PNPC GIla Sadar - I don't know why I didn't trust you to be on my side

[LT Tamio K'Wara]

(( First Promenade - Deck 225, DS224 ))

Standing in front of Flt.Cpt. MacKenzie to confess her guilt had been hard. She’d wanted nothing more than to run, to keep hiding in the shadows like the parasite she was, to keep pretending that she still had a place and a function aboard the Artemis. In the end, she’d persevered, committed the one act of honesty she’d been avoiding for so long, and it had been much too late.

Facing Lieutenant Vailani - her best friend - was infinitely harder.

Vailani: :: shakes her head :: No. There has to be more than that :: pleading :: There needs to be Gila. 

Gila had hoped to avoid this conversation. Thus far, her former friends had been kind to her and allowed to pass into the quiet dark, forgotten and repressed, like a half-forgotten bad memory. Lieutenant Vailani was a kind person, had always allowed Gila her privacy, her secrets, but that had run its course now. And Vailani Zoyara was not forgiving. She never had been.

Sadar: N-No, I-I’ll tell... B-But, eh, can we ::looks around at the crowds:: Let’s go to a more, uhh... Q-Quiet place? ::wrings her hands:: Please?

Lieutenant Vailani nodded, following Gila as she led her to a more secluded area. She wasn’t hoping that this would save her from the consequences of her deception, but at least, it might offer Lieutenant Vailani some privacy to digest the truth of the matter. She was, like Gila, a private person, and having your emotions at full display for an audience had never been their style.

Arguably, that’s where they might have gone wrong. Certainly Gila had.

Vailani: Is this where you tell me you're a liar? 

Gila heard Lieutenant Vailani’s voice breaking, such an odd experience and one that made her feel sick to her stomach. She’d done this. For a single painfully clear moment, Gila realized that out of all her sins, this was the worst one.

She’d made Lieutenant Vailani sound like that. 

Sadar: ... E-Everything the report said was true.

Lieutenant Vailani had asked her to explain. Here, at the end of everything, that was what Gila would do.

Sadar: I-I’ve been c-c-concealing vital information from the crew of the Artemis for a year, i-information that could have potentially hurt you all, the p-people who t-t-trusted me to do better. I-I betrayed my duty as a Doctor, a-abused my privileges as a medical p-professional of whom candor is not only an expectation, but a plight…

The first time they met oO A beacon to guide me through the waters Oo

Walking on Ferenginar in the rain oO The kindest soul, allowing my pathetic excuses Oo

Cooking with Captain Niac oO The rare one whose life I seemed to enrich rather than worsen Oo

She’d squandered it all.

Sadar: I-I was afraid... I was violent... I f-fought back against Gnai’s exosuit d-during Frontier Day, and it was... I-I-It was so easy, Vai- Lieutenant. Wh-When I thought of what people would think- I c-couldn’t. I-I wanted to pretend it had all been a nightmare, a bad dream... B-But then... 

Vailani: I could have handled it. What hurts me the most is you didn't trust me. You were the only person in my life that I trusted completely. And you lied to me. What does that make me, Gila? 

Gila opened her mouth to say something. What, she wasn’t sure, for Lieutenant Vailani’s following words wiped her mind clean, her eyes blank, her heart black.

Vailani: You’re a monster, Gila. The worst kind of monster. You stole my trust, you can never give that back. 

oO A monster Oo

Gila didn’t move. She wasn’t sure she was even breathing as she felt the thread connecting the two of them snap. Gila had been pulling at it for so long, keeping private, shut off, even as Lieutenant Vailani had started showing more of her own world.

Her mother, the abhorrent woman, who was so blinded by hubris, arrogance and gossip, that she failed to recognize the marvelous daughter she had in front of her. The daughter who now, finally, washed her hands off of the Monster hiding away on DS224.

Vailani: I never want to speak to you again. 

Here, at the end of everything, Gila would do the right thing. She would honor Lieutenant Vailani’s wishes. And as she watched Lieutenant Vailani retreat back to her life, she stood there, watching her back, tears rolling down her eyes.

oO Goodbye Oo

End Scene for Gila Sadar

Gila Sadar

Civilian

DS224

As simmed by

LT Tamio K’Wara

Operations Officer

USS Artemis-A
A240006GS1