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Burden Of Command

Posted on Sun Jan 20th, 2019 @ 2:29pm by Lieutenant Commander Mnhei'sahe Dox & Captain Enalia Telvan & Commander Rita Paris

Mission: Section 31-B
Location: USS Hera, Deck 10, Ten-Forward
Timeline: 2396, en route to Earth for Shore leave

It was the end of a particularly long day of work for Lieutenant Mnhei'sahe Dox as she prepared to shut down her work computer and leave her office as Chief Flight Control Officer for the evening. She had been reviewing some particularly troubling reports of an Ensign that was giving some of the other members of the Flight Crew difficulty. But that would hold for another day.

For today, Dox was just too tired to keep working past the end of her shift. Generally, she preferred to keep busy when her mind was obsessing over anything. And her mind was certainly doing that as she recalled the HERA's most recent mission to destroy an abandoned Section 31 research facility.

It was a mission that ended horribly with the deaths of 6 security crewmembers. And it was a mission that Dox felt responsible for. But she was simply too brain drained to think about it any more.

Which is exactly when her PaDD lit up on her desk. Glancing over as she was standing up to leave, it was a simple message from the shops First Officer and her friend, Rita Paris.

The message simply read: 10-Forward for a drink, Miss Dox.

The initial thought that rushed through Dox was concern. Was it time for her to be broken back for what she percieved as a failure on the station? But she was also learning that if Paris was going to reprimanded her in some way, it would likely be here or in Paris' own office.

Still, she didn't want to keep Paris waiting, so she made her way into the corridor, walking briskly towards 10-Forward, PaDD in hand just in case.

Upon arrival few minutes later, Dox was still nervous. But even now her exhaustion was making being stressed too much effort.

Sitting at the bar with a clear cocktail tumbler in her hand, Rita Paris sat with a chair pulled out and a handblown glass tumbler of a rounded squarish design that currently held two fingers of a pale blue liquid. Noticing Dox, the communicative commander nodded at her, then nodded to the seat, then returned to nursing her drink.

After a second of hesitation, Dox walked in and over to where Rita had gestured. Normally, the redheaded Romulan's mind would be racing over just what Rita wanted to talk about, but tonight there was little doubt. Dox was beginning to understand how her intuitive First Officer behaved enough to trust that whatever was about to happen was for the best.

And maybe that was what was worrying Dox. Deep down, the inexperienced officer didn't want more reassurance, if that was what was coming. Deep down, she wanted to keep blaming herself. Pain and guilt had become like old friends over the years, and were hard to let go of. But Dox put those thoughts out of her head as she sat down.

Sitting at the bar made it easier to not have to make extended eye contact as she spoke. "Good evening." It was a somewhat perfunctory greeting said in a tone that said 'I don't know what to say.'

"So how's that 'beating yourself up over the men who died under your command' treating you? Still trying to process it, going over everything that you did wrong, kicking yourself for the decisions you made, the ones you didn't, working out every possible way if you had done this or hadn't done that?" It might have sounded like sarcasm, but the tone belied it. It was quite clear from the ragged edge to her voice this was not one of those Paris Has All The Answers talks, and the reason she knew what Dox was thinking was because she clearly felt the exact same way.

A slight smile crept across Dox's face as she took a sip of the drink that had been waiting for her. She squinched her face slightly at the somewhat harsh aftertaste of the lower end ale. But it wasn't syntholic, so that helped.

As usual, the hyper observant First Officer looked right through the raw pilot and cut through to the point.

Dox looked down at her hand as she held the glass and remembered just a night prior needing Doctor Dael to repair the lacerations and cracked bones caused by her taking out her aggressions on the practice dummy in her quarters. "Yeah... 'beating myself up' is a fairly accurate assessment."

"I've replayed my suits records over and over and I can't stop thinking about it." Dox sighed as she took another drink.

"Well, this is one of those moments where I'm supposed to teach you something about command, Miss Dox," Paris sipped her drink, staring across the bar. "How we deal with death is something they try to teach you in command school, but it never really sets in until you feel it, then all of their good advice and strategies and coping mechanisms all sound like bullshit." Again, it wasn't a question, but a statement. This was clearly a very different lesson Paris was teaching, if it was a lesson at all.

