Work Text:
MEMORANDUM: To Cadet Tarima Sadal, War College
STARDATE: 869182.4
SUBJECT: Revocation of Fitness-to-Serve Certification
I am sorry to inform you that I am revoking your certificate of fitness to serve at the War College. Following the tragic events on the Miyazaki, it is my considered medical opinion that your presence alongside martial officers in combat situations would present a danger to your future crewmates and, perhaps more importantly, to yourself. Please be assured that this is not a judgement upon your future in Starfleet. Should you wish to be considered for a combat role in the future, you may request a reassessment. You are certainly not barred from service in the operations or command divisions. However, the Chancellors and I would recommend you consider the science division, which offers many routes to interesting research- and exploration-focused careers.
In service,
The Doctor (EMH), Chief Medical Officer, War College & Starfleet Academy
Of all the days Tarima could get stuck in a turbolift with Chancellor Kelrec, it would be the last day of the year.
Her morning run on campus is quiet. Not so much as a glimpse of Genesis or Darem. Tarima needed to work off some of the energy she’s got pent up after the shitshow that went down with Nus Braka, and Caleb is on his mother’s shuttle.
She’s minding her own business on her way back to her room, very definitely not thinking about any of what happened on the bridge last night, when the turbolift doors hiss open.
Tarima straightens up. “Chancellor Kelrec.”
Even if she couldn’t read his feelings, the way he’s avoiding her eyes would be enough. “…Cadet Sadal.”
Okay, she can do this. Only ten seconds to Deck Eight. Fifteen, if she's unlucky enough to have the doors open on Deck Five—
The lift decelerates to a mournful stop.
Tarima is wondering if that spike of anxiety is her own, until she realizes. Kelrec’s eyes are darting upwards. “That’s odd.” He moves to the wall, studying the display, then punches in a sequence of numbers.
The turbolift doesn’t move.
“Can I help?” Tarima asks, as he tries another code.
Kelrec just shakes his head. “We’ll be out of here presently, Cadet. Try not to worry.”
Tarima manages not to roll her eyes. Of the two of them, she’s not the one who’s worried. Not about the lift failure, anyway. Engineering glitches happen all the time, though this is the first time she’s heard of a turbolift breaking down on the Athena.
But she is very invested in getting out of here.
“Kelrec to Engineering.”
“Go ahead, Chancellor,” says a voice Tarima doesn’t know.
“Turbolift three just stalled. My override codes are not working. Report, please.”
“Apologies, Sir. We were just alerted to a gelpack failure, and the lift was already moving. We’re on it. Ten minutes, max.”
Kelrec glances at her. “I see,” he says, in a tone that’s only mildly reluctant, compared with everything he’s feeling.
Tarima redirects her attention to the problem. “Site-to-site transport?”
The comms crackle with an unhappy noise from the engineer. “I strongly advise against that, except in an emergency. The transporter gelpacks are compromised too.”
Kelrec glances at Tarima. Reticence; anxiety. “There’s just one cadet and myself. We are unharmed and have access to water rations, and food if we need it. We’ll be fine. Keep me informed.”
Fine is a stretch. Tarima considers making a crack about how at least they’re not going to plummet to their deaths, unless Nus Braka has already broken out and this is all part of his next revenge scheme, but that seems inappropriate. On the other hand, maybe she’d prefer that to ten minutes stuck in a turbolift with Chancellor Kelrec.
He’s pulled out his PADD and is staring at a document he isn’t reading.
Tarima looks straight ahead, tapping her hands together. Dredging up whatever long-forgotten shielding techniques she can, just to try to drown out the considerable activity in the chancellor’s head. She’s not great at psionic shielding, with the sheer level of metapsychic input she gets, but it seems only polite to try.
It doesn't help.
Twenty minutes later, she’s sitting cross-legged on the floor; Kelrec is still standing ramrod straight in the corner, but at least he’s not pretending to read anymore.
It’s not like the War College cadets are close to their chancellor — he’s not exactly Nahla Ake. But Tarima has spent enough time in Kelrec’s vicinity to know that his emotions are weird, even for a Human. She took xenopsychology classes on Betazed. She knew, even before she left her home planet, that many non-empathic species try to hide their emotions from others. She just thought they’d be better at it.
Just to complicate things, she’s stuck with far too many feelings of her own, after yesterday. If they don’t get out of here soon, the emotional feedback loop could get problematic.
“Chancellor.”
“...Yes, Cadet?” He looks down like he’s just remembered she’s there. It’s an act, and it’s barely reassuring.
