Karina Alicia "Kat" Tell's Personal Log

[KendleRJ]

Karina leaned forward, brushing the knots out of her blonde hair in a steady, soothing manner. Therapy came in all forms, and it was unusual for hers to be quite so passive, but this repetitious motion came from as far back as childhood. One stroke, then the next, shining her hair in a shimmering wave. The only thing that marred the moment was the throbbing twist of her right hand and so she switched to her left and continued the steady movement. She thought on the day in a rather objective fashion and depressed the button on the console in her room.

"Personal log, Karina Alicia Tell, otherwise known as Kat. Yeoman, First Class, and some might say in a class all of my own." She laughed, green eyes sparkling with a wicked mischief and her cheeks dimpled. A shadow passed over her face and her brush faltered, snagging on a small knot as she tugged it down and free, a small knot sitting like a twisted ball of gold in the centre of her brush. She pulled it free and then took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. "We've left Sigma Iota II, and the people there are very impressionable. I'm afraid if we stayed any longer, we might have influenced them a bit more than we already had, just by being there. A lot of the females began emulating different hair styles that a variety of the crew had been wearing, and our uniforms, practical though they might be, started a new fashion trend." Kat shuddered, maintaining her professional speech pattern. "The people were open, friendly, but mimics of the highest order." She bit her lip and twisted her hair around one finger as she put her brush down. "I have no idea how they might have developed their own society, but well, they seemed to want to be just like us." She shrugged. "I guess imitation really is the sincerest form of flattery." She recalled some of them walking behind her and the group she was with, doing everything that they had done like kids in a school yard. "At least we could communicate with them without worrying too much about speech patterns." Or maybe they did, and she just didn't notice it. It was a hard thing to figure out.

"I wonder if we might have left a little more of an impression on them than we realise..." she sat back thoughtfully and narrowed her eyes, crinkling her forehead. "What might they look like in a hundred years time, knowing what possibilities are out there?"

Grinning again, she said quietly, as though she was conspiring with the computer. "On a more personal note, it seems that the Captain and the Commander are continuing their fancy footwork." Shaking her head, she pushed her hair back as it threatened to fall into her eyes. "She gives me 'The Look'," and accompanied the words with air quotes, "every time the Captain looks at me. I wear pants mostly and turtle neck sweaters... but I figure the entire female population of the ship could show up in parkas and it would make no difference at all to him." She chuckled softly. "Or to her for that matter."

Sighing, she rubbed her right hand with her left and clucked softly. "The nightmares are back. Again." Flexing her fingers, she started pawing through her things and found the item she was looking for. "I had tried to be quietly inconspicuous with the Doctor," she grinned and blushed a bit, remembering what he had thought of that. "I'm not sure if I should be offended or flattered." Tearing a long strip of tape from the end, she began wrapping her right hand in a steady rotation. "He actually thought I was pregnant," she went on, her eyebrows rising. "Dr. Sjet seemed to think that was more of a statement about the keptin," she said with his deep gravelly accent, "than about me, but well, I hear it does take two to tango, or something quite like it." Shrugging, she pressed the centre of her palm, testing the tape, and used her teeth to begin the tear, then ripping off the rest and slapping it down against the rest. Flexing her fingers again, she smiled in a bit of relief, and then began wrapping her left.

"I just wanted my sleeping pills." She stopped a moment, and bit her lip with some disappointment. "I'd hoped to be off the damned things already, but I guess some things take a bit longer to work out of the system." Like a high priced wedding that should have cost a small fortune, but it was more about the price of her pride, and vanity, both of which took serious hits. That was probably why she hit the column, wishing that it had actually been his face. So why had she thought a different ship might be, well, different? Because she was away from the bastard. That was a nice fresh start at least. Now if she could just leave the pain and the memories behind too?

"Sjet reduced my dosage," she said softly. "Suggested I talk to someone about things. Someone named Jo who could give me a feminine shoulder to cry on, or I could speak to him." She sighed softly. "Not sure what I'll do yet, but I think, first thing is I'll hold off fulfilling the prescription." She'd been wrapping her hand fairly steadily and then tore off the remainder, tapping the other in the centre of her left palm. "Let's see if I can't get a bit creative working out my tensions." Curling her hand into a fist, she slapped into the palm of the other. "Let's try violence first."

Standing up, she took a look at herself in the mirror. Her short workout shirt and baggy shorts would give her mobility and an interesting profile. And also, she could kick some serious ass. Flipping her small, classic red boxing gloves over her shoulder, and sweeping up her small bag, she nodded once at the mirror and then at the console. "Then I might get a bit more creative." There was an interesting tone in her voice that was low and even, and her eyebrow raised slightly with her rather tantalising grin.

"End log."

USS Horizon
Yeoman First Class, Karina Alicia "Kat" Tell

[KendleRJ]

Kat sat staring into the monitor on the table in her shared quarters for a good long time. Her thoughts were a jumble, and her feelings were distanced as though she were examining from a long way away rather than feeling them directly and immediately. It all seemed so surreal. With the backlighting off, it acted as a kind of mirror that was darkened, reflecting and refracting the shadows on her face so she looked almost gaunt; almost haunted. It was disconcerting, and she used a hand to smooth her features, and then push through her hair, loosened and framing her face after a full day of being restrained. What an odd term to use for hair... Her mind wandered like that, analysing, observing, seeing the play between darkness and light and how different the face was staring back at her than the one in the mirror. Like each reflection had its own personality, like each place captured certain aspects of her essence...

