The Stars Be My Destination

Posted on Sun Feb 10th, 2019 @ 5:35pm by Commander Rita Paris & Captain Enalia Telvan

Mission: Earthly Visitation
Location: USS Hera, Deck E, Intel Pod Lounge
Timeline: 2396

Laying the decorative plate into the gift box, Enalia nodded in satisfaction. She'd finished thinking over what had happened, processed everything, gone over all the reports, and even had time for a cup of tea since she'd gotten out of that fecking awful radiation treatment vice. Now she just needed to find a trio of friends and apologize to them, starting with her first officer.

"Computer, where is Commander Paris?"

With a chirrup the computer replied. =^= Commander Paris is on E deck in the forward pod lounge. =^=

"Thanks. Now to hope she stays there long enough for me to get there." Enalia grinned wryly as she tucked the gift box under one arm, knowing how fast the Commander could get across the ship.

=^= Records indicate she has not changed location for seventeen minutes and is alone, =^= the computer offered helpfully.

"That means she's about to start moving or going to stay there a while... Thanks again." Not wasting any more time, just in case, Enalia headed out the door and towards the nearest turbolift. Once inside, it was a simple command to get it moving in the right direction, but as it had to work it's way through the ship the long way, it was the longest turbolift ride on the ship.

Eventually she did get there though - Intel pod, E deck. Right between the labs and the lounge. Quickly tugging down on her uniform top, she strode into the lounge and looked out at the view across the top of the ship and inside the Ceres Intel Base. They weren't real windows, but the holographics were impeccable so to normal vision you couldn't tell the difference.

"Quite the view, isn't it?" she asked as she walked up to the table Rita was at. "Do you mind if I join you?"

"Not at all... it's your ship, Captain," Rita looked up in surprise, but took it in stride. She'd come up here to the reasonably remote part of the starship visited by few save for Yeoman Dedjoy, to collect her thoughts for a bit and try to plan in the mire of chaos that seemed to be their lives. But it was good to see the Captain out and about the starship. "Doc finally let you out for good behavior?"

Sliding into one of the chairs at the table, Enalia set the gift box in front of Rita. "Yeah, finally. I was in there for what? Three days? Remind me never to try out any experimental time ships again."

"Yeah, I'm supposed to be the daredevil pilot, right?" Rita joked, as both women had been pilots willing to take incredible risks in their day, and now that both were command level, neither tended to see much piloting anymore.

The spotted captain then motioned to the box. "This is for you. You apologized for yelling at me while I was in the clamps of torture but... A lot of what you said was right and I need to make amends for that. Under an alien influence or not, those feelings are there whether I like them or not. I need to settle my issues with my family and it's going to take skills and things I'm frankly not very good with."

"What I'm trying to say is that I'm sorry. I shouldn't have crossed that line, influence or no."

There was silence for a moment as the pinup-girl of the past stared out the virtual viewport to compose her thoughts. When she spoke, it was earnest and from the heart, a bit more casually direct than she would speak if others were about. "I crossed lines too, Captain. I... worry about Dox. I've seen what it does to you when we get involved with piracy, and it worries me that she'll follow in that path. She'll be a great officer someday... and it makes me feel as though we're competing for her heart. Serving in Starfleet, piracy represents her smuggler's past, that she ran away from to join Starfleet. Just like you," Rita looked Enalia in the eye.

"You worked so hard to get away, yet you started indoctrinating one of your junior officers at the first opportunity, and it worried me, Enalia," Rita said quietly. "I was worried that she'd been a party to a trio of assassinations you had ordered in the brig of the ship, and that it was going to be the end of her career. I overreacted... but the danger to Dox was genuine. I love the Baroness, but as non-Starfleet she might have gotten some leeway, but on your orders it endangered you too. This whole affair... I worry, Captain. I worry a lot."

"I worry all the time too, but I'm determined to get through it as a Starfleet Captain. Also, for the record? I didn't intend for those men to be killed. Schwein is normally very good at intimidation and she can usually get what she wants out of people without resorting to violence. Her torture implements are actually antique Klingon cooking utensils. The Collector on the other hand... I'm glad his base was raided before she got anywhere close to Risa." Enalia sighed softly. "As for our Dox... She has ties to my family and this was my way of giving her an avenue to reconnect with all the refugees she helped growing up. I worry too, but she's got to make those decisions on her own. We can only guide her so far."

"So in order- yes. I could see that's all Baroness planned to do, and she did it well. In hindsight I can see it all, but at the time..." Sighing deeply, Rita shook her head. "Is this what it's going to be like being parents? Raise them, teach them, guide them, then you have to trust in them to make the right decisions?"

