Star Trek PBEM Sim / Star Trek RPG
OUR STAR TREK PBEM STORIES: REMEMBRANCES PAST
Title: Remembrances Past, Part One
Location: Pandora's Box, CO's Stateroom
Flashback Setting (Emma: Starbase 45,CDR Dulles' Temporary Quarters
LT Peel remembered the last time she was with her friend helping him to try and
recover his memory and identity a few months ago. Unknown to her then was that
he had either more than one wipe in succession or someone, more likely, had
deliberately not done it right it to kill him after he was deployed. This was
the conclusion that both she and Commander Vilotanzia Bounlutay came to when
they almost lost him recently. She stopped herself from thinking about it,
finding it too upsetting, especially in his current condition. She hoped
fervently that some good sleep at the right time and the lack of the
interventionary drugs from Dr. S'Traht along with her experience in mindsitting
him a few times would help turn the tide and get him back right.
Emma thought about how there were a lot of similarities and differences between
the Captain Nikolai Vetri Kamranov identity and his previous one of Commander
Alan Dulles. Kamranov was more serious, more by the book and she couldn't recall
hearing him ever swear. Alan on the other had was easier to be around, reveled
in bending the rules and could swear the paint off a Klingon ship. Emma was glad
that she and he managed several times through things like this to resume and fit
back into the relationship they had of friends and protege to mentor regardless
of his identity.
She drifted off to his quarters while he was TAD to Starbase 45...
"Wake up. Wake up. That's it. Your name is Alan Dulles. Your rank is Commander.
You are Starfleet, Intelligence officer. You . . ." LTjg Teresa Emelia di
Vicenzo Peel leaned over and started the speech barely awake herself. She had
fallen asleep again waiting for him come out of it these last three days.
The Commander Dulles groaned. "What hit me now?" he asked barely conscious,
interrupting her.
"Long story. Wake up," Emma said firmly in the manner of an order.
Alan opened eyes. " ... It's you!" he exclaimed, still groggy, but enough
conscious to be in a lot of pain and start to recognize a few things including
the younger woman.
"I felt the same when I got assigned to baby sit you waking up," Emma said. Can
you get on your feet?" she asked.
"Dunno...feet..." he said not able to feel them well. He experimentally tried to
wiggle one and succeeded on the fourth attempt. "Yes, I have one, maybe two," he
said trying to feel his limbs. He could tell they were there, but the didn't
seem to be connected somehow to respond to what he was telling them to do.
"All right, I'll help you up. You have to get walking soon," she said ignoring
his attempts at humor. She threw his arm over her shoulder and pushed him up as
she stood.
"What happened?" Alan asked through gritted teeth starting shakily to test his
legs. It didn't work and he fell as his legs wouldn't listen to his brain and
stay straight to support his weight.
Emma blunted the fall and caught him. "Another wipe," she muttered, not enjoying
supporting his nearly dead weight on her strong, yet small frame honed with
nearly two decades of martial arts and other training. She was most skilled at
Capoeira, Vale Tu Do and Muay Thai since she had learned them while she was
young. She later added Silat, Muay Chaiya, Sanda Mok'bara and others.
"O %#@," he cursed. "What for?" he asked trying more successfully to get his
feet pointed the right way.
"I don't know. I am not supposed to know either or tell if I did. You should
eventually recall that's standard protocol while the wipe is still fresh for no
one to tell you anything like that about it. Don't want it to come undone now
and go back to square one - that gets people dead pretty fast. Let's get you
walking again. You were out a long time. This one doesn't seem to be going very
well," she replied. ~Must have had been some strong memories he liked mixed in
there they couldn't separate out or a job he liked,~ Emma thought.
"Uh, @&&*##. It's spinning," he said describing the sensation of the room
spinning nauseatingly around him.
"We have to walk in circles. Your place isn't very big this time. Couldn't you
have gotten a second room or something? It's even more Spartan than you normally
like things," she muttered. Unknown to Emma he had deliberately chosen this
location because they were for a time expandable to include more room for his
special and most secret guest before he left for his final deployment. Five
years was an eternity to some to be separated from their loved ones. It was
enough to make Alan risk having her close but never seen together with her by
anyone else who wasn't in on the secret through series of elaborate proceedures
and deceptions and use of several quarters.
Alan groaned. ~What is she babbling about?~ he thought. "Don't know. ... Where
am I now? How much gone?" he asked.
"Starbase 45. I didn't take anything yet, I swear," she said feigning
indignation while baiting him to keep him talking and test his memory of things
before the wipe.
"No, no. I mean how much memory gone?" Alan asked.
Emma felt a little better that he remembered her fondness to "borrowing" his
things and that he rolled with the punches and banter. "It's fairly specific and
over the last few years is all I can say. So it's going to feel odd when you
recall things, part will be there and left hanging..." she tried to explain.
~That is if it worked and it doesn't kill you or leave you permanently unable to
care for yourself,~ she thought.
"@%##! How many wipes now?" he said with his walking slightly improving.
"Don't know, four or five I think," the young woman replied.
"Why am I on Starbase four or five?" Alan asked confused. He didn't remember a
Starbase.
"Starbase 45," Emma corrected. She didn't like that his short term memory wasn't
good yet but she didn't worry about it too much yet. There was still plenty of
time by normal standards for that to right itself out. "The reason should come
back in a day or so. You are TAD here and waiting to meet your new ship," she
answered, not wanting to correct it yet as it was clear to him that it bothered
him greatly to not track all of the conversation.
"TAD? Ship?" he asked confused as his legs buckled again. This time he was able
to catch himself on Emma's strong shoulder.
"TAD a few months," Emma groaned helping support and steer him. She took it as a
good sign he caught himself and was trying very hard to stay positive and focus
on all the plusses. "Don't know why. Ship - yes, you managed to pull off a
cushy, safe last tour for retirement. Should have been a snooze fest, but stuff
just happened... so I'll be joining you for a while, which is great for me since
I love baby-sitting so much," she said sarcastically, but it was tinged with
affection.
"You joining whatever it is I will be doing?" he got as close to conversation of
things he could not yet recall as he could in his condition.
"Yuppers. Lucky me," she muttered back.
"O @@@... going to be sick," he said haltingly.
"That's what I said when Admiral Komarev told me that I'd be working with you
again," she quipped back.
"Not just that.. oooof," he groaned.
"Hey! Turn your head!! Not my boots!" she yelled.
Alan couldn't move. He could just heave and that is exactly what he did.
"They weren't replicated!!!" she lamented. "I hate you," she muttered waiting
for him to stop and his breathing to become regular again and held him tighter.
Only someone who knew her well could tell that she meant something entirely
different.
"I hate you too," he gasped, not making an effort to hide having it sound like a
thank you.
"Welcome. Time to sit down. I need to hypo you again.." she said navigating him
towards a chair. ~You are scaring me. I don't want to lose you,~ she thought.
"O @%##," Alan said, starting to fall over again.