The Strength to Stand

Posted on 23 May 2023 @ 8:54pm by Chief Petty Officer Ibis Xeri & Olivia Winetrout
Edited on on 25 Apr 2024 @ 4:03pm

Mission: M3 - Into the Deep
Location: USS Acamas, on return to the Pathfinder
Timeline: Concurrent with "The Unknowns"
1231 words - 2.5 OF Standard Post Measure

Olivia held the two things that Wallace had been protecting. A box with a handle and lettering etched into the yellow metal casing, and a flat black panel thing with one glossy side. It was clear to Olivia that he’d been trying to save them. He wanted Ibis to take them, to protect them. He wanted all of them to get away safe and to bring these with them. She couldn’t do anything to help Wallace. But she could hold these things for him.

She and Ibis and Ikemba had magically disappeared from one ship onto another and Olivia had seen the square things clatter to the floor— Ibis had used them like a booster seat between herself and Ikemba when she was driving the Z’ala god’s ship, but they had slid away when Ibis’ balance changed to her feet. Ibis had rushed forward shouting at the people in the ship. Ibis had been talking what sounded like nonsense words. Science words. Ibis is a Scientist. But at the time Olivia had felt dizzy and sick and slunk against the back wall, clutching the two squares, the boxy one and the flat one.

Ibis had screamed and pleaded in Science until the green lady said they were going back to some nest, and then Ibis had just wilted into tears, leaving Olivia uncertain and afraid. What did it mean? They had lost Wallace. She couldn't think of any other possible meaning. Wallace had known it when he had sent them away. Olivia cried quietly, sobbing involuntarily as she realized what was happening. Wallace himself had told Ibis that he couldn't promise to outrun the wicked Z’ala god. Ibis had tried to save him with her Science. And she couldn’t. She had failed.

Olivia squeezed her eyes shut against the scene, but she couldn’t close out the memory of her own poison words. That she just wanted him to die so she could do what she wanted. She knew that at that past moment— just that morning though it felt like forever ago now— and in so many other moments like it, that she had been angry. Too angry.

You didn’t do anything wrong. You’re brave. Hardheaded, and amazing.

Olivia felt that if Ibis couldn't even stand up, but that she had to. When the ship had flown into an even bigger, more incredible ship and landed, the doors opened, unfolding from the top to the bottom and making ramps. Many adults in the strange clothing fussed and hurried and shouted all around them, while Olivia brought her own will to bear, came to her feet, stood and ambled forward.

"You're brave." She repeated to herself, replaying Wallace's last words to her. "You're brave." She put Wallace's boxes under her arm and took Ikemba from Ibis where she lay on the floor as if every ounce of will had been bled from her. Olivia grasped Ikemba tightly. She'd promised Wallace. She promised.

I’ll stay with Ibis. I promise. I’ll watch Ikemba. I promise.

“It is going to be alright,” she assured him. She didn’t know why she said it except she didn’t want him to cry. She didn’t feel alright, but it felt like she needed to tell him it would be. Maybe he needed a job too, something important. She gave him the smaller square thing, which freed her up to hold the bigger one by its handle. “I need you to hold this. It’s Wallace’s.” She told him.

He clutched it but then reached out the other hand, opening and closing his fingers in the grasping sign that meant he wanted something. “BiBi!” Ikemba said, reaching towards Ibis on the floor.

Olivia kissed his curls like Ibis always did. “BiBi is sad,” she explained, tears running over her own grief twisted face. “She’s sad.”

The green lady was talking loudly at another woman, a woman with shiny red-gold hair. People were unloading things from the shuttle and other people were moving the man who had fainted. The green lady left with the red haired one and Olivia thought she saw two Korinn leaving the back of the shuttle with them.

“Hello,” a gentle voice said in the same way Olivia knew to approach an animal or a Korinn pup when you wanted them to trust you.

Olivia turned to look at her, pivoting defensively so that Ikemba was on the farther side away from this stranger. Like Ikemba, the woman was dark skinned, and her hair was thick and black and piled up in tiny braids. She smelled… sweetly. Like crushed berries and lily shoots.

“Welcome to our ship, the USS Pathfinder. Do you have names?”

“...I’m …Olivia.” She said between troubled sniffles.

“Hello Olivia. That’s a very pretty name.”

Olivia thought that was good news, that her name was pretty. The Korinn had trouble with the vee sound and she had long since wanted to be known by her nickname, the Korrin sounds for ‘Silver Dart’, instead of them making fun of her given name.

“And who is this sweet child?”

Olivia hesitated to introduce the boy in her arms, who was sniffling in staccato sobs in place of wailing any longer. “This… is Ikemba.”

“Ikemba!” she repeated in delight. “The strength of nations! A good name. It is my Great Uncle’s too. What beautiful blue eyes he has. My name is Kaiki,” she said, offering the children a reassuring smile. “I’m a science officer.”

“Ibis is a sciencer, too,” Olivia said, amazed at the coincidence.

“Is this Ibis?” Kaiki bent down to see the barely dressed weeping woman on the floor and gently touched her shoulder. “Ibis?” The woman didn’t seem able to respond.

Olivia shrilled in Korinn as a first reflex, wanting to explain. Of course Kaiki didn’t understand that. She tried to find the words. “She’s sad! It’s because Wallace! I think…” Olivia’s face screwed up in pain as she came to say the horrible thing. “I think he is dead!”

Kaiki didn’t really know how to handle this situation. As long as they weren’t in any critical condition, she’d simply been told to help the survivors the Acamas had recovered to guest quarters until they could be seen to. A quick scan of the medical tricorder showed they were obviously suffering from malnutrition. A quick uplink with the shuttle computer amended their medical profiles with some notes: the teleporter filters had removed common parasites and caught a few viral strains, as a standard medical protocol in-built in the buffer system. Ibis-the-sciencer wasn’t injured, exactly. But the ship hadn’t taken on a counselor that could deal with a case of what looked like grief in this family-of-sorts.

Closing the tricorder, Kaiki bent down low enough to lift the other woman. She was disconcertingly light and not difficult at all to bring to her feet and support. Not to mention that she smelled like rotted fish at low tide. Kaiki tried not to gag. “I’ll walk with you, Ibis.” Ensign Kaiki Wonai said softly, looking at the children too. “I’ll take you all to a safe place where you can rest a while.”