Through Hell and Back: Of Sound Mind
29 Apr 2021Seth Bradwell
I looked at the councillor with resignation. “I really do not know what the point of this is.”“You had an exceptionally traumatic episode, and we wish to see that you fully recover, and that you do not suffer another breakdown."
“Listen, ninety percent of that was down to the side effects of long term combat stabiliser and performance enhancer usage. But how else can a pilot keep going on a vital humanitarian mission? I could hardly sleep whilst our citizens cooked.”
“You seem to have taken it all very personally. Do you really think you could have saved everyone, by yourself?"
“I did what I had to do. The Empire needed every pilot it could get to get people out of there, and then afterwards came the medicine runs to help the survivors. You must have seen the images of GalNet – what they did to Dawes Hub, striking straight at the heart of the Empire itself...”
“Yes, I have looked at your records, and am aware of your past Marlinist sympathies. You really feel that breaking yourself apart will atone for your previous errors of judgement?”
“Listen, dearie,” I said indignantly, “My views are mine and mine alone. You are meant to be a councillor, not an IISS interrogator. The only reason I am here at all is because the Pilot's Federation's insurance requires it of me before I can return to the black, where I would feel much better.”
She sighed. “I have nothing to do with Imperial politics, and my business is sorely with the Pilot's Federation, and anything between us will of course be treated with strictest confidence. But the Pilot's Federation requires that all their pilots be of sound mind.”
I stifle a laugh. “Sound mind? Have you ever been out there? There are people out there with a far more tenuous grip on sanity than me flying ships, and for reasons far less scrupulous than mine. Tell me, does the Pilot's Fed employ anyone like you in the Pegasi sector? Cause you lot would have enough work for you there to last you twenty lifetimes.”
“That really is not relevant to the issue at hand, Mr. Bradwell. Now, the sooner you co-operate, the sooner you will get your licence back, as long as you prove that you are of no threat to yourself or other spacefarers.”
“You are aware of what I do for a living, aren't you? Consigning “other spacefarers” to the Void is my primary profession. Indeed, once I am back in the pilot's seat, my intention is to contribute in whatever way I can in taking the fight to the NMLA and make them pay for what they did.”
“We do not comment on whatever pilots do when they are conducting their business. Needless to say, we treat PTSD very seriously in the 34th century, and there have been far too many cases of pilots just snapping and deliberately flying their ship into a star, or going on a mass indiscriminate killing spree.”
“Wow, I am almost insulted. Civilian transports get massacred every day in the galaxy due to being of the wrong faction in the wrong place at the wrong time, and the Pilot's Fed doesn't bat an eyelid. But Void forbid we go around shooting up civilians because we're nuts!”
“Needless to say, the sooner you answer my questions, prove you aren't going to take off in order to fly straight into the nearest star or go on an indiscriminate rampage, the sooner you will be free to do whatever business you wish to carry out in space.”
I ponder whether it would be easier to just flip her the bird and get a transport out to a far less salubrious sector, where Pilot's Federation approvals are dealt with by handing over a bottle of Pegasi rotgut and no further questions asked. But then, my recovery would have been a lot slower – had I survived, if I suffered a similar predicament out on the frontier. As fate would have it, I have have spent the past month in the Saik Duval Infirmary on Capitol, after suffering an accident when ferrying vital medicines to survivors of the NMLA attack on Dawes Hub. Due to a combination of combat stimulant withdrawal and severe sleep deprivation (I had not properly slept for 12 days), an explosion knocked me off the pad, and I failed to correct in time, resulting in my T9 and the medicines being scattered across Dawes' docking bay. Worst still, the autoeject system catapulted me straight through the inferno into a mangled pylon, which had yet to be decontaminated of the caustic enzymes which are the feared hallmark of NMLA attacks across the galaxy. The impeccable design of Remlok suits guaranteed my immediate survival, however the next three weeks heralded an uncertain and very painful recovery from 70 percent caustic burns and several broken bones, exacerbated by the complications caused by my intensive performance enhancer usage, which not only interfered with the sedatives, but had led to my body becoming so dependent on them that I needed to be weaned off gradually, as cold turkey could have put my ailing body under potentially fatal strain. Thankfully being treated by the Empire's top medical professionals, equipped with the latest progenitor cell technology, I am now physically as good as new. Many of those in Dawes Hub were not as lucky. The worst part of my ordeal are the deep mental scars. For days I could not stop picturing the blazing wreckage, the faces of those desperate civilians, badly disfigured by caustic burns, seeing a Beluga liner knocked off course by explosion and sent veering off into the docking bay, where it subsequently exploded, and then witnessing ships sent to scoop up the escape pods break up under the intense heat. Not even a hundred years ago, this would be enough for me to wind up in a psychiatric unit for months, potentially even years. It's actually due to being in the Empire that my flashbacks have been suppressed, thanks to neuroshunt therapy, a controversial technology outside the Empire because of its many unethical applications, something which has resulted in the technology being banned in the Federation for centuries, and until recently dubious uses were all too tolerated within Imperial space. However one application of neuroshunting is to help retrain the mind to not automatically recall these traumatic events in such lurid detail, to lessen their effects, and therefore help the patient recover. It has not erased those memories – that is never foolproof and can lead to further complications, not to mention the aforementioned ethical implications, but they have at least stopped replaying in my head on a continuous loop. To this end, I feel it is just good manners to play along and not just jump off to the nearest anarchy to bribe my way back into the pilot's chair.
“So, where do you want to start? Because we shall be here for years if we have to go back to my childhood.”
“That won't be necessary. Your logs have given me an idea of what has happened. Let's start with the events immediately before you came to Achenar...”