anyway. "I am a doctor. No..." she pressed her hand against her forehead again, "no one knows what this is." And with that, the pain subsided. The pinch in her brain was still present, but the pain started away.

He looked into her eyes to see if she would come around and focus on him. For the moment he just saw a blank stare back up towards the ceiling.

Toareth got her breathing under control, closed her eyes and made sure to breathe deep and long. The pinch started to fade away, finally going to nothing. "Just another perk of being me," she said. She opened her eyes and looked at Naltar. She did not need to be empathic to see that he was worried, that he cared. She could feel it all the same. "Migraine," she explained. "One every 30 hours give or take. Lasts maybe a minute, sometimes longer, shorter, painful, not so much. I never know. This one was especially bad." She started to sit up.

He wasn't so sure that she had recovered so quickly and he also didn't want the optics of having to call medical and deal with the rumors that would start. On day one the Cadet CMO is whisked away out of a male cadet's quarters, another Chief where they're alone together. He already had enough trouble to deal with in other areas, eh didn't need more. Gently placing a hand on her shoulder he said "Do me a favor and take just a moment longer."

Toareth eyed that Cardassian a short second, then decided to surrender. "Yes, doctor."

"It's curious that your migraines happen on a schedule more or less."

"What is more curious-er," she said as she reached for her cup of tea, found it, "is that there is no chemical imbalance, no brain damage, no vessel pinched, no over-salinization, no under-salinization, no blood clot, absolutely nothing out of the ordinary going on either visibly or showing up in scans." She lied there and looked up at the ceiling. "I've even had a migraine while being scanned and the scans showed nothing out of the ordinary. I scanned myself, poured over those scans. Even I can find nothing to explain this." She sipped at her tea. It was cold by now, but that was fine. "I have been to human doctors, Vulcan, Romulan, a Cardassian, Risian, I even went to see a religious Trill yahoo. And you want to know what I found?" She did not wait for an answer. "Only the religious yahoo had something to say other than 'I don't know.' He said...let me see if I can re...yeah...'A piece of you is missing. You have already found it. You only need to embrace it. But surround yourself with those who know and love you. Only then will you see and survive.' I left that place unsatisfied of course. I mean, what in Norelmforu does that even mean?"

Listening to her, Naltar took another sip of his drink as well and watched for any signs of her slipping back towards being in pain. "That would be implying it's maybe...spiritual?" Spirituality wasn't something that he himself personally put stock into but at times did find it intriguing at how much others invested. "If there are no physiological symptoms that are showing the root cause of it...that would be my only other guess." There seemed to be a lot more to the woman than he could even guess. Not that he knew much of anything about her race as it was.

"Is it maybe the result of an experience in your past? Something you've been exposed to?" Just to be safe he got up and turn the lights down to about 60 percent to help reduce the chance of any sort of reoccurrence for her migraine.

Toareth grumbled something to herself. Naltar made a point that she had heard many times over. Seeing as how there was no way to disprove it, that somehow made it a possibility to some. Not to Toareth. "I have seen the best in people and I have seen the absolute worst in people. I have worked on all types of injuries from a paper cut to open heart surgery. I have never seen anything that resembled a spirit. I have no reason to believe in anything spiritual."

"Fair enough, I don't quite believe in it myself, but who knows what the issue may really be." He didn't want to continue overloading the woman after this latest episode. While she had assured him she'd be okay, he wasn't quite so certain. "Why don't you take a few more minutes to rest and then I'll take you back to your quarters. Whatever you do from there of course is up to you but I can't in good conscience leave the Chief Medical Officer for this ship somewhere that she can safely recuperate before returning to duty."

Toareth slowly sat up but was still reclined on the sofa. She was, in fact, perfectly fine, for the next 30 hours at least, but knew convincing Naltar of that was not possible at the time. She was convinced at least, that he was not one to cut and run as she had previously suspected. This Cardassian was certainly one who cared and wanted to do right by people. It did not take an empath to reach that conclusion, but she did. Through empathic means and through personal observance, she knew this Cardassian was true to his word. "Thank you," she said. "A few minutes and," she kicked back the cup of tea, finishing it, "and a glass of water if you please."

Replicating the water as requested, Naltar walked it over to the woman handed it to her to take a sip. Next he picked up the empty tea cup and placed it back in the replicator to be recycled. "A few minutes, for both our peace of mind."

"Agreed. And, Naltar," this was not something she always said out of pure genuine gratitude, "thank you." She realized, more often than not, she used that as a means to curry favor for her own ends. This time, though, "thank you," she said again.

 

RSS Feed