Hubris
Posted on Tue Mar 25th, 2025 @ 1:50am by Lieutenant Mira Jayna
Edited on on Tue Mar 25th, 2025 @ 9:57pm
719 words; about a 4 minute read
Mission:
Episode 16 - Silent Cries
Location: Holodeck 1 - Deck 5 - USS Pioneer
Timeline: MD007 1000 hrs
Jayna sat at the top of the cliff, staring out over the purple sky to the turquoise waves beating against the rocks below. A pale green moon hung low on the horizon. The only sounds that penetrated her thoughts were the cry of gulls and the crashing of waves. Even with that, the silence seemed palpable.
She wasn't sure what world this was, and she really didn't care. She needed a place to think that wasn't her quarters. So, she asked the computer for a site suitable for cliff diving, then removed all other humanoids so she wouldn't be disturbed. She wasn't sure if she wanted to dive off or just watch the ocean. But she did know she wanted to be alone. She needed to think.
Her behavior with Neil bothered her. Yes, she was a private person, for the most part, but not as much as she had been when she first joined the Pioneer. She had real friends here. And she had Neil. She loved him and she trusted him. She wanted to spend her life with him. And, eventually, she wanted kids—even though she found the idea terrifying. Mostly because she wasn't sure how to deal with children. She wasn't sure she'd ever been a child. That wasn't possible during the occupation. But she had moved beyond that. She thought she'd moved beyond her fear of being abandoned. So, why had she waffled when Neil asked her what she wanted.
That was why she found herself here, watching the waves, listening to gulls as they searched for food, and letting her mind wander.
Now that she had given her mind permission to remember, Jayna realized she hadn't been sleeping well lately. It had been a while since she'd woken without an uneasy feeling of apprehension—occasionally dread. But there was never anything specific. There was nothing wrong with the Pioneer. She'd walked the ship's corridors every day, and nothing seemed out of place. She did have a vague memory of doing a mind meld with Neil, but she didn't know when—or why.
Could it be The Silence? Was she experiencing the same sort of nightmares others were having? And why hasn't she recognized this before now?
It was one explanation for the mind meld. And her inability to make a clear statement of her feelings. She honestly hadn't considered the possibility that she was having nightmares. Hubris. She'd been so focused on finding more information that she hadn't even realized that she was experiencing symptoms of sleep deprivation and fear. And that fear led her to think that she couldn't tell Neil how she really felt because it might push him away. Or that expressing her fear might cause him to question if he really wanted to spend his life with her.
It was that fear that roiled just below her consciousness, that made her want to hide out in Neil's quarters because that was the only place she felt truly safe. She sighed and lay back on the ground. What a mess she'd created. Unintentional. Unbidden. Unwanted. But a mess nonetheless.
She needed to spend more time in Mik's gym, or on the climbing wall and the ropes course. She needed physical exertion. And she needed to do as Neil suggested: wait until they took care of The Silence. Then, hopefully, she'd get some rest. Then they'd talk. Or go somewhere for shore leave. Either way, they would find time to talk then, when they were both thinking clearly--or at least she was.
Until then…well, she'd do what she often did: play it by ear.
She stared at the lowering moon for a while, listening to the gulls squawk at each other, sharing the best places to fish that day, letting her mind slip into a meditative state. Slowly she felt the tension slowly melt away like hoarfrost with the morning sun.
Finally, she stood and stretched. She'd been neglecting her meditation, too. She needed to make time for that as well. Jayna took one more look around, then dove into the sea for a swim before heading back to work.
A Post By
Lieutenant Mira Jayna
Intelligence Officer, The Cure
USS Pioneer
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