Logic Doesn't Answer Everything

Posted on Wed Feb 13th, 2019 @ 7:33am by Lieutenant Commander Mnhei'sahe Dox & Commander Rita Paris

Mission: Earthly Visitation
Location: USS Hera, Deck 2, Commander Paris' Office
Timeline: 2396

In the grand scheme of things, there were certain universal constants that could be relied upon. Stars would exert gravity, ferenghi would always try to profit, and Rita Paris was never late. But tonight she was, as Lieutenant Dox had been waiting at the holotheater for her anachronistic first officer, who had been promising to finally share with the young, half-Romulan pilot the 20th Century Earth film, 'The Wizard of Oz.'

It was in response to a bizarre incident during the Hera's time at the Worldship of the gods, in which Dox and Ensign Gonadie were attacked by a particularly wicked Witch and her flying monkeys while on a mapping mission in a runabout. Neither alien woman had the foggiest idea what had happened, and Rita had been wanting to enlighten Dox. Hence, the appointment this evening. But Rita hadn't shown.

Checking with the computer confirmed that the golden clad officer was in her office still. But something in the back of Dox's mind told her to go check on the dynamic dame in person.

As she entered the office of the Deck 2 office of the far-flung first officer, the sight that greeted Mnhei’sahe Dox was somewhat unexpected. She’d been in the office before, and while it was by no means spartan, it was not a cluttered mess, filled with bricabrac and alien artifacts and trophies and souvenirs. However, Rita Paris’ old office on the Exeter, as viewed through the insights and capabilities of the titan sliver who had previously been trapped in the Hera’s holographic system, was quite the cluttered mess. It was not what the redheaded Romulan had expected to see when she entered.

Nor was the sight of said second in command hastily mopping at her eyes as she was caught in the act of weeping, it would seem.

“Miss Dox, what can I do for you?” she asked, her voice a bit off from sinus pressure as she blew her nose into a tissue.

Without missing a beat, Dox stepped in so the door would close behind her. "You were late and I was worried. What's wrong, Rita?"

Skipping formal titles, Dox approached her friend.

“Oh… y’know, it’s nothing. Just an old lady being maudlin and sentimental,” Rita explained with an unconvincing smile.

It was an unspoken rule of the USS Hera that Rita Paris was a terrible liar. Unconvincing and easy to spot, when she did attempt falsehood it was practically comedic just how poorly she managed such efforts. Honest to a fault, hiding the truth or deliberately misleading others simply wasn’t something she was capable of mastering. It made her earnest nature that much more believable, but in moments like this when she was trying to hide the truth, it worked against her. Sniffling strongly, she tried to slide on a mask of friendly professionalism that didn’t quite fit today.

But Dox knew Rita better than that and wasn't buying it. "I've seen that. This isn't that." She walked over slowly to the side of the desk and leaned in. Softly, she continued. "Talk to me. What's going on?"

As she asked, a part of the answer filled itself in for the anxious but fairly observant officer. "This is about what happened during shore leave, isn't it? Not what happened with Asa or me. But what happened with you and Sonak and the Captain?"

It was asked as a question, but said with certainty. "Rita, what's wrong?"

“No, it’s…” Rita started to protest, then she saw the look in the junior officer’s eye, and stopped trying. “Fine. Yes, it’s about all of that.”

“I… I was back on Earth and back in San Francisco, so I wanted to see Starfleet Command.” As she spoke, her voice was soft and low, and there was considerable restrained emotion in the throwback from another time and place’s tone. As she spoke, one hand supported her head with outstretched fingers, while another gripped the arm of her office chair with a rather pronounced urgency. “I haven’t seen it in a very long time, and San Francisco had been basically plowed under by the USS Revenge… ah, long story, didn’t happen here,” Rita casually waved off explanation of the past history of the universe from whence she had come, which often did not match what had come to pass in this universe.

“Turned out that was another brilliant Paris plan that went horribly wrong, as apparently getting near that grand central station of transporters in the lobby was more dangerous than I thought. As I understand it, I nearly caused a subspace inversion to occur as my old time and universe were apparently trying to drag me back where I belong via transporter, as I was accumulating transporter energy on both sides of the reality wall. I don’t really understand all of the science and I don’t pretend to, but they said I was causing transporter malfunctions just by being in the lobby.” The casual manner in which she discussed it belied the anxiety that it caused her just to recall the incident, as beads of sweat broke out across her forehead, and that white-knuckled grip was not loosening in the least.

As Rita talked, Dox had quickly slid to one knee and put her hand over her commander's white knuckles. Dox knew all too well the horror that transporters represented to Paris and was already working to keep her own face clear of the overt concern she was feeling. And had Paris said nothing more, Dox would understand the panic she was feeling from her friend, but she knew there was more. Whatever happened had put the Captain in radiation burn treatment for days so Dox pulled out a fresh tissue and handed it to Rita and asked, "Who's 'they'?"

