Three of Ten – Five: Memory

It’s been six weeks since the Khitomer crisis.

Naibe and I were retrieved by the Shergold and taken back to Starfleet headquarters in San Francisco for debriefing. The Borg were held off and eventually retreated from the Vega system, albeit at the cost of several hundred Starfleet personnel and starships, the Kicking Horse included.  Despite this heavy loss, however, around 1,000 colonists were saved due to the efforts of both my colleagues and myself.  The little girl was rescued and reunited with her parents. Salvage missions are currently in operation, with repairs being made to damaged vessels and technology taken from the Borg Cubes for study at the Vulcan Science Academy.

As promised, Captain Tonn sent a recommendation to Starfleet concerning my actions. The commendation was reviewed by a board of admirals who, after much deliberation over my ‘reckless behaviour’ and ‘wanton destruction of a starship’, ultimately deemed my actions as ‘exemplary performance in safeguarding the ideals of the Federation’ and promoted me to Captain as reward for my command decisions considering the situation.  I was assigned my own ship, the U.S.S. Selene, and am awaiting my first briefing from Starfleet.

Naibe will be serving as my Chief Medical Officer.

My actions during the Vega incident also caused Section 31 to gain an interest in me. A division of Starfleet Security, the organisation was created to protect the security interests of both Starfleet and the United Federation of Planets by any means necessary. Sometimes this requires drastic – and unsavoury – measures. Starfleet doesn’t want any blood on its hands, so officially the organisation doesn’t exist.

My actions in the Vega colony garnered an interest in me and they offered me a position as one of their operatives. I accepted the assignment and can now be recalled during my tour of duty for Starfleet for classified missions.

While Section 31 may very well have sought me out due to my cool head under pressure and analytical reasoning when it comes to assessing danger, I can’t help feeling that they wanted me as a member for another, more clandestine reason: my failing memory would make me the perfect operative, unable to recall and recount details about past missions, especially useful if I were to fall into enemy hands and be interrogated…

Much like Section 31, my memory remains non-existent. It lingers as the biggest obstacle to my living any semblance of a normal life. The last few weeks remains hazy, with only these logs I’ve been keeping and the extra pips on my collar stopping events from vanishing into the obscurity of my mind.

Starfleet Medical – even Naibe –  cannot diagnose my problem: my neural enhancer is functioning perfectly, so the problem is more likely psychological than physical. My only hope for a cure is to unearth and confront this mental blockade, something that cannot be done without any clue as to my past: one I destroyed upon killing that Borg on Vega.

He knew something about me: the sudden flicker of humanity as I strangled the life out of him, touching my arm as he ebbed away and – most importantly – the uttering of the name ‘Robert’. That will forever haunt me: wherever I go, no matter what I do, I need to know why he named me that. Did I know him in a past life? Was he a friend? A family member? Possibly even my father…?

All of this reasoning is purely speculation, as I will now never know how he knew what I assume to be my former name. He was my one chance in a literal billion to uncover even a shred of my former life and I destroyed him in a fit of anger and rage. I will forever regret that moment as I stumble through the rest of my existence with no viable opportunity to rediscover my past. I will remain unknown and alone for the remainder of my lifespan, never knowing who I truly am. For me…

Existence is futile.