A Brief Debriefing

Posted on Fri Oct 26th, 2018 @ 3:26am by Commander Rita Paris & Captain Enalia Telvan

Mission: Hera v Hera
Location: USS Hera, Deck 1, Captain's Ready Room
Timeline: 2395, Meroset 347 standard orbit

Leaving the flight deck, Paris made her way to her former office, where she stripped out of her battered and scuffed, holed and broken armor. Grabbing a quick shower, she called for the replicator to spit her out a uniform, thanking it for its efforts. By the time Rita Paris stepped onto the turbolift to Deck 1, no one would suspect that 20 minutes ago she had been an armed and armored valkyrie.

As the lift doors opened, Rita took two steps at her usual martial pace before her screaming and protesting muscles, suffering from stim abuse and the day's activities refused. Resigning herself to a far more sedate pace, she nodded to the bridge crew and tried unsuccessfully to not look like she was in a surprising amount of bodywide aching pain. The concussion from Hera's throne had been blunted by the armor, but it was still an all-over body bruise.

But the day wasn't over yet. Because in order for the day to be over, she had to report. Stepping stiffly up to the door of the ready room, Rita waited to see if the door opened or if it had to be chimed.

Thankfully, the door was waiting for specifically her and it opened automatically as she got close to it.

"There you are. It's great to see you again, Commander. You did good work down there." Commodore Meowlith said from the comfort of Enalia's couch, legs crossed and a cup of fine tea in her hands. She was in a finely pressed uniform this time - a rather unique and futuristic uniform even compared to what the rest of the crew were wearing. The top was all red with black and gold piping and the pants were just plain black. Even her comm badge was stylistically different.

Enalia looked pleased as well - so much so that she had popped the top button on her own uniform and it hung slightly loose. "That you did, though I'd prefer you cleaned up after yourself a bit better. Crewman Dedjoy went through and beamed up a lot of tech we couldn't leave behind. She also found something hiding in the warp core you might be interested in."

Reaching down behind her desk, Farenia waved her off and interrupted her. "Let the woman rest and enjoy the spoils of victory for a moment. She hasn't even sat down to a cup of tea, for sun's sake."

"Right. Where are my manners. Please, have a seat. I'll get you some tea." Enalia had a cup and a thermos of hot tea already prepared - she just had to pour it for Rita. After she did so, she slid the antique looking cup and saucer over to the chair in front of her desk. "There you are. I hope you like it. My wife made a nice ah... It's from Earth... Apple spice tea, I think she called it."

"I'm sure it's lovely, ma'am. Less spoils of victory than running on fumes, Commodore. I have had what felt like the longest day of my career today. Would you like to hear about it? Because I am going to be frank, senior officers and all due respect," Paris smiled a weary and timeworn expression for her. "The sooner I report and am dismissed, the sooner I have a warm bed and maybe a massage if I'm lucky. I will admit to hoping for a few days of sleep. All due respect."

Shifting in her chair, Paris grunted as she was reminded of another stop along the way. "Sickbay. Then a warm bed and a massage. Hopefully not just Sickbay."

"My wife has already offered a double session at your convenience, if you'd like," Enalia replied, picking up her own teacup and sipping at it. "Please, go ahead."

"All right, let's see. My day started at 03:40 when I got up, got on my running togs, did a little paperwork then ran out to harass Lieutenant Dauntless as ordered. She is as her name suggests, unafraid of anything and unafraid to speak her mind. She was working on a way to use the subspace... I forget the science, I have a report I can send you. But if she managed it, I never called for it so I haven't a report on whether the energy disruption Dauntless was working on was successful. But according to her and her degrees in mad science, she thinks she might have an answer. We shall see."

"At 09:00 Lieutenant Sonak and I reported to Dr. Dael in the transporter room. Reports have been filed, but suffice to say my desire to be transported has not been increased due to the recent experimentation. I assume Dedjoy is performing experiments and whatnot on that core sample from Ajilon Prime?" Rita tossed it off casually, but just casually recollecting to skim over the incident still made her forehead break out into beads of sweat as her heart raced.

