Seems Like No Time At All

Posted on Tue May 16th, 2023 @ 6:07am by Lieutenant J'airesh Mora-Heath & Commander Sthilg

Mission: MISSION 0 - History Speaks
Location: On the Planet & USS Elysium in the past
Timeline: Backpost/Memory
1802 words - 3.6 OF Standard Post Measure

J'airesh stared, apparently blankly, at the beautiful landscape. White as far as the eye could see. Crisp, bright, sparkling, even in the weak light. It felt SO strange. Here she was, gazing absently yet with total awe, at the ethereal surroundings, her breath misted even inside her face shield, condensing only to refreeze as soon as it could cool against the transparent 'plasfibre' of her visor.

It was worlds away from what she had ever experienced before. Literally worlds away. It was breathtaking, fantastic, stunning and scary all at once.

Her mind slipped back and the time seemed to melt away.

It was so recently - or was it? Well it did SEEM only a short time ago...... the memory filled itself in like an illustration inside her thoughts. How had she got here? She remembered the journey, who could forget? Long hours in transit, days, weeks.... it stretched away like a horizon, too far to see the beginning yet....so clear at the same time. Etched like an old fashioned photograph.

She had joined the USS Elysium and had high hopes of meeting her new boss, Commander Sthilg. His reputation had been outstanding and his research had blown her mind. It was the very opportunity that dreams were made of, coming to this ship and working with the Legend himself. She had never thought she would be able to do this and yet, here she was. It had happened. The Universe had made it possible and she was beside herself with excitement when she had first arrived.

Blushing at the memory, she replayed it our in her mind.


It was her first day on duty. She had reported to Main Sickbay and asked to see the CMO. Someone had taken her across to his office and announced her. It was all as clear as if she were still there now:


BACKPOST/MEMORY:

Standing in the doorway of the CMO's office, J'airesh's excitement had wavered and cooled for a while, suddenly seeing the extremely tall Officer she had heard so much about.

Briefly thanking the person who had introduced her, J'airesh had stepped further into the room and without thinking about it, and had stood to attention.

"Commander Sthilg, Sir" she had said, a little stiffly. "I'm J'airesh Mora-Heath. Lieutenant, J'airesh.... " she had trailed off rather than repeat her name to cover the fact that she'd forgotten to add her rank first.

She had taken in a new breath and then began again, a little more steadily. "I'm your new ACMO, Sir" She had thought about moving forward to offer to shake his... hand....? but then had decided to stay at attention until perhaps he might have offered her any formal acceptance of her introduction.

Sthilg had looked up from the small mountain of padds he had on his desk. Giving a slight chuckle a warm smile spread over his reptilian face as he gestured for her to take the seat opposite his desk. " Calm down my dear." He said in his warm grandfatherly tone. " Breathe in and out just like they teach you in the academy." he added as he reached over his desk to shake her hand with his artificial arm.

Shaking hands, J'air had been grateful for the kindly tone and warm smile that her new boss had offered her. She did as she had been bidden and sat, taking in deep, long, slow breaths.

"Thank you Sir" she had said softly. "I'm very excited to be here, as you can no doubt tell." She had stated the obvious in explanation, even though she had already been sure he was well aware. Looking back in hindsight she now blushed at the embarrassing display of nervousness she remembered having shown but she also now felt a renewal of how nice he had been back then.

"You look like your PaDDs are breeding like Tribbles, Sir" she had changed the subject in an attempt to retrieve this awful start. "Can I be of any assistance with some of those?"

It had seemed a good idea to have tried to be (or at least to offer to be) useful instead.

" Thisss?" the gorn said looking at the padd mounting range on his desk. " Mostly jussst ssstock information that needsss filling out. I'll be able to mange. " Now tell me about yourssself Lieutenant J'airesssh. Why did you want to become a doctor?" He enquired.


"With respect Sir, I'd like to help and the more routine the tasks are, the better practice and experience I'll gain by helping you wade through them, but of course, I'll do whatever you think is best and most useful, naturally." she had replied. "..and becoming a Doctor? I was always taking care of anything sentient, in whatever way I could - in fact, as a child, I would bandage, clean up and try to 'heal' even my stuffed toys - with their imaginary sentience." she chuckled.

