JL Cin Sha'mer & Indi Hawk | "Eve of Destruction" (Part 2)

Posted on 241708.27 @ 9:26am by Rear Admiral Indi Hawk

Mission: Non-Plot Log

"Who do we have here?"

"Rear Admiral Hawk. Somebody called in a medical emergency through her combadge."

"Who did?"

"We don't know, the call wasn't logged."

"What happened?"
"Unclear. All we know is that she was beamed up from one of the parks on the Starfleet campus. She was right next to a tree that had been struck by lightning hours before. As far as we know, she wasn't near that tree, so the two events aren't related."

"How is she doing?"

"We're not too sure. There was trauma to her head and brain. We managed to stop the brain bleed, that was a minor issue. As far as we can tell, there was no reason for her to drop unconscious like this. We suspect telepath involvement, but we can't ask her until she wakes up. *If* she wakes up."

"If?"

"For all our Medical knowledge, she should be up and about again. There's no physical reason for her to not be up and about, and yet she won't regain consciousness. It's mistery we're unable to solve for now."

"OK. Thank you."

--

With a sigh, the hospital administrator sagged down behind his desk ten minutes later. His chief doctor had just informed him that the head of Quadrant Security was laying unconscious in his hospital, and that they weren't sure what was wrong. Just great.

With regret and some trepidation, he wrote two messages. One to SF HQ. Very brief and to the point, informing them one of their officers had been injured and now resided here.

For the other one, he looked up who was listed as her next of kin. Great. Another Admiral. He called up a new message, and started typing.

Admiral Sha'mer, It is my duty to inform you to your wife, Admiral Indira Hawk, has been injured and is now a patient in this hospital. Her condition is quite serious. If you could come in at your earliest convenience, I will go over what we know with you. You can find me in my officer. Her room number is 503. -Hospital Admin

With a sigh, he reread the message once, and then hit the send button.

It was the insistent beeping of an incoming call which roused Sha'mer from… what? Sleep? Unconsciousness? No, something else, something between those states, akin to them, but neither. She lifted her head, surprised to find herself in another anonymous room, maybe the same one in which she woke up (a few days ago? Time…) maybe another one. No longer in the park, no longer near that poor destroyed tree, no longer next to the spot where Indi had lain.

How had she gotten here? Feeling the aches all over her body, Sha'mer sure hadn't walked. Some other way, then? Probably. Likely. Beyond any awareness or memory. Black hole stuff.

The beeping continued, on and on and on-

Sha'mer tried to roll over to hit the button. Managed after a few tries. Her whole chest and shoulder region throbbed. What the hell? She carefully moved both shoulders, alert for any movement which didn't belong there, or sudden pains. No broken bones, she concluded after her slow evaluations. Well, thank the stars for small blessings.

She finally could reach the button and did so. A small screen came to life: text message only. Another small blessing. Life was just full of 'em today.

Sha'mer read the message. Read it again. Blinked, slowly, as some memories began to resurface. She sat up (which took another few tries) and ran a hand through her short hair. Then, sighing, wincing, she touched the old comconsole and opened a channel to the hospital. "Sha'mer to hospital administrator. I understood you were trying to reach me."

The incoming call startled him out of his reveries. He'd just sent a few more messages to family. Read a few more personnel reports. Tried to clear a desk that would never be empty. At the incoming call, voice only, he eyed his console wearily. As soon as he heard the identification, he considered not picking up at all. Admirals were strange creatures. Even more so when their family was involved. In the end though, he remembered the professional being he was supposed to be and hit the acknowledge button.

"This is him. Admiral, I'm sorry to have bothered you. I take it you have read my message?"

"I have." Sha'mer looked at the weary-looking man on the other end of her viewscreen. "Unfortunately, I am rather tied up at the moment and am unable to come to the hospital myself. Is there anyone who can tell me more about my wife's condition?"

As the viewscreen came alive after Sha'mers acknowledgement, he did a double take as he saw how bad the woman looked. This appeared to be quite the Admirals' family. He resisted from asking if she was doing alright, instead scrolled through a list on his other screen. "Doctor Danya Jennor is still on call. I'll transfer you to her immediately," he spoke and with a nod faded the screen. Damn, he was glad he could pull out of this conversation so quickly. Relaying the call to the involved doctor, he went back to work.

