In Memory

Posted on 15 Apr 2021 @ 5:09pm by Commander Calliope Zahn & Lieutenant Commander Lance Quinn (*)

Mission: M2 - Sanctuary
Location: Enviromental Ring
Timeline: MD03 Morning
2287 words - 4.6 OF Standard Post Measure

She'd slept, maybe more soundly than she had since before she began treatment. Her uncontrolled crying the night before had completely drained her, and apart from the all over, full body, post-workout-like ache of muscles that had heaved through her sobs, she felt in her head strangely refreshed and determined the following morning. Lance had taken the morning off, as she was insistent on bathing and dressing and managed to swallow and keep down some eggs to placate him. And now Calliope was in uniform. She stood there in the bathroom with the front of her shirt yet opened, and considered that it was the first time she'd been back in uniform since the Battle for Obsidian Command. She'd replicated a dress uniform in order to pay proper respect to the lost. Leaning her weight into the sink, she looked in the mirror, her eyes still circled with dark rings, her skin dull... her hair... she'd asked Lance to help her wrap what was left of the uneven mess in a long dark strip of cloth that matched the uniform. Her hand went to the few strands of little hairs at her temple that poked out from underneath the hair wrap and gently tucked them in for fear they'd also give up at the roots.

All of her makeup was on the counter where Lance had returned it, and she found a semi-translucent masker to lighten her eye circles and a little gold eye shadow that worked with her freckled green skin. A swipe of deeper green lipstick put some life back into her faded lips, and a little powder made her sallow cheeks look a little less corpse like. She knew she didn't have the control needed for anything more delicate and left it at that, but at least she didn't look as pitiable.

Then she felt her breast bone, along where Dr. Mazur had first attached the line. A bruise beneath the surface, there was one dark track under her thinned out skin, left behind when the dermal regenerator had closed the opening over after the port that had fed her had been removed. She traced it along her collarbone to her neck and then, looking in the mirror, mimed a very familiar motion, a motion she had made every day for twenty years: she held an invisible hypospray in her fist and to feel the pressure, set her thumb deep into her neck, imagining compressing the injection and, closing her eyes, could even hear the little sigh from the device. She opened her eyes again, the ritual complete. There. It was done.

Her hand came to her necklace and Calliope pressed the rings of rhodium against her heart where they belonged, then zipped her uniform over the charm.

"I'm ready," she said to Lance where he stood waiting in his own uniform, wearing his own bags under his eyes.

How often over the years had he stood by waiting for her to finish being ready to go out, Calliope wondered to herself, to dinner, to a play, to a carnival, or to some other bit of entertainment or enrichment? He'd be standing there, appropriately outfitted for whatever the thing was. A suit, a tux, street clothes. He was still here even now, waiting for her to put herself together. She faltered her way towards him and took hold of his shoulder for support.

"I guess I should take the hover chair," she admitted.

"Slowly," he urged, guiding her gently to the waiting seat. He paused behind it, not sure whether she was going to operate it herself or ask him to guide her himself. When she started moving forward he just ambled along behind, matching pace as they left the room in silence. He'd become accustomed to the silence lately.

Making a slight detour, Calliope paused at the table in the community room and took the backgammon set, putting it in her lap and then rejoining Lance to continue down the hall to the nurse's station. She watched him sign her out as if she were something on loan, Lance being one of the few permitted to do so besides her doctors. The nurse gave him some guidelines. Commander Zahn was not to be left unattended, the nurse repeated over and over, and she had an appointment at 1300 hours. Calliope looked down and rubbed the vinyl of the game case.

"Do you have everything you need?" he asked, noting the box in her hands.

"Are you asking if I meant to take the chess set too?" She quipped drily, as if she'd taken a humor lesson from Lance.

"I can fetch it if you need," he answered, not matching her witty reply.

"No, no I just—" Calliope traced the cool metal of one of the latches. "I just had a thought..." her voice trailed off. Lance wouldn't understand about John.

"I made some adjustments to our quarters; accessibility, that sort of thing. It should make it easier for you to make a little food, or take a bath without needing any help," he explained, oblivious to much else that she might be trying to say. "I have a shift later, but there should be time to settle back in and make something to eat."

"Fine." She found the turbolift out of sick bay and pressed the call key. While they waited, she knew she should be more thankful Lance was going to efforts for her, but she was just frustrated that he had to at all. "That's fine."

They rode in solemn silence. Either because they felt the awkwardness of the moment, or simply a little reverence for their intended destination. Either way, there was a subtle unspoken tension about it. It was a similar experience too, as they rounded the long paths through the environmental ring. Quiet comments about the flowers looking nice, followed by murmured agreements.

The mood did change when they reached the memorial, though. This was a more respectful, reflective place. A scene filled with memories, or ghosts of them. Lance wasn't spiritual in any way, but he knew and understood the significance of a place like this. He knew not to tarnish that with any ill thought or personal baggage. This was a place to pay respects to the fallen.

He let Cali go, moving for herself in the chair. As he watched her ease through the space he took it all in for himself.

Wide, but not tall, the section marked for the memorial was fairly dimly lit, with low-level lighting providing more of that more contemplative atmosphere. At the center, and splitting the space almost in two, stretched a jet black wall - made of pure polished obsidian. Square plaques had been etched into it, with names marked in each one as a permanent record of those that had given their lives. A few had been added to with mementos or keepsakes; relatives or friends adding their own memories to the ones on display.

