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Mind Over Matter

Chapter Five

Now that Kol had given her a sense of the time that had already elapsed, she was able to mark the days with more accuracy. This was her ninth day imprisoned aboard the Klingon ship. She had been fed yesterday, so she would not be today. One meal every other day might not be an entirely pleasant experience, but humans could and did manage that for relatively long periods. Some even did so deliberately.

Of course, the meals those humans ate probably weren't as stingy and lacking in nutrients as the Klingon food.

Every time that thought occurred to her, Katrina forced herself to start some sort of physical activity: push-ups, stretches, crunches, jogging in place. Mind over matter, she reminded herself. She would not think of food, or pain, or anything else that could spark negative emotions. Instead, she would survive by keeping her strength up and her spirit strong.

And anger, she reminded herself, was just as often positive as it was negative.

There was absolutely no reason for the Discovery not to have at least made an attempt at a rescue, yet despite her isolation within the ship, she knew full well there hadn't been much combat, if any. She hadn't been tossed around by abrupt deck movements, or heard shouts and pounding feet, or seen signs of fresh injuries among the crew.

Although she was careful not to let it show on the outside, Katrina let herself seethe on the inside. Yes, Gabriel was following orders for once. But it was only because doing so served his agenda.

She'd transmitted about his command fitness while enroute to Cancri IV, but Terral would have known it was preliminary. She hadn't had the time to compose a full formal report, and he wouldn't have treated her communiqué like one. He might not have even given it more than a perfunctory review.

It had taken several days for her to figure out what, exactly, had raised the red flags in her mind. Gabriel had always pushed the boundaries and could be calculating to the point of manipulative, but ever since the Buran had been destroyed, he'd become more single-minded, more driven. There was a cold detachment she'd never seen before, and she'd wondered if there might not even be some dissociation going on. Whatever it was, it appeared to be in the initial stages, so she maintained hope that it could be addressed informally.

Of course, he had to admit to having a problem first. She wasn't fooled by what he'd said in his quarters; he'd simply been reciting words she wanted to hear. That, too, was something that had never happened before, and in the middle of one long night, Katrina finally admitted that it had scared her.

Fear, though, was a negative emotion. And she couldn't afford those right now.

So, instead, she focused on the anger that could mean her survival.

If their story had been an affair of the heart, it might not have ended there. But it wasn't, and as far as Katrina could tell, it did. She figured that was a sign she'd made the right decision, even if it had seemed hasty at the time. In addition, the frequent reminders that it had been doomed from the start weren't self-flagellation; they were a kind of internal deprogramming.

Humans could form new habits in as few as twenty-eight days if they put their minds to it.

In the end, D'Amico's hint proved prophetic: six months after she left the M-1 Project, he was reassigned to the Essex as first officer, and three years after that, he was promoted and offered command of the Buran. It was impossible for two starship captains to avoid contact completely, but space was big enough that they mostly managed to stay out of each other's way.

On the odd occasion that they did end up in the same place at the same time, there were usually several other people present. Handling the situation was as easy as making she was seated across the room, or even just outside easy view. That way she never had to wonder if he was watching her.

She definitely wasn't watching him, of course.

If all else failed, superficial politeness would get her through. He'd brought her a glass of champagne at a reception once. "You're lookin' a little dry there, Captain Cornwell."

"Thank you, Captain Lorca," she'd responded. "But I was actually on my way out the door."

His eyes had hooded over. "Sorry, then. Don't let me interrupt."

Her primary focus was on her own ship anyway. The Pretoria wasn't the newest ship in the fleet, but she was still in great shape and her crew was second to none. Starfleet had chosen the crew members carefully, and as a result they never had any major problems related to the lack of shore leave or limited recreation facilities. After settling out the minor problems, Katrina commanded three missions of gradually-increasing length, and came near to the end of a fourth one.

They were out in a shuttlecraft, finishing up the preliminary survey of a dwarf star system. Katrina was entering notes into the log for future in-depth studies when her pilot frowned. "What is it, Thelin?"

"Odd. I'm getting tricobalt signatures."

"Tricobalt?" She snapped to attention. "Source them."

He shook his head. "That's it. There's nothing there."