Getting through patient charts, Jennor was glad for the incoming call. She hated paperwork and it was a welcome distraction. Until she saw who the call was from. Of course. Her shift was almost over, and now she would have to explain why a woman wasn't waking up hours after she should have been dismissed. "Admiral Sha'mer, I'm glad you could get in touch," she started with more bravado then she was feeling.

"Doctor Danya," Sha'mer said, with a slight nod at the Bajoran doctor. "Unfortunately, not in person at the moment, as I already explained to your administrator." She had noticed the man's slight frown at her call, but had no idea if that was because he had expected her to drop everything and rush for the hospital or for some other reason. "What can you tell me?"

"Not a lot, I'm afraid," Danya sighed carefully. There was something to be said about breaking news such as this over a comm line. It made things more distant, less personal. On the other hand, it could make things a lot more painful for the people at the receiving end. They were less understanding. Less room for empathy. "Admiral Hawk was brought in almost eight hours ago. She had suffered neurological trauma which caused a brain bleed. I must warn you that it's one of the worst bleeds I've seen in my career. We managed to stabilize her though. The bleeding has stopped and she's not resting," she spoke, unsure whether or not to push on. Then again, she had little choice. "Unfortunately, she should have waken up within the hour after the completion of the procedure. She hasn't. Which suggests..." now, she did trail off.

Eight hours. That gave her a time frame at least. Sha'mer raised an eyebrow. "Which suggests what, doctor?" Her dislike of doctors had not changed over the past years, she noted with little surprise. She was not in the mood this time, though, to hold any of that in. "I prefer you tell things to me straight. Cut the dramatic pauses. This is not acting school."

Danya decided she didn't like the woman. It wasn't up to her to like her though. It was up to her to tell what she knew. No more. No less. "I understand your question, ma'am," she spoke softly, carefully, but with purpose. "Unfortunately, it doesn't suggest anything yet. We can't see any damage and yet she's not awake. The brain is a strange thing, we still don't understand it. She should be up and about, and yet she isn't. It's as if it shut down, but there wasn't a reason for it. The brain bleed was serious, yes, but it shouldn't have caused a comatose state. Right now, I can't tell you when or even if she'll wake up."

So, first it suggested… something, then not anything yet. Maybe the woman was a capable doctor, she probably was, but her communications skills were sorely lacking. Then again, Sha'mer thought wryly, so were her own.

"Get a doctor specialised in telepathy," Sha'mer told her curtly. "A telepath, Betazoid, Ullian, whatever. They will be able to tell you if she is there or not. If there is any damage which the tests can't reveal, they can tell you about it. Maybe even help." They would have to. Sha'mer sure as hell wouldn't be able to do anything. Except for more harm.

"Of co-" Danya started, reconsidered and took a deep breath. The sooner she could end this conversation, the better. "Doctor Alyn has been informed that she needs to see the Admiral as soon as her shift starts," she carefully replied. Her colleague was probably about entering the building as she spoke, but she wasn't about to tell that.

Sha'mer closed her eyes and sighed. She was weary to the bone. "Please ask her to contact me as soon as she has more information," she said, opening her eyes again. "I'll be here for awhile."

With a curt nod, Danya closed the channel. She rubbed her head for a moment before getting to her feet and heading over to Alyn's office. Perhaps it wouldn't be such a bad thing to move the Admiral up on the good doctor's patient list. "Alyn, do you have a moment?" she asked as she rounded the corridor and stepped into the office of which the door was open. "Did you see the message I forwarded you on the brain bleed patient?"

"Hey Jennor," the Betazoid said, still standing behind her desk. "No, didn't see it yet, I just got here. Hang on a sec, I'll call it up." She slid down in her chair with a toss of her head, to avoid snagging her long hair between the chair's back and her own. "An Admiral, huh," she muttered as her eyes moved across the file, "Human, age… okay… mm-hmm… operated, yes… Okay, you suspect telepathic causes, that's why you've asked me?"

The other doctor shrugged. "I don't see what other causes there could be. This patient has no other reason not to wake up," she paused, briefly considering how to put the rest of it politely. "And she's married to an other Admiral. If we don't go the full length here, Starfleet will be on our case again and I want to avoid that at all cost. The patient's Human, I don't see where or how much of a telepathic cause can do this, but that's your specialty. Right now, I just want to go home to be honest."

Alyn smiled at her collegue. "It shows," she said. "Go home, Jennor. I'll take this over. Is her spouse already aware of the situation?"

