Healing, The Beginning

Posted on 17 Mar 2025 @ 3:58am by Captain Bane Plase

837 words; about a 4 minute read

Mission: Shoreleave and Reassignment
Location: Deck 10, Starboard Hatch

ON
Deck 10, Starboard Hatch, Connecting to Starbase 385
One week later


Bane looked at the scorch mark along the hull of the USS Cygnus. The blackened carbon deposit stretched from the opened hatch to beyond the connecting umbilical's seal to the hull. It presumably went on for another meter or more. In addition to the scorch mark, there was a nasty gash just below it. It didn't penetrate the hull, but it was close. They were from either the explosion of the Bilifix that crippled his ship, or the resulting attack from the Pakleds, or both.

"Sir, you are free to enter."

Bane blinked out of his thoughts and turned his attention to the Petty Officer Third Class standing sentry at the mouth of the hatch and the corridor leading into the depths of the ship. It was this Petty Officers job to ensure controlled ingress and egress to the crippled Nebula-class starship, and he was doing it well. In fact, he had already checked Captain Bane's credentials and was waiting for the senior officer to leave his vicinity. He was nervous around anyone higher than a Lieutenant and wanted him gone, badly.

Bane, caught with his mind wandering on the scorch mark and damage to the exposed hull, was both annoyed for being caught in such a state, and annoyed that a low-mid-grade enlisted person would dare pressure him along, responded with a sharp tongue. "I will enter when I am ready, Crewman. Let us not forget that I am the Captain of this vessel, hmm? I will enter, or leave, whenever I please."

The Petty Officer went to attention and looked straight ahead, or at the wall of the umbilical, to the left of Bane's shoulder. "Yes sir, sorry sir. I thought maybe you had not heard me, and I was just trying to be helpful, sir."

Plase felt like an ass, but he wasn't about to apologize. This moment was extremely emotionally charged for him, and he felt justified in that, at the very least. "As you were, Crewman," he responded. While not an apology, but his tone was a lot softer, and thus carried the message.

His eyes went from the Petty Officer to the corridor before him, beyond the threshold and into the Cygnus. It had already been a week since they had been at this new starbase, orbiting the gorgeous planet below, where each of them had a bungalow reserved for them. But beyond the glitter and glamour of the planet, beyond the clean and streamlined (and functioning) starbase, lay a corridor still littered with debris not yet cleaned up. Panels still knocked off. Display panels still cracked, or outright blown out. The automated cleaning was still offline, and no crewman or repairman or dockworker had yet been assigned to clean up the mess, or to reactivate the subsystem.

As Bane passed over the threshold, he would swear the ship "woke up," now that he was back aboard. Like the ship had been out, or maybe unconscious, until this moment. It wasn't anything that happened that gave Bane this feeling. Nothing 'came on' or activated. Indeed, nothing physical had changed, at all. Sure, the automatic functions of the ship still worked, the lights, the air circulating, the artificial gravity plating. Some of it was powered by shore power from the starbase, but that isn't what Bane felt as he stepped over the edge and into the ship. The ship wasn't fully awake, no, but she was coming back, slowly. The edge of consciousness, almost. It was just a feeling Bane had. The connection between Captain and Ship were strong, and many a time in the storied past of Starfleet had this very phenomenon be spoken of.

The Captain stopped at the intersection, looked left, right, and straight ahead. Not a person in sight, not a sound could be heard, short of the air recirculator. Even the warp cores thrumming from deep below was missing. He leaned onto the corner of the intersecting bulkheads and put his hand up on the wall. "Come back to me," he said to the ship, softly. "Come back to all of us."

The ship was in shambles, yes. Severely hurt, to be sure, certainly in no condition to be able to go out by herself, or even to be off the life support being given to her from the starbase, but was Bast was here, and so was Stovek, Winters and Morak. And Seitha and Ahmad and Marshall and Flint. And Bane was back, too, nearly lost to her, and to all of them, but he was back. And so were all the people that worked and lived and played in these corridors and rooms, labs and offices. His will, their will, would bring her back to life. She would be stronger for it, and those that went with her would be closer still for what they all endured, together.


OFF

Bane Plase, Captain
USS Cygnus, Commanding

 

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