Humiliation ((Kent))

[Samantha_Kent 0]

It was all over.

 

Sam sat in the science labs watching the last of the data come back from the Aether stars. The last of the repair work had been finished up, the inductor's processes had been reversed and the stars now hung at their normal rate of reaction, more or less. They wouldn't last long in the grand scheme of things; they had already been on their last legs and Sam-Kent's machinations in their innards had not helped to improve them. Aether had at best a millenia of existence remaining.

 

Sam sighed. She would have preferred a different outcome; she wished there was a way to restabilize the dying stars, but that had proved impossible. She wished there was a way to preserve the unique system of Aether and its people, but that would, in time, prove impossible as well. Arcadia had managed to do its good work only in the short term, not the long, and it pained her to realize that.

 

She was more pained, however, by what could only be described as her useless behavior in the Aether's Caress mainframe. Her idea to get some of the crew in there had worked -- in retrospect Sam was really astonished that it had gone as well as it had -- and they had returned safely with some of the necessary data for the abort of the Aether supernovas and no greater physical damage than a slight headachy disorientation which was quickly wearing off.

 

But upon obtaining that data, when Sam had finally come face to face with the doppelganger Archie had created...things had broken down. Sam had not realized until she reached that central core, and they spoke face to face, just how humiliated this whole experience had made her. She was furious -- furious at the artificial intelligence called Sam-Kent, furious at the Aether's Caress facility that had made her possible, and livid at Archie Phoenix for creating this mess in the first place.

 

She had a greater handle on that anger now and could look at it with some objectivity, but it still burned in her gut. Sam-Kent had gleefully told her -- in Malik's hearing, and in the presence of that Cardassian engineer -- that Archie was close enough to stalking her; Will Marx had announced Archie's infatuation to the entire bridge crew. It was unnerving, it was annoying, and it was humiliating -- Sam hated feeling played for a fool. Perhaps she'd been naive in her dealings with Archie, perhaps her personal life had more knots in it than even she seemed to realize, but to have it shoved in her face like that had been maddening. And to her greater embarrassment still, when she had found herself in the Aether's Caress mainframe and finally had something to lash out against, she had come right to the brink of giving in to Sam-Kent's taunts and blowing her program to bits with one phaser blast.

 

She had been ready to destroy, for lack of a better word, herself -- an unnerving enough thought on its own -- and to risk the lives of an entire city of civilians. At the time she had not known the progress the other teams had been making; as far as she had known, Sam-Kent held the only answers. And yet she had been more than ready to fire -- her finger had been on the trigger ready to squeeze.

 

She hadn't, of course. She had recollected herself, tried to negotiate, let the gun drop...but she had come very, very close. The idea horrified her. Could she really give in that easily to her own personal feelings in the midst of a city collapsing?

 

That will not happen again, she thought firmly, an order to herself. Her fingers brushed against the shiny new pip attached to her collar. Lieutenant, senior grade, now; the promotion had come as a surprise amid the chaotic aftermath of her return, and given how she had acted in the core, she had privately wondered if she deserved it, even as she had accepted the small bit of metal pinned next to her neck.

 

No, this would not happen again. No matter how humiliating the experience -- and this one still made her whole face glow with embarrassment when she thought about it -- no matter what the provocation...she could not be her own first concern.

 

There was a low clatter underneath one of the lab consoles and Skitter (as Daena had dubbed the small mechanized spider-robot which had followed Sam back from the Saint-Enoch during the New Atlantis mission) scuttled across the floor past her. Sam paused the data analysis scrolling by her screen and watched the science department's metallic pet as he performed his rounds of the small room. She and Daena had "puppy-proofed" the room soon after their return from the New Atlantis nebula and it had become Skitter's new home -- he had several of the younger science crewmen a little unnerved but most of the department had taken a liking to the strange machine.

 

Disconnected from the control apparatus which had directed his actions aboard the Saint-Enoch, Skitter was confined entirely to whatever programming he contained internally. Sam had not been able to determine exactly how that programming operated yet, but it seemed to be relatively sophistocated. It was not artificial intelligence -- certainly not sentient -- but it did appear to be adaptive, which had given the outward impression of "learning" as he had become used to his new surroundings. He could now locate the small power fixture where he could recharge and determine when it was active, could avoid obstacles and prevent himself from interfering with active consoles, and had started to learn a few simple commands passed through his aural and visual receptors.

 

He knew no verbal cues, but his adaptive programming had let her (and, to a lesser extent, Daena) "train" him to a few whistles similar to those she had exchanged with him on the Saint-Enoch. Three shrill soprano notes were now a "freeze" order at which he would stop in place instantly, three lower ones released him from the freeze, and a ululating whistle-yelp which it had taken some time to perfect now brought him skittering to her side no matter where in the lab he was currently exploring.

 

This she used now, and at the sound he immediately halted, pirouetted gracefully around on his numerous metallic legs, and clattered back across the floor next to her. She nudged him with her foot and he angled his laser eye around on her, then with a quick leap, latched himself to her pants leg, his preferred mode of transportation since he had used it to transport back to Arcadia with her. She slouched back in her seat and let herself spin lazily on the laboratory chair, feeling his weight and grip tighten and loosen on her leg according to the strength of the centrifugal force.

 

She wished Brian were there to talk to, but he had been recalled to Earth during the aftermath; she didn't know why, but she suspected something to do with the New Atlantis rigamarole. She hoped it was merely a debriefing but she didn't know for sure...he hadn't said much. And that was all very well and good, but it left her feeling suddenly very alone. She let her spinning drift to a stop and looked down at the spider-robot clinging to her leg. Skitter's laser eye performed a circular sweep at the halt in relative motion and then fixed on her face, looking back at her tired expression. Tightening his grip on her leg, he abruptly launched himself in three smooth motions to her lap, then her shoulder, then onto the top of her head with a mid-range melodic whistle, where he settled to once again survey the room.

 

Sam couldn't help laughing, even as she reached up to disentangle the robot's tight grip on her hair. "At least you're in a good mood."