This Year I

Posted on 20 May 2013 @ 11:35am by Lieutenant JG Kestra Orexil

2,425 words; about a 12 minute read

Mission: Episode 03 - Frontier
Location: USS Galileo: Sickbay
Timeline: MD7 0700

ON:

If Liyar were planetside, it would just be nearing daybreak. Mornings used to be his favorite time of day. The light felt right, things seemed more open, closer to touching the inner core, seeing magic. Not so on Galileo, Starfleet's floating tin can. Mornings here were the same as every other endless hour, dragging on and on. He was so tired, not for the first time he was dead on his feet. Kestra, RII, RIII, Neo, Naskisem. Maenad. For once he just wanted to zone out, but his overresponsible brain wouldn't let him back out of life that easily. Kestra had been on his mind since two days ago, when he'd left her side. He didn't know why, but there was a bone-deep sense of kinship that didn't evaporate with distance. Maybe it was the exact same thing he'd told Anera. His mind, looking for things to fill the emptiness. Or perhaps it was genuine, and real. Just because it's a dream, doesn't mean it isn't real, words engraved on his katra. And visceral, physical empathy. He knew what it was like to spend all that time going nowhere, stuck in white rooms, plastered in observation windows. Chained by restraints, Kestra might as well have been, for all the use she got out of her limbs at first. A restraint made out of flesh. He helped Trija get her out of that hell, only to trap her in another, more insidious one.

Liyar stood up from the turbolift wall, clutching the stack of PADDs and goods in his arms.Boredom, overarching boredom bled into his mind from her. Boredom and stifling ennui, dripping into a sea of timeless molasses. Truthfully he didn't know what sort of thing occupied her time. He knew her, but these were the nitpicky things. The PADDs contained a wide variety of media. Holovid seasons, news broadcasts, music.The clunky prototype psionic transceiver rested on top of the PADDs. She might find some of the cross-species music interesting. Textbooks, personnel files, Rojar updates; and on Athlen's suggestion: videos of kittens. He still didn't know what they were. Accompanied by his box of wonders, Liyar entered the sickbay and found Kestra resting in her bed. A dull clunk alerted her to his outside presence, but his overactive mind was a bright flare all on its own. He placed the package on the side table and sat down on the chair next to her bed. "Good morning," he said unceremoniously. "I am given to understand that this setting is most efficient at slowly draining away any sense of cognitive serviceability," he introduced himself wryly, as though she had any doubt as to who he was.

Kestra turned her head on the pillow and smiled at him. A non-blurry Liyar face not framed by the hazy images in the minds of others. It was a pleasant face she was pleased to finally see. Keep talking. It keeps the other sounds at bay. Too many thoughts on these ships. Far too many dreams. What have you brought? A touch of a button on the side of the bed slowly raised her to a seated position. She'd managed three hours of work at the console in the security office that day before exhaustion and the constant assault on her mind sent her fleeing into dreams. And the dreams hadn't been any more restful than the waking hours, only slightly more manageable. It was disconcerting to find she was more comfortable with herself sleeping than waking. Kittens? she wondered, laughing. I must thank your Athlen. And the psionic receiver! I've so wondered about this since I heard you thinking of it. At least, I think it was you. It was farther away and there are so many voices all the time- She'd taught herself not to wince when they swelled to high decibels in her mind, but her hands still stiffened slightly when the internal sounds overrode the outer. Too much. Exhale. Let them go. I've hands again. She wiggled her fingers as proof. Despite the stubborn immobility of her lower body and the exhaustion which still, irritably, engulfed her far too quickly and easily - she could move again. Something. Her hands. The bed. The chair. She still needed to sleep in the Sickbay in order to have her brainwaves monitored while she slept, but she was no longer entirely trapped. That was a blessing. Wasn't it? Will you show me how to work it?