"Oh... She told you about it..." Enalia reached behind her desk and pulled the core sample case out from behind it and plopped it on her desk. "I was hoping to surprise you with this as a present. She said she had to pull it out of the dilithium chamber or something during your experiment before the ship got pulled into a quantum singularity and either destroyed or turned into a warp ghost like you were."

"Well, you know me, ma'am. When things go wrong, they go really wrong," the fulsome first officer shrugged, remembering to only do it with her right shoulder. "You know, that thing was a meter and a half long and about 175 kilos. Looks like it kinda shrunk in translation. So that's a surprise, still. Ah, for the record, I am okay. While being sucked into a transporter ranks seriously low on my list of life experiences I wanted to have, at least we identified the cause and I'm still here, so we're calling that experiment a win."

Enalia eyed the half meter tall container. "Yeah, Ila guessed from the trace amounts of your DNA in it that it was trying to replace its lost mass with yours."

Farenia chuckled softly. "That would have put a small dent in it, then sucked in anything else near it... Unless you weigh... I'd say... around 150 kilos."

"Either way, I'm glad your safe." Enalia leaned back in her chair. "And no more transporter action for you unless it's in the special one, and only for emergencies."

"Ah, no, ma'am, although Doc and Sonak want to keep working on figuring it out, and I'm inclined to participate. It's... it's embarrassing being a Starfleet officer who's afraid of transporters, ma'am. It's bad for morale and it's liable to catch on. So if it's all the same to you, they want to figure out why transporters misbehave around me, and I would like to know the answers too."

"More of an allergy, and hopefully most of the cause is now sitting on my desk. Continue the tests, but be sure they're safer than before, and next time coordinate with Ila so she can be ready next time." Enalia didn't like to admit it, but she wanted to get to the bottom of this as well.

"Thanks ma'am. Past that a standard day of duty with reports you've read, checked a few articles out of the armory, oversaw the maintenance and ordinance checks on the Thor and the Selune, then held a brainstorming session with my landing party because I didn't want to go blasting these poor people's planet. Which led to my 48 hour request, and you know the rest of that conversation." Paris paused because she assumed this was liable to be a discussion point.

Farenia interjected at this point. "Denied for what I assume is the imminent launch of the Chariot fleet that I reported shortly before."

"It was. If we had more time, or more resources... But it worked out in the end, thanks to the groundwork you somehow had already laid out." Enalia eyed the Vulcanoid Rigelian suspiciously, wondering just how long she had been on the planet before they had gotten there.

Commodore Meowlith grinned a pointy eared grin the likes of which you'd never see on any true Vulcan. "Why yes, thank you for noticing. I quickly made contact with the local resistance and became their prophet, which wasn't hard, considering my name happened to coincide with one of their patron deities. After that, I just told them of the impending arrival of Starfleet, which the UT had trouble with... And things took off. They needed hope so badly after what they had been through they didn't need much in the way of miracles as proof of my veracity."

"Amazing ground work, Commodore. So, we landed outside of town, went local, double-timed it into town, located the Commodore, who had the resistance ready for a rebellion." Paris turned to face Meowlith wish an expression of chagrin. "That was... insubordinate, stupid, unproductive and unprofessional. ma'am. I was so frustrated that it had to turn to violence that I let my feelings get the best of me. I just... I felt like there should have been another way. But there wasn't. You already knew that."

Farenia raised a hand to try and calm Rita. "It's ok. You're a normal 'fleeter. You go for the diplomacy first, then fire at will. Unfortunately, we had already tried talking a few times and Hera shot to kill every time. Hell, she enslaved that planet. If we hadn't found proof after the fact that they were warp capable before she took them over..."

