TRIBUNAL Part 13 - Regrets and Recriminations

Posted on Tue Jun 18th, 2019 @ 1:11pm by Lieutenant Commander Mnhei'sahe Dox & Captain Enalia Telvan & Commander Rita Paris & Lieutenant Commander Thex sh'Zoarhi & Lieutenant Commander Sonak & Emergency Medical Hologram (Adam Power) Mk X & Kodria Mizu

Mission: Fractured Fairy Tales
Location: USS Hera, Deck 12, Sickbay
Timeline: 2396, Post-Tribunal

In her dream, she had done something terrible. Something that she couldn’t take back, though she so desperately wanted to. There was a flash of light, and in her stomach the pit of fear and regret yawned like a chasm, making her feel awful, desperate to deny it. She felt the calm, soothing touch of Sonak in her mind, but it was fleeting, in passing. Voices provided a background chorus upon which she could not focus, while pain and discomfort came and went.

The nightmare wouldn’t stop though, until it clarified in her mind. The Captain was in danger, and Rita Paris had to act. But she had been too slow, her mind not sharp, her senses unfocused, and she had made a terrible mistake. Something… someone important, someone who had to be preserved, who she could not let the Captain throw her life away over. Kodria… Kodria had warned her.

"Well..." Kodria got a bit evasive at this point, averting her eyes and shuffling her feet a bit. "If you promise not to tell and to not act on it..."

Stepping closer to Rita, she tugged on the taller woman's arm so she could whisper into her ear. "I was told that after some sort of tribulation or tribunal thing, she really wasn't the same person in private... She did find happiness in her daughter though. My mother..."

Stepping back, Kodria clasped her hands behind her back and stared down at her feet. "That's why I'm scared. I don't know who I'll meet and I've never met her before. I've never even met Telvan before..."

"Well... There are a lot of things... Most of them I shouldn't say because of the future..." Kodria stared down at her hands for a moment before looking up at the captain. "But I will say this." Switching to the Trill language, she continued. "We shine brightest during our darkest hour."

"She kills her mother in the tribunal, doesn't she? She kills her and murders some part of her soul in the process, and she becomes what she's always been afraid of all these years, doesn't she?"

Still crying, Kodria could only nod in affirmation before reaching out for a PaDD. Tapping into it with her palm receptors, she downloaded an image into it of a much older Enalia Telvan in civilian garb standing with Maica looking as young as she was now. Between them was a teen girl that looked like a cross between them.

While Maica's smile looked as bright as the sun, Enalia's looked forced, as if she hadn't smiled in decades. Underneath the picture was an obituary article for Enalia Artan/Telvan dated about thirty years from now.

So which matters more to you, Rita? The here and now and the immediate future, or the kid from 96 years from now who's so fraught about this she knows she's endangering her own existence. And she still feels so strongly about it she's doing it anyway? If you think you had a hand in raising her someday, then she knows exactly what she's doing here. The question is, do you respect her enough to trust her, or are you just a rulebook in a miniskirt?

"I'll bet I lectured you about this too, didn't I? How you can't change the past just because you want to save someone you love from being hurt, didn't I?" At the nod from the weeping young woman, Paris nodded. "Guess I also taught you to do what was right, and to trust your heart, huh?"

"I'll... I'll do what I can to save your grandmother, Kodria. I'm convinced the universe dumped me here for a reason, in this time, on this starship. I know that, and I know that she needs me, for a lot of reasons. But not the least of which is to reminder her that she's Starfleet, not a pirate... no matter what your great-grandmother may try to drive her to do."

"I can't promise you that I'll save her from herself- but I can promise you I will do everything in my power to not let that light go out in her eyes." Looking up at the young android Paris managed a rueful smile. "We do what we can with what we have where we are, eh?"

The shocked expression on the face of Arenara Artan turned blue-white, then she simply was no more, transformed to energy by a full strength phaser beam.

"NOOOOOOO!" Rita Paris sat bolt upright in the bed in Sickbay, thrown awake by the nightmares her subconscious had been conjuring. Panting, she looked around wildly, slowly orienting to where she was, blinking blearily.