Kestra looked like living, breathing being, Liyar noted. In the same room with her, his own mind felt like someone was holding a microphone up to it. Squeakscreetchreverb. He didn't wince, but he breathed deeper. Control and disarm. He knew what he wanted to do, but his mind didn't follow any of his missives. It reacted at random. Plunging into Kestra's netherworld, dousing Lilou's brain in snow and light. He wanted to cast a shield. Something to quiet the thoughts, to bring peace, at least for now. Instead, his mind decided to do hand springs and backflips, completely ignoring him. He didn't scowl, either. Liyar lifted up the box and gently placed it over her lap. "Yes," he said with a nod once he accepted the reality that his mind wouldn't cooperate. He had to wonder if it was a good idea to visit her. Everything seemed so much louder now, chaotic, disjointed. Echoes playing off of echoes. He couldn't predict his head, it was a waiting explosion. After a few minutes things started to calm; willed through, tapping the cornerstone of pain as a lighthouse through the fog. He made his fingers work and arranged the headset, lifting it up toward her. She did look better. Eyes, hands, limbs. "I am uncertain as to what kittens are. I am assured they possess sufficient quantities of cuteness. According to Athlen, that is a most important quality. These go over your ears, like so. The controls are operated telepathically or manually, hooked into one of these PADDs, here. With different selections there are different algorithms. The basic principle is that for the duration of the harmonic frequencies, an applied mathematical formula can be introduced that will allow these frequencies to be experienced by those outside the species. Since telepathy and music are not universal, you may find a few of the selections novel." He switched the PADD to his section on the Cairn. Mostly he had done it on a lark, his own boredom. It was more interesting than melodious.

It's fortunate I have this link with you, Liyar. Most of your words soar straight over my head. Numbers and formulas. Laughter pealed, accented by a thousand laughs before it. I'm terrible at math. But the context of your mind is illuminating. Perhaps I'll learn it yet. Images of soft, furry creatures from a dozen different planets - small and large, tiny ears, bushy tails - all of them cuddled against various Kestras of different ages.

Liyar was amused, and it flashed in his mind for a moment. If he were less tired, less experienced, less anything and everything, he would have hidden it. But it was a meaningless effort, here. He met her kitten images with a few of his own. A gigantic, burly creature tearing through an observatory. It resembled a bear, with large sabretooth fangs. It shook its head like a dog and munched (quite without permission) on a few of its favorite plants. "I somehow doubt sehlat videos would be as enticing," he said aloud.

She was so grateful for his company, she could have burst. Instead, she situated the headphones over her ears and pressed play on an unknown piece that promised the sounds of bells. Chimes, soft gongs, irregular reverberations shook her bone-deep. For the first time in days, even the barest whispers were gone from her mind. Alone, truly alone, in the dark considering space of her own consciousness without the prodding and poking of hundreds of thinkers and dreamers... she reached automatically and unthinkingly for Liyar's hand, grasping it as the sounds deepened and filled her mind and body. There. One mind. Onemind. A link. It was pleasure of the purest form, relief and wonder. Each time the bells receded, the whispers crept again, but they returned again. Waves pushing inexorably at the shoreline. Momentary miracles. You hear them too. She'd felt him struggling, but hadn't guessed at the reason. Too distracted by her own perpetual din, and silent lower limbs.

Liyar tensed at the contact, but allowed it, knowing the source. It was ironic, he thought. Every single thing. At once too alone, and too immersed. Never enough, or simply too much. Raging, terrifying input and then darkness. Silence. Was that all life was? A constant need to find the correct balance, of loneliness and not? Of course it was, he thought. It wasn't all that mysterious. Nothing changes, Szymborska reminded him, except for the course of boundaries. / Nothing changes, only there are more people. "I do," he spoke. "Trija postulated it is due to the link between us. I am an amp, she insists." He leaned over and picked up the PADD, showing her another screen, but not interrupting the song she'd picked. "You may also find these interesting. They are from your homeworld."