"It might have been more than a little awkward. As it was, we thought they were post industrial at the most. We knew they had some minor in-system exploration, but not that they were the ones that invented the Chariots or the weapons on them." Enalia finished, having followed along with the Commodore's thoughts.

Farenia nodded. "Anyway, don't worry about it. You came through in the end. Let's call it... Character development. You learned a valuable lesson about Intel Command and how we do things and have come away stronger. They don't listen to the diplomats? We take over and hit them with a big stick until they listen to us or it doesn't matter anymore."

"I don't know how comfortable I am with that, ma'am," Paris said quietly, voicing her honest opinion. "I'm an explorer, not a soldier. I didn't sign on to seek out new life and gun it down. I know, the situation called for violence and it was warranted. But I murdered people today, and that bothers me, Commodore. So I don't know if I'll be cut out for these sorts of missions, if this is what we do."

"I'm not conscientiously objecting, ma'am's, just expressing that it's not... me."

That left the ready room in a bit of silence for a moment. It was Farenia that broke it. "Well, things have been calming down after the last series of debacles cleared up. Hopefully you'll have a chance to actually work on your cover story for a while. I mean... I'm sure orders are already being readied, but who knows..."

Enalia cleared her throat. "Anyway, please continue with your report."

"Yes ma'am." Rita knew that her declaration made things awkward, but she owed it to the two commanders over her to be honest with them. The images of what she had done would haunt her, and she fervently hoped that this would not be a trend, that they would always be a wetwork last resort when the explorers who came in peace had failed.

"I split the away team, one to go to the spaceport, one to make their way across the city to deal with the transponder shrines and confront Hera herself. Lieutenant Commander sh'Zoarhi, Lieutenant Sonak and Senior Chief Yeager took the spaceport mission to cripple the fleet, which they managed to do with a minimum of conflict. The march across the city to destroy shrines... was not." Paris' brow furrowed. "We tried more peaceful solutions, but each shrine was well-guarded, and it became clear that violence was the only answer- they would kill to defend the shrines, phasers didn't work on half of them and I didn't have the time nor the manpower to invent a creative solution, draw them out and lead them on a chase while others blew the shrines. We killed... we killed quite a few people, actually. Because they wouldn't stop, and they wouldn't listen to reason. Six shrines, as I recall."

Farenia nodded, remembering the map she had given the buxom adventurer. "There were nine main shrines, but three were on the edge of the city. It sounds like you got the inner ones and the interconnected ones, at the very least. I'm sorry you had to resort to violence, but if you hadn't, even more of the Merosians would have died."

"That may be small comfort, but it's still the truth," Enalia added. "Hera's forces refused to surrender for several hours, even after we had her in custody. We had to revive her and have her issue the surrender order herself, and get Administrator Tal'da'mira to promise to treat them decently and not like slaves or outright kill them."

“I know. I do realize it was a necessity… believe me, I took the first field mission doctor with me, and I had to get them up and moving more than once with an inspirational speech. I understand that sometimes violence can only be met by violence, and I understand that our missions will sometimes encounter that. I’m just hoping that’s not all we do- that’s my concern, ma’ams,” Paris offered, hoping to clarify.

“I’ll have the detailed report on our trek across the city and our encounters, but long and short we survived and succeeded. Once we found the tram, I was unwilling to risk taking the mountain pass for time and mission constraints, as well as safety of the landing party,” Paris explained. “The tram led to the palace, and the palace led to… well, good teamwork and coordination won the day. I never laid a hand on her and she was not directly injured, so we might just have a little leverage. Of course, she thinks differently, so who knows.”

"She's in a far different position now, being sealed in VIP quarters that even her people can't escape from." Enalia pulled up a video feed of Hera, at a table, drinking wine like a normal person. "We stripped her of anything that might even remotely be tech, of course. The EMH will be tending to her for the time being."

