Posted by Ensign Sharah Fayth (Doctor) in pre-sim Hard Work Pays Off
Sharah had settled into a steady work rhythm over the first months on Europa. The redesign of the arboretum went well and she had added the project to her working portfolio. Her work in sickbay was improving her already impressive skills by leaps and bounds. Working with Dr. Zarath was an amazing opportunity that Sharah was extremely grateful for. Not only was she becoming a better doctor, but he had helped her learn new techniques for controlling the noise and her gift. She was having limited success with them, but any success was better than where she had been.

She spent at least half a shift, if not more, in the arboretum every day. As she had discovered on the Galileo all those years ago, working with the plants soothed and calmed her. It was good place to loose herself for a little while every day. She had been working hard on examining the chemical and mineral compositions of the different plants. Those that added to her research, she planted samples in the small medical garden bed. She continued to work on her research, expanding the list of ‘folk remedies’ and adding more scenarios and injury types to the holo program.

This particular day she was hard at work during Bravo shift. She was inventorying and cleaning the auxiliary sickbay on deck 4 and battle sickbay on deck 9. She was testing equipment, placing broken/malfunctioning equipment in a box to be fixed, checking dates for medicines and doing general cleaning. It kept her busy, and Sharah didn’t like to be idle. While she was working a message came through for her, from the Academy, marked with priority. She went over to the console to read it. She couldn’t believe it, her face broke into a huge grin. She closed the message and finished her shift. Then she headed back to her quarters.

She walked in, practically bouncing. “Hey Ashlyn! Guess what?” She sounded ecstatic and excited.
En Fayth, Doctor

Ashlyn spent most of this time in some form of training with Lieutenant Abrams and the rest of the security team, in sessions with Lieutenant Nox working through her traumas or on her mental defenses, or in Trenton Park which had become more popular as the program grew. Her duties had, as Abrams said, rotated to keep things fresh and interesting on the ship. The only time Ashlyn didn’t care for it was when the schedule changed and moved her to another shift, forcing her to have to remake the Trenton Park schedule. Nothing that she voiced, of course, just some internal frustrations while she had to contact her class to talk about the reschedule that would be sure to not exclude anyone. Most of her on the job training time was spent reading manuals and reports, going through the motions of restraining techniques, phaser range and hand to hand combat.

The sessions with Lieutenant Nox were…stressful. They made a great deal of progress taking apart the events that made Ashlyn who she was which only seemed to generate a gap between the Ensign and the Counselor. Going into a meeting with her meant having to relive terrible memories, explaining in detail the things that happened, or screaming in her head to keep the Counselor out of her more private thoughts. While the Counselor always said her inner thoughts were just thoughts, Ashlyn always felt judged for them in her presence and was glad to be done with the session at each conclusion. Afterwhich she would either go to the holodeck and spend time in her Trenton Park Program, go into the Jefferies Tubes to get away from people, or hide in her quarters until Sharah could come and comfort her.

Today, however, wasn’t one of those days. She had just been put back on a schedule that coincided with Sharah which meant that she could spend off duty time with her best friend. That was always the best, sure it wasn’t a romantic relationship but it was still almost always great fun. She had been released for the day early so she could adapt to her new schedule and was only moderately tired. She sent off a quick message to Sharah to let her know she would be in the room earlier for the schedule change and wanted to celebrate with popped corn and conversation. Ashlyn was equally excited when the doctor came into the room and responded in kind. “Joseph got a promotion and is being restationed here? No, wait, you won a bet and have some extra replicator rations? Oh, even better, Joseph wrote you a letter and is coming to visit on his next vacation?” While the first and second suggestions were meant to be a tease, Ashlyn was pretty sure the third option was more likely.

• Ensign Ashlyn Trenton
  Security, USS Europa