Better to Betray the World...

Posted on 17 Nov 2024 @ 5:37am by Lieutenant JG Sofie Ullswater & Ensign Mimi

2,652 words; about a 13 minute read

Mission: Episode 20 - Reconstruction
Location: USS Galileo-A - Deck 2, Mess Hall
Timeline: MD 03, 1724 hrs

Previously, on Lingering Tendrils (Part 2)...

"Dr Quil? I am me Sofie, remember the beach party we had on the holodeck on Regula one?" Mimi said trying to think of something that only Sofie would know about her that would convince her that whoever this Dr Quil was, it wasn't her in some sort of disguise. "Remember I said me and John finally had sex, well he proposed to me last week, when we get back to the station we are going to get married."

Mimi's words shook Ullswater, for a split second she stood there in shock. In that moment she wanted to be wrong, she wanted this to be the real Galileo, she wanted this to be the real Mimi and she wanted to give her all the congratulations and hugs in the world. But none of this was real. She wiped her brow with her forearm and the sleeve came away soggy with sweat. The heat was unbearable and the walls were closing in. This is a nightmare.

"Don't use my memories like that, don't pretend that you are her. She's my dear friend and I love her..." Ullswater's voice was all fear and desperation tinged with anger "One day John is going to ask Mimi to marry him, when she tells me I'll give her a hug and congratulate her. The two of them will have a beautiful ceremony, it will be the happiest day of their lives. But you? You'll be dead, you'll have died here today for all the suffering you have caused and all the lives you have taken." She pulled the phaser ready to end the scientist's existence and called over to the other two "Turell, Darius. We need to do this now."

And Now, the Continuation...


[ON]

A knot of anxiety had tied itself up using all of Sofie's interior organs as rope. It was like vertigo, as if there was a chasm inside her whose bottom couldn't even be imagined.

She was terrified.

For all the days that she had put this off, for all the hours she had spent hiding in her room, avoiding the mess hall when she knew Mimi would be there, all of that had let her avoid conclusion. As long as this conversation was in the future it meant that she didn't know if Mimi hated her or not. It's human nature to cling to that uncertainty. The longer she put off the conversation the longer she had to pretend. In the next few minutes she'd become certain of what that outcome was. Mimi probably didn't hate her, there was probably going to be forgiveness. Forgiveness that Sofie was certain she was undeserving of. There was not going to be any good end to this conversation.

She closed her eyes, the busy mess hall vanished from her view for a moment, and she plucked up that last ounce of courage. When she opened her eyes again she could see Mimi sitting alone at a table on the other side of the room. Sofie started to walk towards her. Now was the moment, the die was cast, no turning back.

Approaching the table she gestured to one of the empty chairs "Mimi, could I join-" She'd practised saying this but a lump in her throat cut off her voice. That brave face and classic Ullswater smile faltered in the face of the reality of the situation. Don't cry Sofie, not here, not in front of her. Her voice was wobbly. "I'm so sorry Mimi."

Reading from a Padd while she ate Mimi looked up when she felt Sofie standing very close to her. "Hi Sofie..." Mimi began to say before Sofie apologised. She had to think for a moment what the woman was apologising for. "You are still very... upset about trying to shoot me?"

"I... Yes!" Sofie was visibly taken aback at Mimi's response. She was shaken out of any wobbliness and just sounded confused as she asked "Aren't you? You could have died."

"Fate determined it was not my time to die." Mimi replied relatively nonchalantly. "Though I am glad Ensign Turell was able to stop both of you, I did not want to have to hurt you myself."

Sofie couldn't really understand what she was hearing. That had been one of the worst days of her life, from the cold station to her assault on the brig it had been a nightmare and she had very nearly killed one of her friends but clearly it hadn't nearly left as much of a mark on Mimi. She wasn't going to argue right now, no matter how much she wanted to wallow in self pity this wasn't the place.

Waiting a moment before opening her mouth again Sofie took a seat across from Mimi. "Well yes, me too. It does still upset me that I came so close to doing something terrible. I am really sorry about it."