Startled awake from the chair next to Rita's biobed, Enalia jerked her head up, blinking the sleep out of her eyes. "You're finally awake! Oh thank goodness, you're finally awake." Not giving the buxom first officer a chance to get any further, she threw her arms around her in a bear hug, grateful that Rita was once more among the living.

"Oh. Ahhh! I'm... oh, gosh, hi Captain. You okay?" Paris stroked the Trill ship's commander hair, making shooshing sounds.

Gotta act fast, in no shape to tussle, have phaser in off hand and fire oh wait what was O GOD THE SETTING

There was a twitch that ran through her body, then Rita froze up a bit as she remembered what had happened. Panic bubbled toward the surface, but the fearless first officer pushed it back down. There was a clear path from here, but she didn't have to be in a hurry to get there. For now, she was needed.

"I'm, um... I'm sorry that I... ah, shot your mom," Rita managed to get out before she burst into tears. "I didn't expect her to try suicide, and I wanted to stun her or wing her but my hands were so slippery and the blood loss was making me woozy. I should have stayed pinned to the wall but... but you were in the way. She always kept you between me and her, so I had to move so I shot off the end of the sword and got off it and I thought we'd won."

The rambling recap paused as Rita pulled back to look Enalia in the eye. "You did it. You showed her mercy, and the mercy of the law. You refused to strike in anger no matter how much she taunted you. You beat her, Captain." Paris broke out in a dopey middle of a cry close-mouthed smiles. "You beat her, fair and square, once and for all. I'm so proud of you, ma'am."

Enalia was crying now too, brushing her hands through Rita's hair and pressing their foreheads together. "Listen. It's ok. You saved me. There was some sort of device in her sword. If I had stabbed her, it would have swapped our minds. You saved me, ok? You did the right thing. Everything is ok now."

Watching with tearful eyes from the corner was the young Romulan Lieutenant, Mnhei'sahe Dox. Rita Paris was the sister of her heart and there was no way she would have left that room until Rita was okay. So she had been shocked awake from her uncomfortable chair in the corner the same the captain and watched her two friends embrace, smiling slightly that Rita was alright.

The buxom bombardier sat up a bit straighter in the bed and side-eyed the captain. "Wait she..." Big blue eyes popping open, Rita wagged her finger in front of her. "She was trying to get you to kill her so that she'd have your body and you'd be dead OH! OHHHHH!"

"That evil... I mean, that's monstrous... I guess poetic justice in a way, if by killing her you literally destroy yourself and hand your entire life over to her OH!" Rita's eyes got a little bigger and she glanced around nervously. "You wouldn't kill her- that's why she dove for the sword? That evil, horrible woman. It doesn't excuse what I did, but I will say I don't regret stopping her. Not one bit. OH!"

Blinking rapidly, Rita paused to rub her eyes. "All of this realization is drying out my eyes. Kodria... she said after the Tribunal, Enalia was never the same in private. OHHHHHH. Aw..." With that, Paris pulled her friend and captain close and enveloped her in a grateful hug, glad she'd escaped a fate worse than death. "Ohhhh, the symbiote... you'd still be in there with her OHHH that dastardly nefarious woman!"

"Exactly," Enalia nodded, continuing the hug. "I'm still myself thanks to you and Kodria. The future has changed of course, so we'll have to make sure Kodria is born ok, but I for one couldn't be more grateful. I owe you my life."

"That... doesn't change the fact that I was negligent. That was manslaughter, Captain," Rita admitted, the truth of the situation needing to be addressed. "Accidental it might be argued, but still a crime. I'll have to stand trial, even if it did save your life. I could have stunned her, and your mother would be alive today. It... it happened so fast..."

"Exactly. It happened so fast," The Trill captain kissed Rita's forehead and pushed her back onto the biobed so she could rest. "It happened too fast and you had to react and no one else did and you did what was in the best interests of preserving the life of your captain. Therefore there's no case. I'll forward a report to the Commodore with my recommendation, but I doubt she'll see it any differently. If anything, she'll want me to prove that I'm really me."

