JP: Lieutenant JG T'Ama & Lieutenant JG Quentin Beck - Dead Men Tell No Tales

[Melissa Jackson]

((T’Ama’s Quarters, Deck 8 - USS Chin’toka, in orbit of Earth))

T’Ama had not died today. She had fully been prepared to meet her death and when it never came, she had gotten up from her spot and had started searching the ship for wherever the crewman had stashed her belongings she’d handed off to him hours before. She hadn’t had to search long because it was - bizarrely - on the same deck.

She lay curled on her left side on the bed, trying not to lay on the right side of her face. It was a habit she’d already otten into since the incident with the hail on Drever IV. The skin on that side of her face still felt tight from the phaser burns when she moved her face. She stared blankly at the wall, waiting for sleep that now was stubbornly refusing to visit. She hadn’t even turned down the covers - just laid on top of them.

She sighed and got out of bed to fetch her PADD from the bag of her belongings placed right inside the door. She had to know if he had survived the day too or not. Maybe she could sleep if he had. Anxiety spiked as the call rang, waiting for connection. She tried to calm it with logic - the lines were probably slammed, the communications satellites destroyed in battle - but somehow it actually connected.

T’Ama: You still alive?

The viewer was still dark for a moment, even after the connection, and his voice was a little muffled.

Beck: Oh, hell, am I glad to hear your voice. Yeah, I'm still alive. One sec.

The sound of shuffling and scraping came before the darkness lifted, the obstruction moved out of the path of the PADD's sensor and his face looked longer than usual at the weird angle. He started to reach for it with the hook on his right hand, grimaced, then picked it up with his left hand instead so he could then settle it into the groove between the pincers, where it sat comfortably.

Beck: Sorry, I just moved to new quarters and haven't had a chance to properly unpack or sort everything.

Quentin blinked, leaning closer to the viewer, his brows creasing with concern.

Beck: Did you– what the hell happened to your face?!?

She licked her bottom lip nervously.

T'Ama: Phaser blast.

Beck: Are you okay?!? Hell's bells, I leave you alone for ten minutes…

T'Ama: ::dryly:: And I turn into a Borg and the captain shoots my eye out?

A heavy sigh emitted from the other end of the viewer and Quentin rubbed his good hand over his face. 

Beck: I'd crack a joke about calling you Ralphie but we haven't watched A Christmas Story yet. ::beat:: Wait, you turned into a Borg?!?

She worried her lip again. It was easier to joke about it than admit anything. 

T’Ama: At least it was the eye that was already borked, right?

She attempted a lopsided smile while saying it but her voice cracked at the end. Dammit, she was going to start crying despite herself. She sniffed and wiped away the single tear that had escaped down her cheek. 

Beck: Wait a second, back up. Is this the… Borg virus thing I've been seeing in what little reports haven't been redacted so far? Or were you actually assimilated?

Her brow furrowed. She had certainly been assimilated but not by the usual means. And she only just realized she had no idea how or why she was subject to it. A sick feeling formed in the pit of her stomach.

T'Ama: I wasn't injected with nanites if that's what you mean. Definitely assimilated and hooked up to the Collective but… It was through a signal. Remember that harmonic resonance transceiver thingy they figured out was stolen from Amity?

He frowned very deeply.

Beck: Are you okay? Like… emotionally? Were you aware of what was going on?

She paused, her one remaining eye going a little glassy as she tried to figure that out. Her voice was thick as she spoke again.

T'Ama: Yes, I remember what happened.

She sniffed again.

Quentin's frown deepened, if that was possible, and his eyes were soft as they shifted to study her features. His voice grew softer, too.

Beck: Did you kill anyone?

T’Ama: I don't think so. ::beat:: Not directly anyway.

Although that was a relief, he also knew her well enough to know she was still feeling it. Even if she hadn't had any kind of control. He thought back to the neurological scans he'd been attempting on the Borg Cube, trying to isolate the Queen from the drones, and at the base level they were all just the same… but knowing she had some awareness suggested what he'd theorized was true. The drones still had at least some individual processing power, or else none of them could ever be liberated. Seven of Nine had been. So had Hugh, and countless others in recent years.

Beck: ::grim faced:: I'm sorry you had to go through that, T. No one should ever have to feel that powerless in their own body.

She shook her head with a grimace.

T'Ama: It wasn't really like I was trapped inside and could only watch. It was more like I just fully accepted that was what I was supposed to do. So I remember it all but I wasn't very aware.

