Travel Sick [4/5]

Posted on Sat Sep 12th, 2026 @ 6:41am by Captain Jaro & Lieutenant Elara PsyD

803 words; about a 4 minute read

Mission: Episode 1: The Fissure
Location: Bridge - Deck 1 - USS Amazônia
Timeline: 1 hour before arrival in the Orellia system

Jaro listened intently, his chin resting slightly in his hand as he weighed the depth of Elara’s empathy. The ruffled lace of his jabot shifted slightly with his breath. Her desire to bestow the lad with purpose was noble—and, from a therapeutic standpoint, entirely sound. But the reality of commanding a starship was far less forgiving. After all the uncaring physics of deep space did not concern themselves with such notions.

"Purpose and reason," Jaro repeated softly. He leaned back in his chair, a look of contemplation crossing his features. "An excellent strategy, Counselor. But a Starfleet vessel is an incredibly dense, deeply integrated organism. It is quite sparse in terms of positions that can offer a true sense of purpose without also requiring access to vital ship systems in return. This is especially true where Operations is concerned. Ops is not merely administrative; it is the lifeblood of the Amazônia. An Operations officer on duty, even on a 'light' shift, handles power distribution, environmental controls, and critical structural systems."

He looked directly at her, his highly expressive eyes reflecting the dim amber lights of the Ready Room.

"The core of the problem, Lieutenant, is a question of trust. How can I, as Captain, entrust the physical wellbeing of this ship and every soul aboard her to an officer who, at this moment, does not even trust himself? If I hand him a console, and his confidence falters under the weight of his own fear, the outcome could be devastating. For him, and for all us."

Jaro paused, offering her a look of gentle, sincere apology for the bluntness of his words.

"But we need a way forward. So, I must commit a classic social offense and answer your question with two of my own. According to your clinical assessment, what are the realistic chances of another acute episode? Have you been able to determine what actually triggered this psychological fracture to begin with? If we can find the root cause, rule out a sudden, violent recurrence, and speak strictly in terms of a structured recovery... then some possibilities for light, isolated duties certainly spring to mind. But until we know what flipped that switch in his mind, we are literally in the dark."

Elara felt slight agitation at the Captain's initial words. She wouldn't have made the recommendation had she not thought it safe. While the Captain had the weight of the ship and it's crew on his shoulders and the safety of everyone; did he genuinely not trust that when it came to the mental capacity of people, her words might have weight?

When it came to running a ship; people were placed to act as mechanisms to help a ship run. Each person had a duty, and the counsellor's was to evaluate when people were ok and when they were not; and when they were not, to what level this might be.

"If I can be frank Sir...I've spent days sitting with Frances since this all happened, speaking with medical and science around the whys. I've taken hours away from normal shift duty because of the impossibility of this situation. The ideal solution is we return him to Earth; place him under Starfleet Medical for proper investigation into what happened and the man's fragile state. But that is not an option. So the options lie at, place the man into quarantine in his quarters, throw him in the brig because of his actions or relieve him of duty and allow him to wander the ship with no duty or reason for being here. Place him onto Vanguard so he's away from harming anybody?"

Elara stopped and closed her eyes as she realised that passion was overtaking reason. The Captain was right to ask his questions, her tiredness and own headspace was taking from that. She had seen his look of apology; she just wasn't sure why she needed to speak her words before accepting it.

Giving herself those moments, Elara took a slow breath before reopening her eyes and looking Jaro directly in his. "I can't give you an answer as to why it happened. Medical has been unable to identify a phsycial reason for why this may have happened. I've been engaging with Dr. Verti in order to see if there's an outside influence. There's some suspecions of the transwarp causing this influence. There have been recorded cases down through the years of some crews being effected but the why has not been known. Align this to subtle shifts in mentality that I noticed in someother crew members during the transwarp journey; and it is plausible. There is nothing in his psychological profile that would be a precuser to doing something like this."

[TBC]

Captain Jaro
Captain
USS Amazonia

Lieutenant Elara
Chief Counsellor
USS Amazonia

 

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