Left Behind

Posted on Thu Jun 6th, 2019 @ 12:26pm by
Edited on on Thu Jun 6th, 2019 @ 12:29pm

Mission: Episode 1: Hell is a four letter word
Location: Gym
Timeline: during shuttle mission
1001 words - 2 OF Standard Post Measure

Liorga had been working the heavy bag over for hours, ever since they sent the shuttles out to try and recover the command crew and she was left here at the insistence of some idiotic fourth year counseling cadet, "Stupid little bitch." She muttered, raining lefts and rights down on the bag, "I should be out there. I'm good to go..."

Unfortunately, according to Cadet Senior Grade Madelaine Masters, she wasn't, and that got her left on the bench during the biggest game she'd seen in years. She'd been asked to see Masters, Maddy as she insisted on being called, three times a week. Well, any counselor would do, she settled for Masters on her clinical rotations because she could get her back in engineering faster. People were focusing way too much on what happened to her on Cortic, unable to fathom the mindnumbingley simple concept that she had, in fact, been through much worse. Maddy had seemed like an answered prayer when they met, immediately signing off on Liorga's return to her regular engineering duties at the end of the first session, but then it went to shit faster than a fat cadet with diarrhea.

As the heavy bag swung with each impact, her mind drifted back to the session that, no doubt, caused her to be stuck here.

[Five Days Prior]

Liorga entered the counseling offices, finding Cadet Masters in her temporary set up, "Miss Masters..." She said, entering the office slowly, having accidentally caught the cadet with her boyfriend a few days prior; nothing hot and heavy, just a rather uncomfortable and awkward interruption of a deep kiss. The passion was admirable, even though it was kind of strange to see such a pretty young woman kissing such an ugly man...

"Liorga, please, Maddy." The young counselor insisted, "Have a seat. Would you like some tea?"

"Uh, actually, I'd really like if you could sign off on allowing me to go back to extravehicular activities, Maddy.'' Liorga answered honestly.

"And I would love nothing more than to get you back to that as soon as possible, Liorga." Maddy smiled, taking a seat across from Liorga, "But I have to make sure you're mentally stable after what you went through down there. I mean, few people recover from horrors like that and are able to be the same person from before."

"I've been through worse." Liorga shrugged, though, quite frankly, Maddy's obsession with this line of 'counseling' was damned annoying.

"Yes, we've discussed the circumstances of your early life in some detail." Maddy nodded, scrawling notes on her padd, "But I'm worried you're not processing the recent trauma properly."

"What trauma?" Liorga laughed, this girl wouldn't know trauma if it bit her on her slightly out of proportion for the rest of her body ass, "Okay, I was captured, okay, held hostage for a few hours, the shit hit the fan, it happens."

"Yes, but you were almost killed." Maddy reminded her. Yes, Liorga already knew this, but she didn't seem to be wrapping her head around it properly, "Then you were put, I believe unwisely, into a combat situation the next day..."

"Not my first time in combat, either." Liorga sighed, Maddy was one of those types who never held a phaser until it was time to qualify and it showed. Yeah, Estelle was one of those types, too, but she had a better concept of the realities of military life. Estelle can tell her ass from a hole in the ground, too. Not so sure about Maddy.

"Liorga, you were forced to kill four people." Maddy stated something else that Liorga already knew, but was refusing to process.

"I remember, I was there." Liorga groaned, no longer even trying to hide her annoyance.

"I need you to get in touch with what you felt in that moment..." Maddy began, though Liorga didn't let her finish.

"Recoil." Liorga answered sharply, "That's all."

"I can't accept that." Maddy shook her head, her red hair falling out of it's messy bun as she did, "For me to accept that those young men's lives meant nothing to you would mean for me to accept that you are, in fact, a psychopath."

"What psychopath?" Liorga laughed, "Look, yeah, it sucks for those boys that they ended up dead, but it was, unfortunately, unavoidable. We had to take that weapon down, eliminate any resistance from the enemy combatants, they had to die so we didn't lose anymore ships. You want to talk about tragic loss of life, talk about the sixty poor bastards on that charity ship that son of a bitch Dunphy shot down. That's a damn tragedy. Those four punks that got greased? That's the cost of doing business."

"You can't mean that." Maddy said, getting frustrated now herself, "I know you value life more than that..."

"And if they valued their lives they never would've gotten involved in any of that shit." Liorga replied calmly, "They assigned their own value to their lives. Not my fault they bid low."

"You never should've been there in the first place." Maddy repeated her earlier point, re-wrapping her bun as she did, "Commanders Taylor and Brett showed horrible judgement in taking you into the field so soon after your abduction."

"If they hadn't taken me I'd have gone on my own." Liorga stated the fact coldly, "I was needed, I was going, end of story."

"And that's why I can't clear you for off ship duty yet, Liorga." Maddy said, "You're not mentally ready. I'm sorry."

[Present]

Liorga realized that every punch now left a bloody imprint on the bag, she'd been hitting it so hard and for so long that she'd managed to open her skin under her wraps, "Shit..." She swore, wiping the blood off the bag with her towel after spraying it with disinfectant, then slung her towel over her shoulder, heading back to her quarters to do nothing...