LtJG Gila Sadar - Trauma Therapy for the Traumatized
Gila Sadar
((Counselor's Office - Deck 7, USS Artemis-A))
Sadar: In times of crisis, every Starfleet Officer is considered military personnel. When we were overtaken by the crew of the Desdemona, I... I was part of a team intended to retake the Bridge, and... I was given a phaser. We couldn’t afford to appear unarmed. I never shot it - I don’t think I would’ve hit anything had I tried, certainly not anything conducive to a peaceful takeover - but…
Jashkaa: Still you were needed to bear arms. Perhaps you should embrace it, as a unfamiliar activity. If you were more confident in your skills, you could be more certain on your abstinence.
Now, see, that was an idea that Gila almost felt like throwing up at. Embrace it!? As in actively trying to retake her phaser qualifications!? Granted, she’d gotten the lowest possible passing grade after multiple tries, so she was fairly certain she could improve her scores at least a little - perhaps even earn a C grade instead of a D - but did she want to? Absolutely not! The very idea of it was preposterous.
So instead, she eagerly sought to push the conversation away from the troubling subject of weapons practice, and towards something still remotely relevant to the current conversation, but also far more safe.
Sadar: The issue with the assassination could’ve been avoided, had I been more adamant, couldn’t it? None of us wanted to go through it, but because it felt like our only option, we all just accepted that this was what had to be done. ::thinks:: The senior officer made a call. And that was it.
Jashkaa: Except it was not it. If it were it, you would not be here.
Sadar: … I suppose not.
Quiet filled the air between the two women, and Gila felt immediately that this quiet was in no uncertain terms uncomfortable. It was quite impressive that this Counselor made her almost long for the dismissive silence often accompanied by family dinners in the Sadar household. Almost...
Jashkaa: Questioning orders doesn’t make you a bad person Gila.
It was strange how aliens kept telling her that questioning the orders of your betters wasn’t a problem, despite all of them figuring into a military hierarchy. Perhaps this was, in truth, the core of the problem? Moreso than her abstinence of violence, her cowardice, her complete and utter lack of any sort of redeeming qualities in her task as a junior officer, perhaps the true issue was with her understanding of the Starfleet hierarchy in comparison to the more rigid understanding of ‘adherence to the unit’ she had been brought up in.
Sadar: So I’ve been told... I have to admit that that is as foreign a concept to me as violence itself.
It was not an unfamiliar issue. She recalled numerous instructors at the Academy reprimanding her for exactly that kind of blind adherence to rank, and yet, it was a pitfall she kept finding herself pulled into.
Jashkaa: Response
Sadar: Perhaps that is one of those areas where I need to learn how to, uhh, ‘bend’?
Jashkaa: Response
Sadar: … Don’t exactly know how I’d go about that.
Certainly not by openly questioning Captain MacKenzie again. Been there, done that. Preferably never doing it again. Perhaps Commander Adea would be the safer option? Or Lieutenant Commander Dakora? He seemed like he’d be a good sport about the whole affair.
Jashkka: Response
LtJG Gila Sadar
Medical Officer
USS Artemis-A
A240006GS1