“Could you ask for an update, please, Sir? If we’re going to be stuck here for very much longer, we might need to break into those rations.” It’s approaching 0800 hours, and she hasn’t had breakfast yet.
Kelrec considers her; Tarima catches the stray thought-as-feeling that he’d rather be anywhere but here. She manages not to growl, which is frankly heroic of her.
“Engineering. Update.”
Well, at least he’s not making any pretence at politeness anymore.
The crackle on the comms is louder this time. “Sorry, Chancellor. There are more systems going wrong here. Nothing serious, but persistent. We think one of Braka’s people planted a bug in the bioneural circuitry to, uh, to piss on us all as they got dragged away, in Commander Reno’s words. We’ve secured your turbolift — we just can’t get it moving. Please stand by.”
Tarima gives in to the urge to flop forward on her knees and groan.
Kelrec stares at the ceiling for so long that the least empathic species in the galaxy would be able to feel the awkwardness. Then he tosses her a ration bar and a bottle of water. “Make yourself comfortable, Cadet.”
She bites into the rock-like bar and attempts a smile. It’s more believable than the one she gets back.
The first hour is as uncomfortable as Tarima expected.
Kelrec paces.
Then he reads.
Then he calls Engineering every seven minutes, doing nothing but counting seconds in between — which Tarima wouldn’t know if she wasn’t telepathic, a thing she’s never regretted more, and that’s a high bar. Then he just stands, swaying slightly.
It is at this point that Tarima decides that anything is better than this. “Chancellor.” No reply. “Chancellor.”
This time, when he turns to look at her, he really is surprised to see her there. “Are you all right, Cadet?”
She gives him an unimpressed look from the floor, where she’s surrounded by empty ration bar wrappers. “I’m not about to starve, if that’s what you mean.” Is that concern he's feeling for her, under all that effort not to feel anything? Surprising. “But I am gonna need you to stop doing…” She gestures at him. “This.”
He’s confused, at first, when he blinks at her. And then… there it is. The moment he remembers he’s talking to an empath. Defensiveness. Denial. “What exactly am I doing, Cadet?”
She sighs. One of them is going to have to deal with this head-on, and it seems it’s not going to be him. Ironic, when he’s the adult around here. “Chancellor Kelrec. You’re stuck in a turbolift, in close quarters with an empath. On my home planet, it’s not polite to broadcast your emotions all over the place in a situation like this, but I’m aware — painfully — that Humans don’t have the ability to shield their feelings and stray thoughts, the way we do. Engineering just told you this might take a couple more hours. Please don’t make me spend them pretending I’m not who I am, Sir.”
For a moment, he just looks at her; static in his brain.
And then, entirely unexpectedly, he starts to laugh.
Maybe it’s just the release of an hour’s worth of tension, but he seems to be feeling lighter already. He sits down opposite her, matching her cross-legged stance. “Well, Cadet. That told me.” He almost, but not quite, smiles. “You’re right, of course. I should be aware of all my cadets’ needs, including species I’m less familiar with. I certainly shouldn’t be bothering you with my reactions to an unusual situation. As your teacher—”
I’m not her teacher.
Kelrec goes quiet at the thought.
Tarima hadn’t realised just how badly Kelrec’s psionic input had been drowning out her own emotions, until they come flooding back. She can tell her inhibitor has changed color before Kelrec thinks it.
She grits her teeth. Makes herself focus. “S.”
He’s back to confused. “I’m sorry?”
“We’re playing a game, Sir.” Honesty is the only way they’re getting through this. She sends up a brief prayer to Tholta and admits, “I need a distraction, or our combined emotions are going to create a feedback loop that could make me… unwell.” Kelrec’s stray thought, a denial that he has any emotions, is amusing. Game time, then. Just not the one Genesis taught her last month, when the power briefly went out in the dorms, in which Tarima gained a whole new appreciation for her friend’s risk tolerance. “I give you a letter of the Standard alphabet. You tell me a story about something that starts with that letter. It can be a myth, a memory, anything you like. S.”
Kelrec’s desire not to play a game is warring with a strange internal imperative to make sure she’s okay. It’s kind of sweet. He rolls his eyes. “Syllabus.”
“No,” Tarima says, with a firm smile.
Mild frustration. Then he smiles, only a little awkwardly. “Fine. Sandy. My dog, when I was in command of Starbase Yorktown. She was a Jack Russell…”
Tarima sits back against the wall, closes her eyes, and lets herself float on the warm memories. She can’t imagine the Chancellor objecting.
