Posted May 26, 2020, 3:20 p.m. by Lieutenant Commander Ever Zeanar (Chief of Psychiatry (Incoming)) (Ty Napier)
Preposterous. Ever cleared her throat more loudly than what she had intended, betraying her disbelief. Across from her the other woman sunk lower, appearing even more frail, grieved with defeat. Desperation reeked and hung in the air, pressing against the empath’s psyche, crushing against her skull. Pushing back the woman’s thoughts and emotions, Ever shook her head making a physical deceleration of propelling the unwanted intrusion from her mind.
“Ms. Rodriquez.....” Ever said with a long exhale, followed by a tired and exacerbated pause.
“Captain. Captain Rodriquez,” the woman responded sitting upright and rigid. Her voice echoed across the small space between them, airing confidence and a command authority. From her wheelchair, through her broken body and spirit, Rodriquez managed to regain some stature of what that title meant to a Starfleet officer.
Ever lowered her head and rubbed her olive toned knuckles against her temple. Technically Rodriquez had been stripped of her rank at the end of her trial when she had been found guilty of so many horrific crimes. In her five years as a psychiatrist st the Nova Penal Colony, Ever had successfully treated all of her patients through a combination of medications and various therapies. Rehabilitation, however, could not begin without accepting guilt and expressing remorse. After two years, Ever had to concede that Rodriquez would never admit guilt and remained steadfast in her innocents, despite overwhelming evidence against her. With a lack of mental illness diagnosis possible, this case was threatening to become Ever’s only failure. One resolution remained and one Ever was not keen to perform. Rodriquez had, to her surprise, accepted this last resort of having her memory wiped. But with only one condition. One that was trusted fulfilled by Ever.
“Captain Rodriquez, what you are asking me to do....” Ever sat back against the chair. Technically the request did not violate any regulations, even if it was unorthodox. Taking a trip to OED before reporting to the Ogawa for duty was more an inconvenience. Realistically, what else would she do with her leave time? No family or friends to visit. A vacation to OED was not at the top of her list of holiday destinations. Part of her was curios if Rodriquez was taking her down a rabbit hole of delusions or was something potentially sinister buried by a mad woman who had committed more than one murder, hidden in the desolate ground of OED.
“Si.” Rodriquez uttered the single word of affirmation and stared blankly at the bulkhead behind Ever. Inmate R081489 seemed to accept her fate. As far as Ever was concerned, the end of her career at Starfleet Nova Correctional Penal Colony had ended with 100 percent success rate.
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Wounded sunlight blazed across the incoming night sky as twilight crept over the barren wasteland. Shadows trapped by the day began to emerge, twisting and crawling out from under boulders mixing with thin sheets of pebbles and sand that formed a carpet extending to the unseen edges of OED’s surface. Life did not exist here. Not yet. Nature still claimed this pre terraforming graveyard, safeguarded from a life course yet undetermined perhaps by insipidly dull imagination or loss of interest. Daylight, the enemy of night, cried silently it’s truth that no rainfall would cascade down from the heaven to fill the parched ground and the cracks of agony ripped across the earths dry bones and skin. Radiant cold stars would soon blink across the expansive backdrop finding a grim beauty amongst the bleakness.
Psychiatrist hand’t much need for training and wearing EVA suits. Ever lifted one heavy boot and took another step, twisting her ankle slightly as the small rocks underneath her feet gave way. Imagining that each footfall echoed a crunching sound across the vastness of the open desert, Ever felt the desolation of unholy silence deprived of voices and feeling of souls demanding to be heard and felt within her mind. Utterly alone, she had never, until now, understood her own insignificance in the universe. Standing in the place she had been directed to by Rodriquez, Ever scanned the area with her tricorder, half hoping to find nothing resting beneath the ground. No. There was a small cylinder shaped container. Taking a laser cutter from her tool belt, Ever carefully cut the form away from the rocks that encased it, hidden like a dark secret.
Turning the dust covered cylinder over and over in her gloved hands, Ever could not decipher any of the markings etched into its sides. Despite her best efforts and rational concerns for safety, opening it had proven impossible. Whatever it contained, whatever truths its held, had been erased with Rodriquez’s world. The enormity of what Ever had done to the woman came crushing, pulling her to her knees, begging for forgiveness to gods unseen and unborn. Whoever Captain Rodriquez had been, her dreams, visions, her memories of those she loved and who had loved her, were gone forever, extinguished beyond the souls of her eyes at Ever’s hands. Was Rodriquez telling the truth? Had she been innocent? This thing, whatever it was, should be turned over to Starfleet. As an officer, Ever knew her duty. No. Whatever the truth, she needed to discover for herself. Placing the cylinder in a bag, she turned her back to the setting sun.
Lt. Commander Ever Zeanar, Incoming Chief of Psychiatry
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