"I am also very glad you are recovered, Amanda told me about some of what happened on the cold station and it must have been quite the experience." Mimi said before taking a sip of her drink.

"That's right Sof, completely recovered. Right?" Sofie shook off the nightmare voice with a tilt to her head. She was doing well enough all things considered and even if she wasn't fully recovered she couldn't let Mimi know that. No, the Cold Station was just part of her now. This was as fully recovered as it gets. There are some things you just never get better from.

With a resigned little vocalisation Sofie glanced down at her hands, one massaging the palm of the other. "It was." She confirmed. If Mimi wanted to talk about the Cold Station itself then Sofie really wanted to shift this to something else quickly. "Quite the experience. From what I hear though it's not like you were having an amazing time either, what with Klingons and such."

"Yes, it was an interesting couple of days, never thought I would see a Starfleet brig from the inside like that. Did you know there are over 60 rivets in each one?" Mimi said with the slightest of chuckles.

"And the Klingon, he was the one that attacked your people right? Or at least he said he was." She hadn't been there but Sofie had heard at least part of the story, that this had been an old grudge and Mimi ended up stabbed and the Klingon dead.

"He was, only someone who had been there would know as much as he did and he admitted it." Mimi said unconsciously gripping the knife harder in her hand. "So I jumped over the table and attacked him, do not remember much after that... but I wanted to kill him."

"I wanted to kill Quil." Want might've been a more accurate verb but Quil was far out of Sofie's reach now. "She did terrible horrific things. So I know what that is like, wanting to kill someone. Must be good to know that he's gone now. He won't be hurting anyone else."

"My revenge nearly cost me my career though." Mimi told her. "Tarin was ready to throw me off the ship and try to get me kicked out of starfleet after we talked about it, I think only Commander Blake's support kept me here. But now she is gone, at least with Allyndra as Xo I still have some.... 'friends in high places' I think is the phrase."

Sofie nodded in agreement. She hadn't really thought about it until now but it really did seem that the two of them had been in similar situations. "I'm glad you are still here. I think what I did still might end my career. Commander Warraquim is keeping an eye on me. The moment I show any symptoms again it'll be like that," she snapped her fingers "medical discharge and off on the black ships. Honestly I think they have been very lenient on both of us, maybe after what we've tried to do we should be gone."

"Very likely although I would say that Tarin has some responsibility in my incident." Mimi said, she put her cutlery down pushing the last remains of her meal away. "She even said in our talk that she was aware of my feelings towards Klingons yet when I repeatedly asked to not be made to go to the formal dinner, she refused every time."

The other officer spent a moment of thought on their captain's thoughtlessness. It wasn't surprising. "Maybe so, though if she had listened you would have missed that chance at revenge."

"Maybe," Mimi spent her own moment pondering. "but I do not know which would have been better, to have never gotten it and maybe eventually lost the need for it or finally having it, he was in command of the attack, him paying for it is the biggest amount of revenge I think I could have gotten."

So much had happened, the weight of the crimes that Klingon had committed against Mimi's had been so great, that Sofie wasn't sure she had the right to talk so much about that revenge. She wouldn't sure her thoughts could or even should hold much weight for Mimi. "People say revenge is fickle. In human literary culture it's very common to present revenge as something inherently corrupting, something that damages those who seek it." She gave a little shrug "I try to think of it in more material terms. Had you not injured him then the assassin might not have had opportunity to strike. Someone who has hurt your people is now dead. He will now hurt your people no longer. His ability to influence the world is gone."

"There was a full ships worth of Klingons that hurt my people, doubt i would ever be able to find them all," Mimi said. "But the.... ringleader I think the term is will have to be enough."

Sofie nodded. Part of her hidden away secretly longed for the opportunity to enact a successful revenge on whoever happened to be the ringleader of the cold station experiments. Maybe one day. It wasn't something she wanted to admit out loud right now. She tried to push the dark thought from her head, there was after all still something she wanted to ask Mimi about.