That was troubling. He had assumed it was more like being stuck as a passenger in your own mind, not that the Borg programming was overriding your impulses entirely, but it made a sick sort of sense thinking about it. Especially when he considered what those brain scans had looked like - the Queen's order was compelled on all drones, no matter their pecking order. It was even more interesting to know she remembered it all, though - that suggested anyone else that had been assimilated, even temporarily, would, too, and they could actually do some kind of study about the liberated Borg.

Beck: What do you remember?

T’Ama: I remember… I remember trying to optimize the strategy. The directive was eliminate the unassimilated but… I remember getting angry about it. Like that was such an illogically simple instruction.

His brow arched slowly and it took some effort to keep the corner of his mouth twitching upward; getting angry about something illogical was such a T'Ama reaction.

Beck: How do you feel about it now?

T’Ama: It's mostly horrifying now, after the fact. Mortifying.

She frowned and wiped at her tears. She hated feeling embarrassed and she made it a point to never feel that way. But this went deeper to an underlying core of shame and guilt.

Beck: Can I do anything for you? I could hook you up with someone to talk to about a prosthetic eye?

T'Ama: Do they make ones with rainbow lights I can program to look like anything I want it to?

He shrugged.

Beck: Probably? I didn't get a chance to look at the catalog for eye replacements while I was looking at hands.

He paused, eyes drawn to the hook holding the PADD in place, then looked to her again.

Beck: Uh. And I was looking at hands because I may have lost mine in the craziness when they sent out the Borg signal.

Looking at hands hadn't rung any alarm bells - doctors did all kinds of weird stuff. A patient could have easily lost a hand. It was when he said he'd lost his hand that she had tensed up and froze. It took her a few seconds to choke out a response.

T'Ama: How??

Quentin looked a little embarrassed himself, not quite able to meet her gaze now, and he rubbed the back of his neck with his good hand before clearing his throat.

Beck: Erm… when I was on the away team on the Borg Cube, they grabbed us at one point and one of them managed to tube my right hand. I was able to use the anti-Borg serum in time to keep it from spreading, but I guess since I only used one dose it wasn't enough? So some of the nanites stayed in my hand but were dormant.

The picture on his screen swung wildly as she sat up and readjusted her position. This was sitting up kind of news. She placed the PADD down on the bed giving a rather unflattering angle from below.

T'Ama: Right…

She remembered that part.

Beck: When you left for the Chin'toka, I borrowed a workerbee from the Artemis so I could get down to Earth. I was in orbit when the Borg signal went out and my hand went crazy.

Her brow furrowed and she opened her mouth to say something and then closed it into a frown with a long sigh.

Beck: It grabbed my face, tried scratching out my eyes and I'm pretty sure it was going to try spreading the nanites a different way since they couldn't get past my wrist for whatever reason. I had to wrestle it to the floor and I was too far away from the medkit by the door. Still had the phaser on my hip…

T'Ama: So you shot your own hand off?! ::horrified:: Quentin!

Sighing, he released the PADD from the pincers and held the opposite end with his good fingers so he could bring the hook into view.

Beck: This is temporary because I didn't have time to work with Ohnari for the actual prosthetic before we had to launch our mission against the Lattice Alliance. She keeps badgering me, telling me there are other temporary measures I could take, but… I kinda like the hook, to be honest.

She bent closer to glare at the… hook… he had over the stump. Microexpressions fluttered rapidly across her face until she closed her eye, and then reopened it a moment later.

T'Ama: So jealous of my pirate aesthetic you had to join in?

Beck: Heh. Something like that.

T’Ama: What did your mother say?

Beck: ::grimacing:: She doesn't know yet. I couldn't bear to tell her, and turns out she was perfectly fine the whole time and my dad was lying just to get back at me for forcing him to pay the Ferengi back. 

She shook her head and sighed.

T’Ama: I haven't told my family either about the ::gestures:: eye. I wanted to wait until I had it replaced but I'll have to tell them I survived and we're going to be on Earth for… awhile.

His brows lifted.

Beck: Why are you gonna be stuck on Earth?

T'Ama: Uhm. We might be court-martialed? Or the captain probably will be at the very least.

Beck: . . . what? Why?!?

T’Ama: Cause we kinda stole the ship out of dry dock.

Beck: ::gawking:: You stole—

Quentin blinked a few times before laughing softly, shaking his head and closing his eyes.

Beck: Why does that sound like something you'd do knowingly?

T'Ama: I didn't plot to steal the ship! I didn't know until Serala told the senior officers and then, you know, it seemed like a good idea after what happened on the Artemis.

She had known probably more than most that something was going to go down.

Beck: ::grim:: I hope they take into account the extraneous circumstances here… especially since I hear the Chin'toka did a lot to help save the day.

She honestly had no idea how much the Chin'toka had done other than save President Chekhov. She'd spent the entire time assimilated or in Sickbay.

