LT Gila Sadar - All the Secrets Will Keep Me in Chains

[LT Gila Sadar]

(( Captain’s Ready Room – Deck 1, USS Artemis-A ))

 

MacKenzie: Come in!

Gila was on a mission. A mission that would derail her life in a massive way - or perhaps put it back into the rails that her own actions had turned it onto a long time ago - and she knew that if she paused to pay due respects to the Captain, as decorum dictated, she would back out. She would come up with a pitiful excuse to slink back into the bowels of the Ship, where she’d be able to nurse her shame and her guilt in peace. But then, nothing would change. And she’d keep posing a threat to the Ship and her friends.

She couldn’t let herself take that route. While she still had the courage inspired by the events in the Keystone, she needed to act. 

MacKenzie: Doctor Sad-

She ‘violently’ - by Mizarian standards - placed the PADD upon Captain MacKenzie’s desk and uttered the words that had been screaming in her head for the past three months. Or had they, in fact, always been there?

Sadar: ::high-pitched shriek:: I’M A CRIMINAL.

The Captain, obviously, was stunned to silence by Gila’s preposterous conduct, and Gila felt it immediately. The nausea and rush of cold going from the top of her scalp to the bottom of her feet, as she realized what she’d done.

What was she thinking!? Why had she come all the way up here? Was it too late to change her mind? Couldn’t she just mimic Sil-net’s flippant attitude, go ‘routine ‘crazy crewman response’ check, Sir, nothing to see here’ and leave?

But no. Her Captain would never allow that. That wasn’t who Addison Mackenzie was.

MacKenzie: You’re a what?

oO Oh, by the Wheel, don’t ask me to repeat this! Oo

Gila tried, she honestly did, but it was as though the word itself had become unpronounceable by her lips, like it was some sort of ancient curse only uttered in the darkest and most remote corners of dark space, where only the memories of the dead still lived. She was fairly certain she wasn’t having an allergic reaction to telling the truth - how ironic would that have been- but she nevertheless felt like her tongue had grown to twice its size, making her words garbled and clumsy.

Sadar: ::opens and closes mouth some odd twenty times:: A-A... I-I-I said I-I’m a... C-C-C-C-C-

MacKenzie: …a criminal.

Gila almost physically recoiled from the word, spoken with such clarity and ease, but she didn’t step back. Instead, she just nodded slowly, lowering her dark eyes to the floor beneath her as she twisted her anxiety band. Wait, when had she started twisting the ring?

MacKenzie: What’s this all about?

Gila really wanted to skip this part - just hop straight from the ‘I’m a criminal’ to ‘you’re in handcuffs, away with you’. That way, she could skip the shame, the guilt, the Captain’s disappointment and scorn.

Could she even say it out loud? She sincerely doubted it. Instead, she took a slight step closer, her eyes affixed to the PADD on MacKenzie’s desk which contained all the evidence. The real X-Ray and the date it was taken, the dates she created the fake medical journal updates, and copies of them... It had felt like the only possible way she could even remotely atone for what she’d done - at least make the burden of evidence easier.

Sadar: I-I-It’s, uhh... ::gestures to PADD: M-M-May I?

MacKenzie: Response

She turned on the PADD’s screen before handing it to the Captain for her perusal.

Sadar: I-I-It’s... I-I... ::slow, deep breaths:: ‘Failure to disclose relevant and p-potentially d-d-dangerous medical information’, ‘I-Intentional endangerment of fellow crew’ and... And... ::voice breaks:: ‘F-Falsification of Medical Documents’.

She felt her world shatter at the vocal admission to the final charge. Keeping secrets that could potentially endanger the crew was bad enough, but taking active steps to overrule Starfleet regulations in order to enable this omission? It was the final nail. The truest meaning of ‘one step too far’. And then another fifty.

MacKenzie: Response

Sadar: I-I-I... ::swallows:: I-I report to t-turn myself in, Captain.

TAG/TBC

LT Gila Sadar

Assistant Chief of Medical

USS Artemis-A

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