Wren Gaglardi was a character in the STar Trek RPG I was in. I created her about six months before I was originally diagnosed with cancer. Writing for her and her PTSD and all the things she’d overcome was a soothing therapy for me.
I wrote this piece long after I’d retired her, sort of a new start beginning for her. Here she thinks she spots a piece of her past.
Leaving the transport ship was a relief. After almost two decades of active service, it was physically painful to be a civilian aboard a starship. Wren had felt claustrophobic the whole trip, despite the transport’s very nice lounges and recreation areas for passengers. Was this what her life was going to be like from now on? Constantly feeling like a rat in a cage, like she wasn’t able to do anything, like she was being forced to sit on her hands?
No, it’s not. You’re in transition, that’s all. She made herself to take deep breaths in the way she’d been trained, trying to quell the antsy feeling. Wren didn’t want to answer that maybe her anxiety was because she’d just made a huge, life-altering decision.
After the disastrous mission aboard the Beckett, Wren had resigned her commission. It was perhaps a long time coming for her; at least since she’d gone from security to command, or maybe even since she’d gone from being enlisted to commissioned, but more likely it was since the away team mission that had left her so messed up in the head. It was hard to let go off something that you had worked towards for so long. But perhaps the Beckett mission had been a good thing, giving her the last push she’d needed to get her to change directions in her life.
What direction that was going to be, she didn’t yet know. Wren planned to spend a few months, maybe a year, trying to figure that out. Wren definitely had a particular set of skills, but she didn’t think she wanted to just fall back into security services. Go from working security to being a merc, because that’s original.
No, she was hoping for a fresh start. There would be a legacy of the path she’d already travelled–great bird knew that she’d be stuck dealing with her PTSD for the rest of her life–but that didn’t mean she couldn’t go in a completely new direction. What had become clear in Wren’s mind was that her priorities had clearly shifted. Her job wasn’t the most important thing for her anymore. Family, friends… that was what was becoming the number one in her life.
Wren stopped dead in her tracks and turned to look at the person that had caught her eye.
Solek?!Blinking, Wren took a few steps in the direction that she’d seen the familiar face. Had that really been him, or was it just someone who looked similar? Nobody looks like Solek, Wren told herself. Moving against the flow of the debarking transport passengers, Wren scanned the crowd trying to find another glimpse of her mentor.
There! In the dark forest green cloak, the bald pate and greener-than-usual skin seemed to be a dead giveaway. Wren moved faster now, trying to follow Solek as he made his way through the promenade. He seemed to slide through the crowd as if they weren’t there, while the crowd seemed to take pleasure in standing in Wren’s way.
She puffed up her cheeks and straightened her spine, putting on her well honed, take-no-bullshit Chief of Security face. “‘Scuse me, pardon me,” the words were polite but the tone made people move.
“Solek!” Wren called across the crowd. She raised a hand and waved, though she could only see the side of his face and couldn’t catch his eye.
She kept pushing through the crowd, now at an intersection in the corridor. Which way had he gone? Wren stood on her tiptoes to try to give herself some visual height over the crowd. But even now as the crowd was thinning out, she couldn’t see him.
Then–there!–she spotted the green cloak. She put some speed back into her step to try to catch him.
But then the corridor artery he’d gone down turned into a dead end. Well, shit.
This was just like Solek, turning into a ghost.
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