Previous Next

After Action Report

Posted on Sat Jan 19th, 2019 @ 2:18am by Commander Rita Paris & Captain Enalia Telvan

Mission: Section 31-B
Location: USS Hera, Deck 1, Captains Ready Room
Timeline: 2396, post Section 31-B base

Fresh from decontamination and with a clean bill of health, Rita had made arrangements for Engineering, Science and Medical to cooperate in analyzing the android survivor, even as she assigned security… instantly regretting and revising that decision, she assigned Science to maintain custody and restrict the android’s access and movements until she was cleared as not a threat to the starship or her crew. At the same time she considered what other department she could get to guard Hera.

After what she’d seen on the away mission, Rita Paris had zero faith in the Security department, and would not trust them to guard an outhouse. At least Hera seemed to be doing what she did and attracting Amazons for guard duty. While it was sexist of her, Rita couldn’t help but imagine that the female security officers must be less testosterone poisoned than the male ones.

Standing there, phaser rifle firing and firing, in semi-darkness as most of the MACO EVA armor’s functions were turned off, she saw the officers roaring in berserk fury as a hand came up with an antque firearm, aiming it at the back of the officer’s head…

Shaking off the memory of the footage she’d witnessed, Paris collected a PaDD and marched to the turbolift, to take it to the bridge. Her report was written and submitted, and Dox had already done the same. Dael would have their hands full and she didn’t expect a report out of them for another 24 hours, but she knew it was coming. The command staff were nothing if not reliable. Unlike Security.

Petty officer Burt Smith’s brains and blood joined the shards of his helmet, blasting away his face even as she heard Sexton’s voice. ‘Lighten up, XO…’

Shaking her head with a growl, Paris marched through the corridors of the mighty starship, catching a turbolift ride in silence. Others were on the lift, but the expression on the conventionally cheerful commander’s face made it abundantly clear that this was not the day for small talk with the First Officer. Emerging from the turbolift, Commander Paris strode directly to the captain’s chair.

“Captain? I need a word please, ma’am. In private,” Paris asked in a low voice.

The spotted woman looked up from the PaDD she'd been handed mere moments before at her first officer. "Yeah, I think we both do." Standing and tugging down on her uniform top, Enalia headed off to her ready room with Rita in tow. "Ensign Gonadie, you have the bridge."

Inside her ready room, Enalia headed straight to her window and leaned against the bulkhead, staring out at the stars streaking by. "Computer, seal the room. Authorization, just bloody do it..." With an amused chirrup from the computer, the office was sealed and shielded.

“I’m… I’m sorry, ma’am,” Paris started, her head hung low. “I made a great number of mistakes on this mission, and they cost a great number of lives. I… clearly have been lax in my duties as First officer. I have not kept as close an eye on the Security department as I should have, and I received a hard lesson on this mission in that regard. It seems we have very mentally unbalanced individuals serving on the Security staff. They do not seem to understand chain of command, they are prone to toxically masculine behavior and cannot follow the simplest of orders. I had no idea or I would never have brought them into such a potentially dangerous situation. It’s a miracle Lieutenant Dox survived. I’m so sorry, Captain.”

The red clad Captain stood there for several long moments, trying to figure out what to say and when she did, she spoke softly. "Thank you for coming back with those that you did." Taking a deep breath and letting it out, she turned to her first officer. "I guess our security department really has completely been replaced then?" She was referring to the last crew rotation where almost two thirds of the ship's complement had been swapped out, including the entire security department.

"You know at times like this, I really miss Commander T'Pral. She once took down an Amazon with her bare hands, then shot a harpy down with a phaser without even looking. I wish I'd been there to see it." Enalia then turned and tapped in an order into her replicator, two teacups with a hot, soothing Trill tea. "But we have the crew we have now so we have to work with them."

Handing off one of the teacups to Rita, Enalia cupped the other and inhaled the scent deeply. "This was my father's favorite tea. The replicator doesn't do it justice, but... It's close enough."