T'Ama: No thanks to me. But yeah, I can't imagine they could ignore the circumstances.

A look of concern crossed his features as he tried to study her over subspace. It wasn't like her to be so down on herself, but he could only imagine the level of guilt she must be feeling right then. She always felt the need to be useful and usually was, and with those injuries he guessed she'd been stuck in Sickbay for a long while once she'd been liberated. 

Beck: Hey - you can't blame yourself for something the Borg did while you were under their control. And you can't blame yourself either for needing to be patched up - it happens, especially out in the field.

T'Ama: I know it's… illogical. But that… doesn't help feeling useless.

His lips formed a thin line. She wasn't wrong. Saying it was one thing, but that wasn't the same as feeling it. He wished he was better versed in counseling techniques because he felt like now would be the time to tell her she should do some kind of mental exercises to help her get over the hurdle.

Beck: You're something special, T'Ama, and I love you very much. You're my best friend in the whole damn universe.

She pulled a knee up and hugged it to her chest. Her dark hair cascaded over it as she buried the left side of her face against it. When she finally looked up again she'd obviously been crying harder. It felt like he'd brushed up against the deepest wound in her heart, but intended to help it instead of dig it further. 

T'Ama: I wish you were here.

Beck: ::quietly:: I do, too. You look like you need a hug.

She did desperately need a hug. She was quiet for a few moments, turning over in her head something Is'Kah had said, before sniffing loudly.

T’Ama: Is’Kah said it would wreck you a second time if you lost me to the Borg.

His lips pulled into a thin line at that suggestion, brow creasing slightly as he looked down for a moment.

Beck: She's not wrong - I wouldn't have been very happy about it.

T’Ama: And then she threatened to “steal you away and tell you she loves you”.

Beck: ::blinking, confused:: 'Steal me away'...? What?!?

T’Ama: She was trying to get me to resist the Borg.

Beck: Did it work? What happened?

T’Ama: Um… I may have slapped her. Like really hard. I think I dislocated her jaw.

She bit her lips into a thin line, and a flush of green crept up her neck into her cheeks.

Beck: ::brows raising:: Damn. Damn. I mean, it sounds like she kinda deserved it, but holy mackerel.

He was… a little confused by the whole interaction, curious why Is'Kah would have put it that way, and he studied T'Ama somewhat askance. He cleared his throat.

Beck: Sounds like she was able to get through to you at least a little… you must've been pretty upset, though, as I'm not sure you would ever have followed through laying the smack down like that before getting Borged.

T'Ama: Yeah… I'm not sure how much of that was me and how much was Borg.

It hadn't exactly severed the connection to the Collective so much as make her want to murder Is'Kah, which still seemed like a good idea most days. 

Beck: I'm sorry you had to go through all that, but… I'm really relieved you're still alive, T.

T'Ama: ::sighing:: Yep still alive and punching or whatever it is you say.

Beck: Kicking. Alive and kicking.

T'Ama: Speaking of kicking… You want me to kick your dad's ass while I'm on Earth for you?

Beck: ::snorting:: That's– a tempting offer, but no, I don't think so.

T'Ama: Well you wouldn't have lost the hand if he hadn't been lying to manipulate you into coming here.

Beck: ::grimacing:: Yeah, I know. Beating his ass isn't good enough, though, even if it'd be pretty cathartic. I'll figure out a way to even things out with him later. ::thoughtful:: You could call on my mother, though. I'm sure she'd love to hear from you and you'd get a free meal out of it. Give her reasons to be happy that have nothing to do with him.

Her eyebrows lifted and her lips formed a small, amused little smirk at the opportunity to dig up things to tease Quentin with.

T'Ama: Maybe when I get my eye replaced. Wouldn't want to freak her out with this.

She gestured to the unsightly droopy eyeless socket on her face.

Beck: I'll send over Doctor Ohnari's information and I'll let her know you'll be reaching out to her. She's… a little eccentric, I think, but her reputation precedes her. She knows what she's doing.

T'Ama: ::smiling slightly:: Okay… thanks. For the pep talk.

Beck: Thank you. For… everything.

T'Ama: Yeah, yeah. Call me later. Don't die. Mwah.

She made a kissy face at the screen.

Beck: ::smirking:: Don't you die, either, kitten. Try not to get court martialed, while you're at it. Kisses.

His image winked out. A second of silence passed before she spoke again to the empty room.

T'Ama: No promises.

Lieutenant JG T’Ama

Acting Chief of Operations 

USS Chin'toka 

C240004T11

&

Lieutenant JG Quentin Beck

Acting Chief Medical Officer

USS Ronin NCC-34523

A238810SA0