Stupid Moves

[Cmdr JFarrington 0]

Personal Log Stardate 5106050.7

Cmdr Jami Farrington, MD

USS Manticore NCC 5852

 

Stupid Moves

 

It is a strange thing, the human condition: a mixture of contradictions to puzzle and confound, and keep countless psychiatrists in business for millennia.  And yet, one could argue that the total illogic of it all, as frustrating as it is for more logical species to endure, is what makes life interesting for humans.  Jami Farrington was very much a human in that respect.

 

One would think an injury such as that which she sustained while virtually entombed in the dorsal module of the Manticore would make her cry for help, but it didn't.  Instead she shrank from all assistance, pressed her severely burned, blistered hand to the front of her uniform and sat resolutely on the deck, her knees against her chest and her back against the module wall.  A stupid move?  Perhaps.  If nothing else it was a strange reaction that matched the strange circumstances in which she found herself.

 

After Manticore's near-death experience at the hands of Captain Wolf and the USS Babylon, the command staff of Manticore had agreed to stuff the crew into the secure, unscanable dorsal module, the repository of all Manticore's Black Ops heavy armament and the one place where a scan of the ship would reveal no life signs.  Another stupid move?  Perhaps.  But this way the Manticore would theoretically appear an empty shell - Wolf's battle trophy - which he would tow back to Sector 001.  Wolf would then present Consul General Jaffe with said trophy, she would utter all manner of incriminating remarks (definitely a stupid move), Admiral Atragon would appear from behind his personal cloak and Jaffe's ruse to covertly disseminate technology to pre-warp non-Federation planets would be exposed.

 

And so Jami Farrington and the crew of the Manticore found themselves encased in that ship's dorsal module.  But how was she injured? 

 

It seems that when they cut life support to the ship it had some effect on the dorsal module, in which life support also began to fail. While engineering and security personnel scrambled to manually erect panels and seal them with phaser fire, command staff circulated, moving crew to secure positions and checking the integrity of the seals.  Limited lighting and more crowded conditions created a situation ripe for mistakes.  Cmdr Farrington reached down to check the integrity of a seal, stumbled over a reclining crewman, and fell head first into the panel, catching herself with her hand across the red-hot seal.  The resulting first degree burn shot searing pain up her arm and across her chest, doubling her over.

 

Upon reflection long after the fact, Jami reasoned that her instinct from many years in covert operations was to hold her silence.  Slowly, deliberately, she had slipped to the deck and braced herself against the bulwark. 

 

But when Dr. Major passed by Jami refused her aid.  Why?  Were there more severely injured crew who needed a physician's attention?  Did Jami feel that as a physician she could take care of herself?  Did she feel she deserved the pain; it was a stupid move that gave her the injury and she would have to deal with it?

 

Point after point would be dismissed by attending psychiatrists later on, until only one irrefutable cause for her silence remained.  In the midst of chaos, in the midst of distress, with her life and the lives of the crew at the mercy of Captain Wolf (whom many considered a madman), Jami Farrington clung to her pain because it was the one thing that assured her she was still alive.  She grit her teeth, cradled her hand, and told herself over and over I am alive; the crew is alive.  We_will_survive!

 

Admiral Gren DeJariov, Starfleet Surgeon General and a very close family friend would, by chance, find Jami Farrington in the medical facility at Starbase 1.  Having known her since her Academy days, Jami's physical and emotional state would astound him.  He would take personal responsibility for her recovery, then try once more to convince her to take an appointment to the Academy.

 

And this time he just might succeed.