Mind Games: The Wrap Up (Part 1)
Posted on Sun Feb 11th, 2024 @ 5:28am by Commander Patricia Cooke & Lieutenant Commander Tsukasa Izumi & Lieutenant Commander Lahki Bakshi Dr & Lieutenant JG Eradaar Ezazzan & Lieutenant JG Danielle Sidney
Edited on on Sun Feb 11th, 2024 @ 5:28am
1,220 words; about a 6 minute read
Mission:
From the Inside
Timeline: Part 2 of 'Mind Games: The War is Over'
Previously, on Star Trek: Missouri:
"It's alright," Eradaar said, her voice soothing, taking on a more motherly tone. "It's over now. What you are seeing is unchangeable. It cannot be altered, no matter how hard we try. Turn around to the present, now. Follow my voice, Commander. Follow my voice back home."
And now, the continuation:
As she spoke, the Gorns massive tail began to curl around the Commander protectively. It wasn't as dexterous as other parts of Eradaar's body, but it did permit some extensive movement. It wrapped twice around her calves and legs, keeping her still as the Gorn worked her mental therapy to calm and bring back the Commander to the present state.
"Huh, what?" Patricia spluttered as she snapped back to reality to find herself in the embrace of a Gorn. "Lieutenant..." Patricia trailed off as she realized that Eradaar was the only one present. "What happened? Where are the others?"
"They split up in an attempt to find you, Captain," Eradaar said soothingly as she began to loosen her grip. Once she was sure the Commander had returned to her senses, she loosened the grip of her tail. "We've been the victim of some form of psychokinesis. I was the victim of it briefly, so were you. Do you remember where you are?"
The Gorn stayed her ground briefly to confirm that the Captain had returned. While her grip had loosened, she still kept the Commander close. It wouldn't do to lose Patricia in this critical hour.
"Of course," Patricia said. "We're on the mining station trying to stop I-400 from... Shit, the Dilithium!" She swore as she remembered what I-400 had said.
Patricia tapped her combadge, hoping their coms weren't still being jammed.
"Cooke to Missouri;" She said. "Any sign of I-400 or the Dilithium?"
There was a brief moment of silence. "Sorry Captain, it seems they got away..." Tsukasa's voice replied.
Eradaar fully released the Captain as she stood back and to the side, having done her job - rather well, she thought. The Captain was again aware, alert, and focused on the mission. Quietly the Gorn thanked herself that her methods had worked. She admitted that, had things been different, they could have had more drastically negative effects. Regardless, the situation seemed resolved and the Gorn stood resolutely beside her Captain.
"Son of a bitch!" Patricia swore. =A="Understood; Cooke out."=A=
Patricia then tapped her combadge again to switch to the away team frequency.
=A="Cooke to away team:"=A= She said. =A="Cooke to away team, come in:"=A=
"Wait you're alive captain?" Danielle replied
----------------------------
Lahki was being held...somewhere. Her head hurt-when it began, she recognized it as a psychic attack. She had been able to fight it for awhile, but the assaults were coming from all directions-visual, telepathically, and what the HELL was that goddamn incessant noise?! She was incapable of movement, of fighting back. She was vaguely aware that she was in a corridor of some kind, being watched by an android. How had she gotten separated?! She wasn't sure.
Now, she sat, her head in her hands, trying to ignore the visions of her life spent in war. When the Dominion had invaded Betazed, she'd been a youngish child-ten years old. They had been on the run constantly, until her father had been captured and killed. They had sought refuge on one of the Federation hospital ships, but that was also dangerous-they had fought battles in the sky, too. Thirteen year old Lahki wasn't prepared for the daily stress of combat. It was one of the reasons that she and her closest friend, Lorut Vila, had bonded-Vila had survived the Occupation of Bajor. They were contemporaries in that way. While Lahki had channeled her pain towards helping, Vila had taken a slightly different path, and had been a resistance fighter in her late teens and early adulthood. They'd met because their husbands had served together-and so had they. She had been able to help Lorut a bit to come out of her shell of pain and violence.
Her mind switched tracks suddenly. Now, her son stood there, in front of her, on the day he was inducted into the Academy. "Mikey!!" She said. Her son was a Junior. They had argued about giving their first-born child a Human name. In the end, Mike had finally won her over by explaining that he had no siblings to carry on the name, and she'd caved. By the time that Mikey had joined the Academy, his father had died, and Lahki had been doing the single mom thing for a few years. She reached out to touch his face. She touched the wall instead. Something in her memory clicked. This wasn't real.
A sound broke through the pain and the darkness, the fog. A voice. Who was Cooke?! Her mental file-o-fax went to work. OH!! She fumbled around for her comms badge. Was it taken? She couldn't find it. She cried out, instead, with her mind.
*Cooke?? I am...back in the original corridor. Pain. Hurry, please. Medical...*
She was also trying to not be found out by their captors. HOPEFULLY....this would work. She buried her head again. The darkness behind her hands was the only thing that helped...she'd already vomited but maybe if she stayed in the dark, nothing more serious would happen.
"Sounds like the doctor's in trouble." Patricia noted, looking to Eradaar. "You'll certainly be earning your wings today, Lieutenant." She said before tapping her combadge. =A="Cooke to Away Team; converge upon Doctor Bakshi's location, on the double! Does anyone have a 20 on Kogami?"=A=
Eradaar looked to her Captain and snorted, nodding, understanding the assignment. She had already endured her own mental hell and it would be nearly impossible for another psychic assault to capture her mind. She had heard the reply, the Doctor was back in the original corridor. Giving one last glance back to her Captain, the Gorn suddenly was off.
She bounded back towards their original location. As she first leapt off, her strides were quick and confident. However as she began to approach the bends in the corridors, she began to feel the immense mental pressure from before. Thankfully she had already conquered her demons - or at the very least come to terms - so her mind was able to separate the fictitious emotions from the realistic ones. The corridor had become foggy as well, the Gorn having to utilize all her senses as her tongue flicked out consistently to assist her hearing and touch.
She slithered against the wall quickly as her claws scraped against the metallic corridor when she witnessed a shadow play across a flickering bend in the corridor. Emergency lights where on here, as if an alarm of some kind signaled the origin of the smoke or mist that engulfed this area, but Eradaar's eyesight could still make out the shadows. Her pupils were slits as she slinked across the wall, a perfect predator as claws tinked gently nearing the bend. Her maw open as she began to salivate at the prospect of prey - an instinctive reaction, for sure. A final tongue-flick confirmed the scents: metal, oil, synthetic lubricant.
To be continued...
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