<USS Avalon> Re: Survivors: Day Two - Another Complication

     
((This log takes place just prior to "Day Two: Preparing for  Nightfall"))


Ensign Fidelma Kyla was not having the best of days.  Or weeks, for that 
matter. 
 
First their ship had started melting---melting---all around  them. Then some 
lieutenant whose face was a blur in the corridor shoved  her into an escape 
pod that barely launched from it's housing, only to  crash land on the surface 
of some nameless planet...
 
...where she found out that she had a spinal injury as a result of  
the...ahem...rough landing. And said spinal injury had paralyzed her from  the 
waist 
down, so she couldn't walk. Couldn't relieve herself without  help. At first 
the 
guy in charge, a lieutenant commander whose name she  couldn't quite recall, 
had not wanted her moved at all, for fear of  worsening the damage. But when a 
girl had to go...well, a girl had to go.  

And now he was talking about moving everyone. Which, considering that  they 
had lost four of twenty-five people in less than forty-eight hours,  probably 
wasn't such a bad idea. Who knew if those bug creatures wouldn't  try to brave 
the light for another meal? Who knew what else was out there?  Problem was, 
for her anyway, that there were so few able-bodied men or  women with the 
strength to carry anyone---and she would definitely  have to be carried. When 
the 
time finally came to move the injured to the  cave that had been found, Fi was 
surprised to be approached by the LC  himself. 
 
"How're you holding up?" he asked when he squatted next to her,  his voice 
surprisingly gentle. 
 
Fi tried hard to ignore the sudden flare of attraction she  felt---it was the 
first time she'd gotten a close look at the guy---and  wondered how she could 
have served on the same ship with him for almost a  year and not even known 
his name, let alone what he looked like. (He  had the prettiest hazel eyes.) 
She tried not to think of how dirty and  grimy she was---they were all dirty 
and 
grimy. She decided to blame it on  her Deltan physiology and a touch of 
post-traumatic stress, as nobody in  her right mind would be thinking of how 
attractive someone was in a  situation like this. 
 
"Bout as well as can be expected, sir," she said, wishing she knew  his name, 
at least. It felt strange to always be calling him "sir," even  though it was 
protocol. 
 
Mac noted the slightly quizzical expression on the ensign's face  and 
realized she had no clue who he was. The oddity of that, and realizing  he had 
no 
idea who she was either, brought a chuckle out of his tired  body. "Okay, wrong 
time, I know, but you're new." He cringed a little  realizing how bad that 
sounded, before continuing. "Name's Mac...and you  are....?" 
 
Having been raised properly, she held out a hand for him to  shake. "Ensign 
Fidelma Kyla," she said, cringing only slightly at her full  name. "My friends 
call me Fi, or they just call me Kyla. Mostly Kyla...  I'm not too fond of my 
first name---Delta and Betazed only know what my  parents were thinking."
 
Mac held her hand gently for the briefest of moments and smiled.  
"Specializing in what, Fi?" 
 
She raised an eyebrow, noticing he had not called her by the name she  had 
indicated she preferred. "Exo-botany. I'm a plant girl." 
 
Mac glanced around. He didn't see much in the way of plant life here,  though 
there was more near the cave. She couldn't go exploring in her  condition, 
but perhaps the plants could be brought to her and she could  tell them if they 
were edible or not. 
 
He turned back to her. "Well, Fi the Plant Girl, we're getting  ready to move 
everyone to the cave. If it's all good with you, I'm gonna  be the ass you 
ride in on." He gave her a wink. Realizing how terrified  she had to be, he 
tried to reassure her. "Seriously, I'm gonna be the  one to carry you, if 
you're 
comfortable with that." 
 
Fi studied him intently. A person with a spinal injury should  only be 
carried on a stretcher of some kind...and they didn't have one.  Certainly one 
might 
have been made of the pieces of the escape pods had  they the tools to tear 
the damn things apart, but they'd barely managed to  get splints out of them 
for the ones with broken legs and arms. There was  no choice but for someone to 
carry her, despite the risk of aggravating  and possibly worsening her spinal 
injury. 
 
