Lieutenant JG Amelia Semara - It's Time

[Max]

(( Main Sickbay, Deck 6, USS Khitomer - In orbit of Alpha Trionus II ))

In retrospect, Amelia wasn't entirely certain why she had to step out to make her call to the bridge.  Maybe it just took the hush of sickbay's main space and a door between her and the silicon carnage on the autopsy table to think a little straighter.  Or maybe she was having more trouble keeping thoughts of Tori from moving her steadily closer in that direction.

Either way, she was here now, and the mere fact it was Shayne's voice coming back from the bridge seemed to hold a promise that there was a better plan in motion.

Semara: =/\= Just got back.  Doctors Melville-Kilpatrick and Ohnari are workin' on the body now... :: A heavy sigh. :: It's in bad shape, sir.  I don't see a way to sell an escape story to the Sheliak short a' incineratin' the body and leavin' nothin' but residue.  Even then, there's a risk of suspicious enzymatic traces if we ain't careful. =/\=

It could still be done - get the shuttle to explode the right way or fly too close to a star and turn the whole package into molten slag, but then the trick would be to make sure whatever data they loaded onto the shuttle survived the fate they invented for the Sheliak general.  Yet rushing through staging the shuttle, plotting the course, making sure the Sheliak found it in just the right condition...  It was a wearying, time-consuming prospect fraught with the potential for errors.  Was it too much to hope for an inspired alternative?

Shayne / Bridge:=/\= Response =/\=

Semara: =/\= Any chance everyone beamin' up means we got a plan that forgoes our little ruse?  The body might be worth more in our sickbay than floatin' in a shuttle. =/\=

There was that, too.  The secrets in what remained had yet to be fully revealed, and Amelia didn't enjoy the idea of letting information slip through their fingers.

Hobart:=/\= Get whatever data you can, and then put the body in stasis. =/\=

Ohnari: =/\= Great minds and all that, Doctor Melville-Kilpatrick and I are going to pause the post mortem and see if we can stall the degradation. =/\=

Amelia nodded to no one.

Semara: =/\= I've got the computer workin' on the original autopsy report's encryption, and I'm sending physical evidence to engineerin' and our labs.  Could be a while, but I'll let you know. =/\=

Shayne: =/\= Response =/\=

She closed the channel, and the sudden absence of sound seemed to swallow up any residual responsibility.  There were no new orders, and the shift had ended probably hours ago - who kept track of those anyway?  Even if it had been her shift, she had no idea what she was supposed to do next.  If she was going to work, was she supposed to head to a science lab or go break in the intelligence office?

Such thoughts were, of course, simply delaying tactics.  Just because she desperately wanted to talk with Tori didn't mean confronting the reality of it wasn't terrifying.  A whole person that belonged to her...  Someone who carried a daughter's love and the grief of loss for her.  A lifetime.  And yet that lifetime hadn't even started... and wouldn't for how many years?

On one hand, Connor was right - the person Amelia was right here, right now wasn't the person who changed Tori's diapers, who baked Baklava for her when she was sad, who scolded her when she misbehaved, or praised her when she won a science fair prize.  Amelia was yet to pass down the Golden Leaf of Semizad - the last great heraldic symbol of her family... Yet it had been pinned in Tori's hair in the conference room for anyone who cared to notice, and doubtlessly she'd kept it close since.

On the other hand, there was the impossible dream they'd shared telepathically.  Even before meeting each other, the strangeness of Sencha's impact on the telepathic mind had allowed them to make contact - if only for a fleeting, confusing flash.  A bond like that that didn't just come into existence out of nothing.  Amelia had only told Ayemet about it, and no one else.  And that was before she knew it was more than just a dream...  How could she expect anyone to understand the thing pulling at her from inside?  She barely understood it herself, and only a precious few of her crewmates seemed comfortable about her telepathy.

In the end, what did it matter?  After talking with Juliet late into the night, Amelia had decided this was a case where emotional truth mattered more than any evidence, or anything anyone else might think.  Tori felt like Amelia's daughter.  And that was what made that one door intimidating.  Behind it was a truth about who Amelia was: who she could be, if she had the courage to be better than she was in another time, and if she had the wisdom to know when the other, future of her was already the right person to be.

Amelia closed her eyes, taking in a long breath, compressing her telepathic awareness to an energetic almost-nothing inside of her, then she let it unravel again with an exhale.  On the other side, Tori was looking at the same door, just as aware of Amelia as mother was of future daughter.

She opened her eyes, and pressed the chime.

NT / END Scene

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Lieutenant Junior Grade Amelia Magnolia Semara

Science Officer - Special Projects

USS Khitomer - NCC-62400

A239710MA0