Executive Decisions

Posted on Mon Jan 27th, 2020 @ 10:27am by Captain Enalia Telvan & Kodria Mizu & Commander Rita Paris & Lieutenant Commander Mnhei'sahe Dox
Edited on on Mon Jan 27th, 2020 @ 4:24pm

Mission: Neutral Zone Neutrality
Location: USS Hera, Deck 2, Commander Paris' Office
Timeline: 2397

It was unconventional for a first officer to call the captain of the vessel to her office, but Rita had chairs and room to breathe. While this was an official meeting, she also wanted to take the opportunity to mentor Dox, as this too was something she needed to learn. No better way than to give her a voice in the matter today. Stepping out from around her desk, Rita parked her butt up against the reproduction of the classic triangular conference table. Scavenging on her desk behind her, she grabbed a PaDD and waited for the others to arrive.

"Computer, dim the lights please. About thirty percent illumination, with a shaft of sunlight streaming in from starboard 105 mark 22, relative to the bowline. Thank you," Rita had already moved to a visual scan of the room as the light shifted, and she nodded with satisfaction at the results. "The future is amazing. Well done, Computer."

"You're welcome, Commander Paris," the ship's computer replied politely. Whether it was true sentience or an algorithm that responded to her own polite dialect, Rita would never know. But to her, it was the voice of the Hera, the voice of the mighty starship herself. As the most important shipmate aboard, Rita always figured the miracle-working Nebula class deserved some respect. Thus she always asked and thanked the computer for its service.

Having been curious about the call, Enalia cleared her schedule and headed out to meet her first officer immediately, arriving just in time to see the breathtaking scenery and interaction of lights. "Well... Either you have bad news and are trying to distract me with a light show or you're trying to woo me and you're about to pull out a picnic basket."

As Enalia crossed the room and elegantly sat down in one of the chairs across from Rita, she continued. "As we're both married and I've never known you to be into women... I'm going to assume you have something unpleasant on your mind."

"There was Cindy at the Academy... but I think everybody had a Cindy at some point, right?" Rita joked- well, half-joked, as she remembered Cindy, whose alternate reality doppelganger was most likely long dead by now. "Anyway, yes, I'm afraid mostly bad news, Captain. I'd have come to you with it alone, but I thought it might be time for our Miss Dox to be a party to such conversations, so I invited her as well. Which, as the time for the meeting I set was only five minutes and she was across the ship, she should be arriving right about..."

There was a pause as Paris stared at the door, disappointed in her mistimed attempt to be cool as the door slid open, admitting Lieutenant Commander Mnhei'sahe Dox.

Standing in the entrance at attention the young and still relatively freshly promoted Romulan woman was a little nervous as to why the Captain was also in this meeting, but her nerves had begun to evolve a bit as she began to grow into her responsibilities. Now, instead of worrying about what she might have done, she instead began to worry about what might be wrong on larger scales. "Lieutenant Commander Dox, reporting as ordered, Commander."

"At ease, Miss Dox, Come in and have a seat, if you will," Paris gestured to the chair beside the one the captain was occupying, while Rita still sat on the edge of her desk, rather than behind it. Thus the distance between them all was greatly diminished, making the gathering seem less formal. "I was just mentioning to the Captain that you need this particular command experience."

"So," the gold-clad commander tapped the edge of the desk behind her. "We've all met the new Counselor, Lieutenant Junior Grade V'lera. I thought we should come together and discuss our impressions thus far. Miss Dox, why don't you go first. Ordinarily, a meeting such as this is just the Captain and First Officer having this discussion after individual consultations with the other senior staff, but color me unconventional. Now, as a qualifier, I'm not looking for nice platitudes, here. I'm asking your professional opinion in a small command level meeting, understood?"

Folding her hands on the table, Dox took a moment to collect her thoughts rather than rush into an answer. It took a few seconds before the young officer cleared her throat slightly and spoke. " I've met with Lieutenant V'lera twice now. Once, in her official capacity as ship's counselor. And once in a more personal encounter."

"In both instances, she made multiple efforts to put me at ease and, idiosyncrasies aside, seemed professional enough." Dox paused as she thought further on the unusual half-Vulcan, half-Orion woman that was the topic of discussion. "That said, I do have… concerns. My impression in our second encounter was much more revealing. She exhibited signs of what almost appear to be PTSD and deep emotional issues that… well… were a bit too familiar to me."