“Heh,” Rita chuckled mirthlessly. “In this case ‘they’ was the DTI, the Department of Temporal Investigations. Delightful people, as you might imagine. There was talk of unzipping reality, opening a time/space wormhole that would consume everything for a lightyear or two, and you know, standard ‘if Rita’s involved of course it must be cataclysmic’ kinda stuff.” While she was working to keep her tone light, it was clear that just revisiting the memory frightened the ordinarily brave officer. When she spoke again, her voice began to crack and tears started to flow. ”I just… I just wanted to see home, you know? See how Starfleet Command had changed, not find out I was a threat to reality and my own home system.”

“But you know me, never do anything small. So DTI cornered me on the roof and they wanted me to go to their super-secret headquarters in Ohio… right? How weird is that?” Rita tried to smile, but it turned into something of a sad parody of itself, as she fought to hold it together enough to retell the story.

Stepping up off of her knee, Dox scooched herself onto the corner of Rita's desk, moving clutter aside so she could see her eye to eye. "Okay... take your time. Cry if you need to. You know I understand that, right? Do you need me to get you some water?"

“No, I’m... I’m fine,” Rita lied poorly, pressing on in the story because despite not wanting to, she couldn’t help it. She had to tell someone what she’d done, and it seemed Dox was the confessor of choice. “So I called in Sonak, because if anything was going to happen I wanted him there, and the Captain showed up too, and that’s how I knew it was serious, and turns out the reality we come from was a limited duration splinter n the timeline that doesn’t even exist today, it was just a period of 35 years or so. So there was debate and all that and eventually it was decided that the only way to really deal with it was to paradoxically cause my universe to never have come into being. Someone would travel back, convince Ambassador Spock not to go, so he would never have created the wormhole and thus the timeline I come from in the first place.”

“So to save me, we just… we made it never was,” the voice of the lost navigator was unsteady and rising in pitch as she spoke. “All those people, all of our experiences, our shipmates and all the people we ever knew, our entire lives, just… never existed anymore. I didn’t… I didn’t want that. The professor, she said that the reality bubble would collapse anyway because it wasn’t stable enough to last, and that the timeline on it ended just after we left it, but… all those people, Dox. They, they’re gone and there are, like, three of us left and I, I never even existed now.” Tears were streaming down the face of the customarily composed commander, but this was gut-wrenching for her to recount.

Sitting across from Rita, Dox had begun to cry for her friend's pain. The story was beyond what she could have imagined, and she couldn't fathom what Rita was going through. Watching Rita, Dox had no soothing words to give. Instead, she simply leaned forward and grabbed Rita with all her might, pulling her in close and squeezing tight. All she could think to say was, "I've got you, Rinam."

“So the Captain made the trip because paradox would wipe out Sonak, and if I went I’d unzip all of time and space or, whatever…” Paris sobbed into the compact chief’s shoulder. “ So when she got back and she was burned and irradiated and it was my fault, they beamed me up to go pick her up and… it wasn’t as bad, but it still, it terrifies me, I can’t help it, just the thought of it makes me so afraid. I'm such a coward but I can't help it, I can't."

"So to make sure I didn't wipe out anything else I came back to the Hera from there and that’s when I found out what had happened to Asa and walked right into the mess with you and Death and the Baroness. There wasn’t any time for me to be, y’know, not ‘Commander Paris’ and I just, I lost it at the Captain for endangering your career with all of the pirate stuff and I just, I wasn’t ready for another hit so fast and all those people are gone, Dox, they’re gone because we made them never were, and I’m still here and I’m not really sure how to deal with it now.”

"God, I don't know how you held it togetherthis long." Dox squeezed tighter, rubbing the back of Rita's head as she talked. "But they did exist. Screw the scientists. They existed because you're here, Rita. You exist and you can remember them all. It... It's a burden nobody should ever have to shoulder, and I wish I could carry some of it for you. GOD, I wish I could. I am so sorry, Rita."

“Yeah,” Rita laughed ruefully. “That’s what everyone else said, too. I remember them, so that makes it all okay. But it really doesn’t. We’re the good guys, we aren’t supposed to end universes. The needs of the many are not outweighed by the needs of the one. But here I am, one of three survivors of an entire reality that was never supposed to exist, and now it doesn’t.”

