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Posted by Lieutenant Casela Synthi-er (Counsellor / RTF) in Holodeck - A Captain, a Counselor and a Campfire

Posted by Captain Zachariah Cobb (Commanding Officer) in Holodeck - A Captain, a Counselor and a Campfire

Casela shakes her head, “Changelings are created in infancy. I have seen changelings, I have been there at their creation. You, nor I, are changelings. Changelings don’t know who or what they are. They can’t see the cause or understand the necessity of what they have become. We…we are cursed and, I wish I could say blessed, to understand how we have been forged into the weapons we have become.” She turns the marshmallow over in the fire, to toast the other side equally. She looks at Cobb, the starkness of her expression frightening and heart breaking. “Zachariah, I have looked into that mirror and I hate what I see. I don’t recognize it as anything other than a monster.” She taps herself on the chest, “If I could, without destroying the person trapped inside, I would destroy it as quickly and as cruelly as I have destroyed the human monsters that I, their weapon, have been aimed at.”

“Weapons?” he snorted, although in her case it appeared accurate and Zachariah remained impressed how Casela could channel her anger and her hurt into potent action. But for him it had been many years since he’d called on his demons for anything other than impotent shame.

“Those chosen to carry such weight on their backs are often disfigured by the task,” Zachariah offered. “But it’s the way of the world that somebody has to do it. So while they might see the scars of their burden as a scourge, the rest of us see it as a sacrifice and one for which we are eternally grateful.”

“I have carried the weight since I was 14, Zachariah. And though I hate what I have become and would not wish it on anyone else. If becoming this…scourge has stopped another from taking my place, I would, without hesitation, do it again.” Though to do so would break her in ways she wasn’t capable of comprehending.

He barked out a humourless laugh then added more alcohol to his drink, not ready yet to address her earlier statement on his drinking.

She watched him add more of the alcohol to his drink. Everyone needed an out, needed a way to banish and lock up their demons that had escaped. They both had their own way. And perhaps there were better ways for both of them, but the patterns were already set.

“I know it seems the most inequitable roll of the dice imaginable, that while your friends from the Academy perhaps found themselves chosen for exploration missions or diplomatic positions, you get thrown to the shadows. Possessing the kind of strength and resilience that you do truly is a curse and there is no way to paint it otherwise. But Cas,” he reached out and placed a hand on top of hers, “true monsters are formed from far more than simply carrying out monstrous deeds.”

“You’re right, monsters are formed when those who know better do the monstrous deeds anyway. When they justify using the easy way when they know there is a better way. When they take pride and joy in the monstrous deeds.” Oh what a loaded statement that was, and so much personal truth to it. “They trained us, to ignore the violence, to justify it with false statements of safety and peace and protection. To become no better than a Borg drone. Except we were capable of acting independently.”

She turns to the fire, after her confession. Lost in the flickering dance of the flames, allowing the illusion of the place to soothe her lost soul. Casela takes the marshmallow from the fire and looks at Zachariah, some other memory playing across her face and she looks much younger and more relaxed than she has ever appeared to be. “Please tell me you have chocolate and graham crackers with you. Because if you brought marshmallows and not the rest of the ingredients for s’mores, I’m leaving.” She only appears to be half joking. She eats the marshmallow before it cools, cleaning the remnants from her fingers. “My dad used to take me camping on Betazed, when I was little. We went all the time. Sometimes just in our backyard, past the fields. We always had s’mores. We never went again after the resistance.” She flips the knife over, point down and stabs it into the dirt near her. “And it was that, that fight for our lives, our survival that made me, young and ideal, the prime target for S31.” And now, much to Zachariah’s amazement, or not, he had her talking.
Lt. Synthi-er, CNS

“Now lass, I’m not a complete rookie here,” he laughed as he dug underneath his chair then, with a flourish, produced the requested items.

She takes the items and while staring into the flames, visions of the fire consuming the thing she has become she creates first one and then a second s’more. She passes one to Zachariah. Absently she takes a bite of hers, looking very much like a young girl at the moment. She looks down at the simple confection in her hand, her thoughts on her father. He had taught her much of the wood craft and nature lore that she knew. T’Jal, Jake, F’actar had refined that knowledge, but it was her father that first sparked that thirst of knowledge. She had no idea if he was even still alive. It had been so long since she’d had work from Ever. He had been sick the last she heard and she had no idea if the doctors had been able to help him. Was her mother now truly alone without anyone? Her mother that had kept everyone smiling, singing and hopeful during the long months of the resistance. Hiding in caves with little sunlight to ease the oppressive darkness, her mother had brought it to them with her laughter and singing. Was that woman, now all alone? Casela had no idea. She took another small bite, before she choked on it or the emotions or both.

So temping it was, in that moment, to allow himself to fall silent and enjoy the vision of his friend building s’mores and pointing out owls and otherwise radiating in the amber glow of the fire. But momentum had been achieved and in his gut, Cobb knew, that were he to stall it now, they might never reach this moment of open communication again.

“Tell me about it,” he pushed, “how they initially got you in.”

And in that moment he despised himself for willingly throwing her into those flames.

