Posted by Lieutenant Junior Grade Sharah Fayth (Medical) in Another New Ship

Posted by Lieutenant Markus Woods (Chief Science Officer) in Another New Ship

Posted by Lieutenant Junior Grade Sharah Fayth (Medical) in Another New Ship
Posted by… suppressed (3) by the Post Ghost! 👻

(Snip)
“Oh, it doesn’t bother me. Well not much. I’m still figuring things out. Still getting poked and prodded about it too.” He shrugged once more. “I’ll show you mine [scars] if you show me yours.” The scars were an added undercurrent, silent, unsaid, but sent for clarity. Scooting closer he rubbed his hands together, preparing, then spread them apart. In the air in front of him an object began to take shape, like a holographic grid, nothing more than lines and faces creating a complex set of polygons. The object was a foot long, and as thick as his forearm at the ends, but narrowed to about wrist thickness in the middle. It resembled almost square tubing that had been crushed into a piece of modern art. The whole thing was covered in mysterious symbols and lines, and an underlying grid pattern. It had no seams or visible openings. As Markus opened his eyes it seemed to hover there in front of his hands, solid and and real, with reflections from it’s dark metallic surface.

Sharah watched him rub his hands together and then spread them. She could tell he was trying to convey some thought to her but suddenly there was no sound coming from him. It took her a moment and a mental adjustment, he was conveying images. Sharah had to close her eyes momentarily in order to ‘see’ it. Once she did he would hear her silent affirmation that she could see it.

“This device we found when I was aboard my second posting, the U.S.S. Darius. I was serving as a scientist, but I was just a wet-behind-the-ears junior officer then. The device tended to impart rather alien knowledge and ability for anybody who was exposed to it. But only temporarily. Like an hour or so. I, being overly ambitious, spent a lot of time with the device. Tried to really record as much as I could and plumb it’s depths. It seems my repeated and prolonged exposure had some more… permanent effects.”

Much like her wayward experiment with the reality bubbles and Mini Fayth. ‘Sometimes Science gives us more than unexpected results.’

“I wound up in a lot of crap for breaking protocol. But I’m pretty sure I had more than enough to deal with as I spent the next year or so locked in a box, being poked, prodded, studied. I’m pretty sure they would have liked to dissect me. Just to find out if I was somehow unique or special, and what they could glean from that. But I was released, and returned to active duty. During that time I got a lot of training and counseling on how to [ handle my abilities. And it took a lot to keep control of my head, as well as build the skills, discipline, and so on to get to where I am. It’s been a long road, gettin’ from there to here. I’m still learning. But at least I haven’t had a Mind Storm in a good while.”

Mark

Dissection and study and locked up? Sharah was a doctor and by default a scientist, but she took an oath to do no harm. And what he described offended her at a fundamental level. Not Markus, but what he had been put through. “Mind Storm?”

“Oh, they never got that far, but they were thinking about it. When they thought I was out of range, or wasn’t paying attention.” He shrugged. “I’m pretty sure Captain Hawkes put an end to it.” He didn’t immediately answer her about the mind storms, instead letting her explain about her condition.

He showed his, so now hers, she supposed. “On Betazed I am diagnosed as a supersensitive telepath. Unlike most Betazoids, whose talent and skills turn on during adolescence, I was born with mine on. Not just on but fully developed. Basically it means I hear and feel everything from everyone around me. I can’t stop it and I can’t turn it down. It is not within my capabilities to block the input. I hear it even in my sleep.”

Fayth

“That sounds rough. No wonder you like it in here,” he said with a small, but knowing smile. “Also that’s really good information to know.” Taking a moment, he cleared his throat. “Ah, a Mind Storm is just my term for it. When… I’m particularly stressed, overwhelmed, or worried too much. It’s also happened when I’ve attempted to consciously do Precognition. I also had one shortly after coming aboard the Viking, when I tried to open up more to sense whatever was here. I touched on it, and .. woke up drooling on the floor of my quarters. It’s a flood of psychic information that I can’t stop, limit or control - it just keeps coming until I collapse or it just stops on its own. This is a sort of uncontrolled “opening of oneself” to everything around. It might be akin to a sort of mental or psychic seizure too. I dunno. I always feel so drained, so wiped after one happens, and usually migraines follow. So I have to be careful about pushing those abilities.” Reaching down he picked up a pebble from the soil, holding it in his hand. After a moment it lifted into the air floating and rotating slowly. “But this doesn’t seem to have the same effect.” Concentrating on the stone and keeping it aloft required focus, and it was both thought and feeling. Not just emotion but sensation, feeling the weight of the rock, it’s relation to his hand, how much force to push against it, feel it’s rotation. But for a small object like that, he seemed rather practiced with it

Mark

Sharah listened and knew exactly what he was talking about. But was stopped from commentating as the pebble began to levitate. She was fascinated, watching, and at the same time he could hear, much as he had done earlier, her mind begin to run with questions about how it worked, what caused him to have these abilities, how it differed from regular telepathy. There was an underlying basis that Betazoids once had similar abilities but had lost them, and how those abilities might connect with her research and a cure. Then a thought that was quickly tucked away, and the feeling that it had been rude of her. She processed and filed away each sensation, feeling, and thought he shared with her about it, but didn’t pry for more.

