The Fallout Begins Part 3
Posted on Tuesday 12 March 2019 @ 11:09 by Commander Caroline Miller & Lieutenant Colonel Kachiko Bayushi & Lieutenant Michael Ki MD
Mission:
The New Collective
Location: O'Hara's quarters
3122 words - 6.2 OF Standard Post Measure
Previously on The Fallout Begins Part 2
Stephanie rolled over on her bed to see the Doctor enter. She didn't get up, but said in a not-too-friendly tone. "F'r someone who's na acceptin' visitors, I've a surprisin' number o' people in m' quarters." She rolled back over, having said her peace. She knew they weren't going to leave and trying to throw them out would cause way more issues than it would solve.
And now the continuation ……
“She tried to kill herself and the weapon of choice was binge drinking real whiskey and god knows what else,” Caroline informed her medical colleague not really understanding his smirk at the seriousness of this situation .
Michael glanced over at Caroline and mouthed what followed: "I will explain later..." He had a lot of respect for the Counselor and thought that his reaction would need to be explained. He wanted her to know that he would do so when there was time. He was about to speak to his patient when she chimed in.
Caroline nodded at the doctor. They had already had one misunderstanding she would hear him out. She didnt want another one.
"Only 'cuz Someone disabled m' phaser." Stephanie chimed in, in an attempt to remind her that she was here and still listening to them.
“During her binge she decided to trash her quarters. And according to the security chief shes been in engineering in hot pants trying to throw her weight around when shes supposed to be resting and recovering from the surgery and shes just told me shes confined to quarters.
"I was savin' th' ship. Yer welcome, by th' way." Stephanie snarled.
"The Captain has to be informed Doctor but im attempting to minimize the fallout. This place looked a hell of a lot worse when i first got here believe me. And this is NOT going to be a thing. I'm making that clear Stephanie. Yes we will never see eye to eye as you so charmingly informed me not so long back,” Caroline responded to her outburst earlier, and yes i am one of those that cares but im not going to cover up or make things smoother every time you do something idiotic. This is your one chance now to shape up and get the help you need. And its obvious whats going on with you is a lot deeper than just recent events. When i said I was going to relieve you on mental health grounds earlier. That would have been a far more permanent thing that what your under orders for now. You need to stop it with the attitude and realize how serious things are.”
Stephanie let loose one extremely sarcastic sounding laugh. "It's hilarious that ya think I'm na takin' this seriously, Councilor." As she continued, her tone was surprisingly even. "Councilor, I appreciate th' effort, but I'm na worth it. I tried t' blow up th' bloody ship. M' life is over. An' it should be. What 's it matter if it ends now, or in seventy five years on a prison moon?"
"You're not taking the right things serious Stephanie, your focusing on all the wrong things. Your taking responsibility for the wrong things. You didn't blow the ship up, it was whatever sinster being was controlling you. Okay you took a silly decision to allow yourself to link with borg - that perhapss thats one to learn from not to try it again, but it was the "borg/alien presence" that ultimately possessed you responsible for the computer virus and the impact of that. Not your actions in that instance. But now your focusing on this as if its the ONLY part of you with a whoa me pity party, when actually you should be picking yourself, dusting yourself off and moving forward. Instead you have given up the fight already," Caroline told her straight.
"Other officers have faced the borg, faced their own demons and come out fighting. Captain Picard, Annika Hanson to name a few. Your supposed to be the "Amazing Stephanie O'hara. Engineer extraordinaire. Wasn't that one the first thing you said to me? Your stronger than this. Snap out of it and start working on the things you do need to take responsibility for."
"It wasn' a Borg," Stephanie corrected. "It was... somethin' else. I dunno what, but it sure as Hell wasn' Borg. It was... Malevolent. An' I think I'm takin' exactly th' right thing seriously, Councilor. I went off mission because I thought I was th' smartest person in th' room. I endangered everyone because I had t' prove I had a bigger technological dick than th' Borg, an' I jumped in a pile o' shite wit' both feet an' th' stench'll follow me f'r th' rest o' m' days."
"Apologies for the interruption," came a voice from the hatch. The small white-haired Marine stepped in. "I did tell her I would be back this morning to check in on her."
She looked up at the Counselor, "Caroline. I caught some of the conversation from the door. I am the one who disabled her phaser."
"Stephanie, sweetie,"Kachiko reached out and gently touched Stephanie's cheek. "Caroline is willing to move mountains for you. You already know that I am going to be at your side the whole way through this. I can't speak for the Counselor, but I have been in the same place you're at right now."
Stephanie pulled away from the Marine and rolled over on her bed to face away from her, remaining uncharacteristically silent.
"It ends up that my mind had been tampered with, before joining Starfleet. I had been programmed to find and kill a particular person and once I encountered that individual, I had zero control over myself. I severely injured six security personnel until a Marine Officer and a Master Sergeant were able to subdue me."
