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Isabella's videos (and their transcriptions, and their translations) are not instantly the topic of conversation in every household in the Federation over breakfast or its local equivalent, but they gain traction, and the Federation is still scrupulous enough not to send Starfleet to get her in the middle of the night for recording her opinions.
(Her opinions are limited here to the subject of her "repatriation" and to the Prime Directive. Her thoughts on genetic engineering are confined to the "polarbear" handle on long-dormant accounts on old, in some cases defunct, fora.)
It is a few months before she's invited to a speaking engagement by an activist club at a university on Viarat, a moon inhabited by predominantly human colonists but some Vulcans.
She accepts the honorarium, writes a speech, and (in the recovered Prometheus, which Renée has been holding for her) goes to Viarat, accompanied by her husband.
They get a hotel room; a liaison from the activist club shows her to where she's giving her speech, she gets as far as thanking them for inviting her and beginning to outline her planned topic before someone in the back row pulls a phaser pistol and squeezes off a burst that hits her in the sternum.
She collapses, exhaling all her air voicelessly. Someone next to the shooter tackles her and gets the phaser away.
warpfairy
warpfairy
Hmm. Sleeping husband within reach? If she only moves her arm at the elbow and not the shoulder?
warpfairy
"Oh, I'm not going to object, especially if you nip out and get me non-hospital food now and then."
warpfairy
"I am actually hungry," she observes archly. "But I also don't want to let go of your hand. What a dilemma."
dream-me-up
He leans down and kisses her hand, then lets go of it.
"I'll go find you something to eat."
"I'll go find you something to eat."
dream-me-up
He smiles at her, and goes.
Food! And while he's at it, news of the shooter, if he can find any.
Food! And while he's at it, news of the shooter, if he can find any.
warpfairy
Current news is that the young lady with the phaser was an off-duty Starfleet enlistee on shore leave who felt the need to defend her organization's policies, and that she has been scheduled for court martial and claims to have acted alone.
dream-me-up
Lalita reports this to Isabella when he returns with her non-hospital-sourced breakfast.
warpfairy
"Even falsely claiming it means that I'm not being openly and violently hunted by the entirety of Starfleet, though of course truly claiming it is better still."
warpfairy
Isabella manages to drink her beverage through its straw, but still can't move her shoulders enough to convey the solids. "You may have to feed me," she says.
dream-me-up
"I suspected as much. Just a minute," he says, pushing a wheeled cabinet out of the way so he can bring his chair up closer to Isabella's head. "Oof, that's heavy. There."
He moves the chair, sits down, and commences helping Isabella eat her breakfast.
He moves the chair, sits down, and commences helping Isabella eat her breakfast.
warpfairy
Om nom nom. "Your selection is of course impeccable. Is it weird that I miss priv? I could barely choke it down when we first landed but I'd like a bowl of it now. Pity about the Unfriendliness."
dream-me-up
"No, I miss it a little too. But I'm used to missing foods I liked once and can't get anymore."