"Mimi..." she was a little hesitant, not sure if this was a true memory or if it was something she had imagined, something the cold station had made her imagine. "There was something you said that day in the brig, that I think you said at least. Just I'm not sure so I wanted to ask, don't want to get things messed up."

There was a look of earnestness in her grey eyes as she asked "Are you and John getting married?"

"As soon as Tarin lets us," Mimi said with a smile, she put her hand closer to Sofie so she could see the small engagement ring John had given her better. "Which is probably never, given how she reacted when she found out he proposed."

The ring certainly looked real. "I had thought that Quil just made that up, pulling memories out of my head and..." Why was she saying this, Mimi had been there she knew what had happened. "I'm glad it is real. I'm happy for you."

"I told Quil– I mean I told you, that when you told me..." Sofie cut herself off, the sentence was becoming tangled in a way she didn't like. She cut to chase. "I said I'd give you a hug. Would you be okay with a hug?" Less than a minute ago it had been a discussion of bloody murder and revenge, maybe not the most appropriate time but would there ever be a better one?

"You know I would be okay with a hug." Mimi said with a broad smile, she loved hugs.

Sofie shuffled her chair next to Mimi's and wrapped her arms around her friend in a slightly awkward motion. It wasn't a great hug, Sofie wasn't great at hugs. She tried her best though, she meant it. "I did mean what I said back then: I care a lot about you, when it comes it is going to be a very happy day." The hug brought back a memory that stung a little, the last time the two of them had been touching they had been grappling in a life or death struggle. Don't think about it. "Congratulations, it will be good."

The hug wasn't the best but her heart was certainly in it. Mimi made a mental note to show Sofie how Nekomi hug each other. "I do hope you are right Sofie."

After a moment Sofie pulled back and scooted her chair back to a more normal distance. "Of course I am." She replied with a grin "Whatever else happens everyone is going to be doing there best to make it a day to remember. You aren't worried about it are you?"

Mimi shook her head slightly. "No.... maybe what my people would say if I ever found them, marrying an alien."

"You know I have quite a bit of experience with parents being unhappy with my relationship choices, been through that conversation before. Have you told your foster mother yet?" Sofie knew that wasn't who Mimi meant. The pain of having lost her family must be so apparent now that she's on her first step to starting her own.

"I sent her a subspace message," Mimi replied. "but with how far we are from core space it will take a while to get to her and for a response to come back."

"Well if you are going to be having it soon, make sure you get lots of pictures. And you know," Sofie shrugged like it was nothing, like it wasn't something that would mean a great deal to her, like she wasn't going to consider the answer a litmus test to the health of their friendship. "If you'd be okay having me there I'd love to attend the ceremony."

"Of course I would." Mimi said smiling widely. "The whole crew will be invited, even the new ones."

"Even the new ones? Please tell me John hasn't become a catholic!" It was a joke but also Sofie did hope that Mimi was going to be alright with the presence of a Klingon on the ship.

Mimi gave the slightest of chuckles. "Except for maybe that Klingon, we bumped into each other in the corridor last night, it went..... slightly better than you might be expecting."

Sofie quietly chuckled. From what she'd seen of the Chaplain earlier today she could imagine it had at least gone a little better than the previous Klingon encounter. "It'll be good, I'm looking forward to it. I'm happy for you, I'm happy that we're still good enough friends that I can be there." and I'm happy I didn't manage kill you. She left the last bit unsaid.

"You'll have a front row seat." Mimi smiled widely then picked up her drink and quickly finished off its remnants. "Now if you will excuse me I need to get changed and go look for Allyndra, I am hoping she will walk me down the aisle."

"No worries, I'm sure you have a lot of preparation to get to." Sofie gave a little wave goodbye and let Mimi depart. She stayed sat there for a few minutes. That had been a lot, but she'd got what she wanted from it, right? Everything was going to be okay now, right?

Of course it would... for a while at least.

[OFF]

--

LTJG Sofie Ullswater
Chief Science Officer
USS Galileo-A

Ensign Mimi
Deputy chief Ops
USS Galileo-A

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