Chief Ccounselor's Personal Log #39 - Tentaclees

Posted on 29 Aug 2025 @ 1:52pm by Lieutenant JG Delainey Carlisle

537 words; about a 3 minute read

I’ve lost track of how many hours it has been since the transporter room incident, but the image of Hovar collapsing under the assault of that… being we came to call Tentaclees hasn’t left me. He remains in stasis, suspended between life and death, his fate in the hands of our medical team and the grace of chance. I find myself stopping by the stasis chamber when I can, as though my presence might help hold him here with us. It is a hollow comfort, but one I cling to.

Not long after his injury, I was summoned to the science lab where Tentaclees had been contained behind a force field. To my utter surprise, the Captain ordered me to take a tissue sample. For a moment, I thought I had misheard. Me—counselor, not scientist—tasked with reaching toward the very thing that nearly killed one of my dearest colleagues. I felt a surge of conflicting emotions. On one hand, the assignment gave me a chance to channel my helplessness into something useful, something tangible, for Hovar’s sake. On the other, I couldn’t help but wonder if the Captain was testing me, just as she had tested Hovar not so long ago.

When the force field was lowered, my heart hammered so loud I thought everyone in the room could hear it. I relied on pure instinct, projecting calm as I tried to placate the creature. My hands felt both steady and alien to me as I reached out, retrieving a sample in what seemed like an eternity compressed into seconds. The rush of relief when I secured it was fleeting—barely a nanosecond—before everything unraveled.

T’lin, our Vulcan xenobiologist, attempted a mind meld without clearance. Her logic must have convinced her it was necessary, but her choice was reckless in the extreme. Within seconds, the being lashed out, tossing her like a ragdoll across the lab. In that moment, I was certain I was about to lose another crewmate—if not to stasis, then to death. My anger at her insubordination flared even as fear clenched my stomach.

Chief Becker and Ensign Amanda Turrell acted without hesitation. Their intervention saved T’lin’s life, though the effort came at a steep cost. Tentaclees suffered fatal injuries, leaving the lab floor, and Turrell herself, covered in viscera. I did not envy the Captain or the CMO as they bore witness to its final moments.

As for me—I haven’t had time to truly process what we did. Part of me knows there was no choice: T’lin’s life, and possibly the rest of ours, depended on swift and decisive action. Yet another part resents the chain of events that led us there. It was not the creature’s attack, but T’lin’s own defiance, that triggered its violent end.

I don’t know what unsettles me more—the fear I felt reaching toward Tentaclees, or the emptiness I feel now, caught between grief for Hovar, anger at T’lin, and confusion about what the death of this alien being means. For now, all I can do is bear witness and continue forward, one step at a time.

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