Academy Dream
Posted on Wed Nov 29th, 2023 @ 6:48pm by Commodore Jacob Kane & Lieutenant Alexis Ryan
Mission:
In Dreams
Location: Starfleet Headquarters
Timeline: "2375"
2263 words - 4.5 OF Standard Post Measure
Of all the battlefields she'd ever witnessed, it was easily the worst. Not because, by some degree of magnitude, it could be judged as significantly more horrific, or the expected casualties somehow in excess of anything she'd seen prior, but because of the sheer inappropriateness of the location. The swiftness with which savagery had rendered a previous stronghold little more than a dishevelled facsimile of former glory, tarnished obliteration on a scale that seemed almost ludicrous somehow. This kind of thing didn't happen here, shouldn't happen here. That was part of the deal.
In the time since the call to evacuate had arrived too late for those caught in the cross-hairs, Alexis had found herself in the position of being more-or-less responsible for her own next steps, having no direct superior to report to in the half-destroyed café that had been little more than a detour on a day free of classes. Her initial response had been to help those in the immediate vicinity, a short-lived task given that the venue had been mostly empty at the time of the first impact and what remained of the serving staff were not likely to make much headway into locating their colleagues amidst the destroyed façade that had brought half the shop-front down with it. There hadn't been time to process the sheer serendipity of walking from the ruins relatively unscathed; survivor's guilt took a little longer to fester than that, especially when you'd already learned all the tricks for staying ahead of it when you needed.
From there, she had bounced between emergent tragedies, stunned by the sheer magnitude of loss into trying to direct a veritable avalanche of rescue efforts with the animated determination of a conductor controlling an orchestra. Strewn across the street, as far as she could see in either direction, those who were able to render aid were palms-deep in the ribcages of those yet to return, and she could hear her own voice as a distant instructor, reiterating procedure, recounting the recovery position for those lucky enough to warrant it, whilst the rent of a tablecloth's fabric between closed fists put her one step closer to delivering tourniquets without the slightest consideration for how much of the blood splattered across her face and arms was actually her own. Adrenaline would buy her time to worry about that later.
It was strange how the dust clouds actually dampened the smell. Ordinarily, one might have expected the scent of charred bodies and destroyed structures to have a stronger scent. For Kane, he almost wished that there was one. Maybe that would help his other senses cope with what they were presented with.
Along with gaggle of mixed freshmen and senior cadets, he had been quick to jump into action when the fire rained down from the heavens. Confusion reigned; there were conflicting stories, some saying the Dominion had broken through and reached Earth. Others saying that it was a coup. Or even an accident. At this point that probably didn't matter. He'd given up trying to assign sense to it.
Now, a few hours on and exhausted, he simply sat on what remained of a wall, an untouched flask of water in one hand, and dirty scratches and dried blood covering his other. He wasn't even looking at anything or anyone; just sitting. Processing. Or avoiding doing so - it was hard to tell.
Movement in his peripheral became a solid reality, palpable heat transferred as another sought refuge on his precarious perch. As much as the proximity suggested intrusive intent, the arrival was a silent one, excessively composed given the tumultuous series of events that had lead to its possibility. A soft exhalation did its best to rein in the bulk of emotion and, in its wake, a simple capitulation; the gentle pressure of a head leaning against his shoulder.
There had come a point where time had seemed almost meaningless. Once a fragile sense of assurance had set in that the worst was over, there had still been an unimaginable wait for adequate, officiated support. All over the city, impromptu triage posts had sprung up out of mutual agreement, casualties converging on locations that were still structurally sound enough to cope, with any personnel equipped to render assistance forced into frontline medical support by sheer necessity. She had worked for hours in that capacity, had blinkered her focus on the immediate situation in front of her, and relied on every ounce of her prior training to compartmentalise her own loss amidst far worse suffering.
Relief had eventually arrived and she had found herself on the receiving end of medical examination, only to be released to her own common-sense with a patch of gauze over the fresh stitches on her forehead, an old-fashioned remedy forced to serve. It was then, suffocated by her own redundancy, that Alexis had turned her attention towards home, or what currently constituted it. For the past few hours, she had listened to the pleas of the frantic, cluttering the communication channels with attempts to locate loved ones. She had dressed her own refusal to follow suit as responsibility but, in truth, she was terrified of the potential for silence on the other end. Released from the bubble of ignorance she'd taken refuge in, there had been only one direction for her feet to take her.
And so, she had walked home.
If anything, the scene she arrived in was more harrowing than the one she'd left, mostly because every casualty still being processed ran a far higher risk of being someone she knew by name. It took a lot to make Alexis panic, she'd invested too much effort into having better control of herself than that, but it had taken a surprising amount of courage to start asking the question she had been too scared she wouldn't like the answer to. Side-lined several times by the suffering of people she recognised, a sense of numbness had already started to creep in by the time she stumbled upon more specific information that allowed her to narrow down her search. It seemed impossible, amidst all of this, that she would find anything less than ongoing heartache.
And then, there he was.
It took him too long to realise he wasn't sat alone anymore. But it was blessed relief that it was her.
"Alex..." He wanted to try to put things into words; things that were impossible. Especially in the immediate aftermath like this. Jacob Kane was not a vulnerable man. The guard rarely dropped. But, for her, it did sometimes bend. "The casualty numbers just keep going up. They've been trying to use transporters to save who they can, but...it's impossible to know whether they're even in one piece underneath it all," he explained. His eyes caught hers for a moment. A simple, barely spoken empathy. United in emptiness.