He saw the concern on her face, and Mac hoped he put her a little at  ease by 
smiling again. "I promise, I'll be as careful as I can." 
 
She could see in his eyes that he meant it, and so Fi nodded.  Mac reached 
over and slid one arm under her knees, wrapping the other  around her torso. 
Her 
left arm went across his shoulders and she grabbed  hold of the hand with her 
right, locking them together around his neck. As  slowly as he could, so as 
not to jostle her, Mac rose into a  standing position, turning his head and 
grinning at her. 
 
"See? Got that part right." 
 
"Yeah, and only three miles to go. Are you gonna be able to carry me  that 
far, sir? Er...Mac?" Fi asked. 
 
Mac sobered and looked into her blue eyes, his hazel ones holding her  gaze. 
"I'll be fine, don't you worry about me. You just let me know if  you're 
feeling uncomfortable, or if you start to feel any pain. Got it?"  

She nodded solemnly at his apparent determination to get her to the  cave 
safely. To get them all there safely. 
 
At that moment he called out to Rae and Tran and Linc and gave the  order to 
move out. The pace was slow with all of the injured, but it was  steady. Fi 
could tell Mac was doing his best to hold her  still, for she was grasped 
firmly 
and held tightly to his chest. The  rhythmic sway of his stride and the 
beating of his heart, which she could  feel faintly, began to lull her to 
sleep, or 
something akin to an  almost-sleep state. She was still pretty much aware of 
what was going on  around her, but part of her mind had been lulled into a 
hazy sort of  attention to things that, yet again, no sensible person would 
notice in  their situation. 
 
Like how, despite the dirt and grime covering his uniform, despite  the filth 
and stale sweat coating his face, neck and hands, he  smelled so good. He 
smelled like a man, full of adrenaline and  virility and---
 
Holy Delta! Alarm coursed through her as realization dawned,  and Fi was 
suddenly very awake. Her pheromone suppressants were  wearing off, which was 
really, really, really not good.  

Deltans who chose to work or live off their homeworld underwent  pheromone 
suppression therapy, because their pheromones were so  strong that they could 
affect other species without the Deltan individual  purposely doing anything. 
This was often to the detriment of the other  person, because not only did 
Deltan pheromones attract a person  physically, they created a psionic bond 
between 
the Deltan and any  individual they paired with. This was called pair 
bonding, and was meant  to last for life. Any person not capable of handling 
the 
psionic bond or  simply not wishing to obey it suffered physically---some were 
known to  have died. As a result, Deltans more often than not refused to mate 
with  other species, as there truly weren't many who were capable of  
withstanding the bond's intensity. It was the reason those who worked  and 
lived away 
from the Delta system submitted to the therapy and took  personal vows of 
celibacy. 
 
Being half Betazoid, her parents had not been sure that Fi would  have need 
to undergo the therapy, but a trip to Betazed to visit her  grandparents when 
she was but twelve showed them all that it would have to  be done if she really 
wanted to follow her dream and go into Starfleet  when she was of age. 
 
The survivors had been on the planet for two days now, and though she  hadn't 
thought of it before, she was being slammed with the power of her  own 
physiology. For it not only worked on others, and had the power to  affect her 
as 
well. Fi stifled a groan. She didn't need this  complication on top of 
everything else. None of them did. She didn't need  to be feeling any sort of 
attraction to her commanding officer, nor did  any of the group need to be 
feeling an 
inexplicable attraction to her or  to each other---they didn't need to be 
exposed to the raging ball of  hormones that she would very soon become through 
absolutely no fault of  her own. Without the suppressing medicines, her 
pheromones were going to  start wreaking havoc on the entire group, and there 
was 
nothing she could  do about it.
 
Fi resisted the urge to bury her face into Mac's  shoulder---doing so would 
mean breathing in the smell that was even now  beginning to stir her in ways 
she did not want, and so she  determinedly turned her face away from him. This 
was proving to be a  very bad week indeed, she thought, and it occurred to her 
that the  year 2383 had barely begun and already she was screwing it up. 
 
_____
 
Written by
Ensign Fidelma Kyla, Crash Survivor
and 
Lt. Comm.  Patrick McEntire, Crash Survivor

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