"She's..." Jennor paused. "Eager to hear back from you," with that rather cryptic description, she nodded curtly and headed out.

"If she's so damned eager, why the hell isn't she here?" Alyn muttered to herself. Transferring Indi's file to a padd, she rose and went to visit the patient herself.

One room. A single bed. A single patient. Alyn took her in with an experienced glance. Human. No obvious injuries. Physically appeared to be in fair health, something which her file seemed to support. Slightly pale face. Eyes closed.
Alyn came to rest at the foot of the bed, curled both hands around the foot board and concentrated. One deep breath, a second, to empty her mind, a third to initiate the meditative trance. She cleared her own mind of all clutter, stowed it neatly away behind her inner shields. No stray thoughts, no preconceptions. A blank slate.

Only then did she relinquish her shields, slowly, a bit at a time, her mind reached out and touched that of the other.

Nothing. Blank. Empty.

Carefully, Alyn went in deeper – not with her full mind but with a small probe, gentle, a deft touch: a petal carried by the wind would leave more impact. Deeper. Contact. An echo: a small child sitting in front of a closed, steel-enforced mind, spent, exhausted, battered and bruised from throwing herself at that door again and again and again – and behind that door, radiating faintly even from Alyn's perspective – it was dark.

The child didn't acknowledge the new presence, in fact, it didn't move at all. It was sitting in nothingness. It wasn't white, it wasn't black. It wasn't sitting on the floor, it wasn't floating in the air. It was nothing.

There was another door. Carved in wood, no less solid, no less closed, no less impenetrable than the steel-enforced one. More darkness radiated from it. The same and yet so different. Two people, two souls. One person, two souls. One person, one soul. Shredded to pieces and yet preserved. Protected and yet destroyed.

It was unlike anything Alyn had ever seen.

She created a ghost-image of herself, a shadow which was only marginally connected to Alyn's true-self, but which could interact freely with others within this no mans land. Alyn's shadow walked over to the child, crouched down next to her and slowly, to ensure she didn't startle the child, she placed one ghost-hand on her shoulder. "Hi," she said softly. "Can I help you?"

Meanwhile Alyn's true-self studied both doors. Both belonged in the woman's mind, but only one was her own creation. The other one lead to somewhere else. Someone else? How did a human end up being bonded with a telepath?
Something inside the mindscape detected the probing, the questions. It was a presence that didn't belong there. From far away, from nothing, a deep rumble started to rise. It grew steadily more and more loud. More and more vibrant.
The child looked from the woman to the nothing. To the growing vibrations that rattled the core of everyone present. She looked even more fearful, forcefully shaking her head. Whether it was an unspoken answer to the woman's question, or a denial of what was to come, was unknown.

Alyn's shadow picked up the child and cradled it, stroking it gently. With every stroke, cuts and bruises disappeared. But she kept the link to her true-self to a minimum, wanting to cut it at any sign of a true attack.

Alyn's true-self frowned. The rumbling came from deeper inside the human Admiral's mind, from the dark levels, the basements. She made a quick note on her padd. More help would be required here, this was something she could not do without backup.

Again she thought of the other door. Another bond. Alyn nodded to herself and opened her eyes. Still keeping the link to her shadow open, Alyn walked over to the comm panel and opened a channel.

Again with the insistent beeping. Sha'mer rubbed her face, winced as she felt tender, puffy flesh. Another text message?

No, this was someone else calling her. Another doctor, by the looks of it. Something in her eyes… Betazoid? "Sha'mer here," she began.

"This is Doctor Alyn. I believe my colleague informed you of my upcoming examination of your wife?" she asked without preamble. There was no time to be lost. "I'll be frank, Admiral. I need your help."

The child inside began to tremble as Alyn's true-self spoke the words. The cuts and bruises had disappeared, but its hands, shoulders, its entire body began shaking uncontrollably. Alyn's shadow held her, rocked her, comforted her. But the shadow glanced up as she caught a glimp of what her true-self saw. It is her! she she cried. There was no doubt: face outside matched with what she caught from the link-door.

No, you don't, Sha'mer thought, meanwhile. You really, really don't. But she kept that thought were it belonged, behind her shields, not where the Betazoid or any other telepath could sense it. "Your collegue informed me that somebody else would take over, yes," she replied. "What can I do for you?"