An hour later, Kelrec is sitting closer, the disbelief in his head matching the expression on his face. “He was a precognitive?”
“Yep,” Tarima says through a mouthful of cardboard ration bar. “He knew I was going to fall seconds before I did. It would have been a very, very long trip down that cliff face to the sea, if he hadn’t.” She grins. “We have much more exciting gifted kids’ programs than anything Starfleet has ever run.”
“So I am coming to understand.” Kelrec leans forward, eyes bright. Curious. “There are no records of any Betazoids with confirmed precognitive abilities. In any database.”
“Firstly, I’m concerned that you just remember details like that.” She swallows the bit of bar, against the better judgement of her esophagus. “And I think you mean there are no Federation records, Sir. Maybe your paperwork is out of date. I couldn’t possibly comment.”
He laughs as he sits back on his heels. “That psionic wall of yours. We did wonder how it might have been changing your… evolution.”
She shrugs. “Evolution is slower than that. And you’re not really asking me to give away state secrets that I’m not sure whether our government has made public, are you, Sir?”
“Of course not.” His eyes twinkle again. He’s feeling almost playful; it’s delightful. “No conversations about hypothetical Betazoid abilities, such as one might make up for a game to pass the time during a minor crisis situation, would ever leave the confines of this turbolift.”
Now it’s her turn to sit forward. “It’s very rare. Taran was one in… five hundred thousand, maybe.”
She knows he’s trying to stop himself thinking it. He can’t.
So are you.
They both know why she shuffles back against the wall.
“Tarima,” he says quietly.
It might be the first time he’s ever used her first name. Four Deities, she hates how fucking kind he feels towards her.
She drops her head back. Eyes to the ceiling panels. “Can we not, Sir?”
Kelrec doesn’t even mind how sullen she's being. He’s… sad. “Of course, Cadet.”
She turns her PADD back on, ignoring the way his gaze and thoughts both stay focused on her.
“I thought perhaps you would have come to see me, after…”
Tarima slams her PADD down. She just catches herself before she snarks out loud about how he doesn’t have to be so dramatic. He only expelled her. It’s not like anyone died—
Her breath catches, low in her chest. She turns to face the wall, horror fighting relief that she’s the only fucking mind-reader here.
When she glances up, Kelrec is close at her side. There it is; the emotional feedback loop. She didn’t recognize it until she was already sucked into the spiral.
“Cad— Tarima. Forgive me, if I’ve upset you.” Wry smile; gentle mood. “I imagine that, of all the Humans whose minds you’ve had the pleasure of walking into, mine would perhaps be one of the more… distracting.”
“Not your fault,” she says to the ceiling. As curious as she is about that comment, she’s got shields to drag back up.
He taps his comms. “Report, Engineering.”
“Chancellor,” comes Commander Reno’s long-suffering voice, “if it’s not a medical emergency, please give us half an hour. I’ll have an ETA for the engineers then.”
Kelrec meets Tarima’s eyes with a silent question. She shakes her head. Not yet.
He smiles at her; strange comfort. “We’re fine. Apologies for the distraction from your work, Commander.”
She looks down to find Kelrec studying her, and she didn’t even feel it. She’s getting nothing at all from him now. Well, that's just great.
His eyes are kind. “Can I help?”
Tarima shrugs. “It’s not serious.”
“What does that mean?” he asks. Carefully.
She resists the urge to scream. “Nothing dangerous.” She doesn’t fail to notice the shadow that falls across his eyes, at that. “The Betazoid brain has protective mechanisms, just like the Human brain. Mine shuts off external input — thoughts, feelings — if I get overloaded. I’m still receiving it all, just not processing it. When it all switches back on, at least I'll be in the interesting kind of hell.”
His expression is odd. “Dissociation?”
“Something like that.” She bites down on her lip, just to feel anything. “The more accurate term doesn’t translate.”
Kelrec shuffles back against the wall beside her. “Do you get… overloaded… like that, very often?”
He’s probably trying to make conversation, in his gloriously awkward way, but an honest answer would be difficult. “Not as much, since my inhibitor,” she settles for saying.
His eyes drop to her neck. She’s glad she can’t feel enough of his reaction to tell what color it is, now.
“How long have you had it? The inhibitor.”
Her gaze drifts back to the ceiling. “You’re not ordering me to answer that, are you, Chancellor? It could lead to several awkward follow-up questions. And I really don’t want to talk about how dangerous I am, just now.”
