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Mind Over Matter

Chapter Two

Katrina focused her eyes straight ahead. "I don't know where Captain Lorca is. He has significant discretionary authority concerning the Discovery's mission and movements."

"But surely the limits of such an authority are not absolute."

She continued looking straight ahead, not even tempted to answer that. The fact that she and Gabriel had argued about this very topic was none of the Klingons' business.

"You are his commanding officer," continued Kol. "We know that you have known each other, worked with each other, many times before. What might Captain Lorca be planning? What standing orders will he be subject to?"

She didn't bother to acknowledge the question.

"Answer me!" he roared. The backhand that accompanied the demand was predictable, but she hadn't seen it coming and it sent her to her knees. The cut on her lip split open and started bleeding again. She ignored the blood as it dripped down her chin.

Instead, she stood back up. "I don't know." It came out as a hiss. "And if I did, I wouldn't tell you."

He towered over her, but she refused to give him the satisfaction of flinching away.

"It seems you enjoy pain in addition to hunger, then. I tire of this game, Admiral. If you will provide us no useful intelligence, then your only other possible use is service to the crew." He paused. "As their evening meal." It was the first time the possibility had been openly voiced in her presence.

"Cornwell, Katrina. Rank, Vice Admiral. Serial number SC-205-8121-EAC."

Kol scoffed. "Your human platitudes only illustrate your weakness."

"I am a Starfleet Officer. I represent the United Federation of Planets. I will support and defend their Articles of Federation to the full length and breadth of my ability, even unto death and beyond. I represent those who have gone before more in the furtherance of freedom and peace, and I serve as a symbol to those who will come after. I am committed to –"

The backhand hit her harder this time, knocking her completely off balance. Katrina cried out involuntarily as the side of her head hit a bench. Her vision grayed out for a second, and it took her longer than she expected to arrange her hands and feet underneath herself. Even after she managed to do that, she had to use the bench and table to keep from toppling over as she climbed back to her feet.

Classic signs of a concussion.

"Reconsider your position," he said, and exited.

She'd be left alone now, she knew, likely for the rest of the day. Most of the time, she used such opportunities to sleep, since it both conserved her strength and passed the time. But she couldn't do that now. Nobody would be coming to check on her every couple of hours. Until she was certain that the concussion wasn't dangerous, she needed to keep watch over herself.

She slid back to the floor and began reciting the Officers' Creed again. Mind over matter, she told herself. This was survivable.

Strictly speaking, a personal relationship wasn't against the rules. She would be commissioned as at least a full lieutenant once she finished STC; higher, if she graduated at or near the top of her class, and her marks from flight training had contributed toward that. Since that was now complete, they were also no longer student and teacher.

Still, the timing could make things look bad, and both of them were only in San Francisco temporarily anyway. Discretion seemed a better option, so she was always in her quarters when her roommate woke up in the morning. Sihanouk-Rous wasn't stupid, of course, but she didn't ask any questions, so Katrina never had to make up any lies.

Starfleet wasn't a nine-to-five job, but HQ kept regular hours, which made it possible for them to spend at least an hour or two together every day. She learned that he was three years younger than her, and had never wanted to do anything other than fly. Or, at least, that's what he claimed.

That was why she was startled, the first time she really looked around his quarters, to see half-assembled parts on the desk, along with a crate of more unidentifiable technical components underneath it. What was a pilot doing with those?

"Plasma conduits," he explained when she asked. "There's got to be a way to improve their heat tolerance without a complete rebuild. It's holding us up from sustaining anything faster than warp six-point-five for longer than twenty minutes at a time."

"Isn't that really an engineering problem?"

He shrugged. "They've had it for twenty years without making any progress. I wanted to give it some out-of-the-box thinking."

She raised her eyebrows at that, but he changed the subject by tugging her back down onto the bunk, and she let him do it. He was an attentive lover, gentle without being hesitant and equally capable of being tender or aggressive as the mood demanded. He liked to touch, and to her own surprise, she discovered she liked being touched.

