Star Trek: Foothold - To Relieve Paine

The Officer's Mess

The doors to Cargo Bay 4 opened sluggishly, servos struggling to draw the force required to move the large panels of vacuum grade duraluminium through their guide tracks: the hold wasn't meant for the traffic it had seen since they had entered this part of the badlands, and the pack had started hunting them, so the parts were wearing more than expected use would have called for. If not for regulations and safety protocols, it would almost have made sense to leave the doors somewhat ajar, but the plan had been vetoed before it was even put forward by just about anyone who had gone through solutions in their head. It occurred to Paine as she stepped through, not for the first time, and she wondered if many others would routinely revisit resolved and trivial conflicts like this in their heads as a formality of their inner monologues.

Stepping through into the room, Paine took in the now familiar view of a cargo hold converted into a multi-purpose communal space: what had previously been a dedicated hydroponics bay had been reconfigured into different segregations of bunk bedding, dining hall tables, and light-injury triage areas. One corner of the room had had plasma conduits hooked up to survival gear, allowing for manual culinary preparation as the resource pool maintained for most replication purposes had been depleted during the siege, and was currently under ration until consumable supplies were used up. Something was boiling there in a big pot, and Oban Soworoon—a Bajoran Crewman in the science corps—was ladling out portions to crew in a queue, while Vulcan Ensign Sova M'Rel—the Ethics and Policy Specialist—dished out portions of prepared vegetables from the aforementioned repurposed hydroponics plants. Everyone in the bay looked somewhat haggard, with not a single intact uniform to be seen between the battle damage and the grime, and no shortage of field medical treatments on display for the minor injuries which required less critical care.

Some people looked up as she entered, and some of them looked back down, but not all. Paine considered how she must look, fully out of uniform as she was, covered in the light layer of grit and grime that the holodeck synthesized for tactile realism out of cosmetic films. While their wear and tear had been earned in the line of duty, hers was not only artificial, but earned through pursuit of leisure which was explicitly denied to the rest of them during the crisis aboard-ship. A sudden, expected, familiar wash of guilt ran through her, and the Passenger writhed in her body in a way that did not help the crawling sickness that came with her situation. She had made three attempts to evade her therapy before finally submitting to it when Captain Durok had come personally to her bunk on the lower deck to inform her of his expectations on her progress in the program if she wanted him to support her reinstatement to her rank. "I have no need for a warrior on my bridge who will only fight against her allies", he had said, and she had been forced to acknowledge the truth of his words.

The first time she'd come to the galley she'd been in the brown and tan prison-issue jumper she had initially replicated in sickbay: the choice had been a whim, chosen in a moment of conflict with where she knew she would find herself on waking, where she would need to be trusted to perform her functions repelling boarders not because of her rank given her medical situation, but because of her competency and presence among a crew who trusted her, and would immediately question and pay more attention for seeing her in such a contrast to her command reds. The fact that the prison jumper was familiar to an old and challenging part of her life spoke more to the impact her bonding with the Passenger had had on her subconscious than any other feature.

When she'd stepped into the line to get her meal the crew ahead of her had stepped aside, some patting her on the arms or back as she passed, encouraging her forward. At the time she'd have rather stood in the line than receive the preferential treatment, but on that first day enough of them were still happy to see her back, grateful for her participation in repelling the pack. As the days of the past week wore on, and the nature of her recovery became elemental to the ship's rumour mill, and her rank and position were not reinstated for medical reasons, nervousness began to brew up. When her duty assignments took her away from repairs, or medical treatment, or even volunteering in communal roles until she could be deemed fit, safe, and operable alongside her Passenger, resentment began to brood up among those who were working themselves to the bone—in some cases, literally. As the days and the meals went on, the crew still stepped aside as she lined up, but it was less in celebration than it was in avoidance, or habit, or some observation of a naturally occurring ritual that had seen her increasingly the object of suspicion and... something else she couldn't quite name.