Our minds are merging, our minds are one...

Posted on Mon Jan 23rd, 2023 @ 7:25am by Lieutenant Commander P’rel M.D & Lieutenant Commander Finnley Keating VII

Mission: Character Development
Location: Holodeck.
Timeline: PREVIOUS MISSION: MD3. Late Night.
3259 words - 6.5 OF Standard Post Measure

PREVIOUS MISSION EN ROUTE TO TITANIA
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Kneeling on the floor on a ritual blanket, one of the few real items on the holodeck, P'rel's mind was cleared. The rolling beach she had selected was a generic composite of Terran idealistic scenes, avoiding the possibility - however unlikely - of generating a real beach that Finnley had been to, and thus provoking distracting memories. She did not open her eyes as the doors opened, and instead gestured to the other side of the large blanket. A solitary meditation candle sat lit in the centre. "Please, sit".

"Nice scenery," Finn nodded approvingly and sat on the blanket as instructed. She quietly admired the water for a moment, allowing the water to wash away the external stressors that had followed her into the room. She exuded a sense of calm, somehow the ocean had always had that effect on her. Having found some peace, Finn's face turned away from the ocean back to P'rel. "So how will this be different from the mid-meld with White?"

Taking a deep breath and exhaling slowly and held her hand over the candle and moved it around the plume of heat as if it were a piece of pottery she was moulding. "In the shuttle, I was merely a bridge - and conduit - between minds. A telepathic enabler if you will. Such efforts are more efficacious when dealing with people who may have been trained against mind melds, as the brain does not perceive it in the same way....it is less invasive." She looked up and looked at Keating in the eye as she knelt opposite her. "By extension...this meld is more invasive....it is nothing less than a literal merging of minds. Our thoughts, feelings, memories, will become one." a small smile flicked up one corner of her mouth momentarily. "It is not, in some circles, described as all that different to the Borg hive mind...". Returning her hands to a steepled position, she concluded; "It is my hope, that in sharing your troubling thoughts you will elicit in yourself a feeling of control over those thoughts, and that through me you will acquire the skill to suppress and control your more volatile emotional states which may lead you to detrimental decisions...".

"I already have control over them," Finn replied, sure of herself. "I'm only doing this because you deserve to know the truth of what happened on the planet." She said, confident that her decision would remain unchanged after the ordeal. "How do we start? The same as before?"

P'rel was irked slightly; "I would hardly call making a rash decision to the detriment of you, this ship and to Starfleet as a whole, on the basis of your emotions, 'having control over them', Commander..." she retorted. Keating was someone she had grown - albeit by force - closer to and had developed a respect for the woman; though she was still a human wildly ruled by emotions untempered by logic and discipline. Exhaling and regaining her composure, she continued; "Similarly..." P'rel answered; "the link will be stronger, and you will likely feel overwhelmed, we shall exist in some ways as one person. I shall begin by forging links between our brainwaves, and aligning them to match...." she placed her hands lightly over Keatings face, her fingertips feeling for the telltale tingle of the correct nerve placements. "...Vulcan biofunctions are generally elevated when compared to humans....you may experience a raised temperature and heart rate as your body matches my own...though I will have lowered mine to match yours as well....these are normal sensations, do not be alarmed...". There, P'rel had found all the finger placements she needed. "You must trust me to be aware of the dangers, and to break the meld if any present; if the meld is unbroken it is because you are not at risk....are you ready to begin?"

Finn hesitated for a moment. Was she sure she wanted to go through this? Did she really trust P'rel this much? But it only lasted a second, as the thought resurfaced that the vulcan deserved to know the truth about Silnan. She nodded with a new sense of determination, secretly thinking she could shield P'rel from seeing anything other than the occurrences on the planet, and closed her eyes.