Late one night, when they'd both had a few drinks, she told him about her marriage dissolving into an endless chain of arguments, physical fights, and makeups; to her horror, it had taken her an entire year to realize she was in a classic abusive cycle. She hadn't wanted to be touched afterward, and she'd questioned her judgment about everything for a long time afterward. Shouldn't someone with a doctorate in psychology be able to recognize situations like that?

"So, learn from it," he told her. "You already did the right thing when you decided to get a divorce and move on to something entirely new."

"Not entirely new," she reminded him. She'd been her family's proverbial black sheep at the time, having gone into academia instead of joining the military right out of undergrad. "Although I didn't decide to go into Starfleet until right around the time I finished the trauma counseling."

"Counseling's all well and good, but sometimes it's better to just leave the past in the past. Change of scenery can help you do that."

She recognized denial when she heard it, but decided it was her turn to change the subject. Putting her drink down, she ran her hands through his hair. He responded by burying his face against her neck and pressing his lips against the pulse point. "Katrina."

It always undid her when he said her name like that, soft and vulnerable, with just the slightest bit of a tremble in his voice. He'd never admit it, but there was a sensitive and intelligent man underneath all the bluster and sarcasm. She felt privileged whenever she had a chance to see it.

He also had an almost boyish capacity for delight. He found her in the mess hall one evening, frowning over padds. "Come on. I want to show you something."

"I'm studying, Commander." Final evaluations were only two days away.

"You need a break, and this won't take long." He grabbed the padds and tucked them under his arm. "I promise. Just come with me for a little bit, and then I'll leave you alone and let you finish."

He guided her to a quiet corridor, one that had its lights off in deference to the hour, and she pretended not to notice while he used a cylindrical tool to override one of the doors' locks. Then they were standing in a design lab, surrounded by schematics and blueprints.

The prize, though, was the three-dimensional model rotating in the air in the middle of the room. It showed the largest starship she'd ever seen.

"They're calling it the Constitution class," he told her. "A complete redesign, from the ground up, including all the engineering and flight controls. Supposedly they've solved the warp-six-five problem, and she's supposed to be able to do bursts all the way up to nine-point-eight." He grinned. "She'll run rings around any challenger. Plus, she'll have fourteen science labs so the crew can do an unbelievable amount of research."

"A deep space ship," she said, comprehending. "For both exploration and defense."

"With the very best of everything. Starfleet's finally gonna have a true flagship. And I'm going to captain one of them."

Katrina smiled at his enthusiasm, but couldn't keep from asking the obvious question. "What makes you so sure? You had to break in here just to look at her, didn't you?"

He waved a hand. "It'll be at least a year or two before they start construction, and another couple after that before she launches. Then there's shakedown, so call it five years. I can get everything straightened out by then."

While it was another obvious question, she decided not to ask exactly what getting "everything straightened out" meant. It wasn't that Gabriel had a disdain for the rules; indeed, he was very clear about the good reasons every single one of them existed. He just sometimes had rather…creative…ways of interpreting them.

"Come in, Lieutenant Commander Cornwell," said Admiral Melendez. Katrina tried, and failed, not to grin at being addressed by her new rank. He noticed. "Feels pretty good to be on the other side of Starfleet Training, doesn't it?"

"Yes, sir," she answered. It felt even better that she'd been commissioned a full grade higher than she'd initially been guaranteed. All the studying and hard work had paid off.

"Well, you got yourself noticed by all the right people. Have a seat, please. Thank you for being willing to stay over for a couple of weeks pending your first assignment. Your profile says you're a psychologist. Correct?"

"Yes, sir," she answered again.

"You don't have to strictly adhere to protocol here, Cornwell. Tell me a bit more about your background. Are you qualified as a counselor? Your file doesn't specifically say that, but it seems like you would be."

"Seeing patients wasn't the primary focus of my training," she said. "Most of my work was research into human performance under stress. I was investigating how fatal judgment errors occur and what can be done to reduce or eliminate them."

"Hmm," he replied. "I hadn't ever really thought about applying psychology that way, but perhaps that's why we need more officers like you. It'll take Starfleet to the next level."

She smiled.

"But, back to my question. Are you qualified to conduct a counseling session?"

"I could if you needed me to."

"What about a fitness-for-duty evaluation?"

