When the call comes

Posted on Tue Jul 30th, 2019 @ 3:17am by Lieutenant Day Smith

1,856 words; about a 9 minute read

Mission: New Beginnings
Location: Rehabilitation Facility 12 Alpha, Starfleet Medical, San Fransisco, Earth
Timeline: 2 days before Launch

[ON]

The room was a sort of off white combined with teal that you only see in Starfleet medical installations. The smell of detergent permeating throughout the corridors. It was a mystery to the admiral's aide why he had been sent here personally to oversee this transfer. It's nothing that couldn't have been handled through a communique. But the Admiral had insisted, and when the Admiral insisted Joseph Waldhoff knew better than to ignore that. Just like he couldn't ignore the echo of his own footsteps bouncing off theses white tiled walls. He was glad he had chosen the command track rather than anything in the medical field. He rounded the corner and came face to face with the head nurse, who had apperantly stood there and waited for his arrival.

"Good morning, mister Waldhoff." The Andorian's voice was almost of sing-song quality, the antennae flit around menacingly on her head. it was very clear she was not so amused with the man's arrival here, "I will have you know that the people in this ward are very fragile. I will not have you march in here and rile all of them up." It was a whisper now, a whisper that meant business.

Joseph had very little time, and a lot less patience, for territorial nurses posturing to defend their territory, "I'm here on the orders of Starfleet Command. I need to speak to Lieutenant Smith."

"Smith?" The whisper broke, the sing-song quality disappeared, "You mean Day? What would you need her for?"

"Apparently she has been reassigned. The Admiral feels her talents are wasted being cooped up in this..." Joseph paused a moment to choose his words carefully, "facility."

The antennae now lay flat on the Andorian's head, she didn't seem to like this at all, "Last time you assigned her on some ship somewhere, some good for nothing, upstart, department head, destroyed what little confidence she had."

"Well, that shouldn't be a problem, now should it, since she'll be running the department." Joseph showed the PaDD to the nurse, "Now if you would be so kind as to go and get her for me, her shuttle is leaving in about half an hour."

"Department head?" Another look around her, the antennae now up straight, "Are you insane?" She hissed under her breath.

"It seems like her former superior isn't the only one that doubts Day's capabilities." Joseph replied, he looked at the chronometer on the wall, "Actually, there's only 25 minutes left, and the Admiral insists she's there on time for the launch of the Valiant."

"Hold on a minute, she's our patient, an Admiral can't just decide to pull her away from here into an unsafe and unstable environment."

Joseph rolled his eyes a bit at the posturing, he really couldn't care less, the time they had to get to the shuttle was running out and site to site transports always made him sick, "Last I checked the Lieutenant returned here of her own volition. She remains housed here due to the very special, extenuating, circumstances of her condition. All of which is superseded by the fact that she is a Starfleet Officer that has repeatedly requested to be assigned to a deep space tour of duty." He put his hands around his mouth and raised his voice, "Lieutenant Day Smith, please report to the lobby!" His call echoing down the hallways in various directions.

"Shhh!" The Andorian nurse suddenly had her antennae defiantly pointed at the man, "What in the frozen wastes do you think you're doing?!" She could immediately hear people around the facility starting to stir, it was going to take hours to get everyone settled back down after something so disruptive as this.

"I thought I had made myself abundantly clear, I'm assigning Lieutenant Day Smith to be the new Chief of Operation to the USS Valiant." Joseph was looking around the corridors to see if there was any movement.

From a blind spot behind him a door had opened, Day had been granted a temporary office in one of the counsellor's rooms. From there she could do her research, self schooling and consultation work. She had heard some sort of discussion in the hallway and had been very surprised to suddenly hear her name yelled out. Slowly but steadily she had moved towards the door and opened it when she heard the man in Starfleet red make the remark, "I'm being assigned to a Starship?" The voice was unimposing, not so much a whisper as just lacking in volume in general.

Joseph turned around on his heels to face the source of the voice, "ah, Lieutenant, I hadn't seen you there." He handed the PaDD he was holding to the petite woman in front of him.

As Day reached out to the PaDD she hesitated as she saw his stare at her hand that was covered still in the Borg tech that physicians had been unable to remove, "When do I depart?"

"We have about 20 minutes left to make it to the shuttle, which will take us to Starbase 1, where you'll board a shuttle to meet with the Valiant before it departs from its own dock with Starbase 80 in two days time."

