[Backsim, JP] Second Secretary Aitas & Ensign Niev Galanis - Blood on My Name (Part 2)
Niev Galanis
((Talaxi Palms Hotel, Amity Outpost - Niev's Room))
Aitas nodded. She’d seen only a small portion of the events: a crushed skull, a ship scattering into billions of pieces as it tried to go to warp.
But that wasn’t at the moment. Not compared to what Niev would have seen.
So she flicked her fingers, gesturing back to the flame, and waited for them to continue.
Pausing for several moments, Niev tried to focus their attention on the flame, to push out the tense anxiety that made their throat feel as though it were closing up at the prospect of saying what happened next.
Galanis: I was… assimilated, of course. Compromised by my age and the transporters. The Collective was very… ruthless with their directives.
Aitas: It always is. How many?
If there was a catch in her voice it was a brief and subtle thing, one that did not even sway the candle she held.
The strained grimace trying to emerge on Niev’s face was clear as they came upon the threshold of what was keeping them up at night. The thing that the Centauran wasn’t sure they could ever let go of.
Galanis: …Eighteen people. I don’t even have to estimate. The Collective made sure it was counting.
Aitas: I could say I’m glad it’s not nineteen. That you’re still here. That they pulled you back out. Even if it doesn’t push back the temptation to grind yourself away as recompense. Or that it wasn’t your fault. That you couldn’t fight the Collective. That if it was that easy then we wouldn’t look out across this quadrant and see the ruins of so many worlds.
Galanis: You could say that. But then I’d only wish it were that simple. If it were so impossible to fight, then it wouldn’t have been so beneficial for the others.
She handed the candle to Niev with just the briefest brush of their fingers. Enough for just a brief brush of understanding; blame was an insidious thing. So quick to overtake, to make everything seem useless afterward.
Her voice softened, the words keeping pace with the movements of the flame.
Aitas: What do you know about them?
Galanis: Only what they taught us in the Academy —and that what we dealt with on that day was far from ordinary for them. Risky. Experimental. Resistable. But…
The Centauran trailed off for a long few moments, staring into the flame, recalling just what it had all felt like. They remembered sinking down into the depths of the sea, the stormy chaos above them drifting further and further away.
Galanis: …I didn’t.
She set her hand back against Niev’s. There was no image there, not a whole one. Slivers of grayed faces and an entire world growing dark and strange.
The darkest memories she had of the Borg were not hers to share.
Aitas: More variable than usual, perhaps. The Borg have always been adaptable. You’re a scientist; you know how much even the smallest change can alter the results.
Galanis: It did alter the results. Sheer willpower, the sting of a Galadoran… it was imperfect. Fighting it was possible. But fighting it meant confronting it. Confronting the fact that only a handful of those who died at my hands were even capable of raising a weapon in defense. They were helpless. Harmless. And I…
The candle that Niev had taken wobbled, the flame wavering as the androgyne very abruptly tried to hand it back to Aitas, their head shaking quickly and apologetically.
She tightened her grip, leaving the candle in their hand, holding both of them steady.
Aitas: You know who you killed. You don’t know what else could have happened. If you’d have killed more or less, if you’d have died outright. Starfleet can want to think that everyone could be saved.
She adjusted her hand to better support the candle. A bit of wax had splashed onto her skin, a paler blur.
Aitas: I smashed a cadet’s skull in on Frontier Day. He was only on that station to speak to me.
The combination of the revelation and the splashed wax seemed to give Niev enough to grab onto and stop their careless handling of the candle, eyes widening as they flicked from the flame up to the woman’s face. The Centauran hadn’t yet processed enough of their own experience on Frontier Day to even begin thinking about what it must have been like around the rest of the fleet.
Galanis: You were in the Terra system that day? I’m… sorry. You were only doing what you had to. He wouldn’t have stopped. None of the assimilated would have. It was ou— ::a visible flinch and look of distaste:: ...the primary directive.
Aitas tilted her head so the candle reflected in her dark eyes.
