(no subject)

[tree_and_leaf]

Title: Silence Beyond Words
Author: tree_and_leaf
Fandom: Star Trek (AOS)
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: No
Prompt: 12. Could I write all, the world would turn to stone. -- Caterina Sforza (early 1463-1509), Italian warrior-ruler of Imola and Forli.
Summary: Nyota Uhura is a communications officer, which means she’s good with words. So why can’t she find the right words to talk about what’s happened?
Author's Notes: Capt. Robbins isn’t really an OFC; it’s one of the names used in some of the spin-off material for Number One (while I normally have a great deal of respect for DC Fontana, I hate the idea that Number One really is her name; and wouldn’t that get confusing once you get promoted past XO anyway?) At any rate, Number One is awesome, despite how little we see of her in canon.
I have taken the prompt rather loosely; I wanted to write about things that can and can't be said. Alas, I struggled with it a bit, and I'm not entirely satisfied with the results. I hope you enjoy it nonetheless.

I do not own Star Trek, in any of its forms, nor am I making any profits.


Uhura sat in a cabin – she could hardly call it hers, they’d probably all be reassigned when they got back to earth – staring at nothing. She ought to be recording a message for her parents, reassuring them that she was all right, but she couldn’t find the words. Which was ridiculous, she was a communications officer, and even if she was inexperienced, she was damned good at her job. She had diplomatic skills, she was good with words in a dozen languages, and she couldn’t work out how to tell her parents she was fine.

Perhaps, she thought, the problem was that she wasn’t sure what she wanted to tell them. She found herself feeling guiltily relieved that the damage to the comms systems meant that it had been necessary to order that the crew restrict themselves to brief audio recordings, rather than setting up comm links to home. Seeing her mother’s face, she thought, would have undone her.

“Mama, baba,” she finally began, “I don’t know what the news agencies have been allowed to report, but I hope Starfleet has told you that I am all right. I was sent to Enterprise” (Got myself onto her, she thought, but that wasn’t a line of thought she felt inclined either to explain or examine), “and I am fine. I don’t have a scratch on me. I haven’t slept for a day and a half, though, so if I sound a bit odd, that’s probably why,” (God, she sounded stilted. And it probably wouldn’t fool her mother for an instant.) “Anyway, as soon as I’ve sent this, I’m going to bed, I have the next shift off. We should be back to San Fran tomorrow, but I think we’ll have to do quite a long debrief. Anyway, I’ll call you when I know anything, but I should see you very soon. I love you. I’m OK.”

Which said everything her parents would think was important, and nothing at all.

She reviewed the message, and added, “Gaila is on Enterprise too. She was hurt when Engineering took some damage, but the doctors think she’ll be fine. Spock is… Spock is as OK as he can be. He saved his father, but…” (He failed to save his mother. He saw his mother die in front of him. His mother is dead and there was nothing he could do) “his mother didn’t make it.” For all her parents knew, Spock was just a friend, which saved some questions. Perhaps Spock was just a friend, now. He had said he was going off to a monastery to meditate on the right course of action, as soon as they made it home. Well, that was his choice; she could hardly make demands, in the circumstances.

There were other things the message said nothing of: the fear, the confusion, the grief, the shameful prickle of excitement, the crippling burden of watching and monitoring and being unable to act. But she couldn’t tell Mama or Baba about that. They had no idea. She didn’t want them to.

*

They were debriefed, checked over by Starfleet Medical, and given a week’s compassionate leave and an allocation of transporter credits home. Nyota ran into Kirk, on her way to the transporters.

“Home?” He sounded vaguely surprised. “I can’t imagine… I mean, I want to stick around people who were… you know. There. Or at least know the story.”

“My parents want to see me,” said Uhura, surprised in her turn. She knew Jim wasn’t close to his mother, but surely in the circumstances…. “And… actually, I know I have no right to complain, because they say Gaila will be fine, but I can’t stand my room without her in it… Ironic, really. I’d give anything if this was three days ago and I was mad at her for bringing guys home.”

Kirk nodded. “Yeah. That I get. I’m off to Georgia with Bones, he won’t be happy till he’s hugged his daughter, and… well, it’s not like I’ve got anything better to do. I can’t even go to the library.”

“You’re not still suspended?”

He nodded. “Hearing’s after our leave’s up. Honestly, I wish they’d just tell me now. Even if they’re going to kick me out. Well… enjoy your trip.”

*

She hadn’t been back half an hour when she began to wonder if Kirk hadn’t been right. She had no idea what she was doing at home, and no idea how to talk to them.

Her mother had hugged her, and said, “It’s so good to see you safe, Nyota,” the worry still visible in her eyes. And her father had mentioned – just mentioned, he said – that there was an adjunct professorship in Xenolinguistics going at the university, “And wouldn’t that be exactly the sort of thing you were looking for?”

Her brother, his eyes shining, told her she was “Cool,” and asked her if she could come and tell his class about what it was like to be in a battle.

Various neighbours said gruffly that they were glad to see her safe, or proud to know her, and what was it like?

And she wanted to snap at them, but she couldn’t find words for it. She fell back on centuries old cliché, war is hell, long periods of boredom punctuated by short periods of terror, and they laughed, and she laughed, and they had no idea what she was talking about. They thought they knew, and that just underlined it. She had rarely felt so alone.

