Who I Am

[Keb 0]

Who I Am

Keb’s Personal Log, 50903.29

 

Her reflection haunted her, even hours later on the small Romulan craft. She knew that the human-romulan resemblance was close enough that the changes in her appearance were actually fairly mild compared with much of the crew’s, but the adjustment was still difficult. Intellectually, Keb knew that it was all reversible, and that the pointy ears and eyebrows were only a few minutes in sick bay away from being back to normal. It should have felt like Halloween back home, or like a costume for a holodeck program. It didn’t.

 

The biggest problem, she decided, wasn’t that she looked different, but that she looked like everyone else. There was a strange sameness to the crew on the Romulan ship; instead of just matching uniforms, they had matching species markers. It felt eerie after years of living with a healthy Federation mix of peoples. Somehow it made her almost more aware of the differences between her crewmates, because she was focusing on what wasn’t there.

 

Beran, for example: she had giggled at first when she saw his new Romulan look, but now it didn’t seem quite as funny. It made him look more human, but somehow it took away the quirky things that made him more interesting to look at. If she hadn’t been with him when he finished his surgery, she wouldn’t even have recognized him. How strange not to recognize someone you love! The only thing in his appearance that was truly the same was his height. Even his eyes, with the new eyebrows, didn’t look quite like Beran’s eyes. If the eyes were the window to the soul—did he still have the same soul?

 

For that matter, did Keb? It was easy to dismiss the idea that one’s soul was in the tips of one’s ears or the shape of one’s brow, but it wasn’t Keb Mizu who had been looking back at her from the mirror before they left. I’m not going to lose myself, Keb commanded herself silently. I’m still me, inside. At the helm of a Romulan craft…

 

The Romulan ship, filled with Romulan-flavored Manticore crew, carefully and quietly made its way to the Romulan homeworld. The controls, which had at first been confusing, started to feel familiar as the hours passed. Romulan words were tested between the crew members, and Keb tried to remind herself that she was actually Centurion Vrena, born on the homeworld. She ran through the details of her cover’s life again in her head, while the ship was flying through fairly empty space. For a moment, here or there, the illusion was complete.

 

The trouble was that the whole time, that frightened voice inside was protesting. I don’t want to die as Vrena. I’m Keb! I was born on Earth! I’ve never even been to Romulus! As soon as they got back, she was going to be first in line to have her surgery reversed. Being someone else was a lot more fun when you could simply remove the mask and be yourself again, entirely, inside and out. It was also a lot more fun when you weren’t light years deep in enemy territory, of course.