The Smallest Absence Part I
Posted on Sat May 16th, 2026 @ 12:42pm by Captain Marc Kidd & Lieutenant Ezra Van Wijnbergen & Lt JG Adalyn O'Rourke Ph.D.
Edited on on Sat May 16th, 2026 @ 12:48pm
2,093 words; about a 10 minute read
Mission:
Episode 3 - The One Who Got Away
Location: Counseling Suite - Deck 9 - USS Artemis
Timeline: MD03 1455 Hours
The counseling suite had been arranged carefully and almost ceremonially. Each object in the room had its place and it wasn't for symmetry or aesthetics, but entirely for comfort. The sofa was angled slightly toward the window so it could offer its occupants a visual outlet if they needed one. Two plush armchairs sat slightly askew, close enough for conversation but also distant enough that no one would feel crowded. Plants--real ones--occupied the corners, adding a touch of nature to an otherwise warm room.
Ezra had chosen the suite deliberately and not his own office with its bare shelves and hard edges. It lacked a comfortable sitting space and the last place he wanted to deliver bad news was from behind his desk. The counseling suite was a room which was purpose-built for grief and distress. No doubt, it had seen tears before. It would see tears again.
He moved once more through the arrangement, ensuring everything was right where it was supposed to be. It wasn't out of some act of control. It was purely a grounding technique that kept his hands occupied and his breathing steady. In his profession, it was called 'self-regulation through environmental attunement.' It helped to prevent emotional flooding, giving the body something to do while the mind readied itself to shoulder a load.
Pausing near the center of the room, he drew in a slow breath and let it settle deep inside himself before releasing it gradually. There were protocols to be followed and they were just as important as providing an anchor. Death notification procedures, acute grief response frameworks, psychological first aid. He knew the important steps: avoid euphemisms, use the child's name, deliver the notification in plain language, allow silence, let the reactions breathe. The next step would be to assess for immediate risk--shock, dissociation, collapse. And most important of all--stay.
"Computer," Ezra said, "current time?"
[Fourteen fifty-five hours.]
The family would be arriving any minute now.
Motes of light swirled and formed into the shape of a human male about 45 years of age, and a human female about 35 years of age. They sat next to each other, and he had his arm around her as she rested her head on his shoulder. Once the hologram was fully rendered the man spoke. "Lieutenant. I must say that it is rather good to hear from you. That is if you have good news."
Ezra didn't sit.
For a moment, he remained standing at the center of the suite, feeling the full weight of the room--or what was about to pass through it.
He stepped forward slowly and lowered himself into the armchair opposite them--not behind anything and not shielded. He was placing himself where he could be seen fully. Where he could not hide.
His hands came together loosely, fingers gently interlaced, then released again as though even those digits understood their own need to remain open.
"Mister and Missus Lashley," he began, his voice steady but soft enough to allow for compassion. "My name is Ezra Van Wijnbergen of the USS Artemis."
Ezra found himself not rushing the words. He let them arrive as they were.
"I'm very sorry that we are meeting under these circumstances."
He paused a moment and held their gaze.
"I'm so sorry to tell you this," he said, and though the words seemed perfunctory and formal, they were not. The edges of them felt rounded and and worn. "Peter has been found... and he has died."
There was a long silence as the words Ezra had said hung there in space, almost as if they were tangible. Robert Lashley, Peter's father said stone-faced. All his emotion being held in. This was after all in his mind what was expected of him. He had to be the stoic husband, the rock for his wife. The silence was broken as Samantha Lashley let out a scream that would curl the hairs at the nape of your neck. This scream was filled with emotion, it was primal and there was not control of it. The tears rolled from her eyes. "NOOOOOOO! YOU'RE WRONG."
It was a sound that did not belong to the suite.
It came from somewhere older than language itself. Even older than grief as a concept. It was something buried deep in the marrow of a mother that awakened only through the most merciless of truths. It sundered the air, forcing the furniture--chairs and plants--to recoil into itself.
The sound had struck him in the lower part of the chest like some cold and invisible hand had reached through his ribs and closed its icy fingers around his heart. And, for just a fraction of a second, he thought he wasn't aboard the Artemis. The room began to bend and blur. His breath caught.
Ezra could feel his own tears coming without having been given permission, though they were not falling just yet. They were gathering just at the threshold of his eyelids. His throat tightened with difficulty as he tried to contain them, forcing himself to remain present in the moment.
Stay, he told himself. And so he did.
The room began to reconstruct itself in his vision. The angle of the sofa, the projection of the Lashley's, and now the breaking apart of sobs that seemly tore themselves free from the woman's body. Her husband, Robert, remained rigid and unmoving, but his silence was now louder than any other sound.
This was an important moment and Ezra knew the silence must be allowed to exist and widen. Perhaps to hold whatever needed to be held. This was the acute phase, otherwise known as the moment of impact. No language existed to soften it. A comforting gesture had no power here. All that could be done was to exist and sit and be present.
