Dr. T'Rel walked out of Sickbay with her usual serene countenance and poise. She strode the corridors to her quarters, occasionally nodding to a crewmember she was acquainted with in the sciences.
The doctor had no desire to eat in the mess hall that evening. She needed to meditate far more than she needed to eat, as during her shift she had found herself troubled - though she would deny unrest to any of her shipmates, T'Rel was honest with herself – by certain thoughts that required meditation.
She had seven meditation candles arranged around her quarters to provide the most peaceful atmosphere possible. The temperature in her quarters was 1.8 degrees higher, in the human Celsius measurement, than the rest of the ship. In this environment T'Rel was able to release her mind from the constraints of time and place.
Most of her shipmates considered T'Rel to be one of the more austere Vulcans they had met, but that façade she presented in order to conceal the truth. She was rocked with more emotion than most Vulcans, and often unable to suppress her feelings sufficiently. Though she could act as one who was in total control of her emotions, T'Rel hardly ever was. The catastrophic head trauma she'd suffered in the accident that killed her bondmate and only daughter plagued her daily in the form of surfacing emotions. Only her two adult sons knew the extent of her injuries. Her colleagues in the hospital on Vulcan where she had worked did not question her abrupt departure from Vulcan after the accident. It was obvious that the head injuries she and her bondmate had suffered caused a terrible breaking of their bond, which in medical circles was well-known to cause permanent cessation of pon farr. T'Rel preferred to leave under that guise, letting them draw the logical conclusion that the cessation of pon farr allowed her to embark on long-term missions. In truth, she left because she could not remain on Vulcan, with its memories. It was easier to repress her emotions in an environment she had not known since the accident.
Nearly twenty years had passed since the accident, and T'Rel had never returned to Vulcan. In that time she had focused on her career as a Starfleet physician. The past three and a half years had been spent aboard the Charlemagne; she had served on the ship longer than Captain Mercoeur had. Since the end of the Dominion War and the Charlemagne's assignment to the Neutral Zone, she had found herself with little to do. Aside from the occasional headache or minor injury, her expertise was not often required.
T'Rel found that she was unsatisfied. Her career was not progressing, and this ambition unsettled her. She should consider herself fortunate that the individuals whose health she was responsible for did not come close to dying, but she felt unfulfilled. Much of her time was taken up with research projects, but Sickbay was not a research facility, and the extent of her experiments was thus limited.
She settled into the position that she always used when mediating and focused on the dual flames of the two candles in front of her. The subtle movements of the flame flickered, and in a habit borne of much practice, T'Rel was able to escape.
Her meditative state was nothing but desert as far as she could see. Unlike the true Vulcan desert, it was not heated by two suns, but she found the endless sand soothing. Walking through the sand, T'Rel considered her emotions.
Ambition was not a desirable characteristic. She desired to help people while using the years of experience she had in the medical field; that was why she'd joined Starfleet after her recovery. Helping people on the Charlemagne rarely required medical expertise, but that should not bother her. Yet it did.
She knew that most of the crew felt similar emotions, and she wished that she had stronger control over hers. Ambition was divisive and counterproductive to the goal of providing medical treatment. T'Rel wanted nothing to do with it.
It mattered little if she did earn another promotion. She intended to serve in Starfleet as long as she was capable, after which time she would retire to live the short remainder of her days in the home of her eldest son. T'Rel knew that the accident dramatically increased the likelihood of her developing a degenerative neurological disease, and it would probably shorten her lifespan as well. Bendii Syndrome was also genetically present in her family's history. T'Rel could not detect any symptoms of it yet, but she estimated that she would begin to suffer symptoms in approximately one human decade. Until then, she would serve in Starfleet. Thus, it was not ambition that was the cause of her problems. She had no cause for ambition.
She stopped walking and stood still in the desert. Nothing but sand and sky marred her vision until she saw, off to her side, the carcass of a sehlat. Never in her one hundred and sixty two years had T'Rel encountered anything but sand and sky in her meditative state, so it was logical to assume the dead sehlat was significant.
It was not even a sehlat anymore, really. It was a carcass which had once been a sehlat, but that which made the creature alive, which made it a sehlat, was gone. The body had no use.
What occurred to T'Rel next shocked her out of her meditative state, and she found herself looking once more at the flames. She identified with the carcass; she felt useless. The realization was profoundly disturbing.
She did not know how other races dealt with such a crippling emotion. Try as she might, she was unable to enter her meditative state again. T'Rel stared at the twin flames for a long time while she tried to process what she had learned about herself.
She was uncertain of how to proceed. At last she blew out the candles and prepared herself for sleep.
That night, T'Rel dreamt of a live, energetic sehlat.
Next Up: The Tactical Officer