"Little things that I recognized. She avoids eye contact, claiming it's painful for her. She indicated significant childhood traumas that appear to have gone untreated. She evaded some questions I had. I tried to reach out to her and see if I could help and seemed to make some progress, but it has left the dynamic a bit .. unbalanced." Dox looked at both women, pursing her lips lightly. "I found myself counseling the counselor."

"Thank you Miss Dox, well, done. I'll go next," Paris volunteered. "For someone who purported to be a student of logic, I found Az'Prel, who has had no formal training in logic, to be more logical. Given that the past few counselors have been self-absorbed, remarkably damaged, and overall poor excuses for compassionate sentient life, forget about officers on a high-stress high-demand starship like the Hera, I approached this counselor skeptically. A service animal was a surprise. When I asked her why she had sought out this assignment, she told me that her life had been a series of overcoming challenges and she found that she grew the most within those challenges. Yet she never met any challenges when I posed them. She claimed she had come to heal and to be healed."

"Perhaps most disturbing was a video review she had from another counselor who lauded her as the next coming, that honestly sounded like she'd used pheromones on them to get them to praise her so," Paris added, admitting, "Honestly it was very off-putting. No actual recognition of the issues that were pretty plain to see, just praise for her wondrous work. Given the level of conversational and people skills I saw from her, I just couldn't buy it, although Dedjoy verified the recording. The officer in question is currently on medical leave, so I couldn't confirm or refute the report. Then there are the conversations she had with Doctor Mah and Mr. Sonak. My favorite was that she's afraid of doctors and hypos, and that she and the Vulcan High Council had a Kolinahr committed to Rura Penthe, which is a statement that makes zero sense, and I couldn't find any record of, unsurprisingly."

"I suspect brainwashing, honestly," Paris admitted. "Because far too much about this woman who claims to be a counselor just doesn't add up. No one could graduate the Academy as damaged as she is, forget about getting the clearance by Starfleet Intelligence to be assigned to the Hera. I don't know if she's been damaged or if this is a bad personality overlay or what it is, but that woman is no one I want counseling anyone on this crew. Captain?"

The Trill woman nodded thoughtfully, things starting to line up. "I received a suspicious report from Doc Power earlier about her needing meds for migraines and sleep deprivation. Taken alone, that's not entirely out of the ordinary for an assignment change from a station to a ship, but then he said she started asking about meds that blocked touch telepathy and that she refused to give any specifics. He ended up giving her the same medical database that the computer would have, but decided to report it to me directly. After that, I asked Maru to start monitoring her directly."

"She hasn't acted overly suspicious, but it's clear that she's definitely not running entirely on Starfleet coils." Enalia then paused seemingly for dramatic effect. "I wouldn't be surprised if our least favorite Admiral signed her transfer orders. Anyway, get her off the ship. Quietly."

Listening, Dox was momentarily concerned about interjecting without being directly addressed but pushed that anxiety down. She had been asked to be here and asked for her thoughts. And she had thoughts, so if she was a Lieutenant Commander, she decided to at least try and act like it.  Swallowing for a moment, she looked over at her Captain and Commander and replied to Rita's previous comment. "She's definitely been damaged, Commander."

"She took me to a program of hers on the Holodeck where she goes to meditate. It was a meticulous recreation of tunnels she claims that she lived in for over a year on Vulcan that run beneath Mount Selaya and the Forge. She says she spent years programming the simulation from memory. Everything about that moment was... well, it's hard to describe. But it was an extremely traumatic experience for her. Her words and body language. I knew it well. It's the same for me when I think about the Forager... the ship I grew up on. Or... or the brig of the Warbird I was kept on. Her reactions were the same. She's got serious trauma that's gone untreated. I re-read her personnel file. There's NOTHING about spending over a year in tunnels by herself in her psych file."

“Well, to my mind that just provides more evidence of her lack of fitness for duty,” the gold-clad commander nodded thoughtfully. “I’m having her sent to Starfleet psych on Earth for a full evaluation, along with a recommendation that the counselor who sent her video recommendation be screened as well. With all of that said, I have a proposal to put forth, with your permission, Captain?”

