Supply Philosophy

Posted on Tue Jul 4th, 2017 @ 8:39pm by Captain Enalia Telvan & Akira Zhuri

Mission: Death is in the Details
Location: Captain's Ready Room
Timeline: After "Uhm...What's With the Hellspawn?"

Enalia was on the bridge working on a console off to the side when Akira appeared right in front of her. Usually Akira made a habit of materializing just off the Bridge so she could enter like any ‘normal’ person, but at the moment she had something important that demanded the Captain’s attention right away.

“Captain, I apologize if you are busy, but I have some information that needs to be brought to your attention, now,” Akira said. Her tone was not assertive or forceful, it was more like a statement of fact, like a computer readout, only with a sense of urgency.

Enalia was a bit startled with Akira’s sudden appearance, but wasn’t too taken aback and recomposed herself quickly. “My ready room then?” she asked, motioning to the door across the bridge.

With a nod, Akira walked with Enalia to the Ready Room. “We’re having an issue with resources, ma’am,” Akira said as soon as the door closed behind them. “We knew going into this that resources would be tight, even that it was possible we wouldn’t have enough to get back to the exact moment of our departure, something the Temporal agent guy discussed with me before we left. But… with all the damage we’ve incurred, there’s no way we can even attempt the jump now. By the time we make repairs and shore up structural integrity enough to attempt the slingshot, we won’t have enough fuel to make it within the allotted margin of error.”

Enalia nodded and sat down at her desk. “Oh look, one more thing to worry about. Although… This reminds me of something my grandmother told me when I was young.” Pulling up her old family records, she started looking through old business operations. “Yeah… It seems my great grandmother runs a salvage operation and pulled a considerable amount of salvage from this system. I’m guessing that we’re the ones that tipped her off. What do you think?”

“I wouldn’t presume to guess, ma’am,” Akira replied, still leaning towards the more analytical side of her personality. “At the moment, our dire needs are anti-matter and warp plasma. There is a chance we can make due with the amount of deuterium in the slush tanks, but I recommend to err on the side of caution and acquire more. There’s more we need, but those three are the most important resources we’re lacking. I’ve worked up a full list for you, it should be on your terminal now.”

Looking over the list, Enalia compared the items to her great grandmother’s recorded assets at the time and saw a rather large dip followed by a rather large increase shortly after. “I’m sure these records aren’t entirely complete, but I think it’s safe to say we, or our representative, does make a deal with her at least. It’s probably a violation of the temporal prime directive though.”

Akira tilted her head curiously. “How so? According to your records, it has already happened; are we not, then, simply preserving the temporal integrity?”

“I do so love your logic…” Enalia mumbled as she started transferring information to a PaDD. Once she was done, she leaned back in her chair and realized something else. “Oh… yeah…” That demon decided to use Nexi’s shuttle to get to the spaceport. Have it brought from the secret shuttlebay to the main shuttlebay’s maintenance platform one. I want Crewman Sanders’ team to start repair estimates and have Aewia meet me down there. With any luck, the damages aren’t too bad and she’ll be able to go on a resupply mission for us.”

“Right away,” Akira replied with a nod, turning to leave to make it so, but then at the door she paused. When she looked back at Enalia, the cold logic was gone, replaced with confusion and a discomforting sense of conflict. “Captain, I… I know we had to do what we had to do,” she said softly, her voice filled with so much uncertainty. “Before we came here, I saw this as nothing more than fulfilling history; it was already done, those lives were already… gone. And I knew the risks of what could happen if we did not do this; we could change history and the result could be a loss of even greater numbers… But now that it’s done, logic has been of no comfort; even knowing that this was a place with a statistically predominant criminal population hasn’t helped; we killed all those people. I don’t know how to feel about that.”

“Fulfilling history or not, the blood is still on our hands. Right, Akira?” Enalia asked. “Logic and reasoning are small comfort when you have to choose between two evils. And are we really sure this was the lesser of the evils? Who knows? I leave such things to the Office of Temporal Investigations, personally. It doesn’t help me sleep at night, but at least I can say that the blood is on their hands too and it’s more their responsibility than mine for making sure that we’re in the right timeline at least.”

For a moment, Akira looked as though she was about to respond, but no words seemed to leave her mouth, and then she just looked frustrated as she tried to work things out in her head. “I wasn’t ready for this,” she stated simply once she was able to form words again. “I’m only four months old, yet I’m adult, and there are parts of me still developing, I don’t know what I am in comparison to humanoid development, but I was not ready for this!”

