Jayme crouched with her combat helmet on. The power in the hangar bay cut off. She had two ten man teams playing a version of the Earth children's game--hide-and-seek/ special forces version of laser tag. This had been going on for almost two standard hours, and both teams were down men. She could hear them working to breath because she had personally tweaked the gravity shielding in the bay, increasing the resistance another 0.4 gee's.
She'd decided to give them another ten minutes before calling the game, and moving them to the classroom where she could nit pick what they'd done. Then general comm announced, [Everyone move to your barracks now. Repeat, return to your barracks now.]
Jayme stood and moved across to the control panel and flipped the lights back on; and returned the gravity back to nominal, and followed the last of the company up to barracks where everyone stood around.
One member of the teams she'd been working with saw her enter and barked, "Officer on Deck." Jayme stood in her fatigue pants and a sweat soaked T-shirt and frowned. "Hey, don't look at me?"
A moment later, Commandant Mer'an and an old G'kar wearing ambassador regalia entered the barracks as Jayme was tucking in a clean dry T-shirt. She immediately fell in line at the end of the row; at attention, as her crews had already done on seeing Mer'an enter. Oh Lord, what now? Jayme thought with eyes front as the two men were followed by Issira. They slowly walked their way down the row giving everyone a good look over. They got to the end and the ambassador smiled and looked Jayme over and shook his head.
The ambassador looked to Mer'an and asked, "What is wrong with the human? She's all wet and shiny!"
Mer'an snickered and looked at Jayme with a shake of his head and in G'kar said, "Why don't you ask Captain Alcon?"
So the old G'kar looked at the human and asked, "Why are you all wet looking?"
Jayme tilted her head and knew that her command was waiting to hear her answer. So she answered very slowly but deliberately, "This company was on maneuvers when we were recalled, and we came directly here, sir."
"Good," he replied. They moved on and checked several lockers to see they were in order and that weapons were maintained. "Captain, you are to join us on the rest of the inspection tour."
She nodded, sealed up her space, and followed them to the next unit. In sickbay, they found two old female G'kar interrogating the staff in there, and having a battle of wits with Dr. Zimmerman, the EMH. Finally, one of the old women moved off and examined one of the patients who was unlucky enough to be kept there over night, checked his chart and after interviewing him sniffed. She returned to the group, where she gave the medical facilities high ratings.
They found a couple of inspectors going over the mess hall berating the staff. Jayme frowned and looked at Issira, since she couldn't follow the fast pace of the language. Issira frowned and shrugged her shoulder and they moved on .
The next areas of inspection were engineering, docking bay, and botany bay; all received high ratings. CIC, the last area inspected, was antiquated, understaffed, staffed by under trained technicians.
In the conference room for the next couple of hours the twelve inspectors gave a detailed report and listed items that must be corrected by their next inspection. It was interesting to learn that both ships, the Dark Fury and the Orion Star, had passed, and before their next visit they hoped to see a third vessel serving the station. They also said they wanted increased external defenses besides the shield system and the three phaser cannons now mounted. With that they turned and walked out.
Jayme's mind wandered and she remembered the last barracks inspection she'd been through. This had been the first one she'd been through since becoming and officer. Wow. Mer'an and Issira had obviously been this route before, and it wasn't twenty minutes later when the cooks delivered a full meal and wine. Then the work began to try and find answers.
After two hours they all looked to Jayme. "Look," she paused, and then continued, "this is the first time and first place where I've ever stood watch. I don't have any answers for the CIC issues, except to push their training and drill them harder. We can scavenge parts off ships we scrap to improve the stations and build more external defense units." She shrugged and rested her elbows on the table hands clasped.
Several hours later the group split up. Jayme was jazzed and felt weird, but decided there was no time like the present to go for a run. She returned to her quarters, pulled on shorts and a sleeveless T-shirt, and headed out. It wasn't long before the pounding of her heart matched the pounding of the drums in her head, from a powwow. As she continued to run, the beats became stronger. She looked over her shoulders and when she reached the end/starting point of the loop, she paused and stretched.
A chill passed over her and she felt as though she was being watched...and still the drum beats cursed through her. She leaned with her back against the wall and sank to rest her head on her knees and her arms wrapped around them... when she looked up she saw the medicine man of her tribe standing over her chanting and smudging her--she could smell the rosebud, ceder and sweetgrass. She rested her head back down eyes squeeze closed and waited. Finally, the drum beats receded and she walked the rest of the way to her cubicle.
She showered and grabbed an electrolyte replacement bottle instead of a meal, then climbed up into her cubicle. There she drank about half of the bottle and placed it to the side. She picked up one of the books Kassia had sent along and got about two pages into it but found she just couldn't focus. She put it aside and finally just turned out the lights.
With the first scream several G'kar in nearby cubes woke and started out of theirs to find out what the problem was when they heard the thrashing and another scream. It was came from the Captain's cube and they shook their heads and opened the door to find her twisted in her light sheet and thrashing uncontrollably. They turned on the light, reached in, and tried to wake her only to see her agitation increase. Worried, they pulled her out and got her on the floor, pinning her face-down with one person protecting her head.
She woke, pinned to the ground, with troopers yelling at her. All that was going through her mind was that night before she left Europa station for OCS.
She sat on the floor in the barracks surrounded by almost half of the company. She stood shaking, fighting to get her breathing under control, and covered with a cold sweat. She looked into their faces and yelled, "What are you looking at?! Anyone still up in sixty seconds will be given extra duties!" She thought about climbing back up and sleeping, but instead grabbed a towel, her study materials, and the bottle of electrolytes. After a shower she headed for Sickbay to study, but halfway there decided the classroom would have fewer distraction and no EMH to fuss around her.
It wasn't an hour later when Issira, arrive carrying a pot of Klah and two mugs. "I was told there was trouble this morning in the barracks," she said as she poured and placed a mug at Jayme's elbow. Issira sat with her, wearing leather pants and one of the replicated T-shirts like the troops wore.
Jayme took a sip of the hot rich brown concoction and pushed the PADD away unable to focus even before the interruption. "I haven't had a nightmare that bad since my third year in the Marines after being assaulted, and then after a concussion while breaking up a fight between two engineers on the Phoenix." She paused and reflected, and said, "This one, I've attributed to the dust I came into contact with. That's all."
Issira sat watching the young woman, she herself knew about the dust from Rae--CMO of the Dark Fury. She doubted sickbay had any idea what was going on with the young marine captain. Her duty as XO warred with her friendship with this one.
Two hours later Jayme entered the classroom. "First off, I am sorry about the events of this morning. Thank you for your assistance." Then she picked up her PADD that had her notes on it from the exercises from the previous three days...