"I required eleven months of recovery and retraining to come back from that as that's when I discovered my telepathic ability," Kachiko sat on the bed next to the redhead. "That's something you don't have to worry about, luckily. They're not going to throw you in prison, certainly not for life."
Caroline looked at the colonel in disbelief. So here she was under the impression the CEO had attempted to end her own life via mixing alcohol with drugs, and now the marine opposite her was saying last night she had a phaser which she had disabled. Why in the hell hadn’t she reported it immediately to Caroline?
As the other woman stroked O’Haras cheek, it hit her. They had feelings for each other. Bayushi was protecting or thought she was protecting O’Hara.
Interesting, so she had either been wrong about Bayushi. It possibly wasn’t that the colonel was trying to get with Saveena or she was right on the money and the colonel was the biggest flirt going on the ship.
As the other woman continued explaining her own tragic past stating she needed eleven months of recovery Caroline wanted to laugh. The Colonel hadn’t recovered yet. Not even close. She was still on her journey.
The worry here was now; she had two of them with deep issues seemingly feeding off each other. “No,” Caroline stated, “We are trying to keep her out of prison or worse. Colonel, I need a word outside please,”
Kachiko sighed silently. Something told her that the Counselor was going to be rather cross with her outside.
Although she likely had already worked the answer to this out, she had to officially ask the question, “If you disabled and took a phaser off her last night why didn’t you report it too me? That O’Hara was suicidal?”
She didn’t state the fact that this sorry situation could well have been avoided if she had trusted Caroline and spoken up. The woman was smart enough to have already worked that out herself or picked it up in her thoughts by now any way. The more she was seeing of the senior crews decisions, the more concerned she was becoming about people just “taking matters into their own hands” without considering the full implications.
"Two reasons, actually," Kachiko frowned. "I thought I had talked her down. And more so, I had hoped that we could avoid this matter impacting her career and time in Starfleet. She is a good woman, Counselor. She was just mind f**ked by that... thing."
"It helps that I have been in exactly her position before, after I was convinced that I was responsible for the death of my parents," Kachiko glanced at the hatch. "That incident was kept quiet and it allowed me to move forward in my career."
"She just needs a chance to come to terms with this. She needs some help getting there and I would like to be there for it all," left unsaid was that Kachiko felt responsible for Stephanie O'Hara and that she thought she may be in-love with the statuesque redhead.
It was about this time that Liz rounded the corner, carrying her tools. She stopped short when she saw the two women and made an attempt to turn back around and come back the way she came... Hopefully before either of them saw her. She decided that she could work on the doorbell later.
"Master Chief," unfortunately for the woman, Kachiko was hyper aware of her surroundings the majority of her time. "Has Lieutenant O'Hara been down to Engineering?"
Caroline knew the answer to that but she let the woman answer for herself. Hopefully the Colonel would manage to get from her thoughts that she had asked the lady to come remove the offending door bell. The colonel claimed O'Hara was a good woman, perhaps. Caroline hoped to witness that one day. But she was also stubborn and stupid. Hence her currently trying to remove a lot of idiocracy before she had to pull in the commanding officer. She was cross with the colonel for sure but it was evident in their own way they had the same goal. Get O'Hara on the straight and narrow.
Well, shit. Hale thought "Not since yesterday, Sir, but the Captain seemed okay with it when she was... I mean he wasn't thrilled, but I think he let it slide because she needed to get her soul right."
"Alright, thanks, Master Chief. Don't mind us, please," Kachiko didn't want to keep the woman from her work.
Caroline gently touched Bayushi's shoulder and indicated round the corner so they could talk without the Petty Chief hearing. "I can help her but she needs to let me in and realise she has to fight for herself. So far she is resisting. We can support but we cannot do the work. You know that better than anyone the journey you have had.
She sighed, and looked her right in the eyes, "I need you ... I really need you to trust me and ... I hope to god that there won't be another incident like this but if ever there is ... I need you to trust me and come to me okay."
"It's not you I don't trust, Caroline," Kachiko was incredibly disappointed in Stephanie now. "It's the stuffed shirts and REMFs back in San Francisco I don't trust. For the record, I had no idea of the girl's feelings about me until recently. When I was in her head and entreating with the... thing, it shared that she had strong feelings for me. Feelings that I happen to return."
"I want what's best for her, so you can be certain that should I feel that she's careening for another cliff, you're the first person I contact, once I have defused the bomb."
“No you need to come to me to help defuse the bomb,” Caroline told her firmly.
“And feelings,” she sighed having to caution her, “if you care for her you can’t start something now. That would be deprimental in her healing process. I know thats hard to hear and its not me being horrible. Its just that can cause additional stress and complications and right now she has to do this for herself, not for another person. But if its what she wants too its a good goal to work towards when shes in a better headspace.”