Inhaling deeply, P'rel continued to lift and replace the tips of her fingers upon Keating's face as she found the optimal positioning. The familiar words left her mouth; "My mind to your mind...my thoughts to your thoughts...." as she spoke, the sensation of speaking became gradually coupled with the simultaneous sensation of hearing through Keating's own ears. "...are merging...our minds are one...." she concluded, struggling to suppress the intensity of emotion coming from Keating. As if the tranquil ocean scenery had itself become a tempest, and was rushing up the beach to drown them.

As the engineer surrendered to the meld, she could see swirls of memories. Thoughts, emotions, and experiences integrated into an overwhelming sensation and it took significant effort for her to focus. Think. Silnan. The planet. Finn tried to force their minds in a particular direction, only to end up in the living room from her childhood quarters. A young Finn knelt by a fluffy four-legged creature and the two were entwined in perhaps the most adorably affectionate embrace. Instead of forcing her way to the scenes from the traumatizing mission, they had landed in a space where Finn had once felt entirely safe.

"Yes..." P'rel spoke, embracing the scene in her mind. "A calm space...a place free of stress, free of worry..." she spoke, urging Keating both verbally and with an element of psychic compulsion to open her mind up the pleasant memory. It was an anchor she could use with the young woman. P"rel looked to the far wall, and the comfort she was feeling from Keating was sharply attacked - envy? No. No not envy. This was more...inadequacy...a feeling of not being able to measure up to....to the items on the wall. A vast array of Starfleet service medals, citations, a small handful of various contraptions lovingly mounted and display - inventions perhaps?. She eyed the collection and noted the numerous forenames of the accolades, sharing the same "Keating" surname. An old Admiral's star rank insignia from the late 23rd Centrury sat beneath a smiling holo of a greying woman, and beneath those a string of medals and rank insignia from the same period, another Keating...the image of the woman sent a pang of panic into the Vulcan. "I may not live up to the family name..." she spoke, trying instead to reign in the images and return to the happy anchor Keating had presented.

As the pair turned their visual attention away from what was essentially the 'wall of honour' in the family room, a happy voice called to Finn as the collection of surfboards which had been anchored into the and beneath their feet gave way from their shallow footings and fell into the man, sending him tumbling backwards and landing on his buttocks, with four colourful surfboards landing sequentially on the man's head. P'rel burst out into laughter as she felt Keating's own cynical humour encompass them. "You should have put them deeper" the Vulcan spoke, feeling the vibrations of Keating's simultaneous words through her fingers, as Keating jokingly chastised her father's stupidity. Keating's mind had found a pleasant place, and this was useful, P"rel tried to linger on the images, but felt Keating's curiosity probing her own mind. Though a great deal of control was possible in a meld, it was virtually impossible to fully restrict one's partner from sharing images, feelings, memories, and it was a common compulsion of non-Vulcan's to chase their curiosity inside a meld.

The laughter turned to applause and a feeling of pride was felt in Finn's heart, though the scene itself was somehow difficult to see. It was foggy as if some force of nature was pushing back from the intrusion into this memory. Finn set her jaw, determined, and mentally pushed through. The fog lifted revealing a young Cardassian in some sort of traditional-looking garb. She glanced around and found others in the same attire, met with embraces from what she assumed were family members. A graduation. This was Silnan's graduation. "Congratulations," she felt the words, somehow both her words and P'rel's, leave her lips. The man smiled in return, clearly proud of his accomplishment. Suddenly, Finn's heart sank as she realized that the young man that stood before her would have his life snuffed out some years later. All of that potential would be ended by her.

As if the intense emotion of guilt was a trigger, the atmosphere suddenly changed. A green fog rolled in and through the mist one could see what looked like flashes of green light. Mechanical noises and an eerie sense of dread filled the now metal draped room. "No," a whisper escaped as a once Vulcan male turned around, covered in Borg equipment. Then darkness. The scene having been ripped away. Finn couldn't blame P'rel. She assumed it was some sort of defense mechanism to prevent her from seeing into the more delicate memories of her past. Though curious, Finn remained focused, she was here to show the intelligence officer the truth about Silnan's time on the planet and she thought she'd better get on with it.