Brows furrowing and a frown settling onto the face of the anachronistic astronaut, she eyed the captain. There was the possibility to fight her on this, and that would be an appeal to the admiralty which, Rita had noticed, was results oriented. Given the situation and the circumstances, she might even be acquitted in a court-martial. All of which was moot, because Captain Telvan was determined not to press charges. Trying to insist that she do so would be an insult to her command.

Thus there were only two dilemmas.

"You honestly aren't at all angry that I discorporated your mother's material form into energy?" Rita asked honestly, asking what she really wanted to know. "This is going to look bad to your pirates, isn't it? Me killing her while she was in Starfleet custody? Admittedly during a jailbreak, but still, it really does make us look bad, doesn't it?"

Enalia sighed heavily and sat back down, taking a moment to address the questions. "As a prisoner, she challenged me directly... And lost. I spared her but she insisted upon further hostilities. Under Artan Law you are completely within your right to have executed her as a nuisance or to preserve my life."

"As for my mother being... Discorporated..." The spotted woman paused a moment, the scene playing out in her mind again, the look on her mother's face burned into her memory. "I think I'm still in shock about that, but I'd rather have you hale and hearty."

"For what it's worth, Enalia... I did mean to just stun her. I will never apologize for protecting you, and now that I know what she had in store for you, I definitely don't regret stopping her. I just... I should have found a better way. So if you forgive me, and the Artan Fleet and Starfleet both clear me... then it's just my own guilt I will have to deal with. But you," Rita reached up and brushed the dark locks back to stroke the Trill captain's cheek. "You were better than her."

"You beat her, on every level, and I think there at the end she might have realized that. Whether she did or not isn't that important though, because you... YOU were better than her, in every way. I think only the Baroness might be as qualified to say this, but I have never been prouder to serve under you as I am today," Rita explained softly, being sure to emphasize the important part here... that Enalia had won a victory- not of violent force, but a moral victory on every level.

"As my captain and as my friend, I am incredibly proud of you and your actions. You were genuinely great out there today and, well, for what it is worth... you upheld those old-school Starfleet principles that I do go on and on about. And you made all of those forebearers, all those noble starship captains throughout history proud out there today. You did great." Rita couldn't help but smile. The distant and aloof woman she had met when she had come aboard, who kept to herself if not oversharing, who stayed distant from her crew, who seemingly couldn't decide if she was a pirate or a Starfleet captain, was not the woman who hugged her so fiercely here in a biobed in Sickbay.

Today there was no doubt- she WAS a Starfleet captain, and one of the greats. She would live, she would bear children in her own time, and she would someday have a delightful granddaughter, whom she might just meet someday. While her guilt over the accidental death she had caused would stay with her, Rita Paris knew the living needed her here and now, and she could flog herself over her carelessness on her own time. Which was when she noticed Dox sitting quietly in the chair in the corner.

"Why Miss Dox, you fly on the wall. You've been sitting there since they brought me in, haven't you? Come here and get a hug, Lieutenant. I'll live, and I am okay. So come here and let that stoic dam of yours burst for a bit, eh?" Rita waved over the redheaded Romulan who had become family as well in this strange and wonderful universe in which she had found herself thrust, where it seemed the universe wanted her to remain.

With a smile, and eyes clearly puffy from fighting back tears, Dox gladly stepped over for a hug, trying not to rush. With Rita in her arms, she chuckled as she replied to her Commander's somewhat rhetorical question, "Yeah. Thankfully, the Captain didn't order me to leave, or I'd be facing disciplinary actions over refusing to obey."

Unlike Dox, Thex had been forced to leave sickbay. First having to oversee the repairs of the ship, then arranging safe storage of the sword and a few other nasty items that the pirates had made, and now her condition was starting to affect her. Having just nipped out to visit the faculties a smile was spread over the Andorian engineer's face as she stepped back into the small room.

"Rita!” Was all she managed to say before she ran over and hugged her friend.