Letting out a sigh, Dox's eyes drifted off. But suddenly, the young pilot realized that this wasn't going to be a reassuring speech or a pep talk. When it came to reading people, the anxious young Romulan's greatest skill was recognizing anxiety in others. As she liked to say, 'we can smell our own.' And in that moment, she understood that Rita was most likely putting herself through much the same self-incrimination that she was.

"Academy lectures and sims don't really cover the next day when people are still dead and you could have stopped it." She took another drink, emptying her glass.

"No. No, they do not," Rita admitted. "It could be worse. We could have a counselor who wanted to one-up your pain and explain how she lost an entire starship's worth of crew and how it still haunts her. Not much of a bright side, but it's there."

Taking another sip of her drink, the confessional began as Rita Paris began speaking in a low and quiet tone so that only the two of them could hear, as she knew Mnhei'sahe's hearing was keener than most. "I heard him addressing his men... well, trying to usurp control of the mission. I explained the difference to him and I saw that look between him and his men. 'Commander Curves doesn't know the real score, does she, men?' because before that it was Ensign Easy or Lieutenant Legs or whatever other useless nickname men come up with for a woman whose wisdom they wish to discount. Big tough men, they know what they're doing. So I keep it down- they are trained security officers going into a dangerous situation. They are professionals, just give them a little room."

"One man dies in the hangar. In the bloody hangar, and I don't step up. Because it could happen, a fluke, but they seem to know what they are doing. Then we come to the split of the mission, and I make my choice. I don't trust Sexton not to do something moronic if left unsupervised. I can't be in two places at once, and if there is someone signalling up there I am not sending 'shoot first, never ask questions' up there. So I choose. You're the one who I can count on. You don't have extensive experience but I know your strength of character, and you'll get the job done. I can rely on you, so I send you down there with the grunts."

"All the while I am so afraid I have signed your death warrant. That I'm going to have to leave your body behind to be incinerated because you were infected with whatever gods-forsaken hellseed they concocted in that place. I'm on a first contact, and we find the kid, and I opt to trust her. Still I'm worried about you. I get back tot he shuttle and my men are dead, and I don't understand why they didn't listen to my orders. I was so clear but they're both dead now and I have to, I have to execute them, their still-moving corpses with faces I can still recognize."

"My friends and I have to execute them, and that's when I realize that every sign I have seen is exactly what I thought it was. It isn't security men just being dismissive, these men are poorly trained. They have no idea what they are doing, they are heavily armed and I sent you to your doom with them. I button up Doc and Dedjoy and the kid, and I make them swear not to open that hatch, and I come after you. And all the while I'm, I'm terrified that it's just going to be Sexton walking out with some stupid macho line and I'm going to break my vow as an officer and I am going to draw my phaser and disintegrate him and claim he died on the mission, then I'll have to find you because until I see proof that you are dead I can't leave, because there might still be a chance to save you and I will be damned if I don't take that chance."

"Then I see you, and you're okay, and I'm relieved, then I realize all his men are dead. Then he gives me that bullshit 'some gave all' line like he's in an action holo or something. In the runabout I see the footage and watch execute his own men, give up on them because they were morons and rather than help them he decided on the final solution, and I realize I can't turn my back on him and I am looking for a way to override his armor because we can't have a firefight in the ruunabout and all those men are dead and I was the commander. I should have seen the warning signs. I should not have been so lax. I should have been stricter, stepped up and done the pissing contest and made them follow my damned orders and they'd still be alive."

Having run her course, the sad smile settled on the face of the first officer. "Does that loop of guilt playing over and over in your head sound anything like that?"

Hanging her head, Dox sighed again. It, of course, sounded far more than familiar. While the details were different and the scale was different, the feeling was much the same for her.

"I... L knew they didn't have their HUD's on. I mean, I didn't have access to their suits, but I knew it. They... they were waiting until those things were right on top of us. Sexton didn't even know one was four feet from him in that Jefferies tube." Dox looked over at Paris with a pained expression on her face.

"But I didn't... I didn't say anything. I just... I figured they were the experts and I was the idiot pilot that should have been kept on the ship." She took a breath to keep herself from losing control of her emotions like she did in her quarters with Asa the night before.

"But I knew it was all falling apart. So... I deferred. I let him do what he was supposed to be the expert on. I tried to focus on my assignment. My job." Dox chuckled, but it was a cold, pained thing.

"Sexton was in charge of the mission. I was under his aegis. But I'm a senior bridge officer. I could have pulled rank and at least tried to do something to stop them when I saw the warning signs. I saw panic creeping in and I saw how Sexton was just... ignoring it with that smug smirk of his. I... couldn't believe when I watched the scan feed from my suit. What he did."

