LT Gila Sadar - The Bill Always Comes Due
Gila Sadar
(( Gila’s Quarters - Compartment 17, Sector 12, Deck 3, USS Artemis-A ))
Beep-Boop.
The door to Gila’s quarters readily opened, allowing the occupant of the sizable quarters to walk in with small, tired steps. The darkness of the previously empty rooms were like a cold compress for her tired eyes, and for a few moments, Gila just stood there, allowing the lack of visibility to lull her overworked brain into an idling pace. Just, emptying her mind. The still-not-updated patient logs that were a symptom of a medical department still not quite back to normal procedures after Frontier Day, gone. The occasional crewman who came to Sickbay to protest their counselor appointment, and who resisted the doctors’ attempts at saying that this aversion to counseling was exactly why they had to get it, gone.
And then, the darkness started seeping in a bit too far, and Gila blinked.
Sadar: Computer, lights.
The interior of her quarters came into vision as the lights gently turned on, allowing Gila’s eyes time to adjust to the change. She walked over to the egg-white couch positioned along the wall before the window showing night-time Earth below, and sat down with a slight sigh. Quite by habit, she reached for her the PADD she used for her weekly planning that was awaiting usage on the clear glass coffee table, and before she’d realized she’d done so, the planner for her next 26 hours was already open.
oO Seven hours of sleep, and then I have two hours of laboratory time before I cover half a shift for Ensign Buen so she can attend her brother’s ceremony. Remote peer review call with Doctor Grant at 1330 hours, followed by mandatory lunch break... Oo
She had three hours of non-scheduled time after her lunch break that she’d set aside in case a medical laboratory would open up for usage, but no luck as of yet... She had to find something to spend those hours on if nothing opened up by the time she woke up tomorrow. And preferably before anyone realized she had an open slot in her calendar, especially Lt.Cdr. Jashkaa or Lt.Cdr. Dakora. She was going to get in touch with the Orion counselor for a follow-up appointment - eventually - but maybe not quite yet...
She ignored that tiny voice in the back of her mind that reminded her of the numerous well-substantiated reasons she and her colleagues used to convince counseling-averse crewman to attend their sessions, instead throwing her mind into the couple of messages that she still hadn’t addressed.
One was immediately deleted - a general message to the junior officers about an upcoming meeting of the Junior Officer’s Protection Association - and another was given a cursory skim. It was a response to the medical department’s request to requisition some Holodecks for use in counseling appointments, and while the Operations Department couldn’t off-handedly promise that Holodecks 2 and 3 would be entirely reserved for the counseling programme for the foreseeable future, they would ensure that the counselors’ needs would be accommodated.
Sadar: So, a roundabout way of saying “make the reservations like everyone else”.
She sighed.
The extra administrative load for the counselors in having to ensure they actually had a room to conduct their appointments in before being able to call in their patients wasn’t ideal... But what could Gila do about it? The Assistant Chief had made their decision, and thus, reservations would have to be the way forward. There was always the option of her going in and making the necessary reservations; streamline the process to accommodate the counselors, many of whom were still newly arrived on the Artemis-A.
That could, potentially, be a good way of spending those open three hours in the following day. Alternatively, this could be a good cooperative exercise between the junior officers in Ops and Medical. What was it that her professors in the Academy liked saying: “A good senior officer knows when to delegate”? An entirely distasteful notion, as far as Gila was concerned, but if delegation was something that was expected of a Lieutenant, she supposed she’d better start getting used to the idea, before she gave Commander Adea a reason to reprimand her for hoarding tasks…
Her considerations on how best to handle the extra hurdle for the counseling programme’s painless implementation were interrupted by a distinct sound, alerting her that she’d received a new subspace message.
Looking down at the PADD, and seeing the sender, made Gila’s expression freeze into place, even as every fold and ridge on her face started vibrating and shuddering with anxiety, fear and guilt. She felt the intense need to discard the PADD, ignore that it had ever pinged her, pretend that she was just a Lieutenant on the USS Artemis-A with no responsibilities or expectations levied her way from anywhere else.
She briefly rose from the couch, pacing around her quarters in a familiar pattern, as she combatted the flight-response that the message had caused. She paced for minutes, but she couldn’t off-the-cuff determine whether she’d paced for three, ten or thirty minutes by the time she’d finally mustered the courage to sit back down on the couch. With shaking hands, she slowly reached out to the PADD, crossing what felt like lightyears of empty space to reach this string that tugged at her, pulling her back to a reality that she thought she’d left behind a decade ago...
But she knew. She’d always known. Her escape had always only been temporary, and the bill always comes due.
// Personal Subspace Communication
FROM: Eyla Aqila, Mizar II, Pozaron City, Ahmaton District, Block 12, Eastrise 2
TO: Gila Sadar, USS Artemis-A
SUBJECT: Come home \\
TBC
LT Gila Sadar
Medical Officer
USS Artemis-A
A240006GS1