Day's eyes flit around a bit as she tried to process the data, "We'll be cutting it pretty close. I'll get my bag." Luckily for her and Joseph, she didn't have too much personal stuff gathered up, plus she'd be the Chief of Operations on a Starfleet vessel, whatever she needed she was in the prime position to order it delivered to their next place of berth.

[1 hour later, Docking ring, Starbase 1]

The view of the blue orb lazily spinning in front of the large panorama window was something that Day felt was very beautiful. It wasn't that she had emotional attachments to the planet below, or memories of a youth spent there. Still, there was something about it that filled her with joy and amazement. The slightest of smiles crept on her face. It wasn't until she saw some faces in the reflection of the porthole that she was snapped out of it. Someone was watching her, it wasn't weird in a crowded place like this for her to feel watched, it was something rather different for her to catch someone in the act. The smile disappeared and she turned to continue her path towards the shuttle waiting to take her to Starbase 80.

The whispers always followed her, despite all the efforts done by Starfleet medical and more well known ex-drones people still looked at them with dread. She was the living embodiment of ultimate evil. She reminded everyone she crossed paths with what was out there, waiting to strike. So many lives were lost to the Borg, and everyone knew many more would follow, maybe even in their lifetimes. Nobody wanted to be reminded of this. Especially not when enjoying the view of a pristine, utopian, Earth.

Someone fell into step with her as she was walking briskly across the docking ring, "Hey, do you remember sticking people with your nanites?" Even at the best of times the question would be totally inappropriate, in this instance it was abundantly clear from the tone of the man's voice he was up to no good.

"I do not remember anything from before I was liberated from the collective in 2385." Day kept her gaze in front of her and her brisk pace steady.

"Can you still do it? Do you sometimes long back to it?" The man badgered on, "Stick those tubes all up in our flesh. You know, make us all part of your private little collective, be our queen, rule over us, eradicate our chaos, our individuality."

Day glanced aside for a moment, the man had unkempt greying hair and a stubble, dressed in decent enough civilian clothes but clearly taking very little care of himself, "I would like to remind you that I am a Starfleet officer and if you continue this harassment I will have you escorted away from my proximity."

"What, we're all supposed to believe that you just left behind all of that and joined Starfleet out of a sense of duty?! The goodness of your heart?! Who says you even have a heart still?!" He reached out and grabbed her shoulder, trying to stop her from continuing, "Hey, I'm talking to you! What's the hurry anyway? I haven't seen a cube docked here, your ride hasn't even arrived yet."

Day tried to shrug off the grip but couldn't, she felt her anxiety boil up and a slight panic was gripping her, this hadn't been the first time something similar had happened and it never seemed to end well for her, "please let me go, I have a shuttle to board."

"I'm sorry, I think I'm doing us all a favour by not letting you go wherever it is you want to go. What good could come of a Borg in the fleet, huh?" The man squeezed harder on her shoulder now, turning her to fully face him. He stood a good 30 centimeters towering over her. His other hand had now balled into a tight fist, with a swift hook he connected with her jaw, sending her reeling and hitting the floor immediately, he followed it up with a spit at her, "That's for Wolf 359, Bitch." He punctuated it with a quick kick into her side as she lay there on the floor before bolting away.

A crowd had immediately gathered to see what had unfolded in front of them, all of them just stood and stared, none of them stepped in to stop the man, none of them now stepped forward to help Day up from the ground.

Day her world had spun all around her and came violently crashing to the floor. It had all gotten out of hand so much quicker than she could have anticipated. She felt the swift kick to her ribs before hearing quick steps moving away from her. It took a moment or two where she lay absolutely still before someone finally stepped up to her.

"Are you alright?" The young man's voice was soft and friendly, non-threatening. Very different from the guy that had just assaulted her.

"I don't have time for this, I need to catch a shuttle." Day her eyes had shot full of water due to the sharp pain from the punch and kick. The humiliation that was added on top of that and the isolation she felt when nobody stepped in and stopped the man, "please just leave me alone." There wasn't malice or anger in her voice, at least not for the guy kneeling next to her or the crowd that stood there gawking. Pushing herself up from the ground she could feel that the kick to her side had done some damage, though it was unclear to what extent. She had stood up completely now and grabbed her bag. All she cared about right now was getting to the shuttle and start her new assignment on the USS Valiant.

[OFF]

Lieutenant Day Smith
Chief Operations Officer
USS Valiant

 

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