RAdm. Cin Sha'mer & VAdm. Scholtz-Archer | 'TBD'

Posted on 241708.21 @ 3:15pm by Rear Admiral Cintia Sha'mer & Admiral Sabine Scholtz-Archer

Mission: Reconciliation & Reconstruction [Fleet Plot]

"Admiral, incoming message for you from Security. They have just brought Rear Admiral Sha'mer in from Spacedock. They appear to be somewhat unsure what we should do with her. Any advice?"

A slender brow arched high and Sabine found herself uncrossing her legs to scoot closer to her screen, "Rear Admiral Sha'mer... She mused, mulling the name over in her mind. It was one she hadn't heard in a long time, "Bring her here, to my office."

Several voices could be heard as the channel remained open. "The Admiral said to bring her to her office."

"What, as she is?"

"Just as long as she gets out of mine."

And another voice, much softer, partially drowned out by the others: "...have a carpet?"

Then the original voice again: "-channel is still open! Sorry about that, Admiral. We're bringing her to you."

"NOW!" Sabine was the mouse that roared, her ire quickly conjured by the stupidity on the other end of the line as she issued her order and killed the link between them. Asses would be had later, but for now her interest lay in why Cintia Sha'mer was in a brig... How the Hell had she gotten there? Where the hell had she come from? ... And why she wanted a carpet.

It wouldn't take long for her to find out, her aide opening the office door and ushering a group inside without much fanfare or introduction not even five minutes later. Sabine scrambled to her feet, her hands braced against the mahogany top of her desk as she observed the dog and pony show as it arrived. Jesus. The Admiral was a sorry sight, "A drink." Sabine sputtered, motioning to the replicator, "Get Admiral Sha'mer a drink." Her aide nodded and jogged the few steps to the replicator, her fingers stumbling as she clumsily ordered the Admiral a glass of water and brought it to her.

"You..." Sabine pointed to one of the men holding Cintia, "Help her to the couch... Admiral Sha'mer, are you alright?"

Ooh, a couch, even better than a carpet! Screaming people, on the other hand, meant again no sleep. Then again, for once they didn't appear to be screaming at her. Such an improvement.

Answer questions honestly… "I will be after either a week of sleep or a stim pack." At least give me something so that I can think *straight*!

"Drink the water, we'll get you a stim pack and them we can get you somewhere safe where you can sleep for as long as you want." Taking the glass from her aide, Sabine rested a hand on Cintia's dirty shoulder and followed the procession to the couch where the woman was carefully deposited before she offered it up to her. She didn't care about the pillows or the leather, things could be cleaned later - what she cared about was the woman.

The next thing she knew, her aide was returning with the promised stim pack and it was administered with the same care and grace. The entire time, Sabine found herself lost in thought with worry creasing her brow as she watched and waited. "Better?" She finally asked. It would likely be the last of the easy questions.


The stimpack hit, rushing through her like a freight train, dragging the bone-wearying fatigue with it as it passed. It would be back later with a vengeance, Sha’mer knew from long experience, but she needed to be clearheaded and awake now.

She sat up and looked around. “Either this is Starfleet Command or it’s a damned good illusion...” she muttered. For a moment, her eyes clouded as she touched the nearby minds. Nothing invasive, just the mental equivalent of scanning for transponder signs: the Admiral here in the office, her assistant, several others in adjacent offices. Then her eyes cleared again. “No illusion...” She took a deep breath and ran a hand through her hair – at one point, not too long ago, it had been shorn short or just shorn off altogether, and now it was beginning to grow back, short dark brown spikes of hair. “Yes,” she replied at last. “Better.”

"No. No illusion." Sabine shook her head, her words slow and concise as she regarded the slowly awakening Admiral with a growing sense of concern. While the woman claimed she was 'better', that was a subjective term at best and the definition loose and open to a wide spectrum of interpretation, "Can I get you something to eat?" She asked, shooing away her aide and the security officers with a masterful motion of a single hand. Sabine was a lot of things, in perfect control of her domain being just one of them.

"Anything but synthetic slush," Sha'mer said, heartfelt. "The replimat of that brick was broken. It produced foodstuff, but it was just, ugh." She looked around, more alert now. "What's the stardate?" she asked. "I've lost all track of time."

Torn between getting the woman the biggest steak she could find and taking it slow for sake of adjusting her digestive tract, Sabine drifted off towards the replicator in her office. Cintia was a special case, coming back to life, but still requiring a degree of delicacy - a different one, albeit, to what Hawk had required - but delicacy all the same. Sabine was just the woman for the job, she thought with a small smile, and Cintia would be right as rain in no time flat just so long as things went well from here on out. "241708.14." She replied softly, returning to the woman with a plate of breakfast foods held out like an olive branch. "Do you mind me asking what happened?"