The path around the obsidian wall split into two, meeting on the far side in a single looping walkway. On the left, simple seating for those who wished to hold silent vigil. On the right, a series of honors and citations, many of them posthumous. A tiny podium, at this point sat in complete darkness, was positioned roughly in the middle of the space. It had been used for the memorial services, and had been left with a plaque of its own. Lance found himself ambling towards it, making note of the text that had been left there in tribute to those this memorial was prepared for. An excerpt from a speech given on Earth following a fatal disaster in their space program: "This cause of exploration and discovery is not an option we choose; it is a desire written in the human heart."

He touched the podium momentarily, triggering the record of the final memorial service held there. The holo-image showed an array of uniformed officers; mostly Admirals and Captains. At the fore, a young female Commander stood, giving an emotional farewell to colleagues and friends. Though detached from the events in many ways, Lance empathised with the pain of loss and helplessness. He turned away, looking to Calliope and waiting to see what she would do.

From a distance, Calliope noticed the triggered recording and felt a fresh wave of guilt. She'd missed the dedication. She had to console herself with the fact that she was here now. Deciding to take her time, she read every name, beginning methodically on one side.

1st Lieutenant Quinn McKenna (JAG)

Lieutenant Commander Bree Sanderson

Lieutenant JG Sage Kessler

Marine Captain Adam Towers

Lieutenant Commander Jonathan Russell

Calliope wanted them each to mean more to her. She had to admit she didn't know them, though the loss of them... it was personal to someone, surely. She was reading these names, but she was thinking of fellow officers she had grieved the loss of on past assignments. Their memory became stand-ins for these faceless names and she felt a connection with their family and friends for the sacrifice of their lives. With her heart oriented as such, her eyes continued to trace the list.

Lieutenant Steve Sawyer

Lieutenant JG Itoban th’Shilliq

Ensign Nelwin Parmath

Someone had tacked a wallet sized photo of Parmath to the wall. His portrait-day forced grin hid a kind of anxiety underneath and she knew him right away. He'd been the junior officer she had told to trust his training and encouraged him in preparation for the space walk. Corvus had numbered him among her own team when they gathered at the airlock. Even so, he'd died that day and Calliope inevitably felt responsible for leading him to his death. The evacuation from CIC, the idea to space walk towards safety... She'd had this feeling before, serving in the colonies and having had a mission stacked against her, and it was never, ever easy. She exhaled and sat back in her seat with her shoulders square and regarded his name. There were others, so many others and she read them all, absorbing anything loved ones left behind for their memory. Two more names stood out to her from Kavalar's roster of fighter pilots. But the unequivocal majority of the number of names on the wall bore the insignia of the Starfleet Marine Corps.

They had been proven right in calling on the Marines to help hold the station, had they not? Obsidian Command would be occupied, the system an enemy foothold after a century of the Loki System being a key post. It would have calcified the entire region under the chaotic and violent hold of faction leaders, warlords, and mob bosses. No. They hadn't died in vain. The security of the entire region had been ensured by their blood. Even still. She had pressed Corvus to call on Marine aid, and these had sacrificed themselves in answer to that call. Calliope had never processed so much loss under her direction before. Most of this wall represented it. She could see a blank space on the end of the wall ahead and the open black maw seemed an unwritten tombstone. Would it soon carry etchings of Kavalar's still MIA pilots? Would it maybe testify an end to the life of the man still hanging in the balance in the Recovery room across the hall from her— Sergeant Zebrov? Her shoulders remained squared, though breathing felt hot in her lungs.

Another name jumped out at her, especially since she was tuned for it. Lt. Commander John Morrison. He had honors marked out for him. But there were no signs of anything personal. No letters, or photos, or flowers, or trinkets. No evidence that anyone had been visiting to honor him specifically. Calliope opened the game box and took out a few pieces. Setting the box aside, she stood from the hover chair and purposefully walked across the gap between the path and the wall, maintaining all her effort to keep respectfully upright. When she came to the wall, she pressed one open palm against his plaque, leaning her weight into it physically and emotionally.

"I know you never knew me," Calliope whispered, looking into the name but seeing only her own reflection in the polished volcanic glass, "but I feel as though we might have got along, if we'd had the chance. Thank you for protecting the people to the last. It was selfless, John, and you deserve every honor." Her eyes were wet, but she tried to maintain composure, reaching up with her other hand to set two playing tokens on the top of the wall— A black one and a white one stacked on one another. She rubbed the betting cube in her palm, breathed a sigh, and set it beside the tokens, purposely arranging the face bearing the number two pointed up as it would be at the beginning of a new game. "We'll play again one day."

Calliope backed up from the wall, but as she moved away, her frustratingly inarticulate fingers caught on the betting cube she was setting down. It hit the ground and rolled between her polished dress shoes. Upset with herself, she looked down at the dice but stopped when she saw it had rolled to the maximum: 64.

Calliope looked back up at John's name and chuckled. "You cocky son of a gun."

Trembling, supporting herself with her fingertips on the wall, Calliope leaned down and picked up the cube. For a moment she wasn't sure what to do with it. she'd meant to leave it here in memory of John, but it seemed the next move... was actually hers.