For whom the Bell doesn't quite toll yet

Posted on Tuesday November 17th, 2020 @ 11:24am by Ensign T'val

Mission: The Forgotten Outpost
Location: Lyra's head

Lyra had decided this was hell.

There wasn't another explanation.

She had relived T'yuna dying seventeen times.

Sirgei, 53.

Now her apparent hell loop was switching it up because that torment was running dry on effects on her.

Kathleen charged the Borg drones. The grenade went off. Loud explosion. Deafening silence.

And Lyra did nothing.

Lyra tried to do something.

Lyra had tried to do something different the last 70 loops through this hellscape.

She couldn't. She was frozen. Scared. Lyra was little. Lyra was weak. Lyra couldn't do anything right. Lyra was incompetent. Lyra was hated by her superior officers. Lyra was hated by officers junior to her.

In her mind space, Lyra was not grown up Lyra. As she watched these horrific events run over and over again, she did so from the point of view of the 4 year old girl with torn pants, bloody kneecaps, and mud in her pig tails.

Lyra was a child. That's what people accused her of most often.

A helpless child.

Kathleen charged the Borg drones. The grenade went off. Loud explosion. Deafening silence.

And Lyra did nothing.

Kathleen charged the Borg drones. The grenade went off. Loud explosion. Deafening silence.

And Lyra did nothing.

She screamed. Nothing came out. It wouldn't stop.

Kathleen charged the Borg drones. The grenade went off. Loud explosion. Deafening silence.

And Lyra did nothing.

Lyra couldn't have done anything.

Time froze.

"That's right." A calm voice said, behind her.

Lyra turned around, frowning.

"This was never your fault, little one." Lyra's mother whispered.

"Am I dead?" Lyra asked.

"Yes, and no. There are parts of you that are. Parts of you that aren't. You're on the brink of being dead. Not quite through the veil yet." Her mother knelt down, and brushed mud off her face. "Still making a mess, huh?"

"Mmmhmmmn." Lyra nodded.

"Well, not every mess is your fault." Her mom put a hand on her shoulder. "And you shouldn't be blamed for it, least of all by yourself."

Lyra's frown deepened.

"Sirgei chose the life he lived because he loved you. He died, loving you. T'yuna didn't die for nothing. She died taking a power core that went critical far away from anyone that had been hurt."

Kathleen charged the Borg drones. The grenade went off. Loud explosion. Deafening silence.

"She saved you. Possibly saved your station. And T'val." Her mother gestured. "You shouldn't feel sad. You should feel proud."

"Proud?

They appeared in the communications room.

The PADD changed. A new program was uploaded to it.

Execute overload command popped up on the screen in a big red button.

"This might do a lot of damage." Lyra winced. "T'val, please be right."

She took a deep breath. She pressed the button.

The console next to her sparked, and then exploded.

Lyra was flung against the wall. She groaned, and looked at the suitcase.

Time froze.

"You did them proud, definitely." Her mom paused. "But you're focusing on the dead without caring about the lives you save by doing your job. If you stop caring about the people you're saving, you aren't really living anymore and it hurts those around you."

"What?" Lyra was confused. "What do you mean?"

"You said you had no family left, Lyrabug, but you have an open, if rarely used psychic link with someone. You didn't ask them for help. You don't ask her how she feels. You just exist with her." Mom paused. "And the worst part? She doesn't think you care about her."

"She doesn't need to know." Lyra looked away. "When I care about people they get taken away."

Her mom vanished, and the room shifted.

She was in her office, but everything felt wrong. Louder. Brighter.

Why was Daniel here?

It took her a few moments to realize she was living through one of T'val's recent memories.

"She has to get better." Lyra could feel T'val's lips move with the words. She felt the pain hidden behind them.

Daniels nodded. "You need her."

"She does not understand this." T'val's words took a pause. "You have to understand, she has a hard time understanding affection. She told me that I had family to prove wrong, and thought she had none left to live for."

Daniels took a moment. "She risked her life to save yours."

"She insisted upon going instead of me." T'val's emotional stress levels nearly exceeded her control capacity. "She risked her life to save mine, and I had to pretend I understood why."

"Because you couldn't tell her the simple unspoken truth?" Daniels asked.

"When it comes to Lyra Bogdonovich, there is nothing simple about anything unspoken."

