A Talk with the Commander

Posted on Sun Nov 10, 2019 @ 8:04pm by Captain Maritza Soran & Lieutenant Alanna Wells

2,528 words; about a 13 minute read

Mission: Doors of Perception
Location: OPS
Timeline: MD 14 17:30

[ON]

Alanna owed the commander a report on what happened, and she didn't want to write it out. She thought it would be best to talk to the commander in person, to answer any questions she might have. She hoped, by being proactive, she wouldn't have to talk about it later.

She made sure the commander was in her office and not off attending to business on the station and then headed for the command center and the commander's office.

"Is the commander available?" she asked the yeoman.

The Bajoran yeoman looked up at Alanna, and frowned. "Er, possibly Lieutenant. Let me check." She scurried off, disappeared into Soran's office, and returned a few minutes later. "She says she'll meet you in the small conference room in a few minutes."

Alanna nodded. "Can I wait there now?" She would rather wait in private, if she could.

"Yes, please, this way." The young bajoran showed Alanna into the small room. It was designed for six, and as such was cosier than the grand conference rooms on other decks that were normally used for staff meetings. "Can I get you a raktajino, or a coffee or anything?"

Alanna smiled. She didn't think she could drink anything right now. "No, thank you. I'll just wait."

"Okay." The girl sounded uncertain. "Well, I’m just outside if you change your mind?"

"Thank you." She smiled. The science officer was nervous enough about what happened and didn't need a drink to show it.

Maritza arrived eight minutes later, “Sorry to keep you doctor. " She slipped into one of the high-backed padded chairs on the next side of the table to Alanna. "What can I do for you?"

"It's fine. I didn't make an appointment," Alanna assured her. "I thought you might have some questions after the portal incident?"

Incident? That was putting it mildly. She already knew the basics, and was fervently glad a chief counselor was finally en route. "Are you sure you want to discuss it? I've had Commander Ryan's report. I don't want to push for further details if you'd rather not."

"Commander Ryan wasn't there and I didn't tell him anything." Although seeing her in nothing but Jason's jacket probably said enough. Alanna looked at Maritza for a long moment, a kaleidoscope of emotions dancing across her face. "I'd rather it hadn't happened at all, but I can't take it back or take back the things I did. I've questioned my choices a hundred times. That's something I have to live with. But I won't pretend it didn't happen. I can't lock the memories behind a wall. It's like a sore that will fester if I don't take care of it. So, I can't guarantee I'll answer everything, but I'd rather deal with them verbally, as I'm sure you have them, than write them down. So, if you have questions, ask."

Maritza nodded slowly, trying to decide the first step through a potential mine field. "What choices do you question?"

Alanna looked past Soran to the wall behind her. How to tell her what ate at her the most? "I was given a choice. Submit or resist. If I submitted, he would rape me in his office. If I resisted, he would rape me in front of all his men, after I'd been beaten, burned, and broken. I knew Jason would come for me as soon as he knew I was there. He didn't trust Sovok and gave me a transponder pip." She hesitated. "I chose the first. I wanted him to leave me alone so I could use the combadge I'd hidden. I thought it would be easier to submit than be beaten when the end result would be the same. I didn't know how long it would take Jason to find out where I was, and come for me, or if I'd be taken somewhere else and have to find a way to escape later..." Her head fell forward as she fought back the tears. "He was almost too late. If I hadn't..." She shook her head. "I don't know if I made the right decision. I keep wondering what would have happened if I'd said no. If I'd resisted more..."

Maritza took a breath. That was a horrendous choice. Sadistic physically and psychologically. "I would have done the same thing. If you'd taken...option 2..." She shuddered. "Do you really think you could have survived a group longer than one man?"

"I don't think he'd share, but they'd all watch. At least, that was my understanding." She shuddered at what Maritza implied. "Although I wouldn't put it past him to get to that point eventually. He promised to hurt me and heal me for years because it gave him pleasure to do so."