"How do I focus on the planet?" Finn asked, hoping some guidance might keep her from drifting into stray memories again.

P'rel jumped as if she had been physiologically startled. "M'Tan...." she whispered, shaking her head and scrunching her eyes to push the image away. In her mind, she summoned the images of Rondac, though Finn's mind was overlapping with her own and she struggled to bring the most recent visit into focus. Through the external windows of the Romulan Warbird, Rondac orbited below, the familiar gathering on the day of that critical mission had appeared again; the Senator, Vorta and his Jem'Hadar guards...the imminent genocide she would have to commit. Finn's curiosity was creating a barrier, she was unable to move beyond it, unable to move from this time at Rondac.

"This...this isn't what I remember," Finn said, somewhat aghast at the bodies now strewn across the floor. They had somehow landed on Rondac, but it wasn't anything she remembered. No, this was a different memory. Jem'Hadar bodies lay in the dust surrounding them, some dismembered with various body parts haphazardly thrown about. Broken vials of ketracel white crunched under her boots as she walked around. "What happened here? What did you do?" She whispered.

P'rel surveyed the scene. Jem'Hadar soldiers with smoking chests, the Romulan captain with his head hosting a Kar'takin at an angle which clearly showed he had killed from behind. "Survived..." she said, grimly. Though morbid, it was in truth a deception Captain Bennett had tried to commend her for under the guise of some other falsified service. Having been discovered hesitating by the Romulan, and discovering Bennett had sent this double agent as a fail-safe against her own inability to commit genocide, she'd had seconds to act. To choose survival, for her and for the Jem'Hadar. She looked up within the memory as more Jem'Hadar guards swarmed the room, weapons raised, followed by the smug Vorta - his calm veneer now razor thin atop a genuine and barely hidden panic. She watched herself, disguised as a Romulan and more than two decades ago, drop to her knees with her arms raised above her head protesting her innocence, and claiming heroism. The scene portrayed was that she had uncovered the Romulan Captain inserting a genomic agent into the Jem'Hadar base code, and that the Kar'takin placed in his skull as one would land an axe in a tree, was evidence of this heroism. The scene morphed back to the briefing on Starbase 375, the two pronged attack on Ketracel White; one to vastly remove the supply and her own attack to create a hyper-dependence on the drug. The memories were connected, and she could not force them apart. "Lieutenant..." she struggled, "the holding cells. Go to the holding cells....".

It was difficult to turn her head away from the atrocities that lay before her, but it wasn't what they were here for. Finn closed her eyes and tried to focus. Think. Silnan. The cells, and suddenly the planet and corpses started to sift away like sand. The next thing she saw was the cold metal holding cell. Silnan had just been thrown in. Finn doubled over as if struck by a dagger. She thought she was ready, but the sight of that room and knowing what was about to transpire was like ripping into an open wound.

"What the hell?" The memory of Finn rubbed her eyes and forcibly pushed her top half up from the ground into a sitting position. As the fog lifted, it became clear that what had been thrown into the dark metal cell wasn't just a weighted sack. "Mr.Tolbarr?" She whispered through the darkness. The introductions began, just as Finn had remembered them, and it took every bit of effort she could summon to hang on.

"What is the Athena's mission in this sector?" Their Cardassian interrogator now stood in the room. Finn from her memory sat straight in defiance, repeating name, rank, and serial number just as she'd been taught. "Please..." Silnan whimpered, "tell them....". The voice rang through the cold dark cell and the real Finn burst into tears. She wanted to hang on, but it felt impossible, she couldn't watch herself kill him all over again. Yet she felt he deserved better and so did P'rel. She had to honor his memory and make sure that the Vulcan knew exactly what had happened. Finn pushed through the tears and flashes of Silnan being tortured started to play before them. His body jerked with flicks of the fork of their interrogators and still, her memory refused to yield.

