Panic attack

[T'aral 0]

T'Aral leaned against a bulkhead in a side room where the Captain had shoved her. Outside in the corridor it was chaos: the mechanical wasps were everywhere, making steady progress through the ship in a constant invasion. Soon they would be everywhere. She shook with the thought: an uncontrollable shaking that seemed to build despite every effort she made to stop it.

 

 

This wasn't T'Aral's first encounter with giant wasps. She had developed an abiding interest in the Japanese culture during her time in Starfleet. She had visited the country to examine the culture further, and while there she ran afoul of an Asian Hornet's nest. While managing to escape quickly she was stung three times. She was in a hospital for two weeks in an ICU ward recovering from anaphylactic shock, and was considered on the edge of death for the first five days. The experience left her shaken, with an abiding fear of insects despite her training in logic. These machines - these things - were twice as large than the insects which had stung her, and had brought out something deep inside T'Aral that she was not used to at all; terror.

 

 

She curled against a bulkhead, trying to control the shaking even as her will was giving in to it. It was all too much: a phobia on top of everything else. She always tried so hard to be what everyone needed her to be: a proper Vulcan, a CMO, a Starfleet officer, and anything else anyone needed. To be a help to others was her singular calling and she pursued it with a singular focus, but many times it was draining. As the Neural incident was coming to a close she was tired and really needed to rest, but instead they were under attack and she was struck down with an illogical reaction to an illogical situation. There was one mercy in this situation, however: she was completely alone. The situation may have rendered her emotionally crippled, but at least she wasn't humiliated - there was no one there to see her shame.

 

 

Closing her eyes she closed her mind on the situation around her, just for a moment. In that moment she focused on all her training, allowing the clear need for logical thought to fill her mind. The philosophy of Sevek came to her, calling her into focus: The time that it is most difficult to follow the path of logic is the time logic is needed the most. The ancient teachings had never failed T'Aral before, and they did not fail her now. They called her mind to focus with the same gentle persistence that she had become accustomed to from them. Of course they were correct: the situation needed her to be clear of mind and focused in action. There was not time for her to react the way she was: her crewmates needed her.

 

 

Examining the room, she determined it to be a utility storeroom. There were a variety of tools and implements about: no phasers, but several stiff items. She selected an oversized spanner designed for bulkhead fasteners; one with a haft a meter long for leverage. With that she returned to the hallway. Seeing that many of her crewmates were injured but not yet dead, she began to deal with the surrounding invader machines. Her Suus Mahna training and mastery of the Navorkot served her well in avoiding the machine's attacks as well as keeping herself aware of what was behind her. The spanner's service in disabling the machines was immediate and highly effective, as the needed lightness of these machines prevented them from being sturdy enough to tolerate a blow from a fifteen-pound spanner. T'Aral's attacks were smooth and continuous, and soon the immediate corridor was free of machines.

 

There were others throughout the ship, but she could not address that matter. She could only manage the situation in her immediate vicinity, and within her immediate vicinity the invaders were quickly dispatched, with any units simply damaged receiving follow-up blows to properly disable them. With the corridor secure, she fell into more familiar patterns as she opened her medical kit and began a proper triage for her fallen crewmates.

Edited July 4, 2011 by T'aral