[Chief Counselor’s Office]

Yuhiro Kolem signed, rubbed her neck and looked at the PADD that sat on her desk. By every metric this mission was turning into a fiasco from a mental health point of view. Even leaving behind that she had not yet gone down to the colony Hahana III because of the sheer strength of emotional pain she was being confronted with there as an empath, there was the fact that as survivors became rarer the crew and civilian teams were turning up more bodies. That brought an emotional toll that far outweighed their early victories. It was proving to be far more exhausting than she could have imagined, and since her team of counselors essentially amounted to only her, she was having to provide the emotional support for the entire crew as well as the other personal that they had picked up at Starbase 72.

Her door chimed and not having any appointments lined up Kolem was curious. The temporary hold on her empathic powers that she’d had to have via drugs meant that she did not recognize who it was until she opened the door to reveal the ship’s Chief Medical Officer Michelle Mueller. 

“Can I help you?” Kolem asked. Mueller was not someone who came in for therapy, or to talk things over. The Lieutenant Commander had the kind of ruthless efficiency that she was known for as a German and a doctor. She was all business as far as Kolem could tell, and very different from the Counselor herself.

”Actually I’m here to check up on you,” Doctor Mueller said, “I know this mission has been hard on the crew, and that you’ve been a support system. My department is quiet large, I just wanted to make sure you’ve got someone to vent to as well.”

This was pleasantly surprising. The CMO was all business, and her attitude towards the counselor was not rude exactly but efficiently pragmatic. Though the two departments, such as hers was, were tangentially related to health Kolem know that the benefits of the medical team were far more recognized.

Stepping back from the door Lieutenant Junior Grade Kolem smiled at the other officer, “Come on in. I’ll be honest, I do need to talk. I was going to vent to Lieutenant Hume, but he’s in security.”

“So he’s a hot dummy,” Mueller said, smirking as she made an uncharacteristic joke.

Kolem smiled, “Well he hasn’t met a problem he can’t phaser.“

”I’m afraid this isn’t a situation we can phaser our way out of,“ the doctor said gesturing out of Kolem’s office window to the colony planet below them. Aside from a few forest fires out away from populated areas everything looked serene now so far away, on the ground Kolem had heard it was different. Chaotic and emotionally devastating.

Kolem sat down, “It’s hard. Starfleet teaches us how to solve problems and build new things, exciting futures. I don’t think many people are ready for picking up the pieces like this.”

”A ship full of optimistic people meets the worst of humanity, or Orion or Cardassian kind,” Mueller said taking a seat on the same couch as Kolem. 

“Cardassian?” Kolem asked.

”There’s a new theory that this was not a pirate attack,” Doctor Mueller said, “I’m sure the Captain will tell you more but right now the São Paulo has a team investigating.”

The Chief Counselor nodded. Whomever was behind the attack did not really change her job at all, she was there to provide emotional support regardless of who was behind the attacks. Still if it was someone that could be identified from a non-human group then there may be a backlash against that particular species that she needed to prepare for.

”I’ll speak with him,” Kolem nodded. 

”This whole thing is a mess, it’s brutal down there,” Doctor Mueller said, “I can’t imagine how it is to have to handle everyone’s emotions after that.”

”It’s hard, and I haven’t even been down there,” Kolem said.

”I wish I had some thing amazing to say that could make it all better,” Mueller said sadly.

”That’s my job, not being able to find the words to say that makes everything okay,” Kolem said.

”Something’s just aren’t ever going to be okay,” Mueller said.

Kolem nodded.

[Nine Forward]

The lounge was busy but most people just sat quietly and stared morosely into their drinks that they nursed. Pr’Nor knew that most of the crew was having a negative emotional reaction to their time down on the planet, time that she and most of her Flight Control Department managed to avoid as they were busy ferrying supplies up and and down to the colony’s surface.

Still she understood what the crew was confronting. A humanitarian disaster and a loss of life that was proving taxing on them all. It was illogical to wish it was different, the universe was how it was and did not care who or how hard you wished it otherwise. There was too much wishing and not enough doing, though here they were trying to do something good, in the face of what she could only call ‘evil’ as much as anything in this universe was.

Va’Tok the Assistant Chief Medical Officer entered and seeing Pr’Nor sitting on her own at a table got what appeared to be a tonic water and joined her. He was technically higher ranking than her, though not a department chief. At first he was quiet then said, “The crew is exhibiting signs of what might be termed depression.”