"Oh, Hey Thex! Hey, it's okay, I'm okay, just a little puncture would and a lot of blood on the deck... I'm okay, I'm okay," Rita reassured, hugging the family that had come into being on the Hera. "If someone could please inform my sensible husband, who has likely stayed out of the way of the Sickbay professionals until I awoke in my own time, that his emotional bride is once again awake and asking for him, I would be very appreciative."

Meanwhile, she hugged Dox and Thex as she held Enalia's hand. "I'm okay... WE'RE okay, all of us. You were all amazing today... er, yesterday, I guess. I am so proud of each and every one of you... that was one for the history books, all right."

As the EMH looked over the biobed's readouts and tapped at his PaDD, he called out. "Computer, please inform Lieutenant Sonak that his wife is now awake and pining for his touch." The computer's chirrup was almost a giggle at the holographic life form's little joke. "Oh, Commander... Captain... While you're both here and awake... I was wondering if you could approve my name request. I've finally had one come to me.

Pulling a small PaDD out of his lab coat pocket, the EMH handed it off to Commander Paris, the Sentient Commission Naming Convention form filled out on the front. In the request box was the name Doctor Adam Power.

Glancing to Enalia for the silent nod of approval, Paris thumbed the order, signing her name with her finger in that careful, precise script she had practiced for so many years yet seldom used. "Doctor Power, it would be an honor and a privilege. Welcome to the Named, my friend."

Once Rita finished, Enalia added her signature as well, sealing the request. "Congratulations, Doctor Adam Power."

Thex gave a polite smile to the new named doctor. "I'll have your files transferred to a private server, Doctor Power." She said with a serene smile, cradling her baby bump.

Standing by the side of Rita's bed between her Commander and Captain, Dox couldn't help but be happy for the EMH. Like most of the members of the crew, he had saved her life a good couple of times now and as someone who not too long ago chose to her own name to Mnhei'sahe, she appreciated the importance of that moment for the Doctor and was extremely happy for him.

The door to sickbay wooshed open to admit Sonak. As he entered he moved to the bedside of his wife, but not without first discharging his duty to his commanding officer.

''Ship still at station keeping, Captain. Lieutenant Clemens is assuming bridge officer duty.''

The Vulcan then turned to his wife.

''It is agreeable to see you in good health and spirits, Commander. I have been told a full recovery is assured. This is good news.''

From the Kolinahr master, this simple assertion sounded like someone else's crying with relief. But if he could not feel any emotion, he could still understand the emotional needs of others, thanks to his wife. And of all people, the needs of his wife most of all. but until they were back in their quarters and off duty, this was the most he would allow to show. A mindmeld with his mate would be more appropriate later.

Holding out her free hand, the human girl who had found the perfect man amongst the stars reached for the center of her universe. So long as she could orient herself to him, she could wander far, Boyer would always find her way back. To Rita Paris, Sonak was the fixed point of her universe. The steady constant of pure logic and curiosity all wrapped in a capable and irresistibly handsome Vulcan.

Rubbing her thumb across his knuckles, she moved his hand to place his palm against her cheek. I felt you when you checked on me... thank you. And thank you for staying on duty to relieve the others. You are as considerate as you are thoughtful, he who is my husband.

I am your husband and I am a Starfleet officer, came the returning thought of the Vulcan. There would be no logic in accepting both responsibilities when unable to properly assume them equally.

He extended his two longest fingers in response to her gesture. Although a most intimate gesture between mates on Vulcan, there was no need to show restraint in the presence of Captain Telvan, Chief Engineer sh'Zoarhi, and Lieutenant Dox. After all they had shared together between life and death, duty and friendship, they were nothing less than family.

Thus within his mind, her heard her request, and expanded his telepathic contact to include them all. A lesser skilled Vulcan likely could not have accomplished such a feat- but this was Sonak of Vulcan, whose gits had once been much greater, though the years of skilled dedication remained. Thus, at his wife's behest, all could feel one another within the link, and all felt awash if the deep and abiding love they felt for one another. Together they shared that moment, each kno9wing and feeling what the others thought and felt, elevating communication to far more than mere expressed words and gestures.

Which was when Rita Paris spoke aloud, to bring them back to the issues at hand.

"So I guess we should talk about that baby on board, hm...?