• Captain Zachariah Cobb

Casela laughed, “Oh they knew, from the moment I applied, they wanted me. They always know. Some, they coax and prod into the areas they want them. Others, like me, they dangle the carrot in front of our faces and we go, without a second thought.” Her voice sounds with disgust and then she sighs. “I have a thing about children being held captive, abandoned, mistreated, orphaned, anything. They are children. It’s customary for upper classmen to torment the newer and younger classes. That never set well with me. I had a habit of finding out who had pranked the freshman and leaving them surprises. I got quite the reputation for it. I was led to psychology, by prompting from teachers, officers, names and faces that are vague and nondescript. Counseling was my cover story, though I didn’t know it at the time. I’m actually quite good at it, or I was, before all this,” she waves a hand encompassing everything and nothing at the same time. “I didn’t know when I joined Star Fleet at the Academy what I wanted to do. But someone had heard about my time with the resistance, and was impressed by me.” She attempts a sneer, but she’s just lost in a sad memory.

“You are still good at it,” Zachariah interjected quietly, “More than good. Or so I hear regularly on the ship’s grapevine. It takes a steel mind to see and do the things we experience on a daily basis and still manage to catch sleep on occasion. And yet I hear from many that your sessions and your techniques are an integral part of keeping those memories at bay. Even if just for an hour or two.”

Casela thought that very ironic. She was helping others actually sleep but she rarely did herself. Counseling was good fulfilling work. During those times there were no divided loyalties, it was just to whatever crew member was there. Medical ethics prevented her from compromising herself, though the section had tried many times to convince her to do so. It was one thing she never let them take away.

“I wanted to make a difference, to save more people. I wanted to join the Federation and help others like the small landing team and 4 ship fleet of the Enterprise did when they came to free Betazed from the occupation. I saved almost 100 children, on my own. No adults, no other older kids, just me. There were others that did it too, but we learned it was safer to go alone to smuggle the little ones out of the villages and cities. And when it came time to finally fight back, I did. We discovered, or re-discovered, the ability to use our psychic talents as weapons rather than simple communication. All at once, no waiting no testing no training. Every able telepath on Betazed attacked the Dominion forces, we over loaded their brains, we fried them, we melted them and we won our freedom.” Her voice is hard and sharp. “Many of the adults died, unable to survive the strain it created on the mind. My father was unconscious for days, my mother, 2 weeks. But me? I never lost consciousness, in fact when someone failed I took their target. I never learned to really use my telepathy for anything else. Many of us stopped using it all together. They were unable to live with what they had done. The section loved me.”

“I am become death,” he whispered, before more loudly adding, “A remarkable discovery perverted by the wrong hands into an instrument of chaos never ceases to remain remarkable at its core. It is the curse of our kind that we could take the very apple of Eden and use it to pollute our existence to the end of all times. But what it is not,” he attempted to insist, “is the fault of the apple.”

What a fanciful thought, that she belonged in a garden of Paradise. But she wasn’t a piece of fruit, nor was she innocent. Maybe when they first recruited her, but she was able to think for herself and yet she still stayed. There was always one sure way out, but she didn’t think suicide was really an option.

“Right after graduation was over, I was approached, I was fed beautiful lies about saving innocents, stopping the bad guys, bringing peace to other species around us. I hate it up like it was candy. Exactly what I wanted. The recruiters for the section are very good. They feed you stories like you are a small child going into a candy store for the first time and you’re told you can have everything you want. I took to the training like a duck to water. I’m good at it, and I excelled at interrogation. I can get just about anyone to tell me anything I want to know. But I was good at combat too. T’Jal tried to save me. She knew what would happen, but I was too idealistic to listen. So instead she trained me. And then the first mission came, and I thought we were invincible.”
Lt. Synthi-er, CNS

Cobb drained the mug of chocolate then turned his attention to the s’more in his hand. Filling the now empty cup half full with kahlua, he used the creamy liquor as a dipping sauce for the already messy treat as he hurriedly crammed it into his mouth before it could disintegrate down his beard. Such a simple, innocent pleasure that, for a brief moment, he considered abandoning this torment of honest conversation entirely. But they had travelled too far now along this road. To retreat was no longer an option either of them had the luxury to consider.

“What happened on your first mission?” he dared to ask next.

• Captain Zachariah Cobb

Casela paused noticeably at the question. After the torment of sickbay, the unwitting torture Fey had put her through, she was still too raw. And even without that, that particular set of memories were always too hard. “That is a conversation for someone else. I don’t think…I know I am not prepared to delve down that well to Hell tonight.” She moved back to the kettle, still filled with hot water and she poured another cup for herself and offered one to Cobb. She could drink HotChocolate every day, the way some drank coffee or others drank alcohol. Sitting half crossed legged, with one knee drawn up, and her arms wrapped around it, she stared into the flames, seeming to consider some decision. “There were three of us, all fresh operatives. We thought we were invincible. IT was easy enough, we were simply to integrate into the colony and listen and report back. But we were discovered, the other two, Shane and Hollis, died.” There is a long pause. So much is noticeably not said or told. “When I returned I was told it was my fault that I had screwed up. I had been careless and got my team killed.” She picks the knife up again flipping it and catching it over and over.

