((Back Post)) Damaged Goods

Posted on Thu Sep 3rd, 2026 @ 5:46pm by Lieutenant Jack Lashmore & Lieutenant Arianna Frost

Mission: A New Day at Midnight
Location: Federation Scoutship
Timeline: Month and a Bit before arriving on Pandora

ON:

The beating of ones heart thudding through their head like a sledgehammer multiple times a second, each beat a flash. A received punch, a prod of a device whilst tied to a chair, each kick to the teeth, the last look upon a friends or lovers face before they had died. These dreams had lessened in frequency in the past year at Horsfall Estate, however, it seemed they were beginning to reemerge with the vicinity of what caused their source in the first place. Intelligence and just generally being in space again.

Sweating, convulsing in one's bunk bed, occasionally hitting out without an aim all without the strength to breakout of the nightmare. All whilst the heart continued to pound harder and faster to the point of near cardiac arrest.

Ari on the other hand was sat on the other bunk across the compartment, freshly out of her own nightmare. She had been staring at the floor, elbows propped on knees, hands wringing together as she tried to get her own ragged breathing under control. Her teary eyes and her mussed up hair were far from under control. She was just about to taper off when his crescendo began.

Frost stood up too quickly and nearly fell over as her half dead legs all of a sudden got a surge of blood and energy back to them. She had to almost crawl-walk on all fours to reach the man caught in what looked to be a fight of his life, behind those closed blue eyes,

“Jack…” Ari called gently, placing a hand on each of his shoulders the suddenly had to duck out of the way as he hit out at an invisible enemy. To her, at least. To him the enemy, judging by the sweat, the ragged breathing and the sheer horror radiating off of him, was very real.

“Jack!” She called again, “I’m here, I’m he….”

His arms shot out to grasp her shoulders and he shot up and rolled out of the bed with a rough growl of sorts rolling them both to the floor, one hand attempting to pin her to the floor the other raised up curled into a fist and almost about to hammer her face. Despite the slightest quiver of his lower lip his eyes still seemed to be in pre-processing mode, more instinctual, the instinct to the sudden change of scene. His legs and hips seemed to relax and his hand came down slowly to press against the deck plate next to her head, for a moment it almost seemed he had switched to nearly lean towards more of a fierce intimacy before he suddenly stood up and hobbled on legs of post-interrupted sleep jelly towards the cockpit, mumbling profanities.

“Sorry…sorry….” As if a child trying to pretend that nothing happened he leaned on the palms of his hands at the cockpit pretending to read all the sensor read-outs yet not truly seeing anything.

For a moment there, as they both landed on the floor, Ari realized she had one of her legs trapped between his and was ready to knee him in the groin if this fighting frenzy took any longer. She understood immediately he wasn’t actually attacking her, and his mind wasn’t really present. Just a desperate fight or flight instinct. Or in his case, fight instinct.

Knowing this made her pause, rather than react defensively herself, a simple and effective method of knee-meet-groin would do the trick, but she didn’t want to hurt him, even if it would have ended the nightmare for him, only to induce a new one - best as she could imagine.

Then, just as suddenly as it happened, he was off of her and stumbling over to the cockpit. Ari didn’t immediately follow. She remained there on the floor for a moment, looking after him, trying to steady her own breathing, again. A thundering heart was hard to still.

Eventually, she slowly rolled onto her feet and regained her equilibrium. Dressed in a pair of sleeping slacks and a tank top, barefoot, Ari made it to the replicator and punched in an order. Two cups of hot chocolate, with a dash of coffee and three sugars each.

As the order materialized, she brought them back to the cockpit, and set a mug next to where he was ‘reading’, still getting her own breathing under control.

Slowly, she sat in the co-pilot’s chair and waited. For him to come back, and for the hot chocolate to cool a little.