She nodded, although inwardly, her spirits sank a little. She'd really been hoping to avoid clinical practice.

"Good. We have a situation on our hands and frankly, I'm out of ideas. I could use some insight from someone who knows what goes on inside the human brain. Of course, I don't have to tell you that it'll need to be kept confidential."

"No," she agreed, refraining from pointing out that he just had. "Is there a concern for safety or security?"

"Oh, no, nothing like that. This isn't so much a fitness-for-duty evaluation as it is a fitness-for-a-particular-duty evaluation." He smiled, as if at a joke. "On paper, this officer seems a perfect fit for the position, and he's just been promoted, so that makes things even better. But there are a number of people who have expressed reservations, even though they can't quite explain why. I'd like you to look over the reports and job description and tell me what you think."

"Of course," she replied. "When should I get started?"

"It's late," replied Melendez, "and one of the perks of being in charge is that I can decide to work normal hours if I want to. Which I do. So why don't you come back in the morning, and I'll have you meet with the assignments coordinator before sending you over to medical to get the test results." He paused again. "You did some damn fine work at STC, Cornwell. Some of the best I've ever seen. Starfleet's going to keep you crazy busy once you get to a billet. So consider this a reprieve before that starts."

She couldn't help chuckling as she made her way back through the corridors toward what was now her private cabin. Galabi Sihanouk-Rous had been sent out immediately following their commissions. She was an infectious disease specialist and epidemiologist, and her skills had been desperately needed to address the outbreak of Rigelian fever making its way through the colonies at Beta Boötis.

The cabin wasn't empty, though. Gabriel was sprawled out across what had been Sihanouk-Rous' bunk, sound asleep.

Katrina watched him for a second, not surprised at his ability to get into the cabin when she wasn't there to authorize it. What was surprising was that he'd sought her out at all. He'd been assigned as flight instructor to a new set of officer candidates, and had ranted for an hour about it being a poor use of his skills, claiming he was being left out here to rot. When she'd pointed out that most non-engineering positions at HQ were transitional – including, most likely, his – he'd muttered something uncomplimentary about head shrinkers and stomped off.

That had been two days ago. Now, she sat down next to him and touched his face, stroking her thumb along the line of his cheekbone. He stirred in response.

"Hey there, sleeping beauty," she said. "What are you doing here?"

A contrite expression appeared. "Wanted to see you."

"You sure about that? I'm still a head shrinker."

"Yeah, but it's not my head that you're interested in." He sighed deeply, reaching up to play with the ends of her hair. "I had to get away somewhere I couldn't be found for a while."

"Looks like you did a pretty poor job of that. I found you."

"Okay," he amended, "somewhere the brass couldn't find me. Because there are going to be some snapped necks if I have to deal with those new students for one more second."

"Did you tell them this isn't a university? That you don't keep office hours?"

That earned her a full-fledged laugh and he sat up, tucking her hair behind her ear and ghosting a kiss across one temple. "Would it make you jealous if I had?"

Their conversations had never gone anywhere near that sort of territory. After all, both of them were only in San Francisco for several weeks, a few months at most. Now wasn't the time to consider anything more than friendship. Perhaps it was a friendship with benefits, but it wasn't anything more. It couldn't be.

At least, that's what she'd thought, although there admittedly hadn't been any explicit agreement on the topic.

Katrina frowned. "No. I wouldn't be jealous."

"Liar." He leaned over to kiss her then, and the subject dropped. She was happy to let it.

Fully half of the file had been redacted, so Katrina ended up spending her first two hours simply trying to piece together enough information to create a basic profile.

The subject had primarily served as a helmsman, but had been assigned to several different ships in his career and, as such, held more type ratings than most. His evaluations showed a natural talent, he eagerly sought additional training, and every simulator and check flight score was at or near the top. He would be a perfect fit for the test pilot position in question.

At the same time, the frequent transfers were a sign of potential trouble, and there were also some indicators of defiant personality traits. The officer showed a tendency to either embellish his orders as he thought fit, or discard them entirely when he decided they didn't make sense. Whenever he was confronted about this, he responded with defensiveness, anger, or both. More than one of his COs had speculated about a deep-seated sense of insecurity.