"All stop, then. Cornwell to Pretoria. Styles, what station are you manning this shift?"

"Science," replied her first officer.

"Get over to tactical and scan our location for the presence of Romulan cloak signatures."

"Romulan? Are you certain?"

Katrina bit back mild irritation. She usually enjoyed debating the need for military readiness and precautions, but now wasn't the time for that. "I really hope I'm wrong. ETA for the scan results?"

"Computer estimates six minutes. You're still some distance out from us."

"Okay, stay in contact with Thelin and let us know when it's safe to move. I'm going to –" she was interrupted by a tremendous crash, which pitched her forward over the controls. "What the hell? I said all stop!"

"We were stopped!" Thelin's voice had gone reedy with terror.

Styles' voice spilled out of the comm. "Captain, drone ships decloaking! Dozens of them! Stand by –" In the background, a red alert klaxon began to sound, and he didn't bother to close the connection before ordering shields and battle stations.

She kept listening with half an ear. "Thelin, how's our helm?"

No reply.

Looking up from the tactical display, she saw that he'd blanched almost pure white. "Thelin?"

"This shouldn't be possible. The Aenar shut them all down!"

"Lieutenant!" Her sharp tone broke through, and he blinked. "Stay focused. We'll worry about the details later."

His antennae slowly returned to their upright position. "Of course, Captain. Sorry for the lapse. Helm answers clear."

"Shut down everything except passive sensors and life support." It was driving her crazy to be stuck away from the ship, but based on what she could hear, Styles had things under control. The best thing they could do now was to stay where they were, reducing their chances of getting caught in the crossfire.

"Shuttlecraft, stand by for tractor beam."

"Damn it, Styles, take care of the drones first!" Even as she gave the order, the Pretoria successfully blew one out of the sky. "Don't draw attention to us!"

Unfortunately, her order came too late. The beam initiated and caught their shuttlecraft, clearly indicating both its exact position and the fact that it was comparatively unshielded. "Thelin, EV suits! Now!"

Even as they scrambled to their feet, the first salvo blew through their forward navigational screens and hull plating. The emergency force fields held, though, and they made it all the way to the back and unlocked the suits before the next one came. It was as well-aimed as the first, bringing the force fields down like they didn't even exist.

Thelin only had time for a single scream before he was sucked out into space.

Somehow, she managed to wrap herself around a stanchion, but it wasn't possible to hang on to that and maintain a firm grip on her EV suit at the same time. She could only watch, helpless, as it followed Thelin out of the shuttlecraft.

Curling up as much as she could, she tried to capture a pocket of air long enough to call for emergency transport, but the wind was too fierce. Her communicator slipped out of her fingers just as quickly as the suit had, bouncing once against the edge of the blast hole and then spinning out, right as the explosive decompression died down.

She'd remembered not to try and hold her breath, but it wasn't until she sagged down off the stanchion, vision blurring, that Katrina realized she was about to die.

Academically, she knew the human body could withstand an incredible amount of pain. But it wasn't until she accidentally woke up, during the transfer from the Pretoria's sickbay to the advanced trauma center at Starbase Twenty, that Katrina understood the full impact of that fact.

She couldn't even find the words to describe the pain's intensity. Nor could she find the strength to scream. If a nurse hadn't noticed the change in her breathing pattern, and administered another dose of sedative, she might just have died from the sensation alone. Or, at least, it felt as though she might.

Knowing what was waiting for her was a definite disincentive, and she wasn't particularly anxious to come back to full consciousness. Instead, she lingered, half-aware, for a very long time. It was better that way.

Then a warm, familiar hand wrapped around hers. "All right, Cornwell. You've lazed around long enough. Time to wake up."

She moaned softly.

"Don't give me that. Wake up. That's an order."

Her eyes slitted open despite themselves, and she started to tell him that he couldn't order her around; she was senior by time in rank. All she managed, though, was another inarticulate sound.

"That's it," said Gabriel. "Fight with me." His voice was shaking slightly. "Of course, you probably don't have enough muscle left to do that, for as long as you've been in here."

Closing her eyes again, she tried to take her hand back. It didn't work.