Enalia paused only a moment before replying. “As a mature and adult humanoid… No one is ever ready for this. No one should ever be ready for this. If you are ever ready for the death of even one sentient and feel no grief for them, then you should take a long hard look at yourself. Three million two hundred forty one thousand plus people is unthinkable. We came into this expecting this outcome and I can safely say that no one on this ship was ready. You’re not alone, Akira. You’re not alone.”

Akira remained silent for another moment as she rolled these words around in her head and let them sink in. “I was listening to the comm channels,” she said softly. “I wanted to make sure I was aware of all members of the away teams at all times in case we needed an emergency beam out… and I heard something I kind of wish I hadn’t.” She heard many things she wished she hadn’t but that was beside the point. “I heard the reason Daytona came on this mission, why he had to kill that man; I don’t fault him, somehow it made sense, but it still… I don’t know, makes me feel… something- something I don’t understand. We have a judicial system, no one person is judge, jury, and executioner, so what gave him the right to… to do what he did? For that matter, what gave us the right? I heard… so much, voices, sounds life, people going about their day completely unaware of what was about to happen, and we passed judgment on all of them, innocent and guilty alike, and sentenced them to death all because of one man. What gave us the right?”

Enalia nodded as she listened. “Technically, it’s all my fault. If I hadn’t had that demon on my ship, they’d all still be alive.” She paused a moment to let that sink in. “As for Daytona… Back in those days… These days… sometimes the law was corrupted by criminals and vigilantes took matters into their own hands. Without being in their shoes, I can’t say if it’s right or wrong, but I can say that it’s a different time with different ways. All we can do is listen to his story and hope to understand him and hopefully come to some sort of diplomatic agreement about it all.”

“No, I understand Daytona’s motivations. Well, maybe not ‘understand’, but some part of me gets it, even if it’s just the remnants of my father’s memories and consciousness. The point is, he did what he had to do, and so did we, but… that’s one life compared to… millions. Thinking about all those lives that didn’t have to die, it makes me feel… hollow, empty, and it kind of hurts. How do I make this feeling stop?” Akira asked.

“With time,” Enalia replied somberly. “There’s really nothing that stops it completely, but over time you’ll stop noticing it. I can recommend a good therapist, if you want to go that route, but honestly, just having someone to talk about it with is the best thing you can do. Just like you’re doing now.”

“I’ve been in communication with a developmental specialist, she helps me to understand new social cues I encounter and teaches me how to navigate conversation better and a few other things. But I don’t think I can talk to her about this,” Akira said. “Talking to you now has helped; it is strange, this sensation of understanding yet not understanding; I feel some sense of comprehension of what you mean which does have an ameliorating effect, and yet I know that it may be a long time before I fully understand anything.”

“You just explained it to me,” Enalia replied. “I think you may understand it better than you realize, whether it’s deeper in you or just a hint in your memories, I think you have more than you know figured out, just like the rest of us. In a way, that might make you more like me than my wife… You might have instincts.”

“I do not understand,” Akira replied with another curious tilt of her head. “I am not like Aunt Maica. We may both be holograms, but our programing is vastly different, it would be like comparing an isolinear processor to a transistor, we simply function differently.”

Enalia wasn’t quite sure how to take that, really. Was Akira calling her wife obsolete? “Comparing my wife to prehistoric technology aside… Parts of your program are from your father’s which are pulled directly from the brain of a living, breathing Bolian. That includes a lot of biological intuition and instinctual processes that non-biological life forms don’t have. Like you said - you function differently.”

Akira looked remarkably perplexed. “I did not compare Aunt Maica to prehistoric technology; she is not a transistor, and if she was, there are clear historical records of- but you did not mean that seriously, did you?” she said once she realized the foolishness of what she was saying. She was learning, slowly but surely… “But yes, you care correct, my consciousness was created from a blending of my Maica and Father’s consciousness, and yet I am neither; it was like their existence merely created the framework, but once set into motion, I created myself. There are similarities to both, yet I am unique. Though I do not know if this means I have a biological intuition.”

“I’m sure you’ll figure that out eventually. Now was there anything else you needed?” Enalia prompted as she stood and collected the PaDD with the data with her great grandmother and what they needed.

“Oh, sorry, no ma’am, I will go now,” Akira said, then quickly exited the Ready Room. Why did she have the feeling that she was going to be apologizing to Aunt Maica for calling her a transistor?

Enalia had an apology of her own to make and it felt like she was about to deliver news of the death of a loved one...