"That's what I'm told." Enalia stared out at the other ships docked with them for a few moments before continuing. "Even if they make mistakes, we have to be there for them. Help them find where they went wrong and help them find the right path and remember that the right path for them might not be the path we chose for them."

The spotted woman then pointed to an angular science ship the same hull color as the Hera with a donut-shaped outer saucer and a smaller inner saucer with sweeping nacelles trailing behind it. "Like that ship right there. That's one of the new Intel science ships. I'm told it'll have systems we haven't even dreamed of yet but command is using our mission reports to build it from the ground up. We're helping them find the right path even though no one knows what it is yet. We just have to hope for the best."

Enalia took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "And I just realized I'm horrible at analogies. Open your present. My wife is great at analogies."

"You really didn't have to get me a present, Enalia," Rita objected politely. "It's very sweet, but wholly unnecessary." Opening the box and looking inside, the face of the lost navigator warmed as she took in the sight, then she carefully reached in and fetched out the wooden plaque. Embossed upon it was the legend 'FRIENDS', with the inscription below it which read, 'A friend knows the song in your heart and can sing it back to you when you have forgotten the words'.

Blinking back tears, Rita nodded. "Yep. That's why... yeah, that's pretty much..." Eventually all she could manage was an emphatic nodding. "That's... that's on target right there, Captain Telvan."

"Thank goodness." Enalia relaxed into her chair even further, relieved that the present was well received. "If I didn't have you and Maica, I would be completely lost right now."

"I think you don't give yourself credit, Captain. But thank her for me, please. This is lovely and I will treasure it. This one's for the quarters, on my wall of sentiment." Rita beamed a smile at it. She loved the message, and wood reminded her of Earth on a starship of metal and plastic and polymers.

"Speaking of sentiment, funny thing. Our little friend, the sliver of the Titan that we herded home? They left me a gift. The file of my old office is still in the holodeck," Rita explained. "I replicated a model of my old Exeter and the Farragut from the hologram for my modern office. It took my memories of the place and made them solid here. I don't know if they did it intentionally or not, but it's kind of remarkable for me. A connection to my past in a universe that we paradoxically caused to never come into creation, yet here I am, the impossible Earth girl."

Looking to Enalia, Rita laid her hand over the other woman's spotted hand. "I will try to keep you grounded, and I will try to navigate a clear course for you. I'll be your sword and shieldmaiden- I will defend your starship inside and out. I'll help you get through the battle for your own independence, and we'll do it without violating our Starfleet oaths. I will remember that underneath all that swagger and seeming omniscience is still an all-too mortal woman, frail as the rest of us. Just like me," Rita offered frankly. "We keep one another balanced, Captain. That seems to be why this works. I... will respect that I have to let them make mistakes, and that I cannot be quick to judge. Emotion must be tempered by logic."

"I swore I'd serve, and that I'd do my best. Five year mission, ma'am... this is the part where we say goodbye to Earth," Rita said wistfully. It was a paradox about the spacefarer that she strove to explore the stars, yet yearned for her homeworld, beloved in her heart. "I'll see it again in the year 2400 when I've got a date with destiny. So now, let the stars be my destination."

"Well said, Commander Paris. Well said." Enalia reached out and gave Rita's hand a squeeze as they looked out over the broad and graceful saucer of the USS Hera. "To wherever those in need cry out, that's where we'll go. And to our oaths we'll hold true."

"I will tell Kodria Mizu, eighty-something years into the future, that you work out a way to call for help, and you wait, and you don’t give up hope. Because there are people out there who spend their lives answering those calls for help in the darkness when all seems lost, people like Starfleet," Rita patted the captain on the shoulder. "When she found herself all alone and in need of help, she called out into the darkness, and she didn't give up hope. Who should show up but Starfleet. Because we're the good guys, you and me and this amazing crew of mad diversity of yours."

"I wouldn't have it any other way, Captain. You lead, I'll follow, and she'll fly straight and true for you, on my honor as your officer, first amongst them." Rita nodded. "Oh! I bought something. I don't imagine it's a pet for you, but Maica will probably adore it. Computer," Rita called out to the overhead. "Please beam in My Little Fuzzball."

There was the hum of the transporter, and on the table before them a tribble appeared, cooing and purring curiously.

"It's just a robot, basic programming, apparently they are kid's toys for parents who want a hypoallergenic pet who still looks organic. But it trills and rolls around. It can't climb walls, and you're welcome for that because I thought that might be a bit too close to the real thing. But I ran across them in a shop in San Fran so I got one for you. Kind of a memento of our first real adventure together."

"Oh ho!" Enalia picked up the little fuzzball and started petting it, setting off a pleasing cooing sound. "I actually thought about getting you a live neutered one before Maica suggested the plate instead. Thank you. I'll treasure it always."