Control had not always been her strong point, she'd been open enough about that. There were ripples now of the tempest she'd always claimed to be running from, shadows that crossed her features as the occasional muscle twitch to expose her ferocity. She held it in, because she no longer believed it just to subject the universe to her ire, and simply broke his gaze to stare out at the ruin.
A cold, slender hand, careless of its broken nails, settled over his.
"It's like this everywhere."
She wished she had something more comforting to report.
His eyes tried to seek out the Academy buildings, which for now seemed to have escaped unscathed. Though the dust cloud and fog obscured any reasonable distance away. "They never taught us how to deal with this," he said quietly. "You try to rationalize things, but...the loss, the indiscriminate nature of it..." He shook his head again. "I didn't join up for this."
"At least we did sign up for it," Alexis pointed out. "A lot of people today didn't get a choice."
Her gaze followed his, tracking it as far as the grotesquely pristine skyline that rose with unworthy majesty from the impression of nearby obliteration. As far as analogies went, it was a painfully accurate one; she had stood just as close to absolute destruction today, only to walk away with surface wounds that spoke nothing of the ordeal. Alexis frowned, and in the goldfish bowl of her thoughts, circled back around to a single fret that had bothered her throughout, for all it seemed such a trivial thing to focus on all things considered.
"You were right." As far as bombshells went, it lacked impact only because the most recent competition cheated by being overly literal. "Stuck in a lab, when the universe is like...this. I couldn't." More of a disagreement than an argument, one that had still showcased her stubborn streak a little more than she could be proud of. It seemed hard to believe now that she'd contemplated a career track that would have sent her so far from the frontline. With a shake of her head, the Science major dropped her gaze to the rubble just beneath their feet. Revelations about her coursework were one thing but it seemed so far from relevant that Alex wasn't even really sure where she'd been going with that confession, only that it had weighed on her all day that she might not get the opportunity to make it. Her brow flickered, a rare moment of uncertainty, before she finally looked across at him.
"What do we do now?"
His hand squeezed hers. A comfort for both of them. "We fight back," he responded with grim determination, his eyes darkening. "We don't let them win. Not here, not up there. We make sure that this never happens again." His free hand was curled into a tight fist, a moment of defiance in the face of overwhelming suffering. "We don't ever give up fighting."
The very faintest smile acknowledged his ferocity. "At least we'll be playing to your strengths then."
The prospect of a night's uninterrupted sleep was starting to seem more and more preposterous. It wasn't unusual for Alexis to be up early, just as it wasn't that strange for her to be up late, which amounted to a fairly routine situation where she was operating on 4-5 hours sleep a night. Whilst normally more than enough to leave her functional, it relied heavily on her staying asleep for the entire time. For the longest time, the ability to drop off quickly and sink into a deep slumber had been an invaluable talent; one that, if Alexis had been given any say in the matter, she would have preferred to maintain.
She stretched her neck back as the turbolift started, a vain attempt to iron out a muscle ache down her left side.
It had been half an hour since she'd woken with a start, disoriented and immediately suffused by a profound sense of longing and loss. There had been no question at the time of falling back asleep, no conceivable way of shaking herself free of the haunting recollections that seemed more and more ridiculous the longer she contemplated their purely fictitious nature, and so she had done the only sensible thing she could think of under the circumstances; put on her uniform and gone to work early. If nothing else, it had given her time to check in with her Bridge staff.
"Oh-sorry-" The collision was accidental; somehow people bumping into one another on the way in and out of a turbolift was one of those occurrences that probably should happen more often than it did. Kane's brief dismissive apology turned into a look of surprise. A sense of emotional familiarity washed over him, but he dismissed it quickly. "Lieutenant Ryan? I didn't realise you were on shift this early," he observed.
Even years dedicated to maintaining intentional composure weren't enough to mask the brief moment of awkward silence that followed. Given the effort she'd expended on the way to purging intrusive thoughts about him from her mind, Alexis was left with the uncomfortable impression that she'd managed to conjure out of thin air the one person she wasn't ready to deal with quite yet. She rallied, because the only alternative was unacceptable, and smiled at his surprise. "I am when our deadline for departure is looming."
"Ah. Well. Good." For some reason he punctuated each word. Another pause followed. "You know, Lieutenant..." He was almost hesitant to progress the line of thought, but the encouragement of others still rang in his ears. "I've been thinking about spending more time with my senior staff. Getting to know them better. Perhaps you'd join me for a drink at some point? Or dinner?"
For a moment, Alexis wondered if she was still asleep. Whilst she could hardly claim to have known the man long enough to judge, the offer seemed slightly adjacent to Kane's normal preferences and, if not the product of recent fixation, at the very least she had to remind herself that he wasn't a telepath. Her first instinct was to refuse, spooked by the possibility that this was somehow provoked by her own exaggerated sense of connection, but hesitation took the form of unexpected longing. It seemed utterly improbable that she could miss talking to someone she'd only just met but the sensation persisted and the Science Chief found herself nodding in agreement despite her better judgement. A little belatedly, Alex forced a smile.
"I'll bring the cheesecake."
