Ensign Tress Trojet’s personal log, supplemental,

There was nowhere to run.

The subspace blackout prevented our shuttle from accessing the warp speed we needed to deliver our infectious patients to Caelum Station. Then our shuttle took damage from stray shots. An attack wing of unidentified vessels chased a Starfleet starship out of Underspace, before they all went under again.

And so I told them. Qelreth had already made up their mind about me. Everything I said and did had already proved I was unworthy to be a medical doctor. So I told them about my previous host, Marl, and his failed experiment that unwittingly unleashed a lost fleet of Jem’Hadar on the Deneb Sector.

Now there’s nowhere to hide.

“Save him!” Qelreth shouted. Their voice was twice as loud and nearly as shrill as the biofunction alert ringing that one of the patients in the aft had stopped breathing. Qelreth swivelled the pilot’s chair to confront Trojet head-on.

Their cheeks flushed bright blue, Qelreth said, “Save him and maybe I can forgive you. Maybe. Otherwise, I’ll hate you forever. Like the rest of the Deneb Sector does.”

Trojet decided. Without warp drive, there was only one path forward. Maybe she didn’t know what kind of doctor she was going to be, maybe she was too preoccupied by the shadow of Marl, but when Tress Trojet made a decision, it was made with conviction. She got to her feet and squeezed past Qelreth’s chair.

“What– what are you doing?” Qelreth asked, still sounding annoyed. “You can’t lower the quarantine field.” As if Trojet didn’t understand the risks of Cartalian fever.

“I’m saving him,” Trojet said, and she began pulling her environmental suit off the bulkhead.

Waving their hands, Qelreth said, “I was talking about your wormhole genius. Make those deaths mean something by opening an Underspace aperture. Get us back to Caelum Station. Right now.”

Trojet didn’t stop. She stepped into the legs of her pressure suit assembly. ‘Hate you forever’ still rang in Trojet’s ears, and she didn’t know why Qelreth wasted the effort. Trojet already hated herself forever anyway.

Punching her arms into the sleeves, Trojet shrugged the environmental suit over her shoulders. “I don’t know how. I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t act like you don’t think you’re the smartest person in any room,” Qelreth sighed. Their hands twitched in halted movement, maybe to stand up or hit an override on the LCARS panel. Whatever the intent, those hands didn’t go anywhere.

“I can see it affects you,” they admitted. “You carry the weight of Marl’s choices and mistakes. I’m not saying you’re oblivious, but I don’t believe you truly understand the consequences. Tress, my parents lived on Janoor Three.”

Trojet couldn’t admit she had ever read the full casualty reports, the absolute depth of consequences. So she kept moving. She lifted the life support unit with the kind of reverence she might show a symbiont, and then she affixed it over her shoulders and torso.

“I can’t– I can’t do anything out here,” Trojet insisted. “His surgical support frame won’t accept remote commands. You told me to save him. That’s only possible in the aft compartment.”

Sneering at Trojet in disgust, Qelreth snarled, “Stop. Stop changing the topic. Tress, their remains were never found. All that was left was paste.”

Trojet closed her eyes and let her head roll back. Her breath went ragged at what the word paste brought to mind. Most of Marl’s crew aboard the science ship had been obliterated by the Jem’Hadar. Suddenly obliterated seemed kinder than paste. She breathed deeply.

“Then don’t stop me?” Trojet proposed, and she giggled unexpectedly. “This suit is my only lifeline if we run out of fuel. Laugh at me wasting my air now.”

“You’re not a doctor.”

“I know first aid.”

“You should be in prison,” Qelreth said, “but you’re all I’ve got.”

Qelreth pressed their palms to their eyes and dragged them down their face, smearing away the sweat on their cheeks. Their breath hitched, maybe half a sob. Qelreth finally folded their hands in their lap, dropping their chin to their chest.

Soberly, they said, “It could be the sensors again. It might only just be the biobed sensors that were damaged.”

“Let’s find out,” Trojet said weakly, as she lifted her helmet. “Come check my seals.”

“…Okay.”