“With your permission, I’d like to have a word with her eventually. I realize that Starfleet Intel will most likely want to do a debriefing and interrogation, but while she’s here I’d like to take a shot at convincing her to work with the angels. She mentioned something disturbing on the planet,” Paris got up from her chair with considerable stiffness despite her efforts to appear to be fine, and walked stiffly to the replicator, creating a PaDD for herself. Tapping at it as she spoke, she brought up her armor’s recording.

“Whatever fate you decide is best fitting for me though, there is a far greater threat that lurks on the horizon. Those that gave birth to my people are coming back. I see now that they are behind our return as well as other disturbances I've sensed."

“I find that a bit worrisome. Another little piece of the puzzle is that Ensign Jurot has no idea who we are or how she got here- apparently the last thing she remembers is being about the USS Hood, and the woman I rescued from Hera’s dungeons was very much a different woman than who we sent down there full of pride and arrogance.” Paris made eye contact with the two superior officers. “I don’t know if there’s a connection, but I’m unwilling to dismiss anything as coincidence given the situation.”

"We'll have to debrief Ensign Jurot..." Farenia wondered about this turn of events and if it had anything to do with the next storm brewing on the horizon that she'd already gotten word about. That would have to come later though.

Enalia eyed Farenia, knowing that look. It meant trouble for the Hera and it often accompanied an interesting set of orders that she hadn't received yet. "I'll allow it, but only with a displacement field between the two of you. I'll leave Ensign Jurot's debrief to you as well. In fact, with this slacker..." Motioning offhandedly to the suddenly grinning Commodore, Enalia sighed heavily. "I'm going to have to leave debriefing the whole crew to you since she's apparently going to leave briefing the admiralty to me while she gallivants off to who knows where."

"You know me so well, 'Nalia," Farenia replied, blowing her a kiss.

"I was the one who first encountered Jurot, ma'am. With all due respect, that means i am a part of her debriefing and her interviewer needs to be a neutral party. How about Dr, Dael? They're the department head for sickbay and the counselor's immediate superior. Plus they're a trained mental health professional. I'm just familiar with therapy."

"Good thinking. You'll still need to make an official report, of course, but the doctor is a better choice." Enalia sipped at her tea a bit more before continuing. "Speaking of which, I heard that both the doctor and our stone faced biologist got hurt down there. Will they be ok?"

"We have hope. Miss Malana, as it turns out, needs not a tissue knitter but a mason. So part of the cleanup was getting her back out of that hole she'd been driven into and locating her pieces, which she was pretty adept about even missing most of her fingers." Paris waved absently and offered a bemused expression. "The local masons found her a bit miraculous as a golem, their words not mine, so they were excited over who could work on her. She settled it by choosing two, and she's still being patched up down there in the city, with a security detail watching over her."

"Brave woman. I like her," Paris concluded simply. "As for Doc... physically I am pretty sure they will be fine. mentioned some injuries but nothing life-threatening, so they stayed to do the mop-up and help the injured. See, once Hera fell, they came in to the city from the outlying areas. The city made it's way up to the temple, to see that they were free. And there were wounded and we had to do crowd control so that nobody picked up some crazy fizzgig. Long and short, Doc worked through it all tile I sent them back to Sickbay. They beamed down teams that are doing triage at the temple, there are a lot of security on the ground to cover them, and the humanitarian efforts are in full swing."

"But as for how Myx Dael is going to be emotionally? I dunno, ma'am. This was their first mission on their first starship posting straight out of Starfleet Academy. And it was... violent. I did my best to shield them from it but... someone should talk to them. Hopefully we have a counselor who counsels now, so maybe that will work itself out. Maybe they can have yin yang sessions, at the half hour switch and talk about the other's problems." Reaching for the tea, now that it had cooled, Paris brought the teacup and saucer to her nose, closed her eyes to inhale, then took a rather prodigious gulp, then finished it off with the second gulp. Taking a deep breath, she opened her eyes again and set the teacup down on the desk again.

