Posted by Civilian Micah Pikelsimer (Federation Security Agent) in Tennessee, Earth - Home Sweet Home

Posted by Commander Shara Calloway (Chief Intelligence Officer) in Tennessee, Earth - Home Sweet Home

(snip)

Shara stared hard at Micah. He knew. Of course he did. It just hadn’t clicked yet because Shara was a seemingly unsentimental woman who wasn’t attached to things. But it wasn’t the ring she had been deeply attached to- it was the giver of that ring. “My wedding ring,” she said quietly. “Wore it long past the time when we found out about Tracken. A part of me held out hope that they had survived a lot longer than most of the others. And even after it truly registered with me, I couldn’t take it off. Took me a whole year after my episode to take it off. The hard part was that I was a crewman who shared quarters with another person and there wasn’t a lot of privacy. And I just unceremoniously replicated a ring box between a split shift one night and chucked it into a bag in my wardrobe and that was it. After we got back to the Alpha Quadrant, I stored it in this trunk and there it has remained. It’s all I have from Tracken other than that photo. And memories.”

Micah looked at her and said softly “All you used to have.”

“Perhaps,” Shara replied. If she considered Faye a part of Tracken, then yes. Perhaps Tracken gave her Faye but she had known since Faye was small that her daughter was not of Tracken in the same way. Just like Shara had not been of Midos.

“What do you mean by episode?” Nadine asked gently, sensing that maybe this was all too delicate a place to go, but not having context.

Shara shifted her attention to her daughter. “Acute Stress Response. While the rest of the Maquis were grieving in their own ways, I couldn’t accept it. Faye and Edward were alive until someone proved it to me and damn anyone who tried to say otherwise. So I went along for months like that until one day it just hit and it hit hard. I have no memory of it all but apparently I just sagged against a wall in the mess hall and became completely unresponsive.”

“Like a coma?” Nadine asked.

Shara shook her head. “No, I was conscious when they didn’t sedate me so I could sleep, but I just… wasn’t there. And apparently the Maquis folks as well as some of the Starfleet crew I worked with down in engineering came and sat with me in shifts, wanting someone to be there with me when I came to, as it were. And when I did, the grief hit hard and fast and it took awhile to get me moving forward again.”

“You were an engineer?”

Shara laced her fingers, inverted her hands and cracked her knuckles, giving Nadine a cheeky smirk. “Daughter, I am well known to be an excellent programmer. I might not have your sister’s unparalleled ability to hack a computer and design a breathtakingly elegant system, but I know my way around a computer program,” she said with a wink.

“Yeah… you’re kind of scary,” Nadine said with a grin.

~Shara & Nadine

“You have no idea, kiddo. And be glad of that.” Micah said with a smile… but something in his tone conveyed an undercurrent of caution.

Nadine gazed at Micah for a long moment before she mentally conceded that he was probably right.

“So what other mementos you have hiding in there? If you pull out a feather boa and start talking about your time undercover in a Syndicate strip club, I’m gonna have to tell Nadine to go sleep in Vanessa.” and he wiggled his eyebrows at Shara.

Micah

Shara bent forward and plucked the gauzy scarf out of the trunk and flung it around her neck with a flourish, letting each side flutter to rest against her back and chest. “No,” she said, giving Micah and wicked grin. “But what happens on Risa stays on Risa.”

“Oh God, I don’t think I want to know any more about that,” Nadine said, shaking her head. She set her coffee down on the table and peered into the trunk. “What are the little boxes?”

After setting down her own coffee and reaching in, Shara picked up the top one and opened the hinged lid. With a nod she set it on the table. It was a small medal on a ribbon with a cluster. “That’s Starfleet’s Extended Tour Ribbon. You get a cluster for every ten years of service. I earn my second cluster this year actually.”

“Wow,” Nadine said quietly, gazing intently at the award.

Pulling the other three boxes out, Shara opened them and pointed to them in turn. “Star Cross and Two Medals of Commendation.” She jabbed a thumb in Micah’s direction. “This one here has his fancy medal all framed and lovely like a normal person. Mine got chucked into my locker in a hurry before I shipped out to my next assignment and I haven’t seen it since,” she said with a shrug.

Nadine picked up the Star Cross and traced the shape with her fingertips. “How’d you get this one?”

Shara snorted. “Well, like a lot of people in my type of work, I can’t tell you. Not the details, anyway. But I can say that it was a long-term mission involving deep cover and the successful return of a fellow agent from enemy incarceration.” It was unlikely that her and Faye could ever tell Nadine the entire story simply because she was civilian, but a few details here and there would eventually come out.

~Shara & Nadine