Flashback to another time

Posted on 04 Apr 2009 @ 3:36pm by Colonel Stadi Andrus

2,232 words; about a 11 minute read

Mission: M1: Prepare for Battle
Location: USS Alberta
Timeline: 2375 the Second Battle of Chin'toka

Melanie had finished putting everything together in sickbay. She had left the ridiculous EMH in charge until she returned. She was completely exhausted and needed some sleep before the casaulties started rolling in.

She entered her quarters and went directly to the couch, it was closer than the bed and she was, after all just talking a nap. Her eyes closed and soon she dreaming...

As she approached Talar allowed his eyes to wander slowly down then up again to rest on her own just as she came to a halt. Oh how very impressive, it said without the slightest degree of sincerity, a sentiment echoed and emphasised by the perfunctory tone in which he greeted her.

“You must be Hemmingway,†he said. The scene, a crowded promenade infused with the turmoil of a myriad of souls who did not know whether they would see tomorrow. It faded quickly, the new place more enclosed but with the same threat in the air and the same supercilious twist on his lips. He wore a medical coat now, over plain clothes; a futile attempt to appear less of an outsider and to foster trust among the distrusting Feds who had been his patients for those few short weeks.

Talar took the woman’s arm, “There’s nothing more you can do,†he hissed pulling her after him toward the cluster of escape pods. “This battle is lost and if you want to see earth or whatever infested rock you call home again you’ll come with me and stop struggling,†he said.

"No! Let me go!" But knew that struggling was pointless, he was stronger than she was, her arm would bruise if she struggled any harder. "Why do you care if I live or die, Romulan?" She asked as he pulled her to the escape pod.

Finally he released his hold. "I don't care," he snapped, "there is a war on and we are already short of hands, sacrificing yourself serves no purpose, a live doctor is more use than a dead one, slightly." He ducked into the escape pod and turned back one hand propped against the top of the entranceway. "Die if you want to and when this ship is disintegrating around you, spare a though for those you might otherwise have saved."

Melanie took one more look around her, she hesitated seeing the injured and dying around her. She took a step forward but knew it was futile. She stepped into the escape pod. ~Happy now?~ She thought to herself. Guilt already starting to consume her.

In 2375 a long, long hush had followed increasingly, uncomfortable in the confined spaceonce the signs outside of the lost battle receded and all that could be heard was the dead, dead silence of space.

“The Dominion normally destroy the escape pods,†Talar said eventually. He linked his fingers behind his head and placed his feet on the unresponsive control panel. “And whatever that energy weapon was that took out the ships has left us with no guidance. All that is keeping us moving is the momentum caused by the ship finally exploding. I can’t even generate a beacon,†he added.

"Great." She said with a great sigh, there was nothing they could do...

“We’ll keep on going until we get caught in the pull of a larger body that draws us in, or else we run out of oxygen.â€

Melanie was now wishing that she had stayed on the ship...at least it would have been a quick death...none of this suffocating bullshit. "So either we burn up in the atmosphere of some planet, or into a star we go or we suffocate..."

Talar nodded, “I don’t know what the likelihood of an allied ship picking us up is … not very high, I suppose. I’m not frightened of dying, we are raised knowing that at some point we will most likely give our lives for the Empire,†he said, a little morbidly, “D’latta we call it … but being lost fighting someone else’s battle doesn’t usually come into consideration.â€

He swivelled the seat so that he could see the very small world they inhabited and rested his elbows on his knees. “What about you, Hemmingway? What’s your view?â€

"I am Starfleet born, my father a Captain."

"Which means what? You're still hoping for rescue after this long?"

"I will not die here in this escape pod if that is what you mean, Romulan. We will be found."

How Talar wished he had had time to grab a knife ... any weapon would have done, then he could have used it on her and then turned it on himself. Instead it was a slow death by stages, time was growing short ... he could taste with each breath that the air was growing thinner.

"Do I call you Betazoid when I address you?" Talar snapped, "You know what my name is, Hemmingway, if I'm going to have to die in your company at least have the manners to use it."

"I.....I'm sorry. Forgive me." She had been rude, it wasn't like her, it took all her strength to look him in the eyes.

---

Talar awoke with a start, in the act of clawing for his throat as he tried to force his breath through it. He had not meant to fall asleep, if it was sleep.

"What are you looking at?" he demanded seeing those dark eyes looking at his; they had hardly stopped since she apologised.

"You...are you alright?" She asked tentatively.

Talar let his head fall back, "Can't you feel it?" he asked, "The atmosphere ... we're dying. I don't know what to believe any more ... religion was never really an important part of my House's creed."

"Yes I feel it, but I feel the emotions rolling off you more. We will be saved Talar. I believe the Four Deities will save us."

"There are four Elements too, but they dance through the universe and their touch is rare and fickle ... they have no interest in the fate of individuals. Better to live without them than to expect their blessing. Why do you believe in your deities?"

"Because I have prayed to them before and my prayers have been answered. Because my mother is with them now. If I am to die I hope I will be rejoined with my mother."