Internally, Maritza winced. She hoped she hadn't just inadvertently given the doctor nightmares. More nightmares, she realised. "Surviving is always taking the lesser of two evils. If he really meant it about torturing you first... Keeping yourself whole for as long as possible is the first rule. You didn't do anything most people wouldn't have done. And anyone who took option two would have been suicidally stupid."

Alanna knew the commander was right, but she still questioned her decisions. "Part of me knows that, but part still wonders if I could have prevented some of it. I'm just glad Jason arrived when he did."

Ah. Well this was going to be tricky. "I'm afraid to say that Mr. Haines has some... divided loyalties." Maritza looked down at her fingers for a moment. "I'm not sure his intentions were entirely... focused on your safety."

"Oh, that. Yes, his intentions were focused on my safety, no matter what his orders were," she countered.

Maritza blinked, "You knew?" she blurted out before she could stop herself.

"I found out the night before I... went through the portal, and only because T'gan caught something he was working on in Astrometrics. His other bosses are stupidly paranoid." She looked at Soran. "Sorry, but I'm not in a mood to sugar-coat it. Sovok didn't care about the portals or Pangaea. He just wanted me as his sex slave. He was going to bury the portal in slag once he sent the escort team--or just their bodies--through."

Maritza nodded. "He threatened to bury it. I was in agreement that that part at least was a good idea. I can only apologise that I didn't see the rest of it coming."

"Neither did I," Alanna said. "Only Jason saw the possibility. If it wasn't for him, I'd still be there." She looked at Soran. "I tried to warn him about Sovok's trap at the portal. I don't know if he heard me."

"As I understand from Commander Ryan, he did." And I know what that means for a half Betazoid to a non-Betazoid, Maritza thought. "And he promptly abandoned his team, behind enemy lines no less, to go charging off to fulfill his orders vis-a-vis yourself."

Thinking about how close Jason had come to missing her made her shudder. She kept her voice low to mask the turmoil she was feeling, but it was still too ragged. "He saved my life. He knew Sovok would try something. If Jason had stayed with the others, I would have been on Sovok's ship where none of them could find me." She began to rock back and forth as she spoke. "I tried to give Jason more time, to delay Sovok, and he found the transponder." Another of her regrets.

"It's my fault Sovok set the trap at the portal. I tried too hard to keep my boots with me, and he found the pip I hid there. From that, he knew one man saw the danger, cared enough to come for me..." Talking about it brought back all the terror she'd felt at the time. She could feel the tears on her cheeks, but she ignored them. She had to let Soran know what Jason had done for her.

"Knowing Jason was out there, that he would find me, gave me hope. He was my safe space when Sovok...when he did what he did." Memories of the Agonizer and how Sovok gleefully used it to get her body and her nerves so messed up that she couldn't control her response to him, and that Jason heard her, tore at her again. "Jason had conflicting orders. I know he left the others, but he did it to save me." The tone of her voice now held angry overtones. "I'm sorry you feel that my life is less important than staying with Commander Ryan, but I beg to disagree."

"Don't put words in my mouth, Lieutenant."

"Maybe not you, but Commander Ryan was pretty angry with him."

"What's important to me is minimizing the damage that’s been done. You've been put in impossible circumstances. You bear no responsibility for the actions that Vulcan took. I have an experienced counselor arriving shortly, and I know you'll see her regularly." Take the hint, lieutenant, she added to herself. "But I also know a counselor is no substitute for the support of people you care about. People like Jason Haines. Am I wrong?"

She would talk to the counselor at least once. More if it helped. Alanna shook her head. "No. You're not wrong. Being with him helps more than anything." Especially with the nightmares.

Maritza winced internally. It was never good to be the bearer of bad news. "And with that in mind, I'll do what I can. But you should know that even if I don't request disciplinary action, Mr. Haines could still face charges. He committed mutiny in the field and his defense is shaky." Or worse, depending on if planning for the extrajudicial murder of Starfleet personnel only counted as a war crime during times of war.

"I know." Even though she didn't know the details, she knew it was a possibility. "If he does, I will be a witness on his behalf. He was following orders, if not yours or Commander Ryan's."