"How much more do you think he can take? How long before his feeble body crumbles?" The interrogator asked and Finn steadied herself for the answer. "I don't know. At least a few more strikes until his body gives in," her memory shrugged. "I suppose at that point you'll have lost all of your bargaining chips, which will just make my job even easier than it's been so far. I really thought you Cardassians were supposed to be better at this. That must be why they stationed you here in the middle of nowhere with nothing but a couple of cheap bodyguards." The engineer shuddered as she watched herself in total disregard for Silnan's life.

P'rel winced, it was almost a physical pain to watch Silnan in this condition and it was becoming overwhelming to process Keatng's thoughts, emotions and perceptions. A deeply painful emotion continued to persist above the rest; guilt. She could hear Keating's thoughts, her remorse, her absurd belief that she was at fault. Within the mental-scape before them, P'rel stood with Keating - "you were not responsible for this..." she offered truthfully.

"How can you say that?!" Finn asked. "Didn't you see what just happened? It's entirely my fault and what's worse is I encouraged him to torture Silnan more. That should've been me, not him."

Watching as Silnan screamed at the hands of further brutalisation from the Cardassian captor, P'rel had to swallow her rage, and pain. She wanted to kill the Cardassian, again, brutally; again. She wanted to watch his face crackle and melt again at the end of her phaser beam. Keating would be sensing this rage too, she realised, and in turn she felt the sickening, nauseating grief coming from the human. "Neither your words nor actions altered the flow of events, Finnley..." P'rel said in measured tone, using what discipline she could muster to suppress the remembered sounds of agony shrieking from Silnan. "They would have tortured him regardless..."

"You don't know that!" Finn let P'rel's rage wash over her, internalizing it and letting it seep back out as guilt for her own lack of action during their time in the cells. She could've done something, anything really. She could have fought back, tried to take their weapons away, redirected their attention to herself. It was clear now how many possibilities there were that could've saved his life, or at least kept him from the agony she had put him through, but the only action she had taken was the lack thereof.

"I did what I said I'd do. You've seen what happened. There's no reason to continue," Finn pulled her mind away.

Though she could have retained the link, P'rel detached from Keating's thoughts and the familiar yet strange sensation of separating two sets of sensory inputs back into one's own fell over her. For many, the disorientation was severe though fleeting, and P'rel carefully eyed Keating to observe any difficulty she may be having. "Perhaps not...." she said, softly. "You must understand from the meld, that I hold no blame nor negative thoughts towards you, of any kind, for what occurred on Rondac..." she said truthfuly and with a marginal hint of confusion in her voice as to why Keating would think otherwise.

Finn simultaneously felt the urge to throw up and scream at the same time, but fortunately, the feeling only lasted a moment. "How can you say that?" She asked. "He was like...like a son to you. And I killed him. I felt your anger in there. You can't deny it," she stated, confusing the rage P'rel felt for the guard as somehow directed at her since she had, after all, been the cause of Silnan's torture. How could that rage have really been for anything else?

She shook her head. "It doesn't matter anyway. We did what we came here to do. I'm sorry for what I did to him. I wish I could take it back," the last part came out as more of a whisper that lingered behind as she turned and ran out of the holodeck door. Everything was still somewhat disorienting after breaking the meld, but she couldn't stand to be in that room anymore. More than that, Finn had started to realize that she couldn't stand to be on the Athena anymore. Maybe not even in Starfleet.

Exhaling slowly, P'rel watched as Finnley left. It would take several hours of meditation to fully absorb, process and integrate Keating's desperate emotions; it was now far clearer to the Vulcan why Keating was so distracted, distressed and even somewhat depressed. The engineer truly believed she was responsible for Silnan's death, it was illogical nonsense of course, and the Vulcan equally hoped than in return for the emotional transference, that some element of logic would have been imparted to Keating. Perhaps, in time, the young woman would be able to conclude she was not at all responsible. If there was anyone to hold blame, it was P'rel, and the fact that Keating would now know as well as if they were her own thoughts that the Vulcan did not hold any such blame, would - she hoped - lead to an emotionally stable conclusion for the human who was in great pain.