"One way or another, we'll all come to terms with it, captain," Paris offered with a nod to reassure her commander that Rita Paris really would be fine. "How are you, Commodore? Your ship was destroyed while hiding out here, or on their way out of the system?"

"I'm fine enough. Nothing a sonic shower and a cup of tea can't cure, anyway." Farenia raised her cup of tea before finishing it and setting it aside. "As for the ship, it was just an automated courier. The loss of the holographic crewman that was installed is unfortunate though. As for the diplomatic message that I used as a decoy, that was a holographic recording that I'm sure Hera could barely vent her frustrations on. All in all, that was the cheapest ship Command could spare and it served its purpose. Barely... Once it beamed the message and myself down, the ECH was ordered to book it out of the system, but didn't get far. The USS Cossette will be remembered for her noble sacrifice."

“That explains the Oberth class… I was wondering why a ship from my day and age was out here in a danger zone, and that does make much more sense. I’m glad there wasn’t a full crew complement, but here’s to the Cosette and her sacrifice,” Paris offered a two-fingered salute.

“That’s the bulk of my report, ma’am’s, without too much gory detail. Minimum casualties, maximum effect, and we squared off against a goddess. Correction, we captured a goddess, liberated a world and we lost a few personnel in the tunnels as I recall, but again, minimum casualties.” As there was no one about but the Commodore and the Captain, Paris slumped in the chair and let the weariness she felt show through for a moment. “Permission to crawl into bed for a few days?”

Enalia chuckled softly. "Only if you promise to visit sickbay first and the ship's masseuse after. Otherwise, go right ahead. Light duty is authorized for anyone that was on away missions for 72 hours, as long as they can get official reports in during that time."

"As for me, I'll be hopping another Oberth class courier in a few days to scout out another potential engagement zone. I'll send you the details as soon as I arrive. In the meantime, you'll have to deliver Hera to a prison ship, the Odin's Breath." Farenia was as vague as ever, of course.

“Sickbay for sure, and I’m probably going to be right as rain after a little Vulcan kolinahr master neuromuscular massage therapy, but if that doesn’t do the trick I’ll be in touch with the ship’s masseuse.” Paris paused, coking her head slightly. “A prison ship… that sounds pretty dreary, and exactly what she was expecting. I was hoping maybe we might… well. How many days til that rendezvous, Commodore?”

"About a week, I think. Odin's messenger wasn't the most clear." Farenia scrunched up her face in frustration.

A look of disgust crossed Enalia's face. "Those damned crow girls again? I wish he'd just send a subspace message like normal people... And why is he getting to take her? No... That's a discussion for another time. I'm sorry. Rita, please, go get some rest."

“With your permission, I’d like to know more, ma’am. Why the Odin? Why wouldn’t we keep her here? What’s this about crow girls… is that from Norse mythology, the ravens that served as Odin’s messengers and scouts... Huginn and Muninn, I think?” Rita was straining to recall details, but she only remembered so much from her ancient mythology courses in high school. Nothing energized her like questions.

Enalia poured herself another cup of tea and began the explanation. "Yeah, Odin has been on somewhat... Friendly terms... With the Federation and the Artan family specifically for a few generations. He only uses Huginn and Muginn as his messengers though."

"Unless he doesn't like you. Then he sends Valkyries," the Commodore helpfully added.

"I don't think we'd be around long enough to know if that were the case..." Enalia stared into her tea cup for a moment before continuing. "Anyway, the Odin's Breath is his more of a barge of the dead than a prison ship. I've been told it's this realm's version of Valhalla and has all the comforts and that no one has ever escaped, though a few were released."

Farenia scoffed at the description. "More like kicked out."

"Rumors of a few imprisoned Valkyries being... Kicked out... Aside, Hera should find it comfortable enough there." Enalia swirled her tea in her cup a bit before sipping at it.