And that was the problem. "I would be grateful if you would keep that to yourself until I've spoken to JAG."

"The only reason I mentioned it to you is because you already knew about his other orders," Alanna said. "It's up to you or Jason to tell anyone else." Besides, Jason asked her not to and she wasn't going to get him in more trouble.

Alanna ran a hand through her hair. She had something else she wanted to say to Commander Soran. "I know Jason is angry that you sent me down to the portal with Sovok. I want you to know that I'm not. I wanted to see him leave, to know he wasn't coming back. I never suspected he would try what he did."

"I'm not concerned with Lieutenant Haines' anger. I assumed if you'd rather not be in his presence you would have said. But I should have suspected. And for that I apologise."

Alanna was concerned with Jason's anger, but that was another matter. "So should I. I spent several hours with him. I half-expected him to ask me to go voluntarily to have a first-hand look at his world, but not to take me as his slave. So, we both dropped the ball on that one."

Some more than others, Maritza thought guiltily. "So, moving forward, is there anything else I can do for you at this moment? Do you want me to approve some extra leave?"

Alanna shook her head. "No. I want to work. I need to work. But I'll probably do most of it from my quarters. I'm not feeling too social right now."

"Understandable." Maritza had been the same after her ordeal at the hands of the Kzinti, throwing herself into whatever work the Klingons could find for her. The desire for distraction and purpose.

"Is there anything you'd like to know about...that place?" Alanna asked.

Maritza nodded. "How do they compare, technologically? Do you know if they had Risa's climate control? And how would you rate their weaponry?"

"They appear to be on par with us technologically, but they're more focused on war than science," Alanna said. "I only saw their camp by the portal. I...didn't have a chance to see their ship. The weapons I saw were disruptors, agonizers, and explosives."

"War can drive innovation fast enough." Maritza said. "I've no doubt we could have learnt many things that shouldn't be learned if we'd had more time to investigate."

The science officer nodded. "They definitely have weapons I don't want people here to know about."

"The... agonizer?" Soran had heard the name a moment before when Alanna mentioned it. It was one she'd not heard before, so she assumed that was the tech Alanna meant.

"It's a torture device. It can cause pain that feels like you've been burned with liquid fire or acid." She hesitated before adding, "It can also cause acute pleasure."

Oh. Oh Martiza followed that comment to its unpleasant, yet logical, conclusion. "Ah." Thank goodness there was a counselor en route. This was out of her league. "Well. Its all just a matter of stimulating the right nerves, or the right part of the brain. Either way, you don't get any control over your reactions. It doesn't mean anything."

"No, you can't control your reaction. And for a time after, your nerves are hyper-sensitive and you can't control that, either." And that was the other part that haunted Alanna.

Maritza didn't know what to say. She understood being powerless, being a prisoner, being helpless in the face of overwhelming force. But she'd never had to handle the desecration of her own body. She'd missed being vivisected to death by a hair, had endured seeing her crew tortured, tested, experimented on until their bodies or brains gave up. But she'd never lost control of her own body. She was in territory she, thankfully, had no shared experience of. But it left her struggling to know the right words. "It sill means nothing. there's no responsibility, for you. Not there."

"Intellectually, I know that, but I still blame myself," Alanna said. "I know I had little choice, but that doesn't seem to help any."

"No, I don't suppose it does." Maritza had enough experience of surviving to know that. She hadn't stopped second guessing herself, and her traumas were years behind her, not days. "I have no suggestions for that. Except to see the counselor when she arrives."

"I will," Alanna promised. "Being with Jason helps a lot." She wasn't sure Maritza would appreciate that. "In time, I'll do better." She smiled. "Thank you for understanding."

"Its nothing. And if you need anything, please ask." Maritza stood to see her Chief Science officer out.

Alanna nodded. "I will." Even though she didn't have to report to the commander, it was a relief to get it over with. She bowed and headed back to her office to try and get some work done.

____
OFF

Lieutenant JG Alanna Wells
Chief Science Officer
Deep Space Five

Commander Maritza Soran
Commanding Officer
Deep Space Five

 

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