Jack was still gathering his breath, though in the way of trying to hide it, through his nose rather than the greater intake of his mouth. A pointless exercise as that seemed to only make him need more air at that moment. Processing…processing…shit. The rapid influx of shame soon followed, for being caught during an uncontrollable vulnerability and then for the two, very inappropriate and uncalled for things he had done in reply. Shame turned into anger, although at himself, it was typically misdirected. “Why’d you do that? Don’t…wake me when…that…” A bow of head and a breath, closing his eyes. “Shit, sorry.”

“Tough shit, broski.” Came her simple reply. “I’ve seen what nightmares do to people stuck in them. Hell…what do you think I was doing before I noticed yours?” Her voice, while firm, carried that slight hint of the same brokenness. “If people who know don’t wake each other up, who will?”

Jack shook his breath, wiping his brow with one hand, another still palmed upon the console. “I’ll take what others give me in that case…but you shouldn't have to.”

Ari finally took a sip, still just observing him from her seat, one leg propped under the other. “Who said anything about having to?”

“You know what I mean. I don't want to hurt y…anyone.”

Another slow, slurpy sip. “You won’t.”

A sigh as he allowed himself to sit, seemingly melting a bit into the chair and staring at the ceiling, bringing his hands to his face to rub his cheeks and eyes before finally letting out a “jesus…okay, fair.”

A few blinks before he finally straightened in the seat and made to reach the hot chocolate then a sudden pause staring her over for the first time since his cockpit retreat. Her tear streaked eyes, ruffled hair and every muscle flared up…for her size he was only now noticing how ripped she was. The sweat also helped towards that definition. “...I…” He did not even know what he had actually done when waking up in truth. “What did I do to you?”

“Nothing.” She replied, swallowing a lump. “This…” she pointed to her face and hair, “this was… was all me.” Ari took a deep breath, which sounded a little ragged, almost shuddering as she willed her own night terror away, as it flashed behind her eyes. The cave, the frenzied search, hoping against hope they would make it in time…and then that scene that she had came to equate with pure, death inducing terror. In its most literal sense.

Ari blinked, finally wiping her eyes away, hoping the freshly done tears weren’t as visible as they had felt.

Jack relaxed a little back into his chair with the hot chocolate cupped between both hands, still watching her. He then nodded slowly. “...seems everyone Alex touches ends up fucked, broken or dead. Bar Sinara with that endless happy-go-insane shield of hers.”

Ari took another sip, “or we’re all simply masochists under that self righteous veneer of doing the right thing.” She attempted to run a hand through her hair, to get it to settle, with very little success.

At that thought, a moment of self reflection and glancing about the scoutships interior, not a wood cabins interior. “You might be right on that point.”

“There’s other words, I heard floated, but I didn’t much like them…something about adrenaline addiction and all that crap.” She cracked a small smile and winked at him over the brim of her cup as she took another sip. “Mmm, chocolate makes everything better.”

“Think we’ll pass the Pandora’s counselors psyche evaluations?” Jack asked, finally taking a sip of the hot chocolate.

Ari shrugged. She looked down at her upward facing palm and fingers, fiddling with her nails. “I hope so, otherwise this is going to be a really weird there-and-back-again situation.”

The symbol of a triangle, in which was fit a perfect circle, split down the vertical by a straight line, point to mid tangent, was apparent on her wrist.

”How poignant for this moment, eh?” She thought to herself, momentarily in her own little world.

Jack frowned a moment, looking at her again sideways. “Don’t see many chicks in the fleet these days with tattoos.”

Ari looked up at the word ‘chicks’. “Chicks, hm? Well…I happen to have a few tough stickers, I’ll have you know!”

“I just have this bloody thing.” Jack set his hot chocolate down and extended his right forearm, and rubbed his left hand across the right underwrist, eventually a string of uneven lines became slowly visible as the nanite-ink activated, with orion numericals underneath.

Ari set her drink aside for the moment and leaned over, reaching out with her hand to take his hand. She placed one hand under his, the other gently tracing the numerals. “This is just a moment in your life, it doesn’t define who you are.” She said, before she could quite think it through. Then she slid her hand from under his and placed her wrist against his, the one with the triangle.