Sighing deeply, Rita disentangled herself from the arms of her friend. “I’m… I’ll be fine. Just another hit from the universe, you know? Probably why I overreacted so much to the whole Death business. I just…” Picking up a holoimage from the desk that never existed yet she was holographically reproducing in her modern office, Rita showed the image to Dox. On an old-style bridge, there sat a handsome young man in gold, flanked on one side by Sonak, hands clasped behind his back, looking stoic, and Rita, with that million-watt smile on full, looking like the plucky gal sidekick to the two handsome heroes.

“This was Michael Stuart. He was my friend. He was a jumped-up engineer who was not the best starship captain, but he got better all the time, and he always tried to do the right thing. He existed… he was someone, and he accomplished great deeds that never happened now, in a universe that never existed now. How do you mourn a loss like that? I don’t… I don’t have any answers, and I don’t think anyone else does, either.”

"As arrogant as it sounds, I think in the annals of the universe I can claim that no one else knows has ever known what this feels like." Rita Paris chuckled mirthlessly, stifling a sob.

Looking at the image, Dox felt her heart sink further. Rita looked so happy in the image and there was nothing the young part-Romulan woman could say to fix the situation. She knew that there was nothing she could do. Nothing anyone could do. "I... I don't know, Rita. I don't know if anyone would have an answer, either. Maybe there just... isn't one. As wrong as that is. Maybe all you can do is talk about it. Tell those stories. I'll always be here for that."

Eyes still on the image, Rita shook her head, and when she spoke, her voice was low and choked with emotion. “You know the worst part, Dox? It’s that all I can think about is that I shouldn’t get too attached here, either. Every time I settle in and make a home on a starship, the universe pulls the rug out from under me and I have to start all over. Everything I own, gone, everyone I knew, gone, everything I know, out of date and useless.”

Looking up to meet the eyes of her concerned comrade, the bright blue eyes of Rita Paris were sad and pained, an expression not usually seen, thus all the more heartbreaking to see. While she seldom allowed herself to express her fears and misgivings, Mnhei’sahe Dox had asked, so Rita was being honest with her.

"I wish I could tell you that it would all be okay. I wish I could promise that we'd all come and find you but that would be a lie. Because we just... we just don't know. And I can't make those promises." Then Dox thought about it some more. "But we've also got a decent hint you might be stuck with us, this time, thanks to Kodria. The future can always change, but at least we know that I one possible time line, you're here."

"And you're as far from useless as any officer I've ever seen. You knock yourself for being 'out of date', but you know what you're doing a LOT better than you think You've got this ship wrapped around your finger."

That brought a small smile to the face of the beleaguered beauty. “There is that… nothing is set in stone, but at least in one timeline, I stay here, and I still know all of you… well, some of you at least,” she amended. “As for the ship… well, I may be old-fashioned, but I understand the job, and people, and Starfleet. You might be surprised how often I am winging it and how much, but… thank you, Mnhei-sahe.”

Mopping at her face with her hands, it was clear that her venting was past, and Rita Paris was once again pulling herself back together, a feat she had accomplished many times in the past, which she thankfully needed to do less often in the modern day. Taking a long, slow, cleansing breath, she let go of her fears and anxieties and misgivings, although the survivor’s guilt would remain.

“That reminds me… computer, please produce a solid copy of the USS Exeter, NCC 1707, Kelvin model, please, 1/19,000 scale, complete with magnetic repulsion base.” As the transporter hummed to live and deposited the model on her desk as requested, Rita picked it up by the base and handed it to the portly pilot.

“Here- an accurate model of a starship that never was nor will be, from your pal the girl who never existed, a souvenir of her career that never happened, from a time that wasn’t,” Rita explained in a convoluted manner that actually summed up the situation quite succinctly. “I left you one on your desk when I promoted you, but this is an accurate model of the starship I was trying to gain a memento of, with her ample nacelles and sleek lines. This beauty only exists on our memories now… but that’s the nature of the past, isn’t it?”

Holding the model up, Dox smiled. "She's gorgeous. Thank you. I think this will go up with my gold mini. I kept the uniform from our Holodeck mission. Which kind does make it 'our' memories in a weird way. Thanks."

"So it does," Paris admitted. Sighing, Rita took a long overhead stretch, then eyed the chief flight control officer. “So… not an indestructible superwoman, not infallible, not without fear or flaws of foibles. I hope I haven’t ruined your image of me with my little breakdown here?”

"Superwoman wouldn't give me anything to work towards. But someone who was holding onto all of that and was still able to save me and the Captain's souls, and Schwein's life? That's way better," Dox smiled. "I still don't know how you do it."

“I get by with a little help from my friends,” Rita smiled, not quite that million-watt smile, but closer than before. “Thank you, Mnhei'sahe. For letting me lose it, for hearing me out, and for cheering me up."

"And for reminding me that sometimes, just sometimes, even the first officer is allowed to be just… human.”