Touching the Silence

Posted on 17 Feb 2016 @ 3:34am by Lieutenant Commander Temerant Bast

1,441 words; about a 7 minute read

Mission: Outbreak
Location: Sickbay
Timeline: MD0 - Concurrent with Final Confrontation

T'Lura looked at the sleeping officer lying on the biobed. She knew the endgame was currently taking place on the Bridge, but that didn't concern her at this moment. She was focused on her patient. The Trill officer's life signs were stable. He had sufficiently recovered from the phaser stun, but he was still healing from the multiple fractures and impact trauma of the heavy crate that had fallen on him.

She spared a glance at the Andorian security guard who was still standing by the door, shifting his weight nervously, before turning back to the patient's file. Bast's utterance still bothered her a bit. They had based their plan of action on his denunciation of Terlexa and del Rosario, and used it to confirm their suspicions of recent events on the ship. But those conclusions had been based on the assumption that he had been telling the truth.

Logic told her that in his condition, he would have been incapable of lying. And indeed, logic dictated that lying was never an appropriate course of action. As a Vulcan, she herself was incapable of lying. As such, it was instinctual for her to assume that members of other species were also equally truthful, especially under such circumstances as those Lieutenant Bast had faced.

But nevertheless, logic also indicated that she could not discount the possibility that the Lieutenant had been lying. And since the intervention in the Bridge was taking place based on his declaration, she felt duty-bound to ascertain the truth. She placed herself at the head of the biobed, and cleared her mind, inhaling deeply. She reached out with her hands, and with her fingers spread, she touched Temerant's face.

"My mind to your mind…" she began.

"Stop!" called out Cha'Lìn, the Andorian guard. He reached for his phaser.

"Computer, quarantine protocol one," called out T'Lura. Instantly, a forcefield materialized around the biobed and the surrounding area, shielding them from the guard.

"Computer, security override!" called out Cha'Lìn, his antennae twitching in frustration.

"Unable to comply," replied the computer. "Medical quarantine protocol in effect."

Cha'Lìn swore in the Andorian language. T'Lura ignored the universal translator's version.

"Your thoughts, to my thoughts…"

Her mind stretched out to touch Temerant's. She could feel his presence, even though he was still unconscious. Her presence in his mind would appear to him as a dream. But through him, she also touched another mind. She recognized it as the symbiont's. The small creature nested in Temerant's abdomen was grateful for her presence, as it, too, was trying to reach Temerant's mind.

She sensed the symbiont's stress, its anxiety at having been cut off from the outside world for so long. She hoped that her presence and her mental touch would reassure the symbiont, and she tried to project an image of calm and serenity. In return, the symbiont sent back thoughts of gratefulness, and shared with her the memories of the last few moments it had shared with the host, just before the silence had taken hold. It shared with her its perspective of the Silence, and the breath caught in her throat from the sudden feeling of isolation, of total sensory deprivation that the symbiont had experienced.

She tried to push those thoughts aside, and prompted the symbiont to go back to the memories of the last few moments before the Silence. She saw the mess hall on Deep Space 11, and Commodore Terlexa walking with the cadaverous Selamat ambassador. Terlexa walking to the replicator, and shielding it from view with her body. The subtle flick of her wrist, and the two glasses of wine she brought to the table. The liquid swirling in the glass she handed to Temerant…

And suddenly came the memory of a cold touch in the host's mind.

She looked down on the biobed. Temerant's eyes were still closed, but his level of consciousness had increased enough so that he could share his own memories. There was Terlexa's pleasant smile, and the good news she had shared with him – of his transfer to the Black Hawk. She could feel the young man's exhilaration at the opportunity of a deep space assignment. Then a brief moment of concern shared by both host and symbiont when the mental bond had weakened, and disappeared entirely – confusion that persisted in the symbiont's mind, but that subsided with the host, as another mind was being heard – whispering gently at first, trying to be reassuring, all the while searching through Temerant's mind.

For the first time in a very long while, T'Lura experienced fear. Her mind's eye was filled with the vision of the Selamat ambassador's eyes, drilling into her mind – or rather through Temerant's eyes, as she was reliving what he had experienced.

Instinct prompted her to retract her fingers from Temerant, breaking the mindmeld. She struggled to regain her breath for a moment, and collected her thoughts. She centered herself, and tried to get logic to reclaim its rightful place in her thoughts.

She replayed the major elements in her mind. Terlexa had appeared, with a drink in her hand. A drink she had just replicated, shielding it from view. The flick of her wrist, and the swirling liquid – and the fact that her own drink was still, and not swirling like Temerant's. The logical conclusion was that she had put something in Temerant's drink. The terazapine inhibitor? It was certainly possible. She moved to the computer console, and checked if the biochemistry lab had returned an analysis on the substance. She found the report in short order, and it was indeed water soluble, which lent credence to her theory. Terlexa had then procured the symbiosis inhibitor.

The next image had been that of the Selamat ambassador. Drilling himself in Temerant's mind. A fleeting image that the symbiont had also seen, just before its link to the host had been broken. The implication that the Selamat were a telepathic species was obvious, even though that fact was missing from the species' file in Starfleet records.

But what could the Selamat have done to cause Temerant to turn against Starfleet?

There was only one way to know. She walked back to the head of the biobed, and replaced her fingers on Temerant's face, ignoring Cha'Lìn's frustrated growls. She reconnected her mind to both the host and the symbiont, and gently asked them both to share their memories again. The frightening image of the Selamat returned, but this time she pushed it aside, and locked it away, where it could do no harm, reassuring the young host that it was nothing but a memory.

She tried to reconcile Temerant's memories with the symbiont's, but here and there, the two had a few discrepancies. Some of these could easily be explained by the passage of time, but some conclusions locked away in Temerant's mind clashed with those reached by the symbiont's, and struck her as completely illogical, driven by fear, doubt and resentment, and bore the aftertaste of the Selamat's cold touch. There was now no doubt in her mind that the young Trill had been drugged by Commodore Terlexa, and telepathically manipulated by the Selamat ambassador. The notion that a Starfleet officer, let alone a Commodore, could do this to one of her own was difficult to believe, and only allowed one conclusion – that Terlexa and the ambassador were indeed working for the Consortium.

She used her mindmeld with the young Trill to lull him back to sleep, where he could mend. In the meantime, the symbiont would try to reconcile with the host's memories, and revert some of the damage that had been caused by the telepathic violation.

Comforted in her conclusions that her patient had been telling the truth, she finally gently removed her fingers from his face. She collected her thoughts, and recentered her own mind before sparing a glance at Cha'Lìn. The Andorian guard was seething, causing T'Lura to hesitate before shutting down the quarantine field. But as soon as she did, the security officer found himself standing less than three inches from her, towering over her small frame, his antennae standing rigidly atop his head.

He bared his teeth in a malicious snarl. "Do that again, and I will place you under arrest for compromising ship security."

She raised an eyebrow. "Is that a threat?" she asked calmly.

The Andorian eyed her with contempt. "Take it as you will," he replied.

She cocked her head and remained silent, and maintained eye contact, as a signal that she was not easily intimidated. Cha'Lìn finally stepped back, and moved back to his position by the door.

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