At a nod of assent from the spotted mistress and commander of the mighty starship, the throwback officer put forth her idea. “As old and curmudgeonly as this sounds, back in my day, we didn’t have counselors on starships. We had shipmates. You had a problem, you reached out to another member of the crew. You talked to your superior or your peers, we helped one another through our problems, our crisis, and our issues.”

“In the modern-day I can see the reason for shipboard counselors. But so far every counselor from Starfleet I have met makes me look like a paragon of mental health, even with my issues,” Paris half-joked. “They seem dysfunctional to the point of being a danger to others, and frankly, I would prefer not to go through this again.”

“I would like to propose that moving forward, we eliminate the position on the USS Hera,” the blonde bombardier expressed gravely. ”We do not need a deeply damaged counselor who has no business being in Starfleet, forget about counseling others on their issues when they themselves need more help than can be provided in this environment. The crew doesn’t need to be put through this, and frankly, I have the utmost respect for Starfleet Psych- they put me back together years ago, and today I’m a reasonably functional officer. But the people they are sending us… I can’t see how any of them passed a psych screening, forget about them being qualified to counsel others. I would very strongly recommend that we eliminate the position moving forward, Captain. Miss Dox, your thoughts?”

This time, Dox chimed in a bit more comfortably, though still respectfully. "I have to agree. Ultimately, if I have to use myself as an example, that's fine. But you are both very aware of... my various issues. But you and the rest of the core crew are all aware of them because I've been able to come to you all when I've needed help and you've both confided in me as well. We lean on each other. This crew is a family, and a part of our strength lies in being the support we can all always rely on."

"And after certain missions, visits to a Starbase for evaluations is standard protocol anyway, which satisfies regulations." Dox added, adding a technical detail to offset what she realized was less a professional observation as much as a personal one.

"I concur," Enalia replied almost a bit too readily before composing herself. "We've had such a bad rash of them... Plus life aboard a vessel like this adds so much extra stress. I'll just give the Admiral a page of political BS about needing to keep our mental health professionals removed from the source and location of our trauma or some shit and she'll buy it. Are there any other issues or concerns?"

“Security will sweep all of her accesses, quarters and any crewmen she has interacted with,” Paris replied, as she already had this plan ready in anticipation. “I’m planning on having her quarters packed up after she’s already en route to Starfleet Psych under guard. As fragmented as her personality and memories are I suspect Romulan tampering, so I am approaching this as another Varnok scenario.”

“So long as there are no objections, she gets beamed onto a shuttle already in motion and her personal effects will follow once Security has had the opportunity to comb them over. If she’s just crazy, fine, she can file complaints with the fleet later. But if she is genuinely a danger to the ship and crew, I will not be informing her of her removal, then giving her time to activate and cause mayhem. Not on my watch,” Paris offered darkly. She had not been aboard when Ensign Varnok had been turned, and it was still a sore spot with her that he got past her screening process, which was even now removing another potential threat from the mighty starship.

“So that, Miss Dox, is a command-level review of a potential threat, and the decision-making process that ensues,” the ancient astronaut explained. “It’ll be you who is called upon to make these calls before you know it, so I wanted for you to be a part of the process this time and get some experience when it isn’t your name on the line for the orders. Any questions?”

The red-headed Romulan woman didn't sigh or visibly slump, but internally she felt the weight of the moment on her shoulders regardless of if her name would go on the report or not. Shaking her head lightly, she replied somewhat plainly with the slightest hint of emotion in her voice.

"No, Commander. Just regret that it had to come to this, but I understand the need and the process. In the same way that I needed to work with Intel Command and Starfleet psych on Earth to earn the right to come back on duty, there's simply no room for this many valid concerns to go unaddressed. And there are too many issues here to ignore for the good of the crew, the ship, and Starfleet."

"We can't regret the decisions we make," Enalia started, doing her best to compose her words as she went, her brows furrowing. "We can only make the best decisions we're able to with the time that's afforded us and hope that history judges us fairly for it." She then paused and turned to address Dox directly. "You and I have been in a similar position to hers... And so have others... So now that we've made the decision to remove her from the ship, it's up to Command to handle any further decisions, possible treatment, and actions. It will be a long, hard road for her, but she will not be left behind."

“Because Starfleet is a promise,” Paris quoted. “My life for yours, your life for mine, and nobody gets left behind.”

The three sat in silence at that, the weight of the decision evident upon them all.