”I am not a medical expert, but that would seem to be an accurate assessment based on my understanding of humans,” Pr’Nor said, mostly agreeing with him.

Doctor Va’Tok nodded slowly, “I understand that it has been trying for the more emotional species to deal with what is confronting us on the colony’s surface.”

”I would concur,” Pr’Nor said, “Do you also have a reaction?”

Va‘Tok was quiet, then nodded, “It is difficult to confront such destruction. Even though reactions beyond logic are illogical I find myself having them”

”I do not think anyone would find that illogical. You are only Vulcan,” Pr’Nor said.

Va’Tok nodded, “I am.”

”I am glad we had this talk,” Pr’Nor said.

Across the lounge Ensign William Hume sat with newly arrived Lieutenant Junior Grade Thomas Winfied. The pair were mostly drinking although the ship’s liquor stores only contained sythahol and would not actually get them drunk.

”What do you think two Vulcans talk about when it’s just them?” Winfield asked.

Hume looked over trying not to stare at the two Vulcans sat there discussing, whatever they were discussing, “How logical they each are.”

”I am the most logical on this ship,” Winfield said in a flat voice, imitating a Vulcan.

”Incorrect, I am the most logical. Yesterday my hamster died and I found it very logical,” Hume replies in a similarly flat tone.

”Illogical, hamsters are a vanity object humans use to make themselves feel superior to a species, when in fact they are as illogical as a hamster. Beep boop,” Winfield said.

”Beep boop?” Hume asked.

”Like an android, like Data,” Winfield said.

”Does he go beep boop?” Hume was curious.

”I don’t know, maybe his brother did. Isn’t that how the old Enterprise crew told them apart one went beep boop?” Winfield said.

Hume was doubtful that either Data or his evil brother went ‘beep boop’.. Still he nodded and took a sip of his drink.

”Do you a think they have… you know a mind meld thing going on,” Winfield asked.

”Nah, she’s dating someone,” Hume said.

”Oh? Who?”

”Not my place to say, Kolem would murder me if I did. Besides she’s your CO,” Hume said.

Winfield dropped it and shrugged, “I saw her. Lieutenant Kolem, you got a good thing there. Way above your weight class.”

”Yeah, she’s way too good for me,” Hume agreed.

“Now that’s logical,” Winfield said then grinned adding, “Beep boop.”

[Ready Room]

”This is real?” Commander Doctor Travis McCleod said surprised as he took a sip of the whisky.

”It’s been a day,” Captain Hawthorne said, sagging behind his desk across from his first officer. He sighed and took a sip of his own drink, and then asked, “So what was it that you wanted to say?”

”After this mission I’m taking a sabbatical. I have time saved, and need a break. Starfleet has already approved it, a full year at least. I’ll be back on Earth helping out at my brother’s clinic,” the former Chief Medical Officer and not First Officer said.

Hawthorne nodded. The two men were not friends and had not seen eye to eye that often over the course of their time together, still he knew McCleod was a good officer, “I appreciate you telling me. I hope you’ll come back.”

”Perhaps, but you’ll get a new XO,” McCleod said.

Hawthorne nodded, “I bet Starfleet has a fresh faced young Lieutenant Commander to force on me.”

McCleod grinned, “Just getting over their teenage acne. Push for Mueller, she’d make a good XO.”

”Maybe, but she’s a good CMO. That’s a lot on a medical ship already, nobody else is ready,” Hawthorne said.

McCleod shrugged. The captain did not want doctors moving into command, that much had been clear since the first day they’d worked together and was the main reason the two men didn’t see eye to eye. He did not pry, or force the issue. He’d given his advice, it was no use fighting anymore on this issue.

The Captain swiveled his chair and gazed out the window. Below them the colony world rotated and a shuttle flew past on its way to the planet with more supplies, and crew. Another shift would be going down soon, the efforts and work from the Anaheim continuing on twenty-four hours a day. 

“I’ve like to get my hands on whoever did this,” Hawthorne said.

”Won’t be our job,” McCleod said, “but yes. Part of me wants some good old fashioned frontier justice.”

Hawthorne shrugged, “Sadly you’re right. Starfleet will hold us back and send a Galaxy Class ship after them, if they figure out who it was.”

”We’re in a tug boat full of doctors, it’s not that we can do a lot,” McCleod pointed out.

”It’s nice to dream though,” Hawthorne said.

”Somedays it’s all we get,” McCleod agreed drinking his drink.