"I hear how much you love him," he said gently, his gaze steady but his words remained entirely unobtrusive. "And I know how wrong this feels."
Robert swallowed hard as his wife sobbed uncontrollably into his shoulder. He then began to speak. "Can you tell us what happened? Was it an accident?"
That question was expected and it did not arrive alone. It came burdened--with hope, thin as Terellian glass; with bargaining, already taking form; with an almost human instinct--desperation--to place such a tragedy somewhere that might still be explained.
It was a question that he had heard in a hundred different voices, across a hundred different rooms... and it was always the same question, regardless of the words chosen: Can the death of our loved one still belong to the world we understand?
Ezra was forced to admit that even a natural death that might occur without warning would also elicit the same question. Death seemed to confound regardless or species or age.
He leaned forward, realizing he'd still not provided a response to the father's inquiry. His hands remained open, resting where both parents could see them. No barriers and no distance should ever be employed--even disguised as professionalism.
"Robert," he said, Ezra's use of the man's first name a choice. This provided an anchor. It recognized the man and not just the role he inhabited. "What we know so far..." he began, and here he chose his words carefully. "... is that Peter was found in a forested area of Dolex Three."
Ezra paused again, though it wasn't for effect. He wanted to ensure information in moments like these were given in measures the body could bear. Too much at once was always a recipe for disaster.
"He had been there for several days."
There was silence, complete and utter silence. The crying stopped as Misses Lashley looked at Ezra blankly. Her makeup a mess and tears still streamed down her cheeks. Robert stared as well. Although his head was cocked to one side as if he processed some sort of unseen evidence in his brain. It was Robert who broke the awkward silence. "Several Days? Dolex Three? He was no where near there when we last spoke to him. How the hell????" His voice trailed off as he attempted to answer his own questions.
The question had fractured into smaller ones as it left Robert's mouth, like a distressed mountain climber searching for purchase on loose rocks where none could be found.
Ezra knew better than to chase each question. The loved one's mind would be rising in defense, assembling reason against what was otherwise unreasonable. It wasn't quite denial either. It was simply the first attempt at forming structure and trying to reclaim a world that had suddenly changed.
He remained where he was, but he softened his posture even more now--shoulders lowering, and breathing a little deeper than before.
"We don't have all of those answers yet," Ezra said gently. "What I can tell you is that Peter was not where he was supposed to be. And we are treating his death as part of an active investigation."
He watched the couple attentively as he spoke. Samantha's gaze had gone distant, fixed elsewhere while Robert seemed to lean forward more.
Ezra continued, slower now. "There are indications that he may not have been alone during that time."
Robert had become all business in both talk and demeanor as his wife buried her face in his shoulder. Her baby was gone and there would be no consoling her. At the moment Robert wanted all the facts. He would mourn with his wife when they were not on a comms channel. "What is next? What can we do to help you learn what happened here? Catch whoever did this?"
Ezra felt the question land on him with a different weight than he was used to. He simply processed it and then nodded--more to himself than Robert.
"I mentioned there is an investigation," he said, his voice remaining calm and steady despite the urgency in the father's words. "The people responsible for finding answers... they will pursue this fully."
He paused, letting the bit of information take root before moving further.
"I need to be clear about my role, Mister Lashley," he continued. "I am not a part of the investigation. I'm here for you." He looked from Robert to Samantha, his eyes returning to Robert's face.
"My responsibility is to you and to Peter: how your son is spoken of and how his memory is carried forward. I'm your support and contact through everything that comes next."
Robert's tone and demeanor softened. "At the moment then it seems that there is only one thing you can do for us. Promise us that you will keep us informed, in the loop as it were. We want to know about this investigation."
Ezra nodded. "You will be kept informed. Nothing about Peter's case will be hidden from you that can ethically be shared."
He watched as Robert held Samantha and upon watching them, he felt the familiar pull: the urge to over-function. To fill every silence with structure and every grief with process. It was what law school had trained into him long before he even considered sitting in rooms like this one. Facts and boundaries and procedure--these were equal parts of a system that tried, and frequently failed, to keep the ruin of someone's life from spreading.
"There is one more person who should be involved moving forward," Ezra said carefully. Upon uttering the words, he felt he might be applying too much pressure at a difficult moment, but held onto the feeling.
Before the Lashley's could respond, Ezra decided to continue.
"She's the chief counselor and a Forensic Psychologist attached to the investigative team. Her work is not interrogative and she does not lead questioning in the way police or security might. Her job is to see through behaviour and patterns, putting them into context." Ezra found himself rubbing his thumbs together as he spoke--a nervous tic.
"How would you feel about meeting my colleague?"
A Joint Post By
Lieutenant Ezra Van Wijnbergen
Victim Advocate Counselor, USS Artemis
Starfleet Criminal Investigations Unit
Captain Marc Kidd
Commanding Officer, USS Artemis
Starfleet Criminal Investigations Unit
Lieutenant Junior Grade Adalyn O'Rourke
Ship's Counselor/Profiler, USS Artemis
Starfleet Criminal Investigations Unit
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