Enalia needed some time to unwind and while she normally did so in private, this evening for some reason she decided to head to the ship's lounge and have a drink and see how the rest of the crew were doing. Losing people was hard on everyone and the news was sweeping through the crew, which meant people would be drinking.

Thus as she slid behind the bar she caught the end of what Dox was saying. Pulling out a bottle of Romulan ale and grimacing at the low quality label, she refilled the pilot's glass anyway. She then pulled out a glass for herself and poured a vodka and tonic. "You know... Ultimate responsibility for all of this falls to me. I know that's not comforting, but... That's the official answer. I should have spotted the issue well before he went into the field but I didn't."

For her part, Dox sat back slightly as she realized that the Captain of the ship had just appeared to refill her drink. She had been so caught up in herself that she hadn't even noticed Telvan's arrival.

Taking a sip of her drink and doing a one handed lean on the opposite side of the bar from Rita and Dox, her glass in her other hand, Enalia stood there and surveyed the lounge. There were a lot of people there, but it was relatively quiet. "The entire department will be retrained from the ground up. No more of this macho sexist humanist bullshit. If someone can't rely on their gear and the people they're with, they get to go to another ship. I just... Even growing up with relics of the past in the world of pirates and privateers... You don't run across people like him. I'd consider myself pretty low on the Federation empathy meter, but... in that debrief and watching the suit sensors and logs... How does someone like that even get into Starfleet?"

"Been dealing with them for what feels like a hundred years, ma'am," Paris raised her glass in agreement, noting the captain's drink of choice for drowning her sorrows matched Rita's own. "One of the many reasons I chose the man that I did. He's a superhuman, yet no pride, no ego, no vanity that needs to be soothed and stroked, no rage to lose his mind in the thick of things. I never even imagined a man like that was out there amongst the stars. Because all I'd ever seen was what we just saw magnified by the heat of combat."

"See, here's the burden of command. The junior officer between us is blaming herself for not asserting command. The commander is blaming herself for not seeing it coming, not heading it off. The captain is blaming herself for all of that as well as her personnel transfers and she worries what Starfleet Command is routing to us as personnel and she's worried about what we found and what it means and she's worried that she has a psychopath on her ship and she's to blame. All of us, one stacked blame atop the other. Ain't we a pack of space heroes?" Paris quirked her heap and took a sip of her gin and tonic with a twist of lime.

"That sums it up nicely, actually," Enalia replied, sipping at her drink.

"French is off duty, taking a personal day, and she's been holed up with Sexton, unsurprisingly. I bypassed Security on this one given the nature of the situation, and I just have the ship's computer keeping track of them for me. She's pretty good at it, and it bypasses the unreliability of the sec/tac force right now. Which is sad when we relegate formerly sentient positions to machines, but I doubt the oarmen of the longboats felt the same."

"Actually, she just tendered her resignation. She'll be returning to command with him to be with him for his hearing." The spotted Captain shook her head. "Which means you'll need to run that department for a while. After we stop by that dark matter ion storm, we'll be heading towards Earth to deliver them to Intel Command. As for the computer watching them... Maru is good at that, so don't worry..." Sipping at her drink, Enalia let that name hang in the air like a lead balloon.

Locking on the Captain's last comment, Dox had a confused look on her face as she took another drink. The Hera was a ship of many secrets and the young pilot was only privy to a small percentage of them, and while she didn't want to overstep her bounds, felt like the name drop might have at least made the question acceptable. "Maru, Captain?"

"The.. ah... antivirus software in the main computer." Enalia skipped over the explanation, preferring not to go into too many details. "Think of her like a cat that'll eat any mouse that tries to take over her cat bed but otherwise... Very lazy..."

Nodding, Dox took another drink. The answer was vague and Captain Telvan rarely paused mid sentence, so the junior most officer assumed the detailed answer was simply above her proverbial pay grade.

"Aw, the ship's computer works hard ma'am, doing a thousand different things across the ship. She's not lazy, she tries not to take too much initiative, because she was probably programmed that way for a reason and she knows it. The Hera's always there though, always listening, always ready to help." Paris rapped her knuckles on the bar.

