MSNPC Lieutenant S'dor Grumm - The price of conviction (or learning to pick sides)

[Joseph George]

((Solitary Confinement Cell Delta, Hab Block 1, Sheliak Mining Camp))

S'dor remembered when he used to count the days like the rest of them. This surprised the Brikar, who had lost all count of time long ago. He had been lying on his chest in the same spot on the floor of the dark room for what seemed like an eternity. If he were like his squishy carbon based crew mates, he'd surely have gotten bedsores by now, and then died of sepsis. 

The lone light in his eternal hell streamed weakly from beneath the thick steel cell door. The only sounds he ever heard were the Sheliak who would occasionally talk outside of his cell to each other, or come into his cell to change the nutrient bag attached to his feeding tube.  With his gravity compensator remotely disabled and removed, he was barely able to move his jaw, let alone speak. 

The Engineer didn't have the faintest idea why the Sheliak wasted their resources on keeping him alive. Did they think he was a valuable prisoner, someone to ransom for money or diplomatic means? Was he viewed as more important in their racist hierarchy of being as a fellow silicon based lifeform than his carbon based colleagues? He didn't know, but he had wished more than a few times that they just let him pass on.

He had at one time entertained thoughts of escape, and plans for his past-imprisonment life to stave off the encroaching madness.  These foolish dreams had given him false hope and had slowly drifted away, like the extinguished flame of a late night campfire. That was ages ago, by his reckoning.

Next, he returned to the thoughts of hate and  rage that had landed him in solitary confinement in the first place. Joyously reliving the violent one man resistance that he had put up against his wouldbe enslavers. After the incident on the Arrow, and his inaction on the scheduled day (and only covert actions to stop it beforehand), he had vowed to himself to never not openly pick sides again. When he wasn't occupied with what he had done, he had focused again on dreams of escape. But escape in these fantasies was secondary to righteous wrath. He had tried many times to go through with it, to will himself on, but he had been as immobilized as ever. Even this had passed away, and he had no idea how long ago that had been.

He was now in the third state of solitary confinement. For who knows how long now, he occupied his mental state with thoughts of his younger years, growing up, getting older, joining StarFleet Academy, his first couple of duty stations. S'dok grasped for every sweet remembrance that he could seize. He enveloped himself in the kind of bittersweet nostalgia that  could only fully be appreciated in hindsight, when one was so distanced from their own past by time, space, and loss of innocence.

((Flashback))

((S'dor's childhood home, the Gyn highlands, Brikar))

S'dor was just a child, and today was his birthday! School had gone well, all of his favorite classmates had wished him a great birthday and he passed his math test with a perfect score,  His mother Duna, and father Turr were waiting for him as he came through the front door into the entry room.

Duna: Hi, S'dor dear.

Turr: Hi, son.

The boy smiled widely, the smile of a child who loved his parents, and knew that they loved him.

S'dor: Hi mom, hi dad.

Duna: Close your eyes.

With inherent trust, he did as his mother asked. He felt his father's hand grasp his, and Turr led him to the couch.

Turr: Have a seat, S'dor.

The boy sat down on the comfy granite bench. Some twenty seconds passed before he heard his mom's footfalls approaching. 

Duna: Open your eyes.

When S'dor's eyes flew open, the boy couldn't believe his eyes. It mom's hands was a furl pup! The silicone canine was just the kind of pet that S'dor had been begging his parents for for several months, he had repeatedly promised his parents that he would assume all of the responsibilities of pet ownership and had emphatically meant it. The pup resembled a white granite terrier and was just just as happy to see S'dor as S'dor was to see him.It was the most wonderous he would ever feel until he first set his eyes on a real life Starfleet warp coil. The boy let out an audible gasp of delight and the furl pup yipped joyously at him. Duna gently passed the pup to her son and the boy drew the pup to his chest for a big hug.

S'dor: Thank you mom and dad! I love him. I love you.

Parents: ::simultaneously:: We love you too.

Turr: What are you going to name him?

S'dor perced his lips, deep in thought.

S'dor: I'll call him yip, because of the way he barks.

Yip had been his constant companion and best friend until S'dor went off to the Academy. There was no person, besides his own parents whom he loved, or was loved by more than that furl. Mom and Dad had sworn to take care of him until S'dor could get him back. Yip had followed him to his first couple of duty stations and onto the Arrow. He'd even managed to keep him when they were captured. It broke his heart thinking that Yip had waited for him to come home from the mine one day, and he never had. Had nature given him the slow starvation that the Sheliak had so denied him, or had yip ran off somewhere to live wildly?

((Present Day))

S'dor didn't even know why they posted a guard at his door, when he was incapable of movement, but they always had. But outside he heard loud Sheliak voices in what seemed to be a panic. Stripped of his combadge when he was taken prisoner, he couldn't understand their words, but their tone was unmistakable. As the guard and his panicked companion rushed off, S'dor could feel the long extingueshed flame of hope spark again.

NT/TBC

Lt. S'dor Grumm

Starfleet Engineering

POW/MIA

Shell of a man

As simmed by:

    

    

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- Lieutenant Commander Artinus Serinus

   Chief of Security

   USS Arrow, 

   NCC-69829

   Publicity Team/Social Media Team/Image Collective

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