Nightmares

It was now three days since the battle with the Borg and two days since Kirk had any sleep. He tried to sleep once and woke up shortly in a cold sweat after having dreamt about the events on the bridge. Other times, even in his waking times, he also ponders over the fact that he actually had to kill a person even if it was a Borg, but it was person at one time. So to keep himself from falling asleep, Ambrose decided to keep busy. As such he volunteered to repair the destroyed Ops station. As Ambrose was repairing the ops panel and replacing some of the metal surrounding the station, he felt someone kick his boot. Kirk was sitting with his head in the ops panel repairing a conduit. He pulled his head out and noticed a beautiful, 24 year old ensign wearing the gold uniform.

"Mister Ambrose that's my job." the petite ensign said.

"Yes maam. I was just repairing a few burnt out conduits," Kirk said standing up and throwing his tool into a tool box. The ensign didn't say any thing as Kirk grabbed his tunic and went to his conn station. Trying to keep busy, he ran a system check on navigational systems. After a few minutes he stomach began growl loudly, so loud in fact that the young ensign repairing ops, looked at him and laughed.

"Mr. Ambrose. You should go take care of that," She said with a smile.

"Yes maam."

Ambrose got up and walked to the turbo lift throwing an interested look at the beautiful ensign. She caught his stare and smiled. "Mr. Ambrose. I am Carol Michaels," she said. That caught Ambrose off guard and he hurried to the turbolift. As he got in, he hurriedly said "Deck four". He tried to catch one more look as the doors closed. Ambrose felt his cheeks blush.

The doors opened on to the crew deck and he walked to his quarters. Immediately as he entered his quarters he began to shed his uniform and headed for the sonic shower. Once finished he changed his uniform and headed for the mess hall where there were only 5 people in there. Ambrose walked over to the food replicator and ordered.

"Coffee, buttermilk pancakes."

His food materialized and he took it then headed for a table where he could sit by himself. As he ate, the memories of what happened on the bridge a few days ago and how everything happened continued to haunt him. He then started to imagine how he could have been a borg or even the captain. "Chief, mind if I sit and join you ?" A voice came out of the air startling him.

"Please take a seat," Kirk said.

"What has been on your mind lately, Mr. Ambrose ?"

Kirk frowned and scratched his Bajoran nose.

"Tell you the truth sir. I've not been able to get the past few days out of my mind. It was horrible seeing those people die. I even shot a Borg and his blood went all over me."

Lieutenant Harris sipped his coffee and set his cup down and then tried to make things right. "Listen Kirk, in battle there is one way to walk away and to know what has to be done. Killing is bad, but if the only people you had to kill was Borg in career your, then sobeit. Borg are not people, Kirk! They are machines bent on world conquest with no regard for others. I lost all most all of my family at Wolf 359 and possibly even my ex-wife so when a Borg dies it feels good! Just think of this way, if you wouldn't of killed that Borg then somebody would probably be informing your mother and sister with a sad letter."

"True," Ambrose said nodding his head in agreement.

Harris finished the last of his coffee and got up to leave. "Oh by the way I have put you in for a promotion. It is up to the Captain but I think that you will more than likely be promoted. He also has detailed you and me to take a shuttle to pull in some borg dead and ship debris for analyzing."

'Okay sir. Would you mind letting me go and get some sleep or at least try ?" Kirk asked finishing his meal.

"Fine. I will call you when we are ready to go."

"Thank you sir."

[Lieutenant Harris. Please meet me in main engineering in 10 minutes.]

Harris tapped his combadge, "Acknowledged. Kirk, just meet me in the main shuttle bay at 0930 hrs."

"Aye sir." *Better go get some sleep then!*