"Uh-uh. Come on, Kat. You're ready to be discharged to rehab, but you've got to get off the sedatives and stay awake on your own."

Rehab? What was he talking about? Her fingers twitched in his.

He sighed. "Look, if I had to give up my exec because you opened up that captain's spot on the Pretoria, then the least you can do is wake up and give me hell for it. Yeah," he continued as she dragged her eyes open again. "She's been repaired and sent back out. Styles got himself devoted and reassigned for that little stunt, and you're still here, so they had to replace the entire command staff. Which means I'm now stuck training a new first officer. I don't appreciate that, by the way."

She tried to form more words in response, but still had no success. Why couldn't she answer him?

"You know what else I don't appreciate? Having to clean up after you. The Buran's been reassigned to this sector to make sure there aren't any more Romulan nests hiding out there." He looked away for a long moment, and when he looked back his eyes were unusually shiny. "Which means you'd better get better back on Earth. You owe me a drink at the 602 Club."

This time, when she yanked indignantly on her hand, she was able to take it back.

"Good." He signaled to someone outside her field of vision. "I think she's all the way back now."

"Thank you, Captain Lorca," said a disembodied voice. "I can take over now, but you can stay if you'd like."

"I can't. If I don't get moving, I'm going to miss our departure window. I'm cutting it close even now." Turning back to her, he leaned over long enough to drop a kiss at her hairline, and he lingered for long enough that she heard another hitch in his breathing. But he didn't say anything else before he left.

"Captain Cornwell?" A figure in white sat down next to her bed. "Do you know what happened to you? Where you are?"

She did, but when she opened her mouth to say so, nothing came out. Fuming, she shut it again and tried to nod. That didn't work either.

"No, don't try to talk. I'm Dr. Mozic Dren. You're lucky to be alive. They tell me you're a psychologist, so I imagine you'll understand this. You went without oxygen for nearly six minutes before your ship beamed you back aboard."

That was well past documented human tolerances.

"I'm going to give you the professional courtesy of not sugar-coating it. Your physical injuries are healed, but there are lingering neurological effects. You've already noticed the aphasia."

So that was what was causing it.

"It's a good sign that you're already trying to communicate non-verbally, though. Still, it's likely your inability to speak isn't the only brain damage. There'll need to be testing to figure it all out, and probably some neurosurgery. You've also been here long enough to need physical rehabilitation."

He paused, watching her face, and she tried to show acknowledgment in her expression. The facial muscles weren't very cooperative, but she apparently managed something, because he continued.

"The bad news is that it also took us three days and Captain Lorca's intervention to wake you up. I'm going to have to recommend careful supervision of sedatives and pain treatments. In fact, I'm going to go ahead and start dialing you down now. I'm sorry. This is going to hurt."

He wasn't kidding. She couldn't keep herself from whimpering, and tears ran down her face. The only thing that got her through was remembering that this was nowhere near what she'd experienced during the transfer from her ship to the base.

"Push through this, Captain, and don't go back to sleep. We have to get you all the way off the feed before you can travel as far as Earth."

She was tremendously grateful that Gabriel had left, especially after she began openly sobbing.

"Okay," said Dren. She noticed a line of spots at his hairline that extended down the sides of his face and neck. Not human, then, though he looked like one at first glance and was no doubt easily mistaken from a distance.

He glanced at the readout, and then blinked. "Wow. Lorca said you were tough. He was right."

Katrina certainly didn't feel that way at the moment.

"You made it nearly halfway down the scale," he told her. "Most patients can only handle somewhere between ten and twenty percent the first time I start dialing them down. Hang in there. If you can keep going like you just did, you'll be back in the center chair in no time."

Eight months later, she was getting restless.

Fourteen weeks after getting back to Earth, after some minor surgery to her frontal lobe and a lot of hard work in rehab, she had regained enough of her function that Command put her on light duty at Starfleet Medical, teaching mental health first aid. After that, though, it seemed they'd forgotten about her, even after she was finally cleared for unrestricted duty. That had been two weeks ago.