For several long moments the only sound was the cooing of the tribble toy as Enalia pet it. "Hey... If it comes down to it... My mother is likely to demand a duel between starships. If so, I can't use the Hera. Would you be my first officer and tactical officer aboard my old ship?"

Without hesitation, Rita Paris replied. "I will.. but only so long as you swear to me you aren't going to kill her. Plain and simple. I'll stand on your bridge in my golden oldie uniform and I'll show her tricks she never dreamed of and we'll make her regret ever raising an objection to your wishes. But when it's over, she lives. She has to. Because we're Starfleet, and otherwise the cost to you is too great, and I won't be a party to that." Eyeing the spotted corsair, the career Starfleet gal offered her hand. "Deal?"

"You know she's not going to..." Enalia paused, her hand half way to Rita's, her eyes narrowing. "Wait a second... You know something, don't you? Kodria did tell you something. That's why she was so nervous meeting me. Alright, but she's not going to make it easy." Finishing the handshake, Enalia eyed her first officer warily.

"This was the first time she'd ever met you. How much do you want to know?" Rita laid it on the table- if her Captain wanted to know, she'd tell her all of it. As far as she was concerned, all but one small piece of the future could tend to itself.

"Honestly, I wish I didn't know that you knew. With as much plotting as I do, I'd rather it be on my terms. After all, the future isn't... But the future has called me on my fecking viewscreen on my fecking bridge and walked into my fecking ready room more than once..." Giving a groan of defeat, Enalia buried her face in her hands and went back to petting her new tribble friend.

"It's okay, Cap'n," Rita offered soothingly. "If I don't have to tell you then I won't. If it's the only way to get you to listen and avoid catastrophe, I'll use it," Rita admitted. "But really, she's just worried because if you kill your mother you become her, and the joy in your life is just gone after that. Kodria didn't want that for you, and neither do I."

"So we play this by the book, and you and the Baroness cook up a way we can win without fatalities, and I will be very discriminating about my targeting to insure that we do not destroy but disable. After all, if we blow out her shields she can't refuse you a face to face duel then, because you can beam over. I'm confident we can do this, Captain. And I'll be right there for you the whole way. You can beat her, we can win your freedom and we can walk away clean. I know we can." If nothing else, Rita's enthusiasm and conviction were somewhat reassuring. After all, the impossible tended to somehow become merely improbable when she was around.

Enalia nodded and furrowed her brow. "Then it's time I taught you her playbook so we can prepare for it. Then prepare for her counters to our preparations. She won't use transporters - she'll use ramming style boarding actions and field disruptors. We may both use rebuilt Miranda class ships, but hers has a lot more Klingon tech while mine has a lot more Federation allied tech. She'll be ruthless yet cunning. If she pulls back, it'll be to lure us into a trap. If she presses her attack, it'll be to push us into a trap. If she boards us, it'll be to set a trap."

"That's the basics... I'll send you replays of several of her battles later." Enalia held up one finger and waggled it in the air. "She's one of the only people that I believe could have beaten the Kobayashi Maru scenario without any sort of cheating at all and I bet you she would have started it by ramming the first Klingon ship with tractors at full hard enough to knock it into the second. Then dropped half her shields to beam all those survivors up using everything they had, even the cargo transporters. After that, she would have likely used the derelict ship as a shield and finished them off piecemeal while they finished the rescue before blowing up the freighter for good measure."

"Then we'll simply have to be smarter, ma'am. Fortunately, I happen to know one of the smartest men alive, and he is kinda fond of me, so he'll likely have a brilliant insight or two. But I will definitely study her playbook, and we'll outsmart her, ma'am. I've beaten plenty of opponents who were smarter or stronger or simply outclassed me over the years with a little planning, a little luck and a lot of improvisation when it all goes wrong. We'll beat this one too, you watch and see." Paris spoke from a position of absolute confidence- this was not a woman who had raised and intimidated her for the entirety of her life. This was just another space pirate too clever for her own good, who needed to be taken down a peg or two, and the Captain needed confidence for this. So from her First Officer, confidence is what she'd get.

For her part, Enalia could only hope and pray that they had luck on their side as well, but having Rita on her side was a blessing all on its own. Right now she had hope that they could actually win this. Smiling hopefully, she reached out and hugged her first officer. "Thank you. You have no idea what your strength means to me."

"Yes I do, Captain," Rita whispered, holding the trill captain. "We're gonna win this- you, me and our merry crew of not-pirates along with your own personal pirate. We're going to win you your freedom and you'll live on your own terms without argument. You'll have children when you decide and name your own successors and juggle both lives. You can have it all, and you will. I'll see to it personally."

While in truth Rita had no idea how she would make good on that promise, as usual, she'd figure it out. Meanwhile, the captain needed to believe it in the here and now. Rita Paris would give her something to believe in- hope.