Fear of Losing a Friend

Posted on 16 Jan 2026 @ 4:07am by Lieutenant Commander Riah Amberlyn XMD & Lieutenant JG Ryan Collingway & Lieutenant JG Mira Quinn
Edited on on 16 Jan 2026 @ 1:44pm

2,559 words; about a 13 minute read

Mission: Lathira Shoreleave

OOC: Takes place prior to the promotions.

///Counselor's office///

Now that the mission was over, Mira and Ryan had somewhere to be.

Ryan sat in the counsellor's office, arms folded and looking slightly away. Projecting his best 'polite but doesn't want to be here' posture as they waited for Doctor Emerson.

Mira was sitting to his left, waiting, considering what she would say.

She had not had many encounters with counsellors until now, but every one of them had carried consequences for her continued Starfleet career. During her enrollment process at the Academy, she had gone days without sleep before her evaluation, knowing that it would decide her fate.

This time around, she barely had time to get concerned - but she knew that how she came across to the Counselor was important.

Dr Kris Emerson arrived with a single PaDD in her hand. It was exactly 1600 hours. She was not an imposing figure. Easy going in her manner and quite intentionally lacking a strict Starfleet officer persona, she set the PaDD down and turned to Ryan and Mira. “I am so sorry to keep you waiting. Can I get you anything to drink: coffee, Coke, tea, hot or iced?”

"Just water, please," Ryan said neutrally.

"Me too," Mira added.

The replicator made quick work of their requests and Kris' own glass of iced coffee. She took a seat in the third chair in the seating arrangement. “So, Mira Quinn. I’m Kris Emerson. Very pleased to meet you.” She held out a hand in greeting.

Mira shook her hand, giving a quick smile. "It's good to meet you too, Doctor."

Kris sat back in the chair. Not overly relaxed but definitely not with the eager attitude of a Freudian analyst taking notes to charge into someone else’s psyche. The PaDD sat on the corner of her desk. “Thank you for coming today. I hope you find it useful. Maybe you could tell me a little about yourself, whatever you think is pertinent today.”

"Well..." Mira glanced at Ryan, "We were both on the away team to the Eirian ship." She hesitated, trailing off. Dr. Emerson already knew why they were there and had read through their files.

"I think the counsellor wants to know a little bit more about you in general," Ryan said gently to her. He looked away and sighed. "The mission itself was standard. It was fine.”

Kris did not reply in response to Ryan’s prompt to his companion. She considered correcting him, to say that Mira was free to say whatever she wanted. But that would set an artificial boundary or perhaps even a rift between Ryan and Mira, as well as embarrass Quinn. That was not how she wanted to start this session. Still, she did make mental note of Ryan’s need to control the situation, however gently he nudged it.

Mira shifted in her chair. "During the mission I had contact with a lifeform aboard the ship. It looked like it was about to attack, and so I played a harmonic from the rift..." She paused. "I understand this caused some sort of connection between us. But I don't really remember what happened."

Ryan could have said something, but he remained silent. Everything had a point with Doctor Emerson, even a controlled silence. He had enough of these sessions to realize that. Maybe he had done the wrong thing to steer the conversation right away. He didn't make the same mistake twice though, so he just let Kris resume the conversation for now.

“Wow. You made some kind of significant contact with that lifeform, and it sounds like emotional contact, as well as just being in proximity. Others have given their reports on what happened, I’m sure,” replied Kris. “It sounds like that was a quite profound experience. Now that some time has passed, how do you feel about that connection with the creature? Do you /want/ to remember what happened?” asked Kris.

"I'm not sure I do..." Mira said, glancing at Ryan again. She still hadn't talked to him about everything that happened on the Eirian ship. It bothered her that something had happened and that she had no idea what it was exactly — but at the same time, she wasn’t ready to face it.

"Fair enough,” nodded Kris. "I don’t see any critical reason that would warrant you pressing on that. Wait until you're ready. As your subconscious processes it, you may start to remember things. Be aware of that and be gentle with yourself. It was no small thing that happened. Don’t let your inner critic belittle that experience. At the same time, your subconscious will not let you remember something until you are ready, without a great deal of persuasion. I don’t recommend any of that persuasion. Better to let the mind work itself out.”

