From: Null Theory Rejected
Date: Mon, 7 Apr 1997 23:10:26 -0500 (EST)
Subject: USS CHESAPEAKE: When THoughts Can Kill
Please disregard the last section of the NRPG. Thanks!
I'm sending this out to you because Lynnaea brought up a good point:
Anne's becoming a bit of a handful. So. I have come up with a
behind-the-scenes look, so to speak, of what's been going on in her
mind. So I suppose you could say it's more of an Exposition than a
Post. Sorry about that... but I need to get this cleared up in my own
mind, too. :)
SD 90407.0557
--------------
CSciO's Office
--------------
MD 3.1340
Anne knew she should be *working* in her office. She should be
preparing for the first round of her review sessions. For the students, for
the staff... for practically everybody.
But... she didn't feel like it. She didn't feel like doing
anything of the sort. Was this what it felt like to run away? Is this
what Counselor Tats-Marush meant by abandoning her post?
Anne put her head in her hands. She had so much work to do...
and she was so tired. So tired... and alone. She had found a friend in
Catherine Ledoux, and possibly Aelyria Keyrin... but they weren't in her
department; and, in any case, she didn't yet know them well enough to
tell them about her meeting with the counselor, about how Jon Dameon used
to listen to her after her meetings with Mallory, about her department
and its total lack of competence and backbone.
In a word, her department... flopped. It was a complete and
utter flop, no question. Explosions in Biological Sciences,
computer-unplugging rampages in Computer Sciences, intrument malfunctions
in Physical Sciences... and that infernal Math and Logic moving into the
wrong offices. A wave of nausea came over her, and Anne closed her
eyes. She took a deep breath.
Yet... they weren't the only ones to blame. Counselor
Tats-Marush had mentioned complaints. Complaints about *her*. Anne was
used to that kind of thing... her students had routinely submitted
complaints to Jon Dameon on the BELLEROPHON. But.. that was different.
Dameon had made it explicitly clear to the staff that any personnel
problems should be handed over to *him*, not to the counselor. Now,
things were different. Dameon wasn't here to take her to his office and
explain to her, patiently, that perhaps she shouldn't be so harsh to
Ensign Divers, that maybe she should stop overprotecting Cadet Robinson.
Because she was *here*. In her *own* office. *She* was supposed
to take *her* aCSciO aside and explain to *him* about the nature of Life
in Starfleet. Well, she had tried that... and someone (probably multiple
someones) had gone to the counselor about "ingratiating herself into
their personal lives."
"Well, what am I supposed to *do*?" demanded Anne, throwing some
handy object across the room. "Jon Dameon, you never told me it was
going to be *this* hard!"
Anne leaned back in her chair, staring up at the ceiling. She
didn't notice Derek Fielding quietly passing by her office, glancing at
her furtively. She needed to calm down... and soon.
<>
-------------------------
-----------------
Murray's Quarters
-----------------
MD 3.2100
It was late. Perhaps not "late" in terms of objective shipboard
time, but late in Anne's book. She was tired; even the Journal of
Psychometry sounded like a boring tome now.
"Computer, terminate," she murmured. She trudged into the
shower. Five minutes, done. She prepared for bed. Another five
minutes, done. She did everything as if on automatic pilot. No thoughts
registered in her mind as such. No thoughts... and no feelings.
For Anne felt... nothing. Nothing at all. The meetings with
Commander th'Tellan and Commander Brennan, the meeting with Counselor
Tats-Marush, the meeting with Fielding... not one of them evoked any sort
of feeling. Not anger, not sadness, not embarrassment, not... anything.
She was in Denial. Not that she would ever admit it.
Denial of what her unconscious knew, that she was identifying too
closely with her staff, that their failures became *her* failures, that
their successes became *her* successes. Denial of the knowledge that she
had wanted another Jon Dameon in Derek Fielding... and had found him
wanting. Denial of her real want and need for friendship... and her
fear of taking the initiative... or of not doing so.
Denial, most of all, of the sneaking realization that she *had*
abandoned ship. She could have stayed on the BELLEROPHON, Mallory or
no. She could have reported him, despite the public humiliation it would
have brought her. She could have done a lot of things to remain aboard
that ship... and she *hadn't*. She had left, and now she was here. On
the CHESAPEAKE. Perhaps she *was* batty after all. Maybe, to save other
people's lives, she should go jump out the nearest airlock... so that no
one would be forced to rely on her when she wasn't reliable.
But Anne didn't feel any of these things, or think them. She
only knew that her mind was a total and absolute blank, a big wall of
thick velvet. A big wall of velvet that wanted nothing but sleep.
She quietly obliged.
---------
MD 4.0530
Anne woke up feeling quite well. That is, well enough to realize
that her behavior the previous afternoon was likely to cause some...
*talk* in her department. Her crew had seen her upset, possibly in
tears... no, *that* was not the image she wanted to project to her
department. She must project *competence* and *control*, if only because
those were the qualities she had most admired in Jon Dameon when she had
been a junior officer herself.
The only way to do that, of course, was to either be cool and
calm about the whole affair... or be drastic and driven.
She had tried cool and calm the previous afternoon; it hadn't
worked too well with the Physical Sciences department. Besides, it was
awfully difficult to pull off with so many Vulcans in the department.
No; she'd have to go with the drastic and driven mode.
<>
------
Bridge
------
MD 4.0750
Anne started up the diagnostics on her console once again. It
hadn't taken too long the first time; she'll see if took the same amount
of time now. Her hands nearly trembled, her eyes were bright, almost too
bright. Her jaws were set, her teeth nearly crushing each other in her
intensity. Anne was full swing into her drastic and driven mode, and she
barely paid attention to what she knew must be elevating blood pressure
and quickening pulse. She had accomplished what she needed to do before
the exams that morning, hadn't she? She had told everyone what was
expected of him, right? And she had definitely refrained from making
ingratiating forays into other people's personal lives.
There. Absolutely no reason to stop running in this somewhat
dangerously hyperactive mode. Getting things rolling in her department
was of top priority, and if she could refrain from butting into her
staff's personal lives, so much the better.
<>
Everything was going just peachy until the unexpected message
appeared on her console.
It was as though the runway in an airport had disappeared just
two seconds before the plane was scheduled to leave the ground. The
carefully hidden -- and unacknowledged -- emotions poured forth as all
her psychological energy shifted from maintaining emotional control to
maintaining reasonable thought.
She reacted instinctively, turning to Fielding with her anger.
Yet... he seemed genuinely upset about her accusations. She turned back
to the console with some muttered unpleasantries, none of which really
helped her deal with the pesky program now on her screen.
She tapped some non-committal comments at first; then, finally,
her emotional control broke down altogether, leaving her feelings raw, in
the open, ready to be acknowledged by its unwilling owner.
In a burst of anger and hatred, both for herself and for the
people who programmed the blasted program, not to mention the counseling
profession which had inspired its use, she typed in the most outrageous
and psychopathic things she could think of... and was horrified when the
computer beeped its message, that it had sent referral messages. To
whome, Anne didn't know... and probably never wanted to know. What
mattered was that she had let her emotions run away with her... and now,
there would be consequences for that slip.
Respectfully submitted,
Masako Goto
Lt. Anne Murray, Ph.D.
CSciO
USS CHESAPEAKE NCC-31813
<>
Well, I hope that helped you as much as it helped me. I know I see her a
whole lot more clearly than I did before.
There is some other considerations regarding Anne's friendships and such,
but it's late... I'm sure it can wait until another post.
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Thought for the day: Which is more difficult, to lose someone you love to
death or to lose him/her to life's circumstances?
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