Posted by Lieutenant Corinne Dalton/SARAH (Ships AI/Avatar) in Holodeck 1- Reconciliation

Posted by Lieutenant Commander Dr. Royal Sinclair (Chief of Security) in Holodeck 1- Reconciliation

Posted by Captain Dante Knight (Commanding Officer) in Holodeck 1- Reconciliation
Posted by… suppressed (3) by the Post Ghost! 👻
Some time to think. He wasn’t wrong, though it was for perhaps different reasons than Royal had suggested.

This was about the past and how Corinne Dalton had been caught up in the middle of a terrible game and suffered the ultimate consequences. She died. And regardless of how Sinclair chose to encourage her to reframe it, a part of her did die that day.

Over the years she had created distance between herself and that moment, and while there was a distinct anxiety her ‘status’ created, she had increasingly pushed that day away. But then it all came burbling out the day Jarred told her about his daughter and she felt compelled to tell Royal the whole messy story. Levi’s betrayal was different, of course, but the threads of it felt too similar to what Jarred had invoked in her that day.

And now she was facing the possibility that Federation Security was going to sweep in, probably learn everything that she wanted to remain in the past and ruin the semblance of peace she had managed to create in her new life. And she wasn’t going to allow that to happen, not if she could help it.

Cori sent a message to the Captain, COS and Ensign Lokaa requesting them to meet her in Holodeck 1 at 1200 hours, stating it as an important matter of ship security. Well, it would certainly be one if FedSec arrived!

---

The holodeck was already running a program when any of them arrived. It was hot and dry with a wind stirring up the desert dust. Light coloured buildings reflected the light away from the interiors, providing relief for the occupants. Not that there was anyone around. In fact, there was not a soul, despite the sounds of fighting going on int eh distance.

They found themselves on a main street near the entrance to an alley and it wouldn’t take long for them to spot a figure sitting in the alley on the ground, with their back to them. Shoulders bare except a thin white strap, the cream dress followed the slim curves of the form, flaring out in a gauzy layer on the ground. From this view, it was almost serene.

Cori sat there, mostly blocking the view before her until people drew closer. The first thing they would notice would be the pool of blood that radiated out from a form. It wouldn’t take long for them to recognize that it was Cori herself, lying on her back, wearing a black garment that covered her entire body and revealed no skin aside from her face and neck. Her bright blue eyes (more naturally coloured) gazed upwards, lifeless, though the expression conveyed still spoke of the fear of those last few moments.

~Corinne Dalton

Royal arrived a few minutes early and walked in, taking in the scene with a look of confusion and puzzlement on his face. When he saw the corpse, he stopped and looked from the probe figure to the sitting one. He leaned over and put a shoulder against a wall and crossed his arms on his chest.

“You all right, lass?” the big Scot asked softly.

Sinclair, CoS

An expanse of silence sat between them. That was a very good question. Was she all right? “No, Royal, I’m very much not all right. Maybe I haven’t ever been. Which is a very strange thought…” If she hadn’t been dressed as she was and speaking on a personal level, she could have been mistaken for her alter ego at the moment given that her voice was much closer to that distant tone of SARAH.

~Corinne Dalton

“Then you might want to tell us what this is about?” Dante said from behind them as he approached, his eyes already having taken in the surroundings and now resting on the form on the ground. He had read the reports, there were always reports, but they were vastly different and impersonal to what had transpired in the past.

Captain Knight, CO

Sinclair looked at the Captain and simply nodded once. This was Cori’s show, so he’d let her direct the flow.

Sinclair, CoS

Cori took in Dante for a moment before she focused on Royal. “I’m sorry,” she said, her eyes dropping for a moment as she frowned. “You were trying to help and I… was too terrified to see anything at that moment. I took it out on you and I’m truly sorry.”

She pushed herself to her feet in a single fluid motion borne of years of practice as a dancer. Taking a step to stand between the captain and Sinclair, she faced Knight. “I lost my ballet pointe shoes. And long story short we found some of my personal effects have been marked as evidence in an investigation into my death. The second one actually. The one where the Douwd trapped me in a tiny space in the Saracen’s computer for over three years, giving me a fear of small spaces and darkness. And after I… returned, after I freed myself finally, I learned that I had been declared lost. Missing in Action and presumed dead. But that of course became complicated when Royal did my psyc eval and filed it. And now Federation Security is investigating. And if they start digging, they will get to this,” she said gesturing to the dead body before them.

“Captain, I told Royal the story, in all its terrible reality, in confidence. Which he’s bound to whether he’s currently a practicing therapist or not. But this isn’t just about me. It’s about all the others that were a part of it. Of people who are innocent and don’t deserve to have the past ripped wide open and made public. It’s not fair to them. But I might not get a say in any of it. I certainly didn’t back then. But it’s your ship. Your crew. And I think you deserve to know the truth so that we can figure out how to handle this. But…”

She moved away, her gauzy dress shifting as a light breeze cast a moment of respite from the desert heat. Dalton peered down at the dead body. “But if I tell you the story, names excluded where necessary, I need you and Royal to understand that this was not some abstract event. I had a bullet rip through my back and I bled out on this very holodeck floor. I don’t say that to be gruesome, but so you understand that when people question my existence, doubt my sentience, I think back to this day and desperately wish that I had just actually died here. Because I’m tired and I’m tired of feeling like I’m one step away from being declared a liability. Or, on the flip side, that one day the ship will begin to get old and breakdown and it’ll be retired. What happens to the woman in the machine? Does she simply become a museum piece along with the ship? An oddity people can visit on a rare whim? Because it’s not just the pain of the past I’m fighting here. I’m fighting for my future. And right now my immediate future is looking dicey. I’ve made some real progress, I think, trying to claim back my life, but it feels like I’m going to lose everything just. like. that.” She snapped her fingers and the bloodied form disappeared from sight.

~Corinne Dalton

“No. You won’t.” Royal said flatly, as if he was commenting on the color of the sky. “You are a living consciousness, a sentient being. The law is very clear on this, isn’t it Captain?” he asked, turning from where the body disappeared to look at Knight.

Sinclair, CoS