“Of course not. And… you’re not, Cadet.”
At no point in this conversation has he told her that she can be at ease. She shouldn’t allow the disbelieving snort she lets out. “Please,” she mutters. “You expelled me for—”
“You were not expelled, Cadet,” he quietly interrupts.
“Oh, like hell I wasn’t!” Her inhibitor can short-circuit her brain, for all she cares. It’s been an endless twenty-four hours, in which she did the impossible and located a pirate across entire sectors of space, helped reunite her boyfriend with the mother he’d been searching for for decades, and got stuck in a turbolift with her former teacher. She’s done trying to hold it all in.
Kelrec doesn’t tell her she’s out of order. His eyes have gone cold, but his voice is gentle. “You know we had no choice, don’t you, Sadal?”
So they’re back to ranks and last names. Tarima has heard all this before; she has no need for round two. “We.” Her voice echoes disbelief. “Don’t you run that school?”
“Yes, under the auspices of Starfleet, and its regulations!” She doesn’t think she’s ever heard him raise his voice before. It’s kind of a relief to hear him lose his shit too, in his own repressed way. “What would you have had me do, Cadet? You were medically unfit for the War College.”
In an old, deep cavern inside her, the words echo, and she can’t breathe to answer. Then the wave of rage crests again. “You didn’t even tell me. You left that to the Doctor.”
Kelrec blinks, as though he’s really never thought of that before. “Chancellor Ake felt that—”
Tarima slams her hand against the wall. Kelrec winces. She feels bad at once, but at least it’s familiar. Lash out; hurt someone.
He’s gone quiet.
“I wanted to be a tactical officer,” she says, only as petulant as she feels; there’s no point going over this again.
Kelrec gives her a very restrained raise of his eyebrows. “I know, Sadal. Have you ever wondered why?”
Tarima doesn’t understand. “Why I… wanted to be a tactical officer?”
“Yes.” There’s something significant in his eyes, as he shuffles around to face her. “Do you ever remember a time when you didn’t feel like a weapon?”
The question makes her go still.
“Haven’t you ever wanted to be— to do anything else, with that considerable gift of yours?”
Her folded hands are raised on her knees. She rests her cheek on them, gaze to the floor. She has a tendency to cry, when she’s caught off guard like this. She could have seen his questions coming, if she hadn’t been so fucking unstable that she dissociated at the first sign of—
Kelrec’s hand on her arm breaks into the spiral. “Just listen, Tarima,” he says quietly.
She nods, not trusting her voice to reply anyway.
There’s a weight to his voice, when he says, “I can only assume that people have been treating you like a quantum torpedo waiting to detonate for most of your life.”
Tarima doesn’t bother confirming it. He’ll know that most Betazoids develop their telepathic and empathic abilities in adolescence. He might also know that the broken ones get them… earlier.
“Isn’t that what you did?” she finally manages to say.
She’s insubordinate, again, and still Kelrec doesn’t react. It makes her wonder just how many of his own shields he has at his disposal. Probably not the kind that Betazoid teenagers are meant to learn to use. But there’s something; a mask he wears. She’s managed to miss it, all year, while his emotions have been distracting her.
“No, Cadet. If anything, I was hoping to show you the opposite.” He shakes his head slowly. “My primary responsibility, as I said, was to ensure you met the War College fitness for service requirements. There are no exceptions.” She must have reacted to that; his careful hand has moved to her shoulder. “If I had another motivation, it would have been to ensure you were trained by officers who are building the future, not arming the front line. Somewhere they can see that you’re meant for more than hurting people.”
That hits Tarima like a brick wall.
“The War College saw your potential for battle,” he goes on; his eyes never leave her. “After the Burn, and the century that followed, that’s still all we know how to see.” He cocks his head at her. “The future of the galaxy just might depend on people like you — many people — being able to see themselves as so much more.”
“No pressure, or anything,” she mutters, and he laughs. She drops her head on her arms. Kelrec’s hand stays on her shoulder. She sighs. “Did you hear about… what I did on the bridge yesterday?”
“I did,” he confirms. When she doesn’t elaborate, he adds, “I’m not at all surprised. When I met you, you were leading Betazed back into the Federation. You’ve already assisted in changing the course of history, Sadal. Why are you so afraid to keep surprising us?”
He’s so right that she hates it. For a moment, she can’t breathe for the fear. “You don’t know what it’s like.”