It was a reasonable conclusion, Katrina noted, and a certain amount of reckless overconfidence was practically required to be a really good pilot.

The details of his latest mission were the most heavily redacted, but the post-action interviews and evaluations hadn't been. Whatever had happened had left him suffering from post-traumatic stress. Whether it was developing into the full-blown disorder was less clear.

By lunchtime, Katrina had enough information for preliminary conclusions. The speculations about the sense of insecurity were likely correct, and if the post-traumatic stress were left untreated, it was likely severe enough to develop into a disorder. She mulled the file over as she ate, staring out a window and wondering if Gabriel had indeed resorted to snapping necks.

It occurred to her that the officer she was evaluating was a lot like him. But while they'd been discreet, they'd followed regulations regarding disclosure of personal relationships. It was on file. Surely Melendez would have known better than to have her evaluate him.

By the end of the day, she had her report ready. The subject was a good fit for a test pilot position, but only so long as he remained in counseling and could be supervised closely. Given his cavalier attitude toward the counseling, it might be better to give him an interim assignment until the post-traumatic stress had been better addressed.

Fortunately, it appeared he had already been placed into one as a flight instructor. Katrina's mind stuttered to a halt when she saw that.

No. It had to be a coincidence. There were several different flight training classes going on at any given time, and most flight instruction positions were interim. It wasn't a good idea to pull a pilot off the line for too long.

Still, she signed off on the recommendation with a deep sigh of relief and a stress headache pounding at the base of her skull.

Melendez was impressed at the thoroughness of her work. "Come back at 1300 tomorrow," he told her. "That's when I'll actually meet with him, and I'd like you to observe. You might notice a few other things I should know about."

She chose to seat herself in an unobtrusive corner of his office, which turned out to be a good decision: the officer who reported the next afternoon was Gabriel. The shock in his eyes was, no doubt, reflected in her own.

Melendez read her entire report aloud and then gave him a look. "So there you have it. What are we going to do with you, then, Lieutenant Commander Lorca?"

"I don't know, sir." He had drawn himself up to full attention.

"I know you've been following the Constitution-class project, and I'd hate to just send you back out as another ship's helmsman. You have too much potential. But flight instruction is supposed to be a short-term position, and you've already been here for close to the maximum allowable time."

"Yes, sir."

"Fortunately," continued the admiral, "there's another possibility. Have you heard of Project Chaeronea?"

"No, sir, I can't say that I have." He was looking directly ahead now, ignoring her completely. She had clasped her hands together to hide their shaking.

"It seems the R&D folks are establishing a combat tactics development unit. They need a pilot for their staff, someone who can test out ideas and provide feedback on their real-world feasibility. That pilot needs to have several different type ratings."

"Any new flight technologies, sir? Or just refining current ones?"

"Refining current ones." Melendez shut down the padd. "I'm sorry, Commander. I know you wanted that test pilot position, and you're technically ready for it. But your head's still too much of a mess. Consider this a baby step, and focus on getting that straight. I don't doubt you'll be cleared for test piloting afterward."

He shot her a vicious, scathing look after being dismissed, but Katrina barely noticed it amidst her own whirling thoughts. She'd noticed several details pointing toward his identity, but had simply dismissed them. Why? Was she so anxious to please that she'd convinced herself not to see the obvious?

"Are you all right, Cornwell?" asked Melendez.

"Yes, sir," she answered. She had to be.

"Good. Any observations?"

"Not really, sir. But I might have some after I've thought about it for a while."

"Do that, then, and report back here in the morning."

She'd never been so grateful to be dismissed, but at the same time, found herself nearly sick when she thought about Gabriel. There was no way he would ever believe she hadn't known who she was evaluating. Hell, she barely believed it herself.

It would be better, she decided, to simply figure out how to override the lock on his quarters, retrieve the few personal items she'd left there, and get out before he got back. That way there'd be no need for him to actually tell her to leave.

Author's Note: Lorca's background as a pilot and helmsman, rather than a security specialist, is based both on the way he talks about flying in S01E03 "Context is for Kings" and on the "tightly-clad space pilot" phrase that appeared in Jason Isaacs' Twitter bio during his run on Discovery.