“I need a scorecard,” Rita muttered. “All these god wandering the cosmos. All right… displacement field, whatever that is, sounds good to me, and I’ll try my hand at interviewing Hera in the next day or so. I’d like the chance to convince her to work on the side of the angels before we send her off to sleep with the Valkyries.” The lost navigator shrugged, wincing as she did so, as she still hadn’t dealt with the cracked collarbone and shoulder that had been gored by a harpy trying to haul her into the sky to dash her on the rocks.

“She’s the ship’s namesake, after all. It seems like… it’s probably silly, but I have to try all the same. I know, I know, stupid idealism of another age that doesn’t work in this practical world of the future, but… I have to at least try.” The words came out much sadder than she had intended, and Paris pinched the bridge of her nose to stop tears from coming. Trying so hard to find a peaceable solution and failing had been a huge blow to her, and spending the day compromising her principles to gun unreasonable enemies down had wounded her considerably. But this was neither the time nor place for that, particularly in front of the two women who had ordered her to do it.

"Hera refused to listen to reason. Sometimes you need to knock some sense into people and sometimes you need to use a really big stick." Enalia had no right to talk, but she could at least appreciate the position Rita was in. She and the Commodore had done far worse in the name of the Federation, after all. Rita was still new to this whole 'clean up other people's messes' thing that they did so often. "On the bright side, the Merosians have been reunited with their colonies, slaves freed, Earth won't be attacked... Countless lives were saved today, Commander."

"It's cowboy diplomacy, ma'am. Jim Kirk was a master at it, and it made him a legend. It isn't the first time I've had to resort to it or been ordered to employ it. Just something about it still doesn't set right with me. I know we did the right thing, and seeing a free planet reunited with its colonies so they can rebuild their civilization with the Federation's help is worth the violence. Which was probably fractional to what Hera inflicted on those people, and what they inflicted on one another. The gender politics on this planet are going to be interesting I'll bet." Paris realized she was rambling, so she got to the point.

"I'll work it out. I appreciate both of you hearing me out and letting me go on a bit while I try to figure what's in my craw. I'll say this," Paris wagged a finger. "Sonak went down in his uniform, like we did back in the old days. And I might have been okay in my uniform. I'm pretty good at this exploration thing. But I was damned glad for live feed tricorder readings without staring at a screen. I got battered, bruised and concussed more than once, and I was glad for those hardshell armor plates. In a war zone, arming and armoring for war saved my life, and my away team."

"Sonak told me that armor signals a willingness to violence, and significantly reduces the possibilities of peaceful resolution. Lacking military gear would show courage and conviction in our will for peace. But that stratagem would probably have gotten me killed. I'll work this out, and be ready for the next mission. And given all that I just verbally staggered through I should probably shut it before my superior officers have me sedated." On the Exeter, Rita had reported to Sonak and Stuart, and had referred to them collectively during meetings or briefings as 'sirs'. Now she simply adapted the gender dynamic to the future. "Permission to be dismissed, ma'am's?"

"We tried to make the armor look more like an EV suit..." Farenia muttered, staring into her empty teacup.

Enalia just scoffed, knowing just how little they looked like the stock EV suit. "Yeah, you're dismissed. Go get some rest. And visit the arboretum or something to relax."

Rising from her seat with some degree of effort was unavoidable for Paris, who had stiffened up when she had stopped moving for a few minutes. Straightening up with a grunt, she inhaled sharply then let it out slowly. "Saved a world, liberated a world, reunited cultures and captured one spiteful and petty goddess. A good day's work, Commodore, Captain. Glad I could help."

With that, Paris stiffly and slowly made her way out onto the bridge.

Watching her first officer painfully exit her ready room made Enalia wince. As soon as the doors closed behind her, she turned to Farenia. "Please tell me our next mission is to a nice peaceful place with rainbows and unicorns..."

"I don't know about that, but you should have time to recover at least." Farenia smirked her best and set aside her teacup as she too stood up to leave.

"It's a long hard trip into the galactic core, after all."