Nothing changes? What was that? She looked to the list on the PADD, heart swelling at the sight of the familiar tunes. You hear them... because of me? she wondered, horrified at the notion that she would put anyone else through the constant assault.

Liyar shook his head abruptly. "No. Not because of you." He didn't know how to explain it, and he didn't really want to. "Not directly." If I were an ordinary Vulcan; with ordinary mental abilities, it would not be an issue, he said in her mind, unwilling to discuss it out loud. He knitted his fingers together and stared at the table beside her bed. I apologize; I attempted to shield you from them, their thoughts. The shield I gave you, it was too weak to sustain itself.

No single shield could withstand the shouting of over a thousand minds, at least one hundred of which are perpetually frenzied. He was so troubled; she nudged the headphones from her ears and did wince this time as the noise assaulted her once more. Breathe it out, let it go, breathe it out. You've nothing to be sorry for.

With little warning, Liyar suddenly looked up, holding up first one finger, then two. The gears in his mind were clicking away madly, but with little purpose or intent. It was a frenzy, without order. Like the chaotic thoughts that bashed the walls of the room, he needed to wait. Narrow them out. Focus. The idea, the motivation came first, then the logic. Logic was a tuning fork, words were sanding paper. He stood from the chair and took the PADD from her hands, and the headset, beginning to pace a little as he confined his thoughts. "You could hear the Cairn one, the - bells. It helped, helped with the thoughts. A way to create a formula," it appeared in his mind, "To use that to trick the mind into believing, the auditory nerves, telepathy in -" numbers, he apparently didn't say. "A shield. No shield could, telepathic -" he pulled apart the PADD and started digging into its interior. His mind turned very rapidly into numbers-thoughts, scanning frequencies, melodies, harmonies. He switched several different wires and then delved into the program itself, choosing one song to apply a rapid series of changes. He handed her back the headset. "Nothing. Silence, in the mind. Telepathic harmony, taking one sound, the telepathic input from the -" he shook his head. "Turning it into nothing. Creating a proper frequency to focus the mind, into one specific zone, the same zone required to listen to that one frequency. Put these on. I need to test it."

She barely listened to his words, too curious about the rolls of letters, numbers, and geometric kaleidoscopes revolving through one another in his head. The lovely headset arrived again in her hands, a jumble of wires now. Disordered numbers that meant nothing to her. Might as well have been speaking Bolian without a translator. Thoughts. Trickery. Harmony. Rapid input. I'm not a droen whistling pig, she thought, amused. Just because they hook me up to all these machines whenever they can... She peered at the jerry-rigged headphones. What zone? What frequency?

Liyar's hand shook minutely as he gestured to the headset. He moved his fingers in an odd pattern and then straightened them, set them on his lap. He was silent for a long time as he tried his fastest to make it - make sense, he urged himself. "If I can get the algorithm to function properly it is possible I could create -" he stopped again and went through another round of nonsense in his mind before continuing, "- an external shield. That would not be reliant on telepathy. It would stop the assault, it would render the input inert, if you listen to it." He had been absorbing her brain patterns for the past few days. It was muscle memory. How it looked. How it felt. How it came together. The PADD in his lap shifted into his hands as he worked, translating numbers into keys into waves. It would work for her, if it worked at all. He chose the song she'd been listening to earlier, the one that gave her brief moments of lucidity, calming the whispers, and started to manipulate the codex that allowed non-Cairn brains to listen in on it. His features moved in a vague frown. "If - you want," he added disjointedly, as though he'd forgotten.

Game, she rolled her eyes and placed the headphones over her ears. She couldn't have trusted him more; it might as well have been built into her DNA. A droen whistling pig I am, then. Let's see.

OFF:

Lieutenant (JG) Liyar
Diplomatic Officer, VDF/SDD
USS Galileo

Lieutenant (JG) Kestra Orexil
Patient/Former CTSO, SFS
USS Galileo

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