A quiet raise of his eyebrows. “You mean I don’t know what it’s like to be a young person, being reminded every day that you have gifts you must not waste, and that you’re broken and can’t possibly be trusted with said gifts, at the same time? No, I’m sure I’d never understand that.”
His feelings are filtering back into her consciousness, a little more with every word. He means it.
“I think it’s your turn,” Tarima croaks. “W. For War College.”
He laughs softly. “What do you think Starfleet was like after the Burn, after the Federation, Cadet? If you think they just beckoned in overly cautious officers with both hands, so they could throw captaincies at them, then you would be wrong.”
She’s getting a little more from him, now. Inadequacy; rejection. Never enough.
His gaze is fixed on the opposite wall. “We were at war. With everyone. I was told, many times, that the most I could hope for was a desk job at United Earth HQ. That I wouldn’t survive in the field.” He turns; meets her gaze. “Later, as a reason to deny me a command, I was told that a hesitant captain is a danger to his crew.”
She swallows. Chancellor Kelrec is many things, and certainly not without his flaws. But she never once felt unsafe under his command. “You’re not hesitant, Sir.”
“No,” he says, in the voice of someone whose self-assurance has been hard won. “But I very nearly believed the story they were making of me.”
Well, it’s a lesson. Tarima keeps her gaze fixed on her hands. “Where do I start, Sir?”
He cranes his head, trying to meet her eyes, and smiles. “I think you already did, Cadet.”
“You really think I can be… more?”
All she feels from him is pride. “I know you can, Tarima. More importantly, so do you. Especially after yesterday.”
“Chancellor? We’re on our way. Two minutes, tops.”
Tarima chokes out a laugh.
Kelrec pats her shoulder. “Attention, Cadet. Time to pretend you feel like a Starfleet officer.”
She chuckles as she gets up. “Is that how you do it?”
“Of course. We’re all just smoke and mirrors, very convincingly feigning confidence in everything we do. That goes for everyone in Starfleet.” His eyes twinkle at her, matching the lightness he’s feeling.
“I fear for the Federation, Sir,” she quips.
She gets a fleeting image of the first year cadets; Academy and War College, side by side. He smiles. “Oh, I don’t.”
Tarima is standing at attention just in time, as the doors are wedged open.
“Mother of— I’m gonna kill Nus Braka. Slowly. With a fucking spoon.”
“Good morning, Commander Reno,” Kelrec says dryly. Tarima just grins.
Reno waves a dismissive hand at them. “Yeah, yeah, you can both thank me later. Get out— Sir. I’ve gotta free Ya and Vance from the next shaft down. Turns out they support rival pro calica teams. Mir is gonna be mopping blood off the floor tiles for weeks.”
And speaking of Caleb. As Tarima steps out of the turbolift, he’s leaning against the wall.
She raises her eyebrows. “What, no welcoming committee of six?”
His amusement is cute. “Ocam said you wouldn’t want to be overwhelmed with people.”
She winces. He reaches out for her hand, and she feels a wave of support.
Kelrec exits the turbolift behind her, with a fond smile. “Well, Cadet. That was an interesting ride. I hope you don’t mind that I’m glad to be out of there.”
“Me too, Chancellor.” Her friendly tone gets her a burst of confusion from Caleb, which she ignores.
For the second time today, Kelrec pats her on the shoulder. “Go and find breakfast, Sadal. Something better than ration bars.”
“You too, Sir. And… thank you.”
“No thanks required,” he says, as he walks away. “Doing your job well is sufficient, Cadet.”
“Of course, Sir,” she calls back. Matching his fond amusement; lingering on the trust she feels from him, beneath it.
Caleb looks between Tarima and the retreating Chancellor. “What happened there?”
She links her arm with his. “Later.” When he raises an eyebrow, she concedes, “I’ll tell you all about it at dinner.”
Frustration, tinged with an edge of worry. He makes a face at her. “Do you know which forks to use at a fancy diplomatic dinner?”
She raises her eyebrows back. “President’s daughter, Caleb. We were taught the correct uses of all the forks. Spoons, too. You’re a smart guy — I’m sure you’ll pick it up.”
“Are you making fun of me?” His fond suspicion is kind of adorable.
She stops midway through the atrium, just to smile at him. She squeezes his arm. “Never.”
For once, Caleb is hard to read. “You’re incredible, you know that?”
Tarima’s gaze drifts to the stars. “Seems like everyone thinks so, today.”
“Good,” he says softly.
As he puts his arm around her, Tarima's eyes linger on the stars she navigated yesterday. She doesn’t argue.