“Deathly hallows - a weirdly true way to think of how we cheat death, doing the life that we do.” She said, then she placed her other wrist, palm up, against the other side. The other wrist had a small constellation of five stars, four slightly ‘brighter’ than the fifth one.

She looked up at him, wondering if he would recognize it.

“Southern Cross. Used by old sailors when south of the equator, on earth for navigation.”

Ari then pulled back and shimmied around in her chair, running her finger against the outer back side of her right ankle. An Egyptian Ankh symbol, of a nickel-silver type of colour. “Symbol of Heliopolis.” She said as she extended the leg outward for him to see.

“Odd…choice?” Though his eyes seemed to follow the extended leg rather than focus on the tattoo itself, how many more, and where, did she have?

“It’s my home town…on Achernar. And it used to be a historical landmark in Egypt, on Earth.” Ari replied with a shrug. “Stuff that means something to me. I’ve got one more, but I can stop if you’re getting bored?”

“I’ve got nothing more to show, so I’m happy to watch.” Jack replied pointedly as he seemed to take a more, albeit mock, attentive stance in his chair, hot chocolate back in hand and taking a sip.

Ari raised an eyebrow at him, her still somewhat red eyes now smiling for a change. “Just one more.” Ari shimmied again, to show more the left side. She reached out with her right hand and rubbed lightly against the back of her left shoulder blade, and pulled down the shoulder of the tank top a little, enough to show it.

A dream catcher came into being. Small, placed in the centre of her shoulder blade. A simple two circle design, one larger, one smaller, made out of a braided-style ‘material’, two feathers dangling off of the sides of the big one, then two smaller ones off of the smaller circle. Each circle had the typical ellipsis pattern braided on the inside.

Jack appreciated the design, then allowed himself to squint and arch a brow. “So your bare shoulder is why those dreams have come back again, shame on your artist.”

Ari chuckled as she pulled the tank top back into place. “Yes, evil artist. Bad Ari for wanting a dream catcher.” She mocked herself as she shimmied back and took her mug again. “Feeling better?”

“Feeling a little less sorry.” Jack took another sip of chocolate. “So I’ll take half of those apologies back and put them in reserve.”

“So magnanimous.” Ari chuckled, taking a longer sip and leaning sideways, head rested against the top of the backrest, observing him for a moment.

“...” Jack sipped his coffee, looked towards the cockpit window then back at her. “...what?”

“Just…finally feeling everything settle,” she replied with a sigh and took another sip, finishing her hot chocolate. “Feels like this giant hand that was squeezing my ribs has finally let go of me. Well for now at least.” Ari lightly deflected, covering for other thoughts she should definitely not be having.

“Sorry, again.” Jack finished his hot chocolate and sighed, setting it aside. “So…here’s a thought you can help me with. I’ve always trained just for strength and resistance, endurance…I think past forty…I might need to let go of some of that and work on flexibility.”

Ari blinked for a moment, her mind going to the ‘other’ kind of flexibility, on its own volition. Then meaning, reason and logic came in through the door.

She then nodded slowly, considering his actual request, “sure. Although my flexibility is more built around getting out of situations, rather than dealing damage. I mean, I can, but to less of an immediate effect.” Ari said finally. “Is this what you’re after?”

“Just more thinking of better mobility and reaction time…as well as being able to touch my toes again.”

She couldn’t help but smile at that. “I can do that.” Frost said, “let me know when you want to start, we can do at least some of it here, the rest will require better movement space.”

“We may as well figure out what we can do in the space we have beyond the usual push-ups, situps, running on the spot and the like…as much as we can figure before we get to the Pandora itself. We got time and the replicator has the protein.” Jack shrugged.

Frost nodded and got up, heading for the back area. “Okay. Warmups first. Show me what you do.”

OFF