Aitas: Only at the edges of it. He didn’t even have the time to realize what had happened. But I chose to. And perhaps, Ensign, you should listen more closely to yourself.
The concept of meditation had sounded so much easier in theory than it was in practice for Niev. Focus on the flame was fleeting, like trying to keep water cupped in one’s hands. But it kept them talking, their expression shifting ambiguously.
Galanis: You mean that I shouldn’t blame myself, yes? That it was the Collective acting through me, and I have no responsibility for what was done. I know that, intellectually. I lie awake assuring myself of it every night. But that doesn’t change the fact that my presence led directly to those eighteen deaths. It feels… wrong, to just forget about those people.
Aitas: ::firmly:: I never said you should forget.
Galanis: I can’t think of them without being reminded of what I did... What other option do I have?
Aitas: You live with it, and you do what you can to ensure it doesn’t happen again.
The wax on her hands had set into place, a portion of it caught half-way upon her skin. Any impressions from her were very brief things: a gasp, the crack of bone. It was another distraction from the flame for Niev, their fingers shifting uncomfortably as they imagined the sear of hot wax on skin. Perhaps it was different for someone with Vulcan heritage.
The younger ensign took a deep breath and exhaled in a slow sigh.
Galanis: I am trying, Miss Aitas. Quite hard. But filling two boots is difficult enough, let alone thirty-six.
Aitas: I know. ::and that much was very clear through the touch.:: But you’re not just a symbol of what was lost, either. And you’re certainly not alone.
Galanis: You’re right. In some ways, I’m not. But…
The Centauran’s lips pressed thin. It had started to quite suddenly feel very cramped in the hotel room, like the walls were so much closer around the both of them. Niev remembered being locked there, in the anti-matter storage compartment next to Kaito, cut off from the Collective. They remembered the Captain and the Sky Marshal holding them captive, urging the both of them to fight back.
And they remembered how all they wanted to do was tell Roshanara Rahman how many people had died. To blame it all on the person that dragged Niev onto the Kitty Hawk. The guilt the Centauran felt for what they’d done to the people in that compartment still hung over them like a heavy shroud.
Galanis: …There are some things I can’t blame on anyone else.
Aitas nodded, once, keeping the rest of her body perfectly still. The flame did not shift, barely flickered. She shared only the edges of her thoughts, a portion of understanding tinged by loss and sorrow, by an undercurrent of sharp and quiet hope.
Aitas: Yes. That’s part of living with it.
Another deep breath was inhaled by Niev, coming out in a small, resigned kind of scoff. They could tell Aitas understood, and it was like sighting solid land during a storm… but the sea still roiled around them. They sank back into the couch slightly and looked up from the flame at the diplomat’s face and the room around them.
Galanis: It would be much easier to live with it if I could stop dreaming about it.
Aitas: I know I should tell you to talk to Medical, and I am. And perhaps someone specifically about meditation. But if you want, for tonight, there is a little something I can do.
Slightly raising an eyebrow, Niev’s head tilted curiously to the side, tired eyes widening hopefully.
Galanis: Is there? What is it?
There was that surge of emotion again, stronger, a sea that might wash most away and yet held back, restrained. And yet the highest waves of it held a sense of, not peace, not quite simple acceptance, but a calm sort of understanding. A respite.
Aitas didn’t need to add words atop it.
It was responded to with a tensing of the androgyne’s body, one more sigh leaving Niev’s lungs as their eyes briefly closed. The calm and respite in the middle of the storm didn’t banish the clouds from the sky, but it was a safe harbor. The closest thing to proof of Aitas’s claims that Niev wasn’t alone.
As their eyes opened and their sigh ended, Niev looked toward the woman appreciatively, trying to find the right words to say. They pondered if they even needed words… and then settled on the only ones that mattered.
Galanis: …Thank you, Miss Aitas.
She leaned in and blew out the candle, then curled up as Niev drifted off to sleep.
Fin
Second Secretary Aitas
Federation Diplomatic Corps
Amity Outpost
O239307A10
&
Ensign Niev Galanis
Junior Science Officer
Amity Outpost
A240106NG2