Aftermath
Naraht usually slept with his voder on. After all, it was a little difficult to remove and reattach...particularly with the growth spurt he'd had in the last couple weeks. Xenobiology was having a field day over that. Especially when it became apparent that other Horta around Naraht's age where having similar spurts. Yes, removing it was a pain...but Naraht was having to be sure to remind himself to turn the volume back up when he woke in the mornings...
...that is, after he finished "shouting" himself awake from a nightmare. All in all, he should have been expecting it. He'd just spent the last few months on a top secret operation where he'd had to fall into a planet's gravity well, remain hidden in enemy territory while his fellow officer was held prisoner...then keep the Romulans busy while their rescue team had gotten there. And, after that, he'd had to watch another officer sacrifice himself in a despirate ship-battle so they could escape. It was to be expected that his subconscious would start pitching a royal hissy-fit the moment it felt safe enough to do so.
But his dreams weren't about falling, hiding or being caught. They were about the Romulans he'd killed when he'd broken up McCoy's "trial". Sometimes the dreams had them managing to get a phaserblast through his carapace and killing him...or worse, firing around him to kill Bones.
More often, he simply found himself moving through the Chamber in hellish slow motion, unable to stop; hearing the crunch of their bones as he hurled them against the walls or grinding over their bodies as they screamed and screamed and screamed.
It was their own fault, he insisted to his conscience. They were trying to kill me. They were going to kill McCoy if they weren't stopped. But his conscience had answers of its own. They were officers trying to defend an invasion of their home. They though you were going to kill them...and you did.
They started it! They attacked the Vega to capture the doctor.
But Starfleet leaked the information intending for McCoy to be captured. So who really carries the blame here?
Naraht shook his fringes, willing himself to relax but it was no use. Maybe it was time to pay the ship counselor a visit.
Or better yet, Dr. McCoy himself if he was up this early.
And so, Naraht slid off his basalt bed and headed out of the door to his quarters. But it wasn't a corridor of the Enterprise that he wound up in.