Decisions

Posted on 08 Nov 2022 @ 9:44pm by Lieutenant JG Lisald Vaat

731 words; about a 4 minute read

Mission: Outbreak
Location: Senior Officers Quarters

ON


Lisald looked at the uniform hanging next to the mirror in his room. It was pristine. The one and half pips on the collar caught the light just right, the solid one glinting. Before he was injured, Lisald saw that glint and thought it was glorious and bright and full of promise. Today, it was a dull glint, almost like there was a cloud over it somewhere.

The yellow across the shoulders, the color of his department he was in also wasn't as bright or as happy as he had remembered it.

He stepped back from it, shaking his head. Turning around, he saw, laid out on his bed, the tattered remains of the uniform he was wearing when he was wounded. It had been cut off of him, by Dr. Elodin, Dr. Winters or Dr. Kin'Fuji, he didn't know and likely never would know. He wasn't sure if he really even wanted to know. Despite himself, he stepped closer to it, his hand reaching out to the cut along the shoulder line, then abruptly up to the neck line, just left of the pips on it. Those pips were his original pips, the one he got when he graduated Starfleet Academy, and the other one the one that he got personally from Captain Stafford, the Cygnus' original Commanding Officer. Tears began to well up in his eyes, forcing him to blink several times to push them away. Those days, he thought, were simpler times, easier times. Happier times.

As his finger traced along the tattered remains, the fabric got noticeably darker, followed by a hole that matched the shape and size of the scar now on his upper chest. The point where part of his console on the Bridge had exploded, catching him an instant later in its blast and casualty radius. It took him a moment to realize the darker section on the remains of his uniform was the stain and soaking of his own blood. He inhaled sharply and jerked his hand back, clutching it to his chest like it had bit him. He stepped backwards quickly, trying to escape from it, his back striking the wall behind him. He yelped, then did a sort of stumble/run out of his bedroom and into the larger room that was his living room.

Even though the journey was maybe seven steps, his heart was pounding, his palms were clammy, his breathing was that like it was during his final physical endurance exam at the Academy, and he was sweating literally through his clothes. It took him several more moments, complete with steadying himself on the back of his couch, to calm his breathing, to begin to process what happened to him just then. He had a panic attack. Before this moment, he thought panic attacks were something that was in the head of the person being affected by them, (his rational mind told him that is what it was, in the head of the person) but now he understood differently. It was something that caused a very real and very serious physical reaction. It was not pleasant at all, to understate it completely.

Finally sitting down, he meditated on the Prophets to help guide him through this terrible, troubled time. While they did not answer him (nor did he expect them to), the meditation did help, and allowed him to calm his feelings and collect his thoughts, though it did take quite some time, and a considerable amount of effort. As he reflected upon what happened, he looked over to the doorway to his bedroom, and where his uniforms were, the one that was hanging, pristine, ready to be worn, but dulled to the senses, something he was not keen on wearing ever again, and the tattered one on his bed, a very real and very pronounced reminder of how close he came to dying, a reminder that in space, everything wanted to kill you. Even the ship you served on and labored to keep together and loved as much as one loved their mother.

It was then that he decided he no longer wanted in Starfleet. He couldn't handle it. He wouldn't handle it. The science be damned, his life was more important.

He tapped his commbadge. "Lisald to Spangler. He buddy, can I have you come over?"


OFF

Lisald Vaat
Pending Civilian
USS Cygnus

 

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