Lost and Alone

[Jylliene 0]

(Events take place before "A Fine Mess Part III")

 

Jylliene sat at Ops, poring over Aegis’s schematics. She had glanced over them when she was given her assignment, of course – but in the intervening period, she had spent more time by far on the Aegean. Were it the Aegean being boarded, she’d just about be able to run its corridors with the rest of her crew, just as certain of the layout.

 

But Aegis? She was at a distinct disadvantage, and only hoped that whatever duty she was given, she could handle it without as much knowledge of its passageways, access and maintenance hatches, and the like as the others had. She doubted the invaders would pause to let her access a deck layout.

 

So she crammed.

 

This was definitely more effort than she had put into study for her exams. Not that she didn’t study. She did (and admittedly, a few of those were indeed last-moment cram sessions). And just as in this current situation, she felt as if those outside could have easily forgotten the situation she herself was in. It seemed that most she encountered at the academy had assumed that she was a joined Trill. Well, one knows what they say about those who ASSUME. Still, it seemed that she was first assumed by her classmates to have the additional knowledge that would come from the additional lifetimes of the symbiont.

 

Well, assuming that it would have been a symbiont with lifetimes already experienced. There’s that assume thing again. Who knows but that she’d have been in the interesting predicament of a symbiont not previously joined – at least all she had to do was remind people with the word “Unjoined”. Sometimes, it felt she was saying “Unclean”, given their immediate recoil. Okay, so it wasn’t a recoil of horror. Just of a bit of surprise, perhaps. Not that she minded. She had indeed chosen not to be joined. But in times like these, admittedly, a little bit more experience might be nice.

 

It left Jylliene feeling that she was very much alone.

 

She went back to the top of the schematics, and began reading downward once more.