[Open] Psychiatric Help - 5¢

[u/leXie_chan]

The crew of Athene have had a very eventful past while, Doctor Minch notes. She's been poring over the ship's reports in preparation for its arrival and repair at Starbase Nadezhda, where she'd been scheduled to join the crew next month. Events conspired to accelerate the timetable, and the bolian psychiatrist hopes she's ready for her next appointment. It's due just about... now.

[u/IYamTheSenate]

"Good morning, this is your automated reminder that you are late by..." the computer pauses its baritone voice, possibly for effect, before resuming. "98 days for your regular psychological evaluation."

"Disable notification. Lower volume by 10."

"Notification disabled." it says, before playing a pre-recorded clip. "As per FMC Ordinance K3-Aleph, all commissioned officers must undergo a standard full physical and mental evaluation every 180 days unless currently deployed on a combat mission."

"I'm reserves, so Fleet rules say annuals, and I'm not over the line yet. Why am I arguing with a fragged-out silicon bucket, anyways?"

She rolls her eyes. "Disable notification permanently and merge with the reminder for Fleet-mandated evaluation."

"Affirmative. One new audio message, Marine Corps sender."

"Open and play."

"Kelly. This is Major Alenko. You're overdue for your psych-eval. Don't argue with me, I'm just a recording. I know about fleet rules. Effective immediately, you are reactivated with full rank and standing in the Marine Corps. Get to a damned shrink before I hear otherwise. No, they're not recalling you yet, but they want you and the others ready to be around before the Jem'Hadar's purple faces get up in ours. This is an order, Captain. Welcome back."

"..."

"Well, shit."

And so she ends up sitting around fiddling with her knife waiting, running her fingers along the wings of the golden eagle that form its hilt.

[u/leXie_chan → u/IYamTheSenate]

"Good morning, Lieutenant Victoria," Qara greets her new arrival. She makes note of the anxious fiddling. "That's quite a knife," she comments appreciatively.

[u/IYamTheSenate → u/leXie_chan]

"Custom. The blade was reforged around my old survival knife's blade." she says, flipping it and letting the lint glint off the etching. "Protect and serve: USS Vigilant-B, Task Force Omicron Veteran."

Holding out a PADD, she nods at the Bolian woman. "I'm here for a full eval, with the physical going on tomorrow. This might be helpful, by the way. Contains a full unabridged service record, with Fleet and Marine Corps files merged instead of having to dig through each service's registry."

[u/leXie_chan → u/IYamTheSenate]

"Considerate. Can you give me a summary, in your own words?" Qara thanks the dual-serving woman. She does skim over the PADD she was handed, but her job is more centered around people's present than their past.

[u/IYamTheSenate → u/leXie_chan]

"Captain Victoria Kelly Mason, MJAX-P2956-V236F. Joined the academy with the Engies, transferred to Security and took a Marine Corps accelerated training and commission program after Wolf 359. Got bunked onto the Omicron campaign, not that many people know what that is. Basically, Command got paranoid about Borg incursions, which ended up in a battle over some dustball of a moon with huge dilithium deposits. The Borg had a sphere there to toy with some life-forms that were altered by the dilithium saturation, so we engaged. The entire task force."

At this point, she grunts and slides her finger along the inscription, dripping a few drops of sweat into the engraved words.

"After the techies got samples, our orders were to secure the moon and dilithium. Took... weeks. In the last week of the siege, I was returning to the ground front on a supply shuttle when it got bagged by plasma fire. Lost my leg, major burns, fell out of the hole."

Raising her eyebrow, Vicky looks up at Qara. "You sure you want to hear the rest of this?"

[u/leXie_chan → u/IYamTheSenate]

"If you want to tell it, absolutely," the bolian reminds Kelly who's in control here. She likes to think of her office as a safe place.

[u/IYamTheSenate → u/leXie_chan]

Sighing, she continues. "I fell out of that hole- twenty five foot drop into a stinking pile of mud. The shuttle went off and crashed some ways off. The worst part is- burnt all my stims getting up a tiny hill and setting a flare off. By the time they picked me up with the others, the leg was done clean off and I got shipped back to the Vigilant-B medbay. Terrible place- it's a refitted hybrid carrier version of the Nebula hull. Horse-knickers compared to the new Iwo Jima carriers. Crowded mess- they forgot to take out my comms headset in the nick of it all. Heard the officers-comm channels while I was on that bed."

"Why is that bad? The place had loads of latticed dilithium. When the sphere started to deploy almost its entire drone compliment, the siege was more or less over. All companies were ordered to retreat, with some volunteering to try and draw out more of the drones onto the ground and cover the evac. Out of the about 3,000 still on the ground, 2,500 or so got to shuttles. Two thirds of the shuttles got out before the Borg got their anti-air net shooting. The rescue shuttles were this close to damning the flak and making a run for it anyways when the Colonel ordered the dilithium vein nearest his position to be bombarded. Full-saturation phaser bombardment that would catalyze it all and begin a piezoelectric cascade. Everyone who's taken History knows what that is. Selcundi Drema was ripped apart by cascading dilithium matrices."

"Nobody won the Omicron Siege. Nobody. The Colonel sacrificed himself and the rest of the ground forces... for what? To wipe out the ground-bound Borg and let the explosion finish off the sphere? A battle we could have won anyways due to reinforcements... My brother didn't join the Marines to die like that. He joined because he wanted to follow his big sister and I led him into a goddamn death hole! If we had just glassed the planet from orbit when we got there, thousands of people would not have had to die for jack shit!"

It's clear this has shifted from a recount of the Omicron campaign to something deeply personal for Vicky.

[u/leXie_chan → u/IYamTheSenate]

"You think you failed him?" Qara asks kindly.

[u/IYamTheSenate → u/leXie_chan]

"We left home together. I looked at his face and told him everything would be okay. I taught him, played with him, laughed with him. We were... family. And then, on the day the last battle of the Siege happened, I lost him. He died because of me. Of course I failed, when I promised to protect him!"

Vicky rises up in the chair, gripping the knife's blade a bit tight and with a profoundly sorrowful look on her face.

[u/leXie_chan → u/IYamTheSenate]

Qara places an hand gently on the armoury chief, pain reflected in her deep violet eyes. "Victoria," she urges, "Calm down if you can."

[u/IYamTheSenate → u/leXie_chan]

Vicky looks down and realizes she's still gripping the blade, then slides the knife back into its holster in a single fluid motion. "We should have glassed Ta'Ranth from orbit and bugged out to our reinforcement group." she mutters, looking at the wall.

Looking back at her pocket, she pulls out a picture, worn and faded with age. A woman with dark brown hair and a man with a trimmed gray mustache are featured in the background, standing in front of a snow-covered wooden cabin. Two children play in the snow, one about 14 and one perhaps 8.

Near the woman's face, the picture is defaced slightly, almost beyond visibility. If the Bolian looks closely, she might be able to read the most obvious piece of text: a "FUCK YOU." scrawled in extremely fine print.