Taking the teacup with unsteady hands, the first officer stared into it like a Disney princess about to start a musical number. "I ordered my men to stay in the runabout- to button up and stay put. Nothing in that complex but us could have breached the Thor's hull or accomplished any appreciable damage. I watched them in the cabin on the internal sensor recordings of the Thor, arguing then going out anyway to scrape the dead things off they were hammering on the hull. Then I watched them drag each other back inside, suits hissing as they decompressed... I watched them die, then reanimate within seconds."

"I gave them orders," Rita fairly squeaked as her voice rose and her face made that ugly cry thing while the waterworks started filling up her eyes. "Why didn't they obey their orders? They would have been, they would have been safe if they'd just followed orders, and they'd still be here. How did I fail them? They had worked with me before, they knew their jobs- Commander wants to make damn sure our ride is ready to fly and sometimes she needs artillery support. They knew their jobs, they knew their post, I gave them a direct order. Why... what.." Paris trailed off as her nose finished filling up with snot and she bawled for a few seconds.

"Sshhhh.... It's ok. We'll just have to train the department better." Enalia placed one hand on Rita's back and rubbed in small circles. "We'll do our best to make sure everyone comes back on the next missions, ok? Now... Tell me about this survivor. Some sort of android from the future?"

"Right yes... Captain, the entire security force! If this is the best they have to offer- hell, if this is the worst they have to offer either one, this is incredibly bad! I think we have to review each one of them, top to bottom." Rita was getting a little frantic now, and it was clear that she was a lot more wound up about all of this. "I literally don't trust Security guarding Hera.... well, she seems to be attracting Amazons, but still. He executed his own men, ma'am! He just, he just decided they were done for and executed them? What kind of a monster does that? And, and he just strode away like nothing was wrong, he'd done something noble!" I just... I just..."

When next she spoke, the voice of Rita Paris was quavering and unsteady, low and quiet. " I started to raise my rifle then, and it worried me so badly. Then I watched his suit's footage on the way back, I saw what he did and... I had my phaser in my hand, ma'am. I had it in my hand and I thought about it. I'da stunned him but I, I wasn't sure I wouldn't set the phaser a little too high. I... I wanted to kill him for what he'd done to my men, Captain. Heaven help me, I did!"

The Captain nodded as Rita let it all flow out of her. She realized she wasn't going to get anything else out of her for now, so she just focused on Sexton's actions. "That's good. We're Starfleet. We owe those two a hearing into what happened. I'll conduct a debriefing and... By the book, we'll go from there. Ok? We'll take this one step at a time. I promise. For now though, you brought home everyone you could as well as a survivor and that's an accomplishment right there."

Between the spotted captain's words of encouragement and the fact that she'd been able to get it off her chest and unload it a bit helped, and within a few minutes Rita was regaining her composure. "Thanks, cap'n. I'm sorry, I know, part of command is in accepting the losses, just... that was so needless. Those men were my friends and I failed them, as a leader and as a commander. I have to do better. I have to be better. For their sakes."

"I know. We both will be." Enalia smiled encouragingly. "Now... drink your tea and tell me about this android you rescued. Aunt Rita?"

"I got nothin," Paris admitted. "ANDROID Mizu. Artificial life form, apparently built by the Vulcan Science Commission in 2480, her specialty is data processing and scientific analysis. Spatial anomaly, apparently shunted her back in time 48 years ago. They were studying her at the base, and her self repair systems apparently finally caught up recently, adapted and she made her way to jury-rig the distress beacon."

"For all intents and purposes, she appears to have the mentality of a child. Dedjoy says she's about 12 years old, but developing slower than that, maybe? Hard to tell. She reacts like a child, and she was awfully glad to see me. I think she knows me someday in the future, which, I will be pretty old by then, Rita chuckled, imaging herself that old.

"I let her connect with my systems... what, I know, but there's that moment when you choose to trust, Captain. I made the call then, and I am having her checked out six ways from Sunday. But I think she's a lost kid, Captain," Rita pleaded a bit. "An artificial life form, yes, but she's a kid and she's lost. I think we can help her, and I think it might do some good to have a little more childlike innocence around."