Now that they were both out of her way, Hale decided that she had better disable the doorbell and be on her way before she had more uncomfortable conversation to engage in. The sooner she could get out of this circus and back to Engineering, the better.
Michael stood dumbfounded as he listened to all that had transpired. He had clearly made an error when he allowed Stephanie to leave Sick Bay. He sighed deeply and stroked his chin as he listened to the conversation between Caroline and Kachiko. When the women had finished speaking he cleared his throat in an effort to let everyone know that he was still there and still in fact in charge. "Counselor you are too right when you said that the Captain will need to be informed." Michael spoke as he glanced down at his patient. He thought the two of them had come to an understanding when they shared Sake. The doctor was keen to believe that was still true. "Inform the Captain of what has occurred. However, also inform him that O'Hara has been returned to the care of Sick Bay and that her actions were due to a non lethal side effect of the brain surgery that she has undergone. That should avoid any fallout, or at the very least put it on me. Also do not inform him of the Colonel's actions."
Caroline bit her lip not overly happy with what she was being told to do. Fudging information to the Captain did not sit well with her. Yet she respected Ki. She was torn with this turn of events. “We will discuss things doctor,” she said neutrality willing at that point to go that far.
Michael looked toward the Colonel with a steely look on his face. However, anyone who paid attention would realize that his eyes conveyed the sympathy that he felt. "Colonel I would ask in the future that you please alert myself or the Counselor in a situation such as the one that you faced with Stephanie."
Finally Michael turned his attention to O'Hara in truth he did not know exactly what to say. Then it hit him like a ton of bricks. His entire demeanor changed from an attentive doctor to something more akin to a drill instructor. "You listen here O'Hara I will not give you the satisfaction of winning and taking the cowards way out. Since we both came aboard the Merlin I have heard nothing accept the fearless Stephanie O'hara she will save us all from sudden death single handedly by holding the warp core together with her bare hands. That is not a woman who would attempt or even think about ending her own life. You want to know what did this to you I can tell you, hell I can show you..." He paused in his rant and tapped a few commands into the medical computer a small holographic image was projected. This image showed O'Hara's brain with the connections to her implant. "You see that... the third node in the secondary subset. It was infected with a virus. Well a consciousness, but it effected you like a virus. It effected your implant like any virus would effect a computer, it contaminated it. So I removed it, the cause and the symptom. I replaced it with a new one, a better one. One with anti viral software..." He chuckled at his joke even through his rant. In this moment he believed that the Lieutenant needed some tough love. "So I refuse to allow you to ruin all of my hard work, I refuse to allow you to let this ship fall apart, I REFUSE TO ALLOW YOU TO TAKE YOUR LIFE." He was breathing a little heavy as his rant got louder. In a moment he caught himself and calmed down. "My apologies I will get down off of my soapbox now."
"I've never been fearless, Doc," O'Hara began. She sounded defeated. "Just too stupid t' be afraid." She stood shakily and shambled over to the replicator and ordered a Raktajino in the hope that caffeine would help ease her pounding head. If she had to be alive she shouldn't have to suffer. "I'm afraid now, but na f'r me. I am afraid f'r what I'm gonna do t' all o' you. I am toxic."
"And that is where the good Counselor will come in. For now you will be confined to Sick Bay. I will wait while you gather what you need from your quarters and then we will go together." Michael spoke with a small amount of sympathy in his voice.
Now back out in the gangway with the Counselor, Kachiko frowned, "Might be a good idea for us to return to the Doctors side, lest Stephanie start throwing things."
"I highly doubt theres much left intact in her quarters she could throw," Caroline quipped. "But if shes looking to tick off both the highest ranking officers in Medical and get slapped with a further assault charge thats her prerogative. Like I said earlier, we can only helps someone who wants to be helped and if she keeps pushing everyone away there won't be anyone left who cares enough to stick around."
Stephanie appeared in the doorway. "Th' good Doctor has confined me t' sickbay. I'm off on m' next sojourn t' th' latest in a series of th' Merlin's gilded cages. Perhaps you lot'd care t' join us." In spite of the fact that her tone was perfectly level and normal, the sarcasm dripping from every word was almost a tangible thing.
"I'll walk with you, Stephanie," Kachiko looked over from the Counselor.
OFF:
LTjg Stephanie O'Hara
Chief Engineer
USS Merlin
MCPO Elizabeth Hale
Ranking Engineering NCO
USS Merlin
Commander Caroline Miller
Chief Counselor
USS Merlin
Lieutenant Colonel Bayushi Kachiko
Company Commander, USS Merlin
Lieutenant Michael Ki MD
Chief Medical Officer
USS Merlin
