Boundless

Time Apart

Somewhere out there, chaos.

***

Coming 'home' from deployment was like being suspended in time and space. At least for Lance.

(Before the Black Ops, before becoming a Sleeper).

A stark contrast between two realities completely apart. God willing, their troops would be able to prevent civilians from experiencing anything remotely close to what they lived on in trenches of so many different planets.

Aside from 'reality shift', the trip was also a challenge of sorts.

Cryochambers were programmed to allow passagens to dream - it was actually highly encouraged by all specialists. It helped to keep the mind structures around individuality intact, helped to diminish psychosomatic side effects (which were rare back then, almost nonexistent nowadays due to new technologies); in a nutshell, healthy.

Unless the passenger was prone to nightmares. Being stuck in a bad dream for months time (or even years) could leave a person in shambles, mentally.

(There were even documented and respectable studies that proved being caught in a cryo nightmare could result in PTSD and induce sleep disorders).

Suffice to say, cryosleep has been a challenge for the military from day one.

How would the army preserve the mind of their soldiers? Stasis was crucial for deployment and other military actions.

The government had no choice but to seriously invest resources and time on finding options and solutions. One of those was to drive new mental health programs and protocols.

One of which was a new form of support group dynamics. In which new (as in fresh out of basic training new) individuals would take part in those groups in a secondary role. To learn and observe. To be desensitized. To understand what awaited them.

On other words, the military started to adress and prepared troops for future trauma. Because it would happen. Being a space-soldier had zero glamour; only the horrors of the vast universe awaited them. And all sorts of hardship.

And when your loved ones, your support system was far away - light years away - there was only one place to turn to. Your brothers and sisters in arms. And in turn, you would be there for them too.

In her time, Lance held in her hands so many soldiers as they died. Fighting for their lives with all she had. All she knew.

The Girl would arrive at the support groups drowning in shame; how many lives lost? How much of the pain for those departed in the battle field was not resting in her back? Help them was her responsibility, after all.

Combat-medic support groups were the worse. She would go only because she could not bear to let them down. Not when she could actually do something, when it was 'so easy not to fail them'.

Of course medics had their own particular groups. How would it be different? How many times a soldier didn't direct their hurt towards the guys responsible for caring for their injuries. Lose a friend, and you would just look at the medic responsible for not fixing the person right. For ducking them up. And the worst part? Deep down, most Medics would think they were right.

It was their fault. Their responsibility. And they failed.

Lance didn't know how to care for trauma. She had no idea how to heal it. Bodies? Yes, that's her job. But minds?

The Girl had learned a thing or two, after years in support groups. No, she could not heal trauma. And truth to be told, she was not sure if even the therapists or psychiatrists really knew how. People would get better yes, but there was no "going back to how I used to be". You overcome trauma, but it's impossible to erase it.