Take Me to Church

Posted on Thu Sep 28th, 2017 @ 6:17am by Fleet Admiral Donatella Figueroa
Edited on on Thu Sep 28th, 2017 @ 11:32am

Mission: S01E01 - At the Brink of Night
Location: USS Musashi | Chapel

It was only moments ago that Captain Donatella Figueroa felt as though she were on top of the world. She had bested the Klingons and had run them out of the Zaran star system. When she returned to the USS Musashi, Fig felt absolutely victorious. It was a good feeling, a really damn good feeling. To know that her crew and her albeit with the presence of the USS Enterprise and USS Constitution had managed to exorcise the Zaran star system of its Klingon daemons which had been plaguing them for the past several weeks. The looming shadow of the Klingon Empire no longer crept over the planet of Zaran II nor the other planets in the sector. Those Klingon daemons were cast out by the light of the Federation and driven back into the dark Hells from whence they came. It was not a good day to die; It was a good day to live!

However, the feeling of great success and victory crumbled quickly once Captain Figueroa got settled back on the Bridge of her Ares class starship. Though there was cause for celebration, no celebration could break the dead silence that had befallen upon the Musashi's bridge crew. The curtain had fallen on the backdrop of Zaran II though the Executive Officer and his landing party had still yet to return. This mission was a success, but Fig found herself catapulted from her high horse, bucked and thrown by the harsh reality of life. All actions had consequences, but war had prices. The price that Fig paid for the war with the Klingons, a war that some argued was nothing more than: 'a few border skirmishes' or 'incidents' was insurmountable to any painful price she had ever had to pay before.

The Bridge had fallen deathly silent as though all noise immediately ceased to have existence. The only sound she really remembered was the medical tricorders and the starship Musashi's internal scanners searching fro the Klingon intruder to little avail until Doctor Hill and Nurse Stephens made their declarations of medical findings, their expert opinions and analysis of their readings. Damn that war. Damn those Klingon savages. Damn Ke'gak! the Captain had thought privately. Anger, pain, bleakness all read upon her face in a whirlwind of expression. She had been soon ghostly pale and suddenly sick to her stomach, the very fiber and essence of her being ripped from her, beyond bent, and broken several dozen times over all in a heartbeat...two heart beats within one being, one vessel carrying an intruder.

“Parasite” she whispered to herself. “Parasite, parasite, parasite” she repeated the word as she staggered off the turbolift and down through the corridors a ghostly pale perversion of herself. She caught sight of her reflection on a glossy black surface, hardly recognizing the woman she was and only seeing the urchin she felt she was. Parasite. That was what was within her: There's a Klingon parasite in me she thought. She was unable to bring herself to think about it let alone say the words 'child' or 'baby' instead of branding the unborn fetus growing inside her as a parasitic being that she had not known was within her and now wanted ripped out of her sooner rather than later and sooner could not nearly come soon enough.

She had said nothing. NOTHING at all could be said, uttered, whispered, or even silently given. The Captain stormed off the Bridge before anyone really could say anything. She did not officially place Shras in command of the USS Musashi until the landing party returned, but it was an unspoken order that she felt Shras would understand. Fig needed to be alone with herself as dangerous as that may be. The Captain left the Bridge at maximum personal warp and showed no signs of slowing down and most definitely no signs of stopping. She was on auto pilot. Her auto pilot mode engaged evasive maneuvers causing her to stay well and clean of her private quarters. Instinctively, she knew that in all likelihood someone would come looking for her and her quarters were probably the first place they would look. The second was probably Sickbay which was on her mind. She could not care less if Zeke protested, Fig had it playing out in her mind. Just the right concoction into a hypospray and pressed against the epidermis of her abdominal region would release something lethal into her womb and rid herself of the parasitic daemon within. However, something in her 'auto pilot' mode, perhaps her better conscious had forced enough room between her and the medical bay.

The Captain did not even realize where she was until the scent of incense struck her, tickling her nostrils and causing her already puffy eyes to water some more as her mascara ran down her face making her look like a deranged mime. She was lying back down, face up on one of the pews in the starship's chapel. If there was one place nobody was easily going to think of finding her, it was most certainly the USS Musashi's chapel. She knew that it was only going to be a matter of time until she was discovered though, but who? Shras coming after her to check on her after she unspokenly left him in command? Dr Hill to give her some gosh forsaken mightier than though medical ethics lecture, the young Nurse Stephens whom Fig had taken into her young flock, or had Commander Samuels returned from the surface of Zaran II having been quickly made aware of the Captain's physical and psychological condition. Perhaps he, as Musashi's Chaplain had tracked her down to provide his gentle pastoral care? The doors to the starship's chapel parted ways and Fig took a deep breath, holding it and praying whoever had walked in would not discover her and soon leave. Please just go away and let me lie here and die she thought.