When he stopped she gazed at him, really looking at him as if she was seeing things that others could not. And then gently offered, her own memories of such a thing, for him to see if he chose…

Pain, confusion, overwhelming sensations - even pleasurable happy emotions were a burning pain because there were simply too many, too strong. Drowning and unable to identify your own feelings from others. There is no self except as a receptacle for others. Thoughts too loud to understand, so much noise things can not be separated and you can not think. Then more pain, hot fire cutting through your essence, a hammer shattering the mind, only to be put back together for it to happen again and again.. And then memories of waking up in the hospital. “Mind Storm. That’s a very accurate term for it. I am sorry you’ve had to experience such a thing. I would not wish that on anyone.”

Suddenly she closed her eyes tightly, curling into herself, pain etched across her face, one hand tugging tightly on a curl, the other curled into a fist nails biting into her palm.

Fayth

Everything was like a match to an exposed nerve. The experience was easy to pick up for Markus, though he wasn’t in it. Yet he could feel her reliving it, trapped in that world on fire, that burning cacophony. His own storms weren’t that bad, and he was grateful she wasn’t projecting it. Lest he get wrapped up in it as well. But she was, in a way. Remembering how she’d shied away before from his hand, he understood so much more now. He let that torrent waft from her, over him, and after a few moments became like the eye of a storm, calm, letting it all swirl around him. Yet he couldn’t do anything about wanting to comfort her, to pull her out of that pain. It was as strong as anything, and while he didn’t project it, he knew she would hear, would feel. that alone might make her want to retreat, but, he took a breath and a risk. As she sat, pulling her hair and somewhat lost in recollections, he reached out to rest his hand on her shoulder, a physical anchor. Steady. Focus on me and let the rest wash past. The words came quiet, not projected, not shouted. But steady as a rock in a river.

Mark

Sharah’s eyes snapped open, her black onyx gaze finding his instantly. Her normal ingrained response, to physically back away, was halted by utter shock. Having been focused on trying to share, to explain, to him what it was like, to show him he wasn’t alone, that she understood about his mind storms, the massive wild ocean had snuck up on her. What had caused the pain, the curled up pasture, the tugging on her hair was not the memory, though it was frightening. It was the noise of the ship changing. Each ship had its own rhythm and she was still learning about Viking.

That simple touch, his eye in the storm, shocked her, startled her so that for a moment into the midst of the storm of memory came the real storm. The noise, the input, the massive waves of thought and emotion that had suddenly become devastating tidal waves. For that brief moment he got a glimpse of what it might be like inside her head. She stared at him, for a long moment and then blinked and the slight contact was gone with a lingering feeling of gratitude.

The experience left her confused and…sad, but he wouldn’t get that. She kept that to herself because it was personal. Although telepathy often made people close quickly, Sharah was…simply confused. And it wasn’t a bad thing it just needed time to consider. She hesitated slightly before reaching up and placing a hand over his briefly. “Thank you…are…are you alright?”

Fayth

He gave her a slow nod when she asked if he was okay. “I am. I didn’t quite expect to see that. Didn’t really know what to expect.” For the moment he left his hand in place, as she wasn’t pulling away. It seemed to be working, an anchor of sorts. As far as he could tell anyway. “You’re welcome. I just hope it helps. Kinda playing everything by ear at the moment.” He broke into an amused smile for a moment, then simmered back down. “Are you alright? I can only simulate so much of that, only imagine so much of that.” At the same time he shifted his hand to take a hold of hers, if she let him, out of concern, and literally having something to hang onto.

Touch is a powerful thing. It can convey so much more than words, ease pain, help recover from injury, illness, and disease. Inspire someone to fight for their life and come back from the brink of death. It could be a lifeline to someone drowning, literally, and figuratively. It didn’t take a telepath to see the man cared, though it was tempered by the knowledge that she’d known nothing else but the firestorm. She’d learned to cope long ago. And probably better than he ever could, strong as he was.

Mark

Sharah didn’t pull her hand away, not right away. Her grip was loose, almost as light as her mental touch had been. The contact was wholly different from anything she’d encountered before. The storms could best be described like an icy torrent amongst the never ending deadly tidal waves, burned by the salt spray and the raging fire of lightening striking. His touch was different. It was calm with incredible depth but there was utter stillness, except for the occasional fluttered ripple across the surface. It was both a soothing cold and like the warmth of sunshine. He wasn’t stopping the storm and the sea but it was a beautiful place to focus on reaching. Helping her to at least, for a brief moment, ignore the rest. “It is how my life is.” There was no other way to word it; she was as alright as she could be. Her life was loud, and painful, and disorienting, and scary. And nothing would ever change that and so she must accept it. “I’ve never met anyone who can do that, well not any that were willing to attempt it.” She closed her eyes again, dropping her head, her body seeming to rock as it was bombarded by the input. She curled her fingers, in an attempt to place the crescents of her fingernails into her palms and squeeze. But instead his hand was there. It took extreme effort to try and relax her hand and stay afloat at the same time. A life line, it was a beautiful sentiment, that left a small hint of small on her face and heat in her cheeks. She would attempt conversation if simply staying afloat didn’t take all of her conversation.

Fayth

A gentle but firm squeeze of her hand followed. He was still there. Of course she knew that, but it was more than just physical presence. Possibilities on how best to help her flickered across his surface thoughts, picked up, simulated, and discarded as fast as they came. None would do the job. Some would make it worse in a kind of feedback loop. Best then, that he could do for now was remain in that stillness and just be a calm spot in the storm. Though shutting off his problem-solving, analytical brain proved to be difficult.

The fact that she hadn’t stolen a shuttle and run screaming off to some uninhabited dirtball was remarkable in and of itself.

Mark