"I was good at the right lessons at school and I had no brothers or sisters to fuss over so I took to finding other creatures that might need me to fix them up.

I remembered so little about my dad, other than that he wasn't a healthy man and that he died when I was little. It hurt me doubly that he was gone and that I hadn't been able to stop him dying.

Ridiculous at 6yrs old that I would even think there could have been anything so young a child could possibly have done better than the adult, "proper" doctors who had tried back then - but I guess my little head must have thought there *had* to have been something I could have done if I had tried hard enough."

She had rolled her eyes at this idea and smiled wistfully.

"The reasoning of so young a mind, I guess, but as a result of that, no matter how crazy it was, I set about learning - in case my mum or grandparents ever got sick too?

After I was 6, I had more grown up reasons to want to study medicine and I majored in Genetics because I was half Bajoran and that made me different genetically to my closest family so it was a very self-interested subject."

Sthilg quietly listened to her tale nodding at a few parts and laughing heartily at the part about the stuff toys. " Very interesting." He said as she finished. " I hope your time on thisss fine ssship can help you with your genetic ssstudies. "

" I hope so too but I also hope it can show me a lot of other things to study, such as more advanced medicine, lots of new colleagues and friends to get to know and a new chapter to move on with my life." she agreed, smiling broadly. "and thank you for taking me on, Sir. I'm very excited to be here....... I said that already, didn't i? - Sorry." she rolled her eyes.

" Think nothing of it my dear. Your profile and history ssspeack for itssself. Any doctor in starfleet would be glad to have you asss part of his team." Sthilg replied warmly.

J'air smiled and took in a long, calm breath. "Thank you Sir" she said simply but it meant a lot to her that not only was her new HoD a very accomplished and acclaimed doctor and researcher but he clearly was also a very nice person. It was good to know and to be reassured of this and it all boded well for her.

She wanted to say more but decided it was best to just let this warm welcome and greatly uplifting feeling do their good work. She smiled widely again. "I hope I can be an asset to you and the department here, Commander" she added and her features visibly relaxed.

It was an important qualification for a good doctor to have mastered the "impenetrable mask" giving nothing away, as soon as they were in early training and naturally J'air was as competent with it as almost all doctors she knew, however, already, in such a short time, the CMO had made it possible to trust him with her real facial expressions.

She had always believed it to be a sign between doctors that they were going to work together well and share a confident working teamwork if they could 'lower their shields' as it were.

Sadly J'airesh had lowered her defences before though, and had given her total trust to her ex fiance - not to mention her heart with it - and he had been unworthy of any such privilege, which had naturally set back her readiness or even ability to trust again. However, that had been a while ago now and her wounds were slightly less raw. She was working hard on trying to regain her old selfconfidence and her old instincts on who was genuine.

It was a great pleasure to feel that this kindly CMO was one of the first to win her trust quite easily and this was not only a big step forward but a great relief offering hope to J'airesh, that perhaps the tide was turning at last. She could only hope so.

" I'm sssure you'll be more than an asssssset my dear. Your are part of a family here. If you have any issssuesss then my door is alwaysss open." The gorn replied with a smile on his reptilian face.

"Thank you Sir" J'airesh replied with genuine appreciation. "I'll remember that but I hope not to trouble you too much. I'm really looking forward to working with you and the team here."

" Well let'sss help you with that and ssshow you your office and get your duty ssshift drawn up." Sthilg said pushing his chair back and raising his bulk from the chair.

"oh, yes please, Sir, that's very kind of you." It was true, the CMO was more than likely to have a mountain of admin alone to get through, not to even start mentioning the 'big stuff' they were here for. J'air was very impressed with the calm, collected and reassuring demeanour of the large doctor.

She accompanied him with a rising sense of excitement. Any doubts that had been drifting around on the distant horizon of her expectations, naturally brought on by such a large leap into the unknown like this new chapter in her life, started to wisp away and a metaphorical blue sky started to lighten up the weather inside her. She was finally finding a path to healing.

She smiled widely at everyone they met as she accompanied her new boss to the places and people she was about to get to know, the past was retreating with those dark horizon-clouds. It was a very good thing.

~Just what the Doctor ordered!~ she thought.

END