Gabriel's mention of the 602 Club gave her the idea to check it out, and she had gradually developed a habit of stopping by whenever she went off-shift. It was research, she told herself; listening to active captains' stories helped her keep abreast of what was going on out there. For example, she'd already pieced together quite a bit about the Klingons' chaotic political shifts.

If she'd also begun to buy a drink or two after being released to full duty, it was only because it was polite to do that when you were in a bar.

Tonight, she'd decided on whiskey, and was halfway through her third glass when she felt someone settle in a little too close behind her. "Well, look at you, all back to your old self. Why aren't you out on another ship yet?"

"I haven't been assigned to one." She didn't really want to talk about it. "What are you doing here?"

"We're back for a month or so," Gabriel replied. "The Buran's past due for a refit, and it's been a while since the crew got extended leave." His eyes flickered over her, appraising. "Answer my question. Was the recovery –"

"No," she said, a little too quickly.

"Then what's going on, Kat? They're ramping up ship construction, you know. There are captain's chairs going begging right now, so there's no reason you couldn't be in one."

She didn't quite manage to meet his eyes.

"And I never heard a word from you, either."

Her response was a shrug. "You were busy."

"Not so busy that I didn't wonder."

She turned on her stool so that they were face-to-face. "Then I'm sorry. If I'd known –"

"It's nothing," he interrupted. "Besides, I can see for myself that you're doing fine now. I'm just wondering why you're letting Command hang you out to dry."

"It's not like that," she protested.

"Isn't it? 'Cause you know there's been scuttlebutt. And you know what I've been hearing about you? That you've flaked. You're not on another ship because you got too spooked after running into the Romulans. You've lost your nerve."

Katrina bobbled her drink. "What are you talking about? That's not even close to true. Command just hasn't assigned me out yet."

"Have you even asked?" He peered at her face. "You haven't, have you? What is wrong with you, Doc? You always used to go after what you wanted, instead of waiting for things to just come to you." He paused. "It's a shame you aren't anymore. Maybe you are better off waiting around to get kicked upstairs."

She put her glass back down with more than the necessary force. "I don't have to listen to this."

"Then don't," he replied. "Prove me wrong. Go to Command. Ask for another ship."

"My career is my business! Since when have you given a damn about anything other than yourself, anyway?"

He started to wince, but then caught himself halfway through. "Uh-uh. This isn't about me, and you're not going to change the subject. What the hell is –" he broke off. "Damn it, don't you walk away from me!" He snagged her wrist before she got away, pulling her around with enough momentum that she staggered into his chest. When he spoke again, he switched to English. "You're wallowing, Cornwell!"

"I am not!" She replied in the same language, hating the defensiveness she heard in her tone. "And let me go!"

Gabriel caught her other wrist. "No. Not until you tell me you're going to Command and requesting another ship."

"Fine," she snapped. "I'll go."

"First thing tomorrow morning. And you'll call me and tell me how it went once you're done."

"Fine, damn you!"

"Good." Then, to her surprise, he let go of her wrists and strode toward the club's door.

She caught up with him outside, still speaking English in order to maintain at least some semblance of privacy. "What in the hell was that? You didn't even order a drink. Don't tell me you came all the way out to the 602 just to argue with me."

"What if I did? I told you. I'm on shore leave, which means nobody's keeping tabs on me. And that means I damn sure don't have to be accountable to someone whose career is her own business and can't even be bothered to –"

Seeing red, she lunged toward him, and he caught her, yanking her arms up and out of the way even as he pulled her closer. Looking back, she was never completely sure which of them made the first move. The only thing she knew was that his mouth was on hers, hard and demanding, refusing to yield to her angry movements and instead meeting her halfway. It was a competition, a fight, and she found herself nearly crawling up him in an effort to hold her own.

He broke away, breathing hard. "Public place."

"Like that matters!"

"You're still a Starfleet captain even if you don't have a ship. At least pretend you know there's a code of conduct, damn it!"

She lunged again, but he successfully prevented her from making full contact. "All right, then. Let's go."

"Where?"

"My place. It's only half a klick."

"What makes you think I'd even consider –"

"Oh, don't start." Shifting his grip, he tugged her along by the wrist. She resisted at first, but in the end gave in and followed, because damn him, but he'd been right again.