Cobb remained silent as Casela talked, his eyes shifting repeatedly from her own and down to the knife between her fingers and then back. Loss. Betrayal. Blame. It was a tale as old as time, a wound as deep as a canyon. In that moment he felt he knew everything and yet nothing at all about Lieutenant Casela Synthi-er. They were cut from the same cloth but fashioned into garments so different as to not even be of the same class. But grief always cut the same, inside, no matter how one chose to wear it on the out.

“I know now, and I did then I guess, that it was all lies. The intel we were given was bad, and the section knew it. Sent us anyway. My second mission, I was sent with another team of green faced operatives, eager to save the world from itself. I left them, locked in the shuttle,” she chuckles slightly, “so I could determine if the intel was correct or not. The person we were there to retrieve was there, but more heavily guarded than reported. We did manage to get him out, with no loss to ourselves.”

“I sent the team back. I stayed. On the way back to the shuttle I interrogated the weasel for anything he could tell me. The team didn’t like it, just wanted to go, but something was wrong there. He was keeping children from their parents to ensure their cooperation with his illegal trade agreements. Children whose parents didn’t survive were thrown into a mine to fend for themselves. It was abandoned and most of the children died within days. Back then I had no qualms with using my telepathy as a weapon, Mentally I was broken and I was unable to see the monster I was becoming. I made each and every one of those compliant with the scheme beg me for their own mothers before I killed them.”

Dark night gave perfect camouflage to his expression and for that Cobb was thankful. But still, for a fraction of a second, the firelight was refracted across his cheek by a single, crystalline tear.

She whispers a command and then a small object is transported into her hand. It’s a small, now brittle stick, wrapped in a dirty strip of cloth. “The children went home to their parents. I stayed with the orphans, until I found them new homes. The mine was dark, no lamps, dirty, and dry, no water. The last child I Fond, Alyssa, this was her doll. Her real one was taken from her when they threw her into the mine.” Zachariah, if he had ever been in her office, would recognize it from the small self she kept away from prying hands. The shelf with the handful of small uninteresting objects, and he would begin to understand what they really were.

He attempted to speak but found silence the dam restraining torrential emotions, each word collapsing his meager defences as they launched like torpedoes from his tongue.
“You did the right thing. I truly believe that. For whatever it may be worth.”

She turned her gaze on him, “And what about you?”
Lt. Synthi-er, CNS

“Me?”

He had not been expecting the spotlight on his own shoulders and for a moment he stayed his tongue. How much to reveal without casting her from his side? How much to lay on her without entombing he completely in the rubble of his past?

The formalities of chocolate now dispensed with, Cobb placed his mug to one side and commenced drinking directly from the bottle, long sips providing not only sustenance but also an excuse to delay his tale. Only when the first promises of fog began to tease at the edge of his subconscious, when the liquor convinced him he was safe to reminisce, did Zachariah Cobb begin to talk.

“When the war broke out I was stationed near the Badlands,” he began. “I’d carved out something of a reputation for myself as a station engineer. And a damned good one at that,” he laughed and for a brief moment looked almost proud at the recollection. “When the Dominion attacked it was all hands to the pumps and, as our losses increased and the pool of commanders diminished, I was given my own ship to drive into the heart of the fight.”

Pause. Drink. Repeat.

“She was called the Albatross and by the gods did a ship ever live up to its name. Bloody rusting pile of junk, pulled out of retirement when the desire to protect our remaining flagships was at its most urgent. But she was fully stocked for battle and carried the finest bloody crew I’ve ever had the honour to meet. We were fearless, in those early days. How does the saying go? Young, dumb and full of…” He shook his head. “But we earned the rights to our swagger. Two Cardassian vessels to our name by the end of the first battle. A bloody Jem’Hadar cruiser in our second. We landed back on that station after every skirmish to a true heroes welcome. Wine, women and song aplenty. War was never meant to be that much fun!”

Cobb winced visibly, the memory of this prelude like a Cardassian fist to the face.

“Then they came. The Breen.”

He rose from his chair, the temptation to flee sudden and overwhelming. The desire to seek permanent retreat in those blood-red flames even more so. Instead, he began to pace a slow circle, as if daring himself to wind closer with each uneasy step.

“We had no idea what had hit us. One minute we were casting out torpedoes like candy at a parade. The next we were dead in the water. No lighting. No power. No defences. A Keldon class slammed three Cardassian warheads into our port side. And before I could even blink I’d lost a hundred crew. There are no words to describe that feeling, of categorical, inexorable impotence. Me, pinned to my bloody useless chair, fists pounding against bloody useless controls. At my left my Second screaming for assistance and I can’t do a single damned thing to reach him. The last thing he said to me, this man whom I’d served alongside of for the best part of three years, was to tell his girl that he loved her and his mother that he missed her. And then he died, right there, on that flesh-pink carpet. Gods, I couldn’t even reach him to close his eyes!”

• Captain Zachariah Cobb