"So either way you win. It is a fitting end," Talar mused, the ghost of a dry smile tugging at his lips, "there can't be a family in the Empire who has not lost someone ... they can afford to lose me I suppose. My choice of career was never really one they approved of, but when I joined the Galae I discovered an unexpected talent for field medicine and instead of getting the hierarchy to petition for a more favourable path, I found I enjoyed it. By the time my parents discovered it, it was far too late to do anything about it."

"Why is that?" Her father was so happy when she had decided to be a doctor. He was worried that she would go for command the way that he had, but Melanie knew that she wasn't 'captain' material. She wasn't prepared to march people into a suicidal mission. She was quite happy in her sickbay.

"Medics are useful, but hold little of the prestige found in many cultures. What my family saw was their route to having another admiral to extend their influence cut off."

"I am glad you were there to pull me to safety...if you had been an admiral you wouldn't of been there." She slowed her breathing further, the air getting thinner.

"And you wouldn't have had to die this way," Talar said. He rolled on his side, facing her "Tell me, while you still can, what it is you dislike so much about Romulans? Since the first day I volunteered to work aboard a Federation ship because your medical facilities were understaffed you've been hostile."

It wouldn't matter now anyway, they were dying, she spoke the truth. "I was attacked by a Romulan when I was 16. My father could not look at me for weeks, after what *that man* did to me." She looked away from him, waiting for him to look at her like she was damaged goods. "I am sorry I projected my hatred for the one man on you," she whispered.

Talar did not prevaricate, "He raped you?" he asked.

She shuddered at the word but nodded saying nothing. She closed her mind off to him so she would not project the memories into his mind.

"Who was he?†Talar enquired, unsure how a sixteen year old Betazoid had come to be in a position to meet a Romulan.

"A delegate on my father's ship, for trade talks...I was on leave from the Academy."

Talar closed his eyes. "What was his name? If your Deities deign to listen to your prayers, I am going to kill him for you," he said quite sincerely.

"Why would you kill someone for me?"

"Why would I not kill the perpetrator of an abhorrent act? It is what I would do if it were my sister, or my daughter."

"I...I can't." Her mind screamed ~How can you protect a man that did that to you?~ But she wasn't protecting the man that violated her...she was protecting the man that was across from her.

"Hemming ... Melanie, come here," as death was so close Talar yielded his formality a little and used the doctor's given name.

Melanie moved closer and fought against everything that told her not to.

"What does it matter if you tell me?" he reasoned.

"When we make it out of here you will go after him. I will it hurt me knowing that I caused another one's death by a simple phrase...no matter if he violated me or not."

"That makes no sense, Hemmingway," he said. Talar eased himself onto his hip and with the all too close wall of the escape pod supporting his shoulder he looped an arm over her shoulder and drew her gently in to lean on his chest. "You have a right to justice, and to be angry with me for potentially causing you a protracted death. Think about it, and if we come out of this alive, I'll put both of those wrongs right."

Melanie let him hold her, strangely she was comforted by him. "I am not angry with you," she whispered.

"That's the first time in all these weeks we've been working together that you've been able to say that," Talar observed.

"I am sorry Talar, will you forgive me for hating you because of Almek?" She gasped not intending to say the other man's name.

Talar shifted a little to straighten his twisted knee, "That's a start," he said, it was more than enough information to track the man down eventually - the time, the location; they would prove easy enough to find, but he didn't tell her that. Talar sighed, "There's not really anything to forgive, is there."

"Please Talar...for me do not go after him." She begged.

"You're still so sure we're going to be rescued," Talar said, "I'm not, but I'll not make that promise; it would be against everything I hold true to do so."

---

It had happened again, sleep. Perhaps he should not have talked so much.

A few moments of consciousness then he passed out again before spluttering back to a life that his subconscious refused to give up.

Hemmingway, Melanie still lay in his arms, she hadn't moved since he had drawn her there. "This is intolerable," Talar forced himself to find the breath to say it.

"Hmmm?" She asked sleepily, she could not focus her mind or her thoughts, she was drifting.

"We need a bit of that optimism of yours, Melanie," Talar said.

Melanie closed her eyes and focused her mind. "They are close...I sense many minds..."

"Can Betazoids cross the barrier to the afterlife now?" he asked sceptically.

"No Talar...there is a ship coming...Starfleet."

He let his head fall back, "at the eleventh hour ... more like eleventh day," he said, there was the optimisim he had asked for, in her voice and in the new tension in her muscles.

Having resigned himself to death as he had drifted in and out of consiousness, and between their stilted conversations he had said goodbye to his life and now with the prospect of rescue a reality Talar realised that he did not much care whether or not he returned to it.

"Talar...if you do go after Almek, don't tell me...hide the thoughts from me because I do not want to know." She said looking up into his eyes, using the rest of her strength.

"That I can promise you," Talar replied as once again the darkness took him.

Melanie woke up with a start. She sat up straight on the couch. She was breathing hard and had trouble focusing her thoughts. What made her suddenly think of Talar? She had not allowed herself to think of him last few weeks.

END

Lt. Melanie Hemmingway
Chief Medical Officer
USS Freedom

Talar
DS5
NPCd by Louise

Cross-posted to DS5

 

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