"Plus Doc seems to have adopted her as a sibling, so we might need a crowbar to get them off her," Rita admitted, finally taking a sip of the strong black tea. "I don't know if the kid latched onto me to call me Aunt Rita or if someday that's who I'll be to her. That's a conversation yet to be had. I suspect you'd better..." Rita trailed off at that, remembering a conversation that felt like months ago now. 'I'm pretty terrifying to normal people, aren't I?'

"Ah, I'd better debrief her so we can establish what she can and cannot tell us because apparently she IS bound by the temporal accords. Assuming she is cleared by medical science and engineering."

Finally sitting down, Enalia sipped at her tea and thought about what Rita was saying. "DTI will want to dig their hands into her... If she's as developmentally young as you say and... Yes, I did see the decon footage... She's as self aware as any organic being... We'll need to make sure she has all the rights and representation she's due if they or anyone else decide to pull anything. That includes monitoring ourselves as well."

"Since they seem to be close, I think Doctor Dael would be the best choice to debrief her." Then thinking a bit further, Enalia sipped at her tea a bit more. "She'll also need quarters. Do you think it would be better to assign her her own or with a roommate?"

That gave the lost navigator pause as she quirked an eyebrow a bit. "Doc is pretty attached and is the closest in age. They're agendered, are they asexual? I only ask for propriety's sake," Rita defended her position against one of the captain's raised eyebrows. "If she's a kid she needs structure. Asa would be a playmate for them, but I worry about them spending too much time with her, being distracted from their duties. In a perfect world we'd ask the Counselor about this, but Doc is pulling double duty like in the old fleet, so no impartiality there. Do we have an expert on androids?"

"Closest we would have is Sonak or Maica," Enalia mused, staring into her teacup.

"Why don't you introduce her to Maica and see how that goes? Should we consider that we should ask Miss Mizu what she prefers?" Rita posited, gesturing with her teacup. "Bit of an adult decision, but it gives her some control of her own fate. She was smart enough to figure out what needed to be done, brave enough to work her way there unmolested, and strong enough to wait and hold out hope that someone would come. If she turns out to be some sort of programmed assassin droid I'm going to be heartbroken, because how can ya not love that kid?"

"There is something about her that's rather endearing, isn't there?" The captain couldn't help but find herself smiling as she looked up at Rita. "Ok, we'll leave that to Asa to find out as well and whatever she decides, we'll go from there. Also... she had on a uniform and comm badge that isn't in the database. Do you think it's from the future as well?"

"That's why we have science, engineering and medical look her over, ma'am. Because I'm no expert, but I know someone who is," Rita wisecracked, her customary good humor beginning to reassert itself. "Limited access until she checks out. Wasn't the last android we had aboard the civilian ops chief?"

"Yeah, she was technically holographic but she had an android body as well." Enalia knew she'd have to interview this girl, but she had to be honest with herself as well. If this Kodria knew Telvan in the future... Would it be Enalia? Would it be the next host? The one after that? It was concerning, to say the least. Hopefully, the young android would be able to stick to the Temporal Prime Directive and not reveal any of those details or if they were even known to her. "You're worried she's dangerous, aren't you? Just having someone aboard with knowledge of the future is dangerous in and of itself. There's no telling what she knows and we're unable to make that determination simply by our very placement in the stream of time. She'll have to understand that and act accordingly."

"Pffft!" Rita sneered. "Foreknowledge of the future is not my problem. I don't think she's dangerous, I just worry that she is. That's my job, to spot the hazards so you can focus on the big picture. I think she's probably a sweet lost kid, it's probably all predestination paradox, and I'll find out for sure in 84 years. So, no real concern on that front, ma'am. For me the future is unwritten, regardless of what anyone else tells me. As for Kodria Mizu, well... you do have a way of rescuing people in trouble and folding them into the crew, ma'am."

"No judgment- you seem to have a heck of a knack for it..."


 

Previous Next

labels_subscribe