Ryan noticed Mira looking at him, which promoted him to say something. "You...weren't in a great state when I found you. We were also being actively chased by that creature. We didn't know if its intentions were hostile towards us. We still *don't*, in a way. The only reason it backed off is because we fed it something it liked."

Mira nodded, then hesitated. “I understand that.” After a moment, she added, "I'll keep that in mind.”

Kris turned to Ryan. "How about you Ryan? You said the mission was pretty standard for you, though I’d venture to say it was not a standard mission as a whole. Lots of unanswered questions that probably cannot be answered. Does any of that worry you? Keep you awake at night?” asked Kris.

Ryan hesitated, but shook his head. "No," he stated. "The Eirians had only one shot at going back. The price of my curiosity-or anyone else's-is not worth them being stranded forever."

"And we've seen a taste of what their space could be," he added. "Mass hallucination for the entire crew. That wouldn't be anything we could survive long-term."

This time, it was his turn to glance at Mira as he spoke. It occurred to him that he never asked if she hallucinated anything. There was too much going on, not to mention worrying about Alura. Maybe she had been lucky, and missed the experience entirely. And there was no point in asking Doctor Emerson about her experience. No doubt she would accuse him of deflecting the conversation in the wrong direction if he tried. "I'm sure it was bad for all of us," he added uneasily.

Emerson was also thinking about the hallucinations. She nodded in agreement with Ryan’s last statement. She was curious that Ryan had turned his attention to Mira. Was he just trying to pull the discussion back to her, or something else? She went with her intuition and let Ryan’s attention lead the conversation.

“Mira, are you doubting your experience, thinking perhaps it was an hallucination? Because you should know that your report is very different from the accounts of others who did hallucinate. I personally do not doubt your experience was a connection with that creature, and not an hallucination. But I can see where that question could cause some conflict in your own mind."

Mira blinked as the doctor's attention swung back to her. "I don't remember what happened, but I think that the people who hallucinated do remember it... so, no, I don't doubt it."

"I definitely remember it," Ryan said, and looked away when Kris laid eyes on him again. "I saw my friend, who died. Unsurprising news for you I'm sure, counselor."

Mira's attention shifted back to Ryan. She supposed this was the 'best friend' he had mentioned to her before. The one who had paid the price.

“Many people report that their hallucinations were based on things that have actually happened to them in the past, both distance past and more recent. Did that story in the hallucination unfold as it did in real life, Ryan, or where there differences?” asked Kris.

Ryan hesitated at the question. "There were differences. An evolution of sorts. My 'friend' wasn't happy with the choices I was making and made that known. But that memory actually gave us the solution. I remembered the past. The borg. It helped find a solution to stabilize the rift. So I don't regret it happening."

He sighed. "I'm sorry, Mira. I know this doesn't make a lot of sense to you. I promised honesty if we did it together. This is the best I can do.”

“Is it, Ryan?” Kris asked quietly. Her suspicions that Ryan had not shared his story with Mira were confirmed. “You and Mira agreed to come to this counseling session to discuss what happened to you both on the Eirian ship, your mental, emotional, intellectual experience, not just the physical facts of what happened. We can read that in a briefing report. It seems to me that some explanation of your deeper experience would be helpful. I’m not in any way trying to force you to do that. If you've chosen today not to, that’s fine. But I challenge you to think deeply, Ryan. Why did you agree to this joint session with Mira if you are not willing to be forthcoming about your own experience?"

"Deeper experience," Ryan repeated slowly. "Fine." He turned to Mira. "You weren't there. You didn't see what I had seen. While you were saying nonsense, completely out of it, that thing, that creature melted an entire wall and it headed towards us. I did everything to protect you, including putting my body in front of yours, but I was defenseless. The Eirians were defenseless. Why didn't we have weapons on this mission anyway?? We very nearly almost died, and that was the most terrified I've ever been in quite so time."

"And then," Ryan continued. "You sent it out to go after our friend instead, and I think it's very lucky that any of us made it out of that experience alive."