"So I believe 'How do I deal with this Commander' is the unasked question, Miss Dox. And no pep talk or cracker barrel wisdom this time, just the hard facts of being in command. You will lose people. You can spend as long as you like whipping yourself over it, but in the end, you'll know what you should have done next time. And next time you do that. You learn from your mistakes and you be better the next time."

"That's how you learn to live with it," Paris drained her drink. "Feel every one. Feel the loss, regret that they died. Remember their names, because they died in the line of duty, whether they are heroes or just average joes we honor the fallen. Then you go on the next mission and you learn from that one too. Life is a dance you learn as you go, and my people say."

There was no magical answer to make everything better. But Dox knew there wouldn't be as she smiled slightly. As odd as it seed, she could take at least some comfort in knowing that even the Captain and the First Officer we're also feeling much the same. It didn't make the pain stop, but at least she didn't feel alone.

Checking the order tags on the bar PaDD, Enalia used that to confirm Rita's drink and refilled it for her - another gin and tonic. "I do have a bit of advice. When losing people stops bothering you... Apply for a desk job." She then finished her own drink and looked around behind the counter for the real booze rather than the synthehol they regularly stocked. "Alexi, where are all the good bottles? What? Captain's prerogative!"

The quick interaction between Enalia and the barkeep was like two Boston terriers yapping at each other, but at least they were going to get the real stuff. A few moments later, Alexi had brought out a crate of dusty bottles from under a floor panel and plopped it down on the counter for the captain's perusal. "Thank you, Alexi." Grabbing the actual Trill Vodka, she poured herself a fresh vodka and tonic, then pulled out a bottle of Andorian ale and plopped that in front of Dox. "I don't see any kali-fal but this should be close enough unless you want Saurian brandy. Rita? Sticking with synthehol for your husband?"

Dox took a drink and smiled. It was significantly better then what she had been drinking.

"Aye ma'am, synthehol is one of my favorite innovations of the future. No hangovers and the hubby doesn't object." Taking a draught from her cocktail, Rita savored the flavor, then used the glass to articulate her point, as she she often did. "I was going to ask to take over Security until they're whipped into shape, so thank you ma'am. I've a few requests, though, if you're of the mood to entertain them?"

"You've caught me at a good time..." Enalia replied, downing her drink and preparing another one.

"We need shore leave, ma'am, and... I miss Earth. It's my home and I haven't been back in a long time on my timeline, forget about the fact that in 130 years it has probably changed so much as to be nearly unrecognizable to me. I know it's completely selfish of me, but particularly after all this... I'd very much like to go home please, Captain." There was a bit of pleading in the voice of the lost navigator, and her eyes shone with restrained tears.

Knowing rumors of ships like the Hera already spread fast across the Federation, having one show up over Earth would really light the tabloids on fire and Enalia really didn't like that prospect, but seeing the look in her first officer's eyes... "I don't think I could ever say no to eyes like those... I'll have to pull some strings and we'll have to keep a low profile though. Probably go in stealthy. But yes. I'll make shore leave at Earth happen. Just don't expect the niceties of the ship to come to your rescue if you get stranded in the middle of nowhere or something. You'll have to use the local services. I wouldn't mind visiting my castle in Switzerland..."

At the compliment, Rita had the good grace to blush, but as she saw the problem she began to put it all together. "We're too classified for Earth orbit or Starbase One, aren't we? Mmmm. So we're probably going to have to sneak in and... let me guess, there's a secret Intel base on one of the moons of Jupiter that we can hide the ship and runabout and beam our people in and out. How'm I doing?"

The spotted captain tipped her glass to the first officer for figuring it out. "It's actually at Ceres in the asteroid belt between Jupiter and Mars, but you're pretty much spot on. It's one of the places where Intel keeps prisoners, labs, offices... Things people aren't supposed to find. I'm sure they'll let us park there for a couple weeks. We might even get to see the remains of the donor of our pod, the USS Spectre."

Listening, Dox took another drink, finishing her glass with ease to avoid rolling her eyes. The young part-Romulan, part-Human woman was struggling to find a balance between her dual heritages, but the idea of returning to Earth was less than exciting for her. But she wasn't going to piss on her friend's obvious excitement.

"Once confirmed, I can prepare a shuttle schedule for review that should enable crewmembers to come and go without drawing any attention to the ship." Dox replied, knowing more then a few ways to avoid paying eyes in a ship from her smuggling days.

