Some time after the Away Team mission

Akira stepped into her quarters and as the two halves of her door closed, she pressed the lock button and then leaned her back against the door. A heavy sigh of relief had left her lips as she tried to recollect her memory of what had happened today. She does not understand why all those bodies that she saw would have affected her in the way that it did. It was not the first time that she has seen dead people before, and yet this for some reason had affected her the same way all those bodies had back when she was a child on that colony world when she was being raised by her mother. If any of her halves had personalities or any representation at all, they would be like the angel and the devil on one’s shoulder. The Klingon half yelling at her human half for being weak, for allowing such a graphical sight of dead Cardassians to cause her to falter. Of course her Human half defends itself, stating that it had kept it from being seen visibly, so that the other officer they were with, could not have seen how badly those bodies had affected her. Sure maybe a little bit, but she really did hide it well of how bad she felt. And she was incredibly annoyed with herself over it.

“Computer, begin personal log.” She voiced and waited for the confirmation beep that it had begun recording.

“These past few days have not been the best at all.” She began as she headed for her sofa while she had slipped out of her boots and peeled the socks off of her feet so she could let them breathe. After she plopped herself down and relaxed into the sofa, she continued. “First off, I never got the chance to speak to the Captain about why I was made Chief of the Operations Department and why I was promoted to Junior Grade Lieutenant. I don’t know. Maybe the promotion was just an automatic thing for the time I’ve spent in Starfleet, plus the experience I’ve accumulated from other assignments. I honestly do not know. I lost my chance to ask, because he had to return to his home due to some issues which are completely understandable. I just feel…robbed I guess…but I’m not going to press on about it any further as there is just no point. I have the job and I have to prove that I am right for the job. Which I botched by being the only person in the Briefing Room to tell the Fleet Captain of what my team and I have done to improve the ship’s sensors for the current mission. Apparently it was seen as ‘bragging’, as to what the Stick-Up-His-Butt Commander Jerk told me. Yeah, that conversation with him was not pleasant, not at all. From my previous assignments, the department heads I had dealt with, my superiors of course, most of them expected enthusiasm…they expected initiative…they wanted to see improvement, wanted to see someone striving to achieve better results.”

She sighed and paused for a brief to close her eyes and collect her thoughts once more, putting them in chronological order before proceeding. “It’s like what some professors expect to see from their students. They want students to challenge them, to prove their theories are better than the professor’s. But there was an assignment…maybe two…where they wanted precise order. Follow instructions, nothing more. From my impression of what I got from the Fleet Captain in the Briefing Room, that’s what he wants. Follow simple instructions, and do not go beyond that. Of course, adjunct of his decided to rub it in my face, kick me down and rub it in even further with the heel of his boot.” She shook her head before she stood up and headed for the food replicator, where she got herself a cup of hot cocoa. “Nevertheless, I should of just kept my mouth shut. It seemed like, voicing my opinion or improving a critical mission system to help with the mission, was completely taboo and for that and I deserved to be shamed for it.”

Akira shrugged her shoulders before she sat back down in the sofa and took a sip of her drink before she continued. “So far I have made maybe one friend on board. The Chief of the Science Department, he seemed to have agreed and enjoyed the idea of the sensors being improved, especially since this mission required finding a ship in the Badlands. I don’t know. I think I will just stick to normal duties like everyone else in my department, man the station on the Bridge and just continue to follow simple instructions until told otherwise.”

She took a sip before moving on to the next part. “I think the massacre on the colony that my mother and I lived on…I mean, of course it left some sort of trauma, for being such a young child when it happened, how could I not have been traumatized by it? I know I have brought it up a few times in my counseling sessions with Doctor Lynn, but the session was mainly more about over working myself, lack of sleeping, and what my father had done to me to make me hate him so much. But I assured her that, I just really enjoyed my classes, I enjoyed learning and I wanted to keep learning. Sleep is a waste of time and you really only need a few hours to function properly so, I made sure I got what I needed.” She shrugged at that and took another sip.

“Either way…back to the topic, reason for bringing up the whole colony massacre…I saw a bunch of dead Cardassians today. A lot of bodies in one room, all shot with some energy beam weapon. I don’t know what, surely the medical staff will figure it out and the Fleet Captain will probably brief us about it later or not if it’s super sensitive…I don’t know, I’m not going to assume anything, it’s just…seeing those bodies, how they were shot, some of them were shot from behind…it was like they were trying to run away from their killer. But where were they running to? The room they were in…it had no weapons…well not true. Anything in that room could have been used as a weapon. Point is, against an energy weapon? One that can be fired from a distance? A distance that you would have to cross with an object to use to bash the attacker? Just seemed impossible, even a Klingon knows not to bring a Knife to a Blaster fight. Unless you’re incredibly skilled and incredibly fast in throwing that knife before the attacker with the blaster can depress that trigger and that’s if the attacker isn’t proficient enough to hit you with that one single shot that they could still get off before the blade of that knife sinks into their body, likely a vital organ if not the heart.”

Akira set her mug down on the coffee table and pulled her legs up, folding them with the knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around her legs. “Point is, for some reason it triggered something in me. I did my best to not put it on display. I did kneel down beside one of the door halves to the room, only because I didn’t want to disturb a crime scene but it gave me such chills and a cold sweat that I could not shake off until we got back to the ship. Which is funny. This ship does not feel like home yet, I’ve only made maybe one friend and everyone else are a bunch of strangers. And yet, moment we got back, I felt safe and way better after seeing doors and bulkheads that are quite familiar. Being that they’re practically standard on just about every starship, hard not to be familiar when you’re surrounded by it all.”

Akira sighed once more. “I don’t think I gave anything else to add. Computer, end log.”

An Hour Later…

The terminal at her desk was going off, an indication that she was receiving a transmission. Akira, who had just finished her sonic shower and got dressed for bed, went over to her desk to find out who would be calling her at this hour. It was her Counselor from the Academy. Why would she be calling? … (To be continued…)