Ice Bath For The Soul
Posted on 25 Nov 2017 @ 8:12pm by Ensign Miraj Derani
Edited on on 26 Nov 2017 @ 2:35pm
1,353 words; about a 7 minute read
Mission:
Episode 15 - Emanation
Location: USS Hathaway, Derani's cabin
Timeline: MD95 1700~0200
[ON]
Miraj collapsed through the door to her cabin. Supervising was exhausting. The constant having to hold her tongue, letting people make mistakes... She could manage for an hour, a typical lesson for a most people, but all day wanting to step in, push the cadet aside and do it herself, because she'd be a fraction faster, gentler, more efficient? That took far more energy than she could imagine, worse than PT or those evil exercises Luke had made her do. She was weary to the bones with not flying.
She flopped onto the bed and stared at the ceiling. It was almost over. She could cope with this. How different was it to letting someone else fly when she wasn't on shift? then again, when she wasn't on shift, she cocooned herself in a fantasy world of pirates, shielded against the follies of other pilots by brain meltingly loud music, also about pirates. "Computer, play Muppet Treasure Island Soundtrack, maximum volume."
The computer said, "You have two messages," and then complied. Music about pirates, brain-meltingly loud.
Miraj groaned and struggled back upright. "You could have said before I sat down," she grumbled, doubting the computer could hear over the overture, heading to the small table with its LCARS terminal. "On screen," she shouted over the music.
There were two messages from OPM. The first was labelled Re: Application, USS Voyager. Her hands suddenly started shaking. and she had to force herself to select it.
You are selected for interview. Report to Starfleet HQ stardate 68486.1 1100 hrs, Room G18-45.
The reviewing officer had the following comments: "So you think you fly better than Tom Paris? Bring it on." Captain T. Paris.
Miraj sat back, not quite believing it. Tom Paris wanted to interview her. Tom Paris! Her! For Voyager! It didn't feel real. It was like a dream.
But it wasn't as if she'd actually got the job. You should never count your chickens and all that. Fingers quivering, she moved to the second communique. This one was Galileo-A. She clicked on it, fully expecting another request for interview. If she could get Voyager, she could get anything. Time to Splice the Mainbrace!
Rejected.
The reviewing officer had the following comments: No comments.
For a moment the shock was so thorough she didn't believe it. She had to read it twice before it sunk in. She just sat at her terminal, frozen in an existential horror.
Rejected!
All the joy of her invitation to interview for Voyager evaporated as surely as if someone had dumped a bucket of ice water on her soul. By now the Stone Heads were chanting dire warnings to the sailors shifting Flint's treasure at a hundred decibels, but she didn't hear a word.
Rejected?
A drop of salt water splashed on the desk top. It shouldn't hurt this much. It shouldn't. Especially when she'd got an interview with Voyager, but her excitement over that had just been sucked down a black hole. And with no reason? What sort of bilge-rat doesn't even give a reason? Not even, Sorry, you were flying the last one, you're obviously a Jonah.
Rejected.
Miraj scrubbed at her face. There was nothing she could do about it. She couldn't even get drunk. The replicators on Hathaway weren't serving real alcohol, only the Ferengi fake-out. She pushed away from the desk, and flopped back on to the bed. Five minutes ago she would have sung along with the chorus, When there's treasure in the ground, there's murder in the air! But now, she just wanted to scream.
Why? Why? Why? The question barrel-rolled through her mind, looping-the-loop, pulling flat spins. She didn't want to think about it, because she didn't want to know the answer. But her mind kept sinking, crashing, back to it.
What was it? It wasn't her flying record. She was the best in the last ten years, no-one could fly like her. Of the top three pilots in the fleet she was probably in the top third. She knew that. So it had to be something else. But what?
Was it whatever Amaranai had put? She couldn't believe it was anything that would have sabotaged it. But maybe whoever had read it had detected a voice that wasn't her own, decided she'd cheated. Well it wasn't that far from the truth. She'd practically picked Amarani's brain clean to get good answers. Because flying was the only thing she could do, if she didn't lean hard on others, she wouldn't have got this far.
Maybe they'd just bothered looking past the frightening amount of time at the Conn, logged hours and simulated hours, and seen the barely passing scores on Interspecies Protocol, Tactical Analysis and Fractal Calculus, and decided they'd rather have a shittier pilot who wouldn't need so much hand holding on everything else.
The questions, and the clock, ticked round.
Maybe they'd looked at her medical record and seen she was currently considered post-op for major reconstructive brain surgery and taking a bucket load of medication to stimulate neurogenesis across parts of her brain she couldn't even name. (Which shouldn't matter because her flights scores weren't falling, and she knew she could push them still higher if she actually bothered to put any effort in. She was still hot shit at a helm. Shame she wasn't worth a cold turd anywhere else.)
Maybe it was her social life. Relationship, or whatever it was, with a senior officer. Maybe whoever they'd put in charge of the new Galileo wasn't a fan of office romance, even if they weren't against regs. And not just a senior officer, a man three ranks and fifteen-ish years her senior.
The questions, and the clock, ticked round.
Nine PM.
She tried to sleep but it wouldn't come. She tried to tell herself that it didn't matter, she had a personal invitation from Tom Paris. But it didn't make it better. The last time someone had rejected her, she'd been left in a basket on DS-9. She'd even passed the the academy exam first time. Lowest score on the intake, but she'd got through.
She was good enough for the great and glorious Voyager, but not for little Galileo? She knew a fair few of the old crew had seen the listing and gone for it. She didn't believe for a second any of them would have been turned down. They were all experienced and stunningly good at their jobs. Maybe that was why, maybe the new boss had sounded them out, and they'd all said she was too flaky, too obsessed with flying, not experienced enough.
Maybe it was everything that happened on Kreanus and the Du'jaQ. Maybe they'd decided she was to stupid, too naive, to have aboard. Too damaged. Too much damn trouble.
The questions, and the clock, ticked round.
She tossed and turned and turned and tossed. She threw the covers off, and pulled them back on. She'd gotten up, gone to the head, stared at her reflection. It hadn't helped.
Tomorrow came, transformed into today, and she still couldn't sleep. What was wrong with her? Nothing she could change. What was the point of fighting it?
She sighed and called up the New Deployment Listings. The original one Voyager and Galileo had been on were closed now, but there always new ones opening up. This week there were four more ships needing senior pilots:
USS Ch'Herant NCC-724609; DP 9 mo; SB-42
USS Endeavor NCC-11073-B; DP 6 mo; SB-1
USS Koxinga NCC-53991; DP 32 mo; DS-5
USS Naarg NCC-5702-C; DP 24 mo; SB -416
This time she wasn't going to take any chances. She'd hit up all four. If she didn't impress Tom Paris, then surely one of them would be willing (Or let's be honest, matey, desperate) enough to take her.
[OFF]
Ensign Miraj Derani
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