And Lyra was back in this mysterious netherspace she had called Hell.

"When you go back?" Her mother asked.

"Hmmm?" Lyra asked, no longer appearing as a messy 4 year old, but instead as her current self, bloodied and bruised.

"Remember that it wasn't your fault they died." Her mom crossed her arms. "And don't you DARE claim you don't have a family left to live for. We might be gone, but you recklessly endangering yourself to come see us sooner is just going to make us mad at you."

"Kathy lady did it." Lyra retorted.

"Kathleen didn't have anyone left. She had a mission left. She died fulfilling it." Her mom corrected. "People need you, Lyrabug. They need you to do your job, and stop almost getting yourself killed."

Lyra looked down.

"I don't know that I want to be needed. I am tired." Lyra said, quietly.

"Then quit your damn job. Don't give up on life." Her mom chastised.

"What? No! I can't quit! I like my job." Lyra froze. "I love my job. I love fixing things in ways nobody else does because my brain doesn't work right. I like making people mad because my bizarre fixes worked where there textbooks didn't."

Her mother smiled at that.

"What?" Lyra asked.

"Think that through again." Her mother patted her head. "And don't forget. You can't quit because you'd be leaving her alone and she actually doesn't have family left. They abandoned her."

"What?" Lyra blinked. "I-"

"You almost abandonded her, too. You weren't ready for the idea of having to lose someone you care about again." Her mother shook her head. "You didn't stop to think about her well being. Only yours. Do you think she would have forgiven herself if you had died?"

Lyra was dumbfounded by this revelation.

"You're going to stop dreaming soon. Your meds are changing." Her mom frowned. "You're going to wake up. This isn't what you think it is."

"What is this?" Lyra asked.

"This is everyone who has ever loved you giving you a scolding for believing it's your fault and wanting to take the easy way out." Her mom crossed her arms again.

T'yuna stepped out of the darkness, with a disapproving stare.

Sirgei looked crestfallen.

Kathleen looked simply sad because she understood Lyra.

"This is not who you are." Sirgei said, quietly.

"You do not give in to a situation you cannot win." T'yuna added. "No matter what logic tells you. No matter how impossible any other choice seems."

"You cheat. You've always cheated. You've broken the rules. Broken the law. Broken physics once or twice." Kathleen gave her a bemused look. "But at the end of the day, you look at an inevitable outcome, and draw a kitty face on it with a felt pen, then blind it with glitter and run off while it's distracted."

Lyra looked between the four, and held open her arms.

Everyone but T'yuna came in for a hug.

Lyra glared at her.

T'yuna raised an eyebrow but stood her ground.

It started to get dark. They faded from view. Lyra couldn't see anything. She couldn't move. Her body wasn't working.

She wasn't dreaming anymore.

And just at the edge of her perception, she could make out the sounds of the bio bed she was on in sickbay.

Knight to D7. Check mate. T'yuna's voice echoed in her mind, and for some reason the darkness faded away into a comfortable nothingness that didn't seem so empty or scary.

Beep. Beep. Beep. Someone muttering about her vital signs.

She couldn't wake her body up, but she wasn't scared anymore.

She was going to wake up.

It was going to be okay.

Eventually. When her body was ready.

In place of her nightmares, she found a simple peace and vague understanding of the noise around her.

And just off to the edge of her brain, she could almost hear someone else talking about how slow and difficult removing Borg technology from cramped quarters was.

She couldn't make her face smile, but she was smiling her mind.

If they were talking about how difficult it was, that meant they were succeeding in doing so.

She had won.

She had lived.

Everything really was going to be okay.

In this calm understanding, she didn't even question what had just occurred in her mindspace.

Whether it was real or not didn't matter, and she didn't really care if it was a drug induced delusion.

She had gotten to see them all one last time.

And they asked her to quit getting killed.

It was a fair request. The least she could do for them, really.

---
Lieutenant Lyra Bogdonavich
Chief engineer

The late Sirgei Bogdonavich

The late Commodore T'yuna Lorrietta

The late First Lieutenant Kathleen Lorrietta

The late Allison Walsh

With psychic cameos from

Ensign T'val
Acting assistant chief engineer

&

Civilian Captain Daniel Daniels
Not a bad guy