There was much to consider while she sat pondering the nature of the universe through the different perspectives of her. How did she really feel about being so far away from her friends and family? And would they even note her absence? To be honest with herself, she had been pulling away from any emotional involvements after her failed wedding attempt. The fall out had her level of trust of anyone at an all time low, and every relationship she had since had suffered from that distance within her. The sex was all right; in fact, generally speaking, Kat was an active particpant, and enjoyed the interaction; it was a way for her to FEEL anything. It was a way for her to experience at least one aspect of intimacy that her body craved, and her mind... tolerated. Several lovers without much impact, but perhaps she had resolved herself to being with many rather than just one. Her mother had said once something about safety being in numbers, and Kat wondered idly what her mom might think of her own personal interpretation. A smile crossed her face, darkened into a kind of malevolence in the monitor reflection, and she shuddered inwardly. That just felt more than a little creepy.

But she had a log to record, and for who, now? Really, what was the point of logs when Starfleet was so damned far away? No one would read these things, no one would remember her. That thought both scared and comforted her. A footnote in the annals of their history, perhaps just one picture among many on some insignificant memorial plaque that would be kept in the basement of some musty old University professor who had followed one of the first missions into space. They would be heroically honoured and remembered, at least somewhere for posterity and all of their faults and foibles would be washed away by the passage of time.

Kat shook herself out of her reverie. She had already got them dead and buried, immortalised somewhere in stone or some composite of it, and this wasn't helping. Not at all. She flexed her hand, working out some of the tension that had built within its musculature and realised that she needed to work out. She might be a bit obsessive of it, but with all that had happened? Perhaps there WAS something she could record in case anyone managed to hear and decipher the old coding of a Starfleet communication recording. She pressed a button, and the tinny voice of a woman filled her quarters. "Recording..."

"It's been a few days since I've recorded anything," she began, perhaps giving some unknown listener an excuse or reason why there was a length of time between log entries. "Let me see how I can put this... we're lost." In Space. Probably quite the campy title of an old Earth entertainment called a television show. "As far as I understand it, with my limited scientific knowledge, we've been pulled into a spatial anomaly called a wormhole." She referred to her notes and nodded after giving them the once over. "We're quite a ways away from our home planet of Earth, and being that far might cause the crew to react in a myriad of unpredictable ways." Hopefully none too extreme... "After visiting Sigma Iota II, we encountered it, and it was quite the trip. I don't know if we'd be able to head back the same way, since I don't understand the mechanics of it, but there might, theoretically, be another anomaly like it out here to take us home." She shrugged, thankful that the shadowed version of herself had been blocked by the lit reflection of her recording.

"Although, Science has all confidence in at least reversing the process, so we might be home a little late, but still within the buffer zone of our ideal return date." She tried to sound chipper and positive, and keep the smile on her face easy and without strain. For who? Or what? Perhaps herself... "I've got a lot more duties aboard now, with a great deal of involvement in coordinating the crew with respect to extra skill sets that might be required while we're here and working on getting home." She considered the reams of files she'd already gone through for the project, and many more still to go. That was a great deal of reading about many souls aboard the Horizon. Some details she added as she came to know them from the subject of their reviews and interviews.

But there was one subject she was avoiding, as she avoided in every log she ever wrote: her involvement with any men aboard. Most of them were hardly worth mentioning; casual trysts more to take off the edge of riding around in the same ship and needing to let off some steam. She never spoke of it after it happened, and took no notice of her partner's interest in others either. They weren't permanent, or serious, and in fact she had avoided such complications simply due to convenience and the awkwardness of intimacy where anyone and everyone would have an opinion. And voice it. Loudly.

Shelley was a clear indication of that trend.

But it didn't stop her from thinking about them. Or the latest encounter she'd had that had the ear markings of a very intimate relationship. There. She'd said it. And she flexed her hand instinctively, as though doing so might bring her some of the peace she'd felt after releasing the tension out of her arm when she'd punched the column. This could be very good, or extremely bad, but now was not the time to consider it. She suddenly realised she'd been thinking rather than speaking and looked up in some alarm. "Computer, please rewind to the last sentence I said." Kat waited while the machine performed the simple task.

She watched herself speak with the slightest hint of nervousness in her posture, but that could be from anything. "Stop." Her face, animated and slightly flushed came to rest in the full monitor screen. "Resume recording." Clearing her throat, she continued, "Ensign Flowers has discovered some sort of beacon out here, and as far as I understand, is working with the Captain directly to keep the lines of communication open." Perhaps even as open as her legs, she thought with some amusement. "I'll report as soon as I can once we've made contact with the origin point."

There. Succinct. Proper. And filled with a bunch of boring information that could be found in any of the status reports she'd been filing regularly. And fulfiled her regulation requirements. "End log." The recording turned off, and there was an audible click as she was in silence once more, thoughts considering the impact of something more than just a physical encounter. Something deeper... she closed her eyes, pushing out that thought. There wasn't enough time. She was sure of it, even if she did have full access to his schedule. And they might be out here for the rest of their lives.

THAT was a sobering thought. And frightening. On every level.

The Horizon was on their own out here; saying it and understanding it were two different things. Suddenly everything came into focus, green eyes sparkling a bit with a new comprehension. Better to keep her thoughts close to her chest, she considered, unaware that her dark reflection in the monitor also had those brilliant green eyes...

[Sjet]

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