Post by Lt. Commander Liz Sur'Shess on Apr 8, 2019 17:50:50 GMT -8
The whole ship felt like it was trying to collapse on her. No matter where she went, no matter how many problems she fixed or well-meaning patches she diverted from their visitors/helpers...she couldn't seem to breathe.
It had started when she'd realized, when a PADD had pinged and a short, simple message had come through. Liz didn't know how he'd managed it--whether he'd talked Darby into it, or whether the Pelebians had snuck something through--and she didn't care to ask or dig further. It was enough that it was there, a simple acknowledgement of the way things had changed and would keep on changing.
And now it felt like she was going to suffocate.
She'd finally stolen a few minutes, after her third attempt to bypass a junction had led to a zap and a round of cursing from her Lieutenant assistant. She'd given him the rest of the afternoon, and taken a break herself, enough time to inhale a snack and gulp down a cup of coffee. And then she'd stood there in the middle of her quarters and wanted to scream, and scream, and then maybe hit something really hard, just for good measure. Her frame of mind, however, meant that probably wasn't a good idea...a realization she owed to him, too, which only made the wanting to scream even worse.
So she'd fetched up here, in the dim sanctuary she'd never been in before. It was vaguely ecumenical in outlook--she could spy Vulcan accouterments, familiar from the time she'd spent working with a Vulcan, trying to prepare for the Academy. A lifetime ago, it felt like, and probably was given the life expectancy her line of work had shrunk to.
Liz took a deep breath of the incense she'd lit, watching the dim embers of it slowly shriveling away, waiting for peace that stubbornly refused to come. She couldn't stop turning her decision over in her mind--replaying the moment in Cobus-President's hotel room, the way she'd closed her eyes, the choice Darby had presented. It would have been so easy, so laughably simple, to say yes instead of no, to feel herself snatched away in a blossom of light, to be spending today in paint and sunlight and music, with....
She sucked in a deep breath, air trembling in her lungs, and she bit down hard on her lower lip, setting her jaw. It had never occurred to her, in that moment, that anybody would say yes. That any of them would actually take the mad Q up on his offer. That they would abandon her.
And they hadn't. He hadn't. She felt the crawl of his words, just behind her eyelids, the message he'd sent, the assurances. She would be okay. He believed in her.
When had he realized she wasn't there? Had it mattered to him? Had he asked Darby to send him back, to....
Once, in that lifetime before the war, when she'd been young and idealistic and just wanted out of Chardra, when she still mourned a mother who felt like a stranger now, someone had told her you couldn't keep staring at the past. You had to face the future and march into it, because what was behind you just wanted to drag you back into it, until you couldn't move forward at all. And it sounded nice and easy, when the worst thing that had ever happened to you was a freak accident. When the only home you'd ever cared about hadn't filled up with people who wanted you dead. When there was a home to go back to, even if only in theory.
She forced herself to breathe in deep again, taking stock. It wasn't hopeless. There was still light at the end of this tunnel. The Talon was safe, for now, snatched from destruction by the intervention of unexpected allies. Captain Monroe seemed to have a plan. She was going to get a chance to fight. And if there was justice in the universe, if her luck ever changed...maybe she could save the one person she still had a chance to. Maybe at the end of this, after this latest round of loss, she'd be able to have a family again. As broken and little as it was.
Tag: Lieutenant Robin Star
It had started when she'd realized, when a PADD had pinged and a short, simple message had come through. Liz didn't know how he'd managed it--whether he'd talked Darby into it, or whether the Pelebians had snuck something through--and she didn't care to ask or dig further. It was enough that it was there, a simple acknowledgement of the way things had changed and would keep on changing.
And now it felt like she was going to suffocate.
She'd finally stolen a few minutes, after her third attempt to bypass a junction had led to a zap and a round of cursing from her Lieutenant assistant. She'd given him the rest of the afternoon, and taken a break herself, enough time to inhale a snack and gulp down a cup of coffee. And then she'd stood there in the middle of her quarters and wanted to scream, and scream, and then maybe hit something really hard, just for good measure. Her frame of mind, however, meant that probably wasn't a good idea...a realization she owed to him, too, which only made the wanting to scream even worse.
So she'd fetched up here, in the dim sanctuary she'd never been in before. It was vaguely ecumenical in outlook--she could spy Vulcan accouterments, familiar from the time she'd spent working with a Vulcan, trying to prepare for the Academy. A lifetime ago, it felt like, and probably was given the life expectancy her line of work had shrunk to.
Liz took a deep breath of the incense she'd lit, watching the dim embers of it slowly shriveling away, waiting for peace that stubbornly refused to come. She couldn't stop turning her decision over in her mind--replaying the moment in Cobus-President's hotel room, the way she'd closed her eyes, the choice Darby had presented. It would have been so easy, so laughably simple, to say yes instead of no, to feel herself snatched away in a blossom of light, to be spending today in paint and sunlight and music, with....
She sucked in a deep breath, air trembling in her lungs, and she bit down hard on her lower lip, setting her jaw. It had never occurred to her, in that moment, that anybody would say yes. That any of them would actually take the mad Q up on his offer. That they would abandon her.
And they hadn't. He hadn't. She felt the crawl of his words, just behind her eyelids, the message he'd sent, the assurances. She would be okay. He believed in her.
When had he realized she wasn't there? Had it mattered to him? Had he asked Darby to send him back, to....
Once, in that lifetime before the war, when she'd been young and idealistic and just wanted out of Chardra, when she still mourned a mother who felt like a stranger now, someone had told her you couldn't keep staring at the past. You had to face the future and march into it, because what was behind you just wanted to drag you back into it, until you couldn't move forward at all. And it sounded nice and easy, when the worst thing that had ever happened to you was a freak accident. When the only home you'd ever cared about hadn't filled up with people who wanted you dead. When there was a home to go back to, even if only in theory.
She forced herself to breathe in deep again, taking stock. It wasn't hopeless. There was still light at the end of this tunnel. The Talon was safe, for now, snatched from destruction by the intervention of unexpected allies. Captain Monroe seemed to have a plan. She was going to get a chance to fight. And if there was justice in the universe, if her luck ever changed...maybe she could save the one person she still had a chance to. Maybe at the end of this, after this latest round of loss, she'd be able to have a family again. As broken and little as it was.
Tag: Lieutenant Robin Star