Yes, what could this woman do for her? To Alyn it was clear that she was intrinsically linked to the patient laying in the bed next to where she was standing. But how did you make it clear without making it clear? The other woman wasn't a telepath either. How was it possible that her patient had a door in her mind which linked them directly to each other. "I think you know, ma'am," she started, somewhat wearily. Her shadow self was struggling to calm the child. Her patient's heartbeat and breathing were rapidly accelerating. "Your wife needs your help."

Sha'mer closed her eyes and rested her face on her hand – the non-hurting side of her face. For the life of her she couldn't remember why the other side did hurt, but by now Sha'mer had grown so used to those holes in her memory that they barely even noticed them. Some time was missing. Some information was missing. So? Time was a fuzzy thing.

"You must understand," she said slowly, reopening her eyes, "that we haven't seen each other in years. We only reconnected" (when?) "a few days ago. Neither of us has talked about our experiences. But it is clear they have had a deep impact on her." She took a deep breath. "What kind of help did you have in mind?"

How to put it delicately? "I have completed my first examination of your wife's - can I call her Indi? - mind. I've seen some odd things. I think you know more about them," Alyn spoke carefully.

Inside Indi's mind, the child let out a high pitched scream. Her true-self winced and retreated just a bit further while strengthening her shadow self. The pitch kept rising rising rising –

Hush dear… her shadow crooned to the child. She constructed a small play house here in this construct of the mind, placed it around herself and the child. Inside she made it warm and dry, with pretty colours and blankets and pillows. Let outside stay outside for now. This is a safe space. There is always a safe space. I'm here with you. Hush…

"You can call her that, yes. What exactly is it what you wish to know?" Sha'mer had no idea what the other woman had seen so far, and had no intention to pry. Too dangerous…

The child was momentarily pacified. Whether is was because of the playhouse or because it was obvious that Sha'mer wouldn't be prying, was uncertain. Impossible to tell.

How to make a non telepath understand what was going on in somebody's mind? Alyn let out a small sigh. "There are two... doors.. for want of a better word, in Indi's mind. They're both locked. One of them, I think, is her own mind. I'm not sure yet why it's locked. Something has happened though. Something serious. My thoughts are that you are somehow connected to the second door. It's locked. If you're connected to it though, you might be the only one able to unlock it. To unlock her mind."

Sha'mer sighed tiredly. "Her door could have to do with her own experiences. I would advice caution when you open it. Don't do it alone." Her mouth thinned as she came to the next part. "As for that other door, you are correct in your assumption. I told you just now that we haven't seen each other in years. During that time, I, too, have had…" black hole "some bad experiences. Like many others, I suppose, so that's hardly unusual," she added with a smirk. Then she leaned forward, towards the screen. "I love her. I want to help her. But if we… connect, if that door opens, somehow, it will not be first and foremost that love she sees, Her darkness draws to mine. I believe it would be an exceedingly bad idea to have me remotely near her mind just now." And in the forseeable future. And maybe- black hole.

Alyn nodded slowly. She had no idea what was going on between these women, nor could she ever talk about it anyone because of doctor patient confidentiality, but there was something. Something dark. Something they both wanted to avoid. Something they'd failed to avoid. "I understand, Admiral. But I'm not sure what you want me to do if you believe you can't help. If you're aware of the door, you're also aware of the fact that it's highly unlikely anyone else will be able to open it."

"That door – between us – will remain closed up until the moment that Indi wants to open it-" without being drawn to the darkness within. "Not before. As to the other one…" Sha'mer sighed deeply, suppressed a wince as her ribs let her know that there was some bruising or whatever there, too. The thought What happened there? came and went so fast she barely noticed. "Enter at your own peril. I do concur, it must be done. But- I'm sure you have considerable experience in the field." Sha'mer sighed and rubbed her forehead. "I hope you can keep me posted," she said softly.

"Of course I can," Alyn continued to nod. She didn't know what had sparked this reluctance, but she had a feeling she would find out before this whole thing was over.

"Thank you." Sha'mer smiled a tired smile. "I wish there was more I could do…" But there isn't. She felt tired and faint, wondered absentmindedly when the last time was she ate. Sometime yesterday, or the day before, that odd four in the afternoon 'breakfast'? Or the foodstuff in Sabine's office? Those were the meals she could recall. Maybe there had been more. Maybe not. She wasn't hungry, anyway. "Thank you," she said again.

--

assorted characters by Cin Sha'mer & Indi Hawk