"The room was sealed off when I found you, so everything should be as it was," Counselor Troi told me as we rode down in the turbolift. My stomach felt empty. I wasn't sure if I was hungry or if it was the dread of what might happen. If I was the cause of my planet's destruction I wouldn't want to remember it. What if I'd taken my own memory because I couldn't handle what I'd done? Arriving at the door, she keyed in the code and it opened. "Talk me through what happened." She instructed, making sure not to touch anything. I paced around to the desk.
"I was asleep at the desk," I said. "There was an alarm, I could hear an alarm going off. I thought it was my alarm clock waking me up."
"Where was the sound coming from?" Counselor Troi asked. I pointed towards the wall near the door. She pulled out a tricorder and began to scan the area.
"I tried to get up to turn it off, but I fell over," I explained. "My head hurt so I sat back down on the chair. Then you tried contacting me on my communicator." I went to examine the desk closer.
"I'd been trying to contact you for five minutes, but you weren't replying," Counselor Troi said, standing. "There's nothing around here. Perhaps you hallucinated the alarm noise. It's likely, the drugs you had in your system are illegal for good reason." She joined me looking at the desk.
"What was I doing reading all of this?" I asked, pointing at the information on warp drive.
"Warp drive... warp engines..." Counselor Troi skimmed the titles. "With all this information you could build your own warp core." She glanced up at me. Or destroy one. The foreboding thought crossed my mind. Should I say it? How will she react? What will they think if I don't say it? Will they think I am faking?
"Do you think I'd have the information here to destroy a warp core?" I asked hesitantly. All of the graphs, sums and text just looked like gibberish to me.
"I'll have to ask Lieutenant LaForge or Lieutenant Data about that," Counselor Troi admitted. She'd never really gotten her head around all the mechanical side of Starfleet. "It seems pretty clear to me that you were looking up information about warp drive technology before you lost your memory though, for whatever reason." I flinched, seeing something move in the corner of my vision. My heart beat began to quicken as my eyes darted around the room.
"Can I wait outside?" I queried in a soft voice. Counselor Troi's face snapped up to look at me.
"You don't feel comfortable," she said. "I can come back later to look around." She guided me out of the room with a hand on my elbow, keying in the lock code when we were out. The world seemed to sway around me, so I braced myself against the wall. "Nat, calm down, it's alright," Counselor Troi was speaking in my ear, though I could hardly make out what she was saying over the thumping of my own heart. "Slow, deep breaths, that's it." The world continued to spin whenever I tried to open my eyes, so I just kept them closed. People passed by in the corridor, but I ignored them, focusing instead on not throwing up as my stomach churned endlessly.
"Natalya!" a voice called, running down the corridor. I felt my body lurch as someone ran into me, shoving Counselor Troi to the side and grabbing my shoulders. Opening my eyes, Jeva's image swam before me. Furiously blinking, he shook my shoulders. "Natalya, are you alright? What have you done to her?" he turned, shouting at Counselor Troi.
"Jeva, step back from her," Counselor Troi warned him. He ignored her, turning back to me.
"Natalya, I'm so sorry, I never should have left you alone," Jeva exclaimed, squeezing me tightly. Momentarily I thought I could feel a prick on my arm.
"Let go of me!" I pushed him away with all my might.
"Security to deck 11," Counselor Troi said quickly into her communicator, grabbing Jeva's shoulder in a futile attempt to make him release me.
"I said let go!" I shouted, kicking his shins, but he still held me firm. Something flashed in his eyes and I screamed as he punched me across the face, my head banging against the wall as I fell back. He let me go, turning to Counselor Troi.
"You Starfleet scum!" he snarled at her. "You corrupted her mind! She doesn't even know who her friends are! You'll pay for what you've done!" He lunged for her and she ducked, barely avoiding his fists. I licked my lips, tasting blood, but I was too busy trying to focus on what I was seeing to pay any attention to it. There was a cool trickle down the side of my face.
"Not so fast," a tall, bearded figure in a red uniform stood behind Jeva. Turning at the sound of the booming voice, the man hit Jeva square with his fist, knocking him out cold. "Are you alright Deanna?" the man held Counselor Troi gently, as if she were a delicate flower.
"Thanks Will," she said to him, her voice only slightly shaking. The security team ran out of the turbolift, securing Jeva before he woke up. "Nat, are you okay?" Counselor Troi appeared by my side. I opened my mouth to speak, but only bile threatened to come up. "We need to get you to sickbay."
"May I?" the man stepped forward. I held still as he hefted me up into his strong, muscular arms. If I wasn't so focused on remaining conscious I would have noticed his dashing blue eyes and the way his uniform fitted his broad shoulders handsomely.