Mira stiffened. “I didn’t send it after Ven,” she said to Ryan. “And you know that.”

She kept her voice even, though her pulse had jumped. “The lifeform was rampaging, but it was not trying to attack us - it was young and hungry and Ven's shuttle gave it exactly what it was looking for - the verteron particles. That's why we made it out alive."

Some of the anger had gone out of his eyes, and he looked away. "We didn't know what its intentions were. From our perspective, the Eirians had boxed it in, and we were the first people it saw when it broke out. We had no way to communicate with it. At best we had an unproven theory. Like I said, we were lucky that it decided not to be hostile."

He released a small sigh. "That's my take on the situation."

"We always work with unproven theories," Mira countered. "I thought playing that harmonic would calm it down, instead it drew the lifeform to us."

She paused. "Yes, it was terrifying, and maybe if we had a phaser things would have worked out better - but we didn't." She met Ryan's gaze. "We weren't just 'lucky'. We found a way out."

After a moment of silence, Mira rose from her chair. “I don’t think this is productive anymore, Doctor.”

“Mira, please sit down,” asked Kris. It wasn’t an order, but a firm suggestion. “Leaving now will certainly not be productive. It sounds like you held your own in conflict on that ship. Are you sure you want to run from conflict in this case?"

Ryan looked down, mentally kicking himself. He should have just stayed quiet and not said anything. Now he had just made things worse. "I'm sorry, Mira," he said quietly.

Mira hesitated, then slowly sat back down. "I am not running from conflict, Doctor," she said quietly. "I realize what Ryan is saying, and I don't see the point of rehashing it.”

“Have you already discussed it with him?” asked Kris. “If so, he’s still clearly carrying some strong feelings about it. Granted, those feelings are about him, not you, but as a friend you might want to consider listening to his feelings and his perspective, even though they are definitely different."

Mira met Kris’s gaze. "No, I have not discussed it with him." She turned to Ryan, "We did not have time to talk."

"I did not realize he thought I'd sent the lifeform after Ven."

"No, I shouldn't have said it like that," Ryan said. "I just...I've seen missions go badly. And I don't have a lot of friends here. Like I said, I saw what that creature was capable of. And there was a very real fear in my mind that it would have gobbled up the shuttle and come back at us for seconds. And that's the perils of being on away missions, I guess. You just don't know."

He glanced at her. "Remember, my first mission here, I saw an engineer screaming and had to be sedated with nanobots in his ear. My second, I was held up at gunpoint while a weather machine was terraforming around us. None of these missions so far have gone particularly well for me. But I shouldn't have snapped like that. I probably couldn't have come up with any better plan either."

Mira couldn't say much to that. She hadn't thought it had been a good idea to send an away team to the Eirian ship to begin with.

"I understand," she told Ryan.

Kris held the silence for a moment, then she sat forward her elbows on her knees. “You have both done some hard work today. Digging into your feelings and sharing them with others is risky and scary. Maybe not as scary as a monster on an alien ship, but definitely scary.” She sat back in the chair again. “Do either of you have any more to add before we finish up today?”

Ryan shook his head. "I think I've said enough," he said simply.

Mira also shook her head.

“Feel free to contact me if you find yourself feeling anxious or agitated after this session. It is possible it will kick up some other memories or intense feelings. You’ll also likely feel very tired and perhaps moody for a while, a few hours. If that persists, let me know. I’m here for you if needed.”

Ryan stood. "I have things to do. New CEO incoming." He couldn't look at Mira right now. He would completely understand if she never spoke to him again. In worrying about losing a friend, he probably lost another. And he was being truthful about one thing-he didn't have too many of those. But that was his problem. "Thank you."

He quickly left.

Mira stayed seated for a moment as the door hissed shut behind Ryan. She had put off talking to him, and now she realized she shouldn't have.

She'll have to talk to Ven about this. Preferably before it got to a counselling session.

She stood up. "Thank you, Doctor."

Doctor Kris Emerson
Counsellor
USS Arawyn

Ensign Ryan Collinway
Engineering Officer
USS Arawyn

Ensign Mira Quinn
Science Officer
USS Arawyn

 

RSS Feed