Sha'mer looked at the plate eagerly, took it with both hands. She began to eat, but slowly, taking small bites. She had been down this road before, she remembered, though for the life of her she couldn't remember the details of those earlier times.

"There are holes in my memory," she said frankly. "I remember bits." She took another small bite, swallowed. "2417…" Sha'mer said, so quietly that it was almost a whisper. "I lost track of time. Deliberate, no doubt." She looked up at the other woman. Once, they had been peers. Sha'mer knew that, but only as a dispassionate fact. She could not remember how it felt to be like her. There were memories, images of herself in an office not too dissimilar from this one, but it was like looking at a movie of someone else. Now there was a galaxy of difference between the other woman and herself.

"I cannot give you a coherent history," she said at last. "All I know are fragments. Bits and pieces. When the troubles started, we were cut off, I remember that." She hadn't been on Trilista or Raven when things went down, but somewhere out, in space. En route from somewhere to somewhere else. For the life of her she couldn't remember what. "I know I tried to make it back. Then the ship I was on was captured."

"Captured?" Sabine asked, tugging on the leg of her uniform slacks as she slowly took up space in a seat and crossed her legs. Her brows furrowed and knit together as she studied the sight before her - an Admiral reduced to shambles and rubble, a husk of the reality that had once been. Cintia Sha'mer was revered as a capable and magnificent member of the Starfleet Admiralty. Now? Sabine's head almost shook - pitying her wasn't the answer.

Sha'mers eyes were no longer dull, they were now shining with stim-induced brightness. But she avoided eye-contact with the Admiral, deliberately. For the other woman's protection, not for Sha'mer's. "I don't know by whom. They never identified themselves. I think some of them were Romulans…" Here was another of those holes in her mind, there were so many of them, it was like walking through a minefield, telling all this. "If they were, it might've been a rogue group. They were targeting telepaths, empaths, other talents in that field. Hunting for them. They killed everyone else, only took me…" Sha'mer shuddered at the memory, half wished that this one was also hidden in one of those gaps. Blood does weird things in zero-G… "They wore blockers. Shields. Couldn't read them, scan them, feel them. Looking at them felt like looking at the walking dead."

She looked down at the plate again, picked up something small, nibbled at it. Real food, real texture. "They kept us blocked too. Most of the time. Sometimes they took us out. Hunting. For ships like mine. People like me. Or they-" Gap time. Sha'mer shuddered. Mine field, oh yes. Back off, for now. She fell silent, lost in the maze.

Sabine knew better than to pry - the information would come in due time and when it did, she'd be there to listen. For the sake of Starfleet and the sake of Cintia Sha'mer. Anything less would have been barbaric and cruel - traits that the Admiral simply failed to possess. Instead, she offered the woman a comforting smile and the warmth of understanding. "I think I get the point... I have one more question before we forget about this for now and get you somewhere safe and comfortable," She spoke slow and calm, shifting through a PADD to find the woman a suitable living arrangement for the time being, "Did you ever hear the name V'rith Tr'Bak during your... Incarceration?"

Something deep inside Sha'mer grew very cold and still. This wasn't a hole, this was an abyss. The glass fell out of suddenly nerveless fingers and rolled onto the floor. She shook her head, but in denial rather than in answer to the question. It was an abyss, and it was staring back at her. "No…" she whispered. "No… I don't want to remember…"

Recoiling from the sound of the falling glass, Sabine held up a hand and shook her head along with it, "Admiral Sha'mer... Cintia... It's ok. It's not important right now, not at all." Instinctively, she moved closer to the haggard woman, uncaring about the state of her current affairs beyond the need for emotional support. While her aide made a step to end the meeting, Sabine waved her off with a pointed glare. This was too fragile and important to simply sweep under the rug. Not this time. Not this woman. Not this story. "All in due time. Right now we need to get you somewhere you can freshen up and crawl into bed."

It took some time before the words penetrated. She was no longer in that minefield (or would she ever really leave?). Focus on the here and now. Focus on the other woman's voice, on this room, the food in your hand, its taste in your moth. Come back.

A bed. An actual bed. Not a carpet. Not a bunk in a brig. A bed and a chance to sleep. Already Sha'mer could feel the stimpack lose its effectiveness. It was still working, but she could feel the fatigue of weeks or months or years pressing against the sidelines, waiting to rush in and tackle her. "Yes." And freshening up. Finally to be clean again. What was that like, again, feeling clean? "Please."

Vice Admiral Sabine Archer-Scholtz
Commander
Alpha Quadrant
Starfleet

&

Rear Admiral Cintia Sha'mer
As of yet unassigned