She was a linguist, not a soldier, and so she’d never thought about the effects of being in combat, because it wasn’t like she was going to have to fire on a ship. But she had a raging case of survivor’s guilt, and if anything the fact that she wasn’t sure that she had done anything significant made things worse.

She was a communications officer, and she couldn’t find the words.

*

She went back to the Academy early, inventing a recall. She felt guilty, but she couldn’t think of anything else to do; when she found herself sitting over the comm unit at 3 AM, listening for Romulans, she decided she would go mad if she didn’t get back into the routine of duty. Perhaps she would go mad, anyway, but at least she might have company on the dark journey there.

But the Academy was as good as deserted. The survivors of the Battle of Vulcan, such as they were, had gone home, or were propping up bars somewhere; the fleet squadrons who had been off on manoeuvres in the Klingon Neutral Zone had been redeployed on border patrol. No-one wanted to risk the chance that the Klingons would take the opportunity to get in a surprise attack, and as for the Romulans… No; there was enough for any Starfleet officer to be doing.

Unless they were on compassionate leave.

*

She was wandering the corridors aimlessly, when she saw a figure in a gold command top she half recognised; a woman, and as she came closer and she saw the captain’s stripes, the fine dark hair, and the coolly reserved expression, she remembered her properly. Captain Robbins, who had been Pike’s Number One on the old Enterprise, before he had gone to the Academy and she’d been given command of Excalibur. Pike had brought her in to talk to their class in first year. Robbins had been cool and unflashy, but formidably intelligent; Uhura had looked at her and wanted to be her, and be damned to some of the boys’ mutterings about ice queens. Robbins was competent and unshakable and damn good at her job; all that Uhura wanted to be.

There had been rumours about her and Pike, but no-one knew the truth of them. Still, here she was on Earth, which might be an answer in itself. Pike was still in a critical condition, and that was all anyone seemed to know.

“Cadet Uhura, isn’t it?”

“Yes sir,” said Uhura, trying to sound like a competent and experienced bridge officer.

Robbins nodded. “I remember you from first year. You impressed me then; that was an excellent question about field monitoring… Walk with me, Cadet.”

“Yes sir.”

But Robbins did not speak, except to make a few remarks on the progress of the repairs to Enterprise, until they reached the Instructors’ Mess.

“You did good work,” she said again, and then, “would you like a drink?”

Uhura nodded; she had been here once before, with Pike, earlier that year.

Robbins bought her whisky, the Scottish kind, with a reek of smoke on the nose. Uhura winced, and thought of burning circuits. And worse…

“Absent friends,” said Robbins, and they drank, and were silent for a moments. Then the captain raised her glass again. “And those you saved.”

Uhura could not quite restrain herself; she snorted, half in guilt, and half in irritation.

“I didn’t,” she said. “I didn’t do anything, much, except keep the communication boards clear. And listen to people dying. Listen to the silence where there should have been transmissions.”

Robbins looked sharply at her. “Cadet, you know your job, and you know why it matters, so no nonsense about keeping the comms up not being of use.”

Then her voice gentled. “I think the hardest part about being bridge crew is being so remote from it. There you sit, all the information at your fingertips, better protected than anyone else, giving commands, even, if you’re the captain, and yet you’re so helpless. Other people follow the orders. You’re dependent on the technology. You’re crucial, but so is everything else; it’s not all up to you.”

“You can destroy everyone, but you could still do everything perfectly and it not be enough,” Uhura said, roughly. “And half the time you don’t know if you’re doing the right thing or not.”

“You learn that when you survive,” said Robbins. “Or – well, you don’t.”

“Once,” said Uhura, staring off into the stars beyond the window of the mess, “I heard a senior officer say he was jealous of the Navy in Nelson’s day. When the captain led his men in boarding… And I thought that was the most disgusting and uncivilised thing I’d ever heard. And it’s still a horrible idea. But I sort of get it. Battle’s so clinical. You don’t realise what you’re doing until you see the aftermath, and that’s…” Her voice trailed off.

Robbins’ voice was bleak. “I saved the life of a man who had been caught in a phaser coolant leak. Burned beyond recognition, beyond speech, beyond movement. But his brain’s alert. It would have been better, I think, had I let him die. And yet I could not have chosen otherwise.”

“It was… antiseptic. Emotionless. Like a holovid. And yet I knew what was happening. And I could do nothing to stop it. It’s my job to relay, and record, and direct. Not to end things.” Uhura took a gulp of her whisky, as if she hoped it would burn out the memory. “And I can’t tell anyone what it was like. There are no words that would do. I can’t even find them talking to someone who knows.”

“That’s why I brought you here. Sometimes all you can do is share the silence with someone who’s been there.”

“My father thinks I should leave Starfleet,” said Uhura, “But I won’t. I just don’t know why I won’t.”

“I think I do,” said Robbins. “Because you’re not a civilian any more. And you’ll never really be one again. Because… wars aren’t over when they’re over; they’re still there inside us. And it’s easier to bear when you’re in the company of people who don’t need to drag it out into the open and explain it.”

“I can’t tell my family that, either. I wouldn’t know how to, and I think it would destroy them if I could really make them understand.”

“It’s lonely,” said Robbins, gently. “But – the Vulcan survivors understand, I would think. The price of being able to talk, really talk, about war with my family is one I don’t want to pay.”

There were still no words that Uhura could find. But just for a moment, that stopped mattering. She could bear silence, if the price of speech was so impossible to pay.