"Earth... home of the Federation, Starfleet Command, San Francisco. Been a very long time..." Rita stared off in one of those thousand mile stares that usually meant that she was caught up in a flashback, then she smiled and inclined her head to the captain. "Thank you, Captain. It means... it means the world to me. So, while you are in such an expansive and magnanimous mood, I did what you asked. I modeled it and the skirt even caught on with some, surprise of surprises. And I've worn it with pride, but... I miss my old uniform."

"I know it makes me non-regulation, and it's not even fully an anachronism now with the leggings and the pips. But it marks me as a piece of another time, and... I like that ma'am, for no other reason that I think it feels right. I will admit I like the cut of mine better- those snug collars look great but they're a bit itchy." Plus I can't flash cleavage in the modern version, but let's maybe not make that part of the sales pitch to the Captain...

"If I'm running Sec/Tac, they wear gold, do they not? It would show some solidarity to them..." Rita knew she was reaching now, but she had a feeling her indulgent captain was likely going to give her permission. Rita worked hard for Enalia Telven, and she appreciated the loyalty and the service. Rita didn't ask for much, but what she did ask for the captain moved mountains to manage.

Enalia expected this one but to have it presented in this manner... Personally she figured Rita just wanted to be able to flash that vast cleavage of hers, not that Enalia ever complained about things like that. She had a reason of her own to present for it as well, and a counter-favor to ask in return though. "Ok... But only if you do a favor for me as well. We now have a crewmember from the future that feels comfortable in a uniform from an era we have no record of. It might make her feel more comfortable if she saw you in it since she's not the only time traveler aboard. As for the favor... Take her on a tour of the ship. Work with Asa and see what she wants to do."

A bemused expression settled on the face of Rita Paris. "When I first came aboard, your XO reamed me about wanting to hold onto something familiar, some shred of identity that was mine in this sudden dynamic shift for me. He got mad about. Furious, although he backed it down and settled to 'agree to disagree'. I understand that need, ma'am, and we'll get her a modern comm badge so that we don't learn something trying to fix hers, unless she can fix it herself and wipe the logs."

"In short, yes, of course she can wear her old one or embrace the new as she likes- slow and steady, right? She's a kid. As such she will need guidance and structure and socialization, because once we lost souls find our way here we usually find a niche. We will explore options with no sudden decisions, and if she's on this boat that means she is my responsibility, Captain. Because that means she is your guest, and as a member of the crew I answer to you. So of course I will take her under wing. As will we all, aye Lieutenant?"

"Aye, Commander. I'll... I'll do what I can." Dox smiled slightly. "I don't really know her yet, but I'll try not to teach her how to be neurotic."

"A child is raised by a village, or so our people say, Miss Dox. And one of our great authors once observed that of all of the races of the cosmos, only humans seemed determined to form family units out of whatever other species were at hand. He said it created a patchwork family, but one of infinite possibility. I've always liked that philosophy, because I've found it to be true, out here amongst the stars.

Standing, Paris raised her glass for a toast. "So here's to our fallen brothers." Then she cocked her head, looked around and addressed 10-Forward in that authoritative military tone of hers. "To our fallen brothers in Security!"

A semi drunken reply went up around the lounge at the busty commander's sudden toast. There were far too many gold uniforms for Enalia's liking, but it was to be expected. At least most of what they were drinking was synthehol.

Raising her glass in solidarity, Dox joined in the toast before quickly finishing off her drink.

Tossing down her own drink, Paris shrugged. "Well, that felt awful. It's how we deal with it, Miss Dox. We learn from our mistakes so tomorrow we do better, as we build that brighter future for the next generation of voyagers. We don't ignore a cry for help. We trust our instincts. And nobody gets left behind. Now if you officers will excuse me, I am going to go blather all of this to a master of logic who will frame it in such a way as to make me feel good about myself, and then I am going to remind myself of one of the greatest joys of being alive. By your leave, Captain?"

With the nod of assent from the mistress and commander of the starship Hera, Paris slid off the barstool and patted Dox on the back before striding out with a purpose.

Smiling and nodding to Paris as she left, Dox turned back towards the bar and the Captain, trying to maintain that smile as it slid slowly from her face.

Behind the bar, Captain Telvan Slipped the bottles back into the crate, then slid the whole mess back into its hiding spot and sealed it up for Alexi. She then looked around the room, smiled her best smile, and started mixing drinks for the crew for a while to try and crush down her own feelings... and to keep an eye on her people.


 

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