The bearer of bad news, part I

Posted on 26 Jul 2015 @ 2:13am by EBH Mark I "Raven"

368 words; about a 2 minute read

Mission: Episode 09 - Empires
Location: Starbase 84 - Childcare center
Timeline: MD03, 0800 hours

[ON]

Raven was sitting in the staff lounge at the childcare center, reading a PADD over and over, when she was interrupted by the director of the center.

"Raven?" asked Karen, surprised to see her using the staff lounge. She was even more surprised to see the tears in Raven's eyes when she looked up at her. "Is everything all right?"

Raven buried her head in the PADD again for a second before looking back up at Karen. "No, it's not," she said, the distress evident in her voice. "The Galileo has been reported missing. Everyone I knew was on that ship, and... now I have to explain this to Revan, Delon, and Laura..." Raven trailed off.

Karen sat down by Raven's side and put a hand upon her back. "I've been doing this for twenty years, and this is the hardest part of the job." She paused for a moment, tilted her head, and looked at Raven. "Don't you have gigaquads of data on how to deal with this?" she asked.

"In theory, yes," replied Raven. "I know all about the Kubler-Ross model of grief, the Torias technique, and gigaquads of knowledge about child psychology. But I've never had to explain to children I care about that they might be orphans."

Karen paused for a moment. She had never seen this side of Raven before; she had previously just thought of her as a walking encyclopedia with questionable sartorial choices. But here, she was acting almost like a real person. "It's not going to be easy," said Karen, "But, I've seen how those kids react to you... you're the only one who can do this. I know you can."

Raven almost cracked a smile. "Really?" she asked.

"Yes, really," replied Karen. "The kids are just outside, you can take Revan, Delon and Laura aside for the day and do whatever you see fit."

Raven stood up from the table and headed for the door. "Thank you," she said on the way out.

"One more thing," replied Karen. "Here," she added, handing Raven a data stick, "it's replicator recipes for ice cream. You might need it."

[OFF]

EBH Mark I "Raven"
Emergency Babysitting Hologram
USS Galileo

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