Rascal
Lore Committee
Posts: 120
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Post by Rascal on Aug 24, 2018 10:11:49 GMT
I know nothing
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Post by aoibheni on Aug 24, 2018 10:34:20 GMT
I know nothing I'm hearing this a lot from you lately, buster.
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Post by Shawna on Sept 5, 2018 23:21:13 GMT
Stardate 11808.28
Despite their conversation, Raqiin still felt uneasy watching the captain depart. Likely to be escorted. Questioned. With the possibility of not coming back hanging over all of their heads.
She knew she could captain the ship when the need was called for, during tumultuous times. Even if it sucked. She was getting the impression that being a captain just perpetually sucked until you got to tell a Cardassian to stick it where the sun don't shine and also rock some formal threads. Being saluted got old after a while. And when she took the big chair, she always told herself that she was just keeping it warm. Commander sh'Seat-Warmer, that's her.
Captaining a ship had never been a goal in her life. Get put on a deep space science vessel, go on weeklong away team trips to strange new worlds, document new life and new civilizations, maybe get a type of fungus named after her. Being in charge of an entire ship meant making the tough decisions--decisions she could make, to a point, yes. But some of those decisions were very much life or death. To cause harm, intentionally. Would that she could run a ship with nothing more than a peashooter to try and warn people off. She'd been lucky, so far.
They were going to be docked at spacedock for a time, but given the recent leave, she didn't have much to pick up. And not that she felt R&Red out, but she didn't either feel like doing something fun to take her mind off things. She had to go over schedules, supply manifests, crew rotations, and receive new orders and plan to carry them out. Business would keep her busy. At least until she finally got too bored to carry on and rented a late-night holodeck. Or party it up in Club 47. Or literally anything else.
The crew trusted her. Or at least liked her. Of that she didn't have any doubts or worries. And so far, she hadn't had any moments where she froze up. Plenty where Hamlet had to assure her of her place, but she got the sneaking suspicion that that's what an XO is supposed to do. But none, too, had she had any moments where she had to order or not any kind of actual attack action. Ships that had blown up around them had not been of their own doing, while under her momentary command. It was only a matter of time before that test came to pass.
And what if Sara never came back at all, and the ship was officially hers? Officially a captain at least in position. Was she actually ready for that possibility?
And she did rather miss getting elbows deep in scans and science and numbers and figures. Oh, sure, she could certainly help out the science team, not that they needed it, where appropriate and do some of her own projects on the side, but her job, her focus, was no longer there on the side, but front and center.
And despite the fact that she knew she still had to be here, with the ship, for the crew...she still wanted to be at Sara's side. Giving her own side of the story. To admit that, with Sara's and Tony's (and Henry's, but not that part) help or not, she would have gotten the word out and taken the consequences herself. Those were her words, with as much detail as she could recall without having the hard data available. And sure. Someone else could've gotten the word out in their own way. But they didn't. She did. Was that naive of her? To want to tell the truth so badly, even if it doesn't necessarily serve anyone. To keep the heat off Sara. Who was trying to at long last, too little too late, keep the heat off Tony. Who was trying to keep the heat off both of them. Like some moderately self-sacrificial triangle of guilt.
And and and and and.
None of it changed the reality of the situation in front of her. That she had to keep her head up and carry onward, for the people she cared about. She was just glad to have even a short amount of time to get that through her skull and get as comfortable with it as she could before shipping out without their rightful captain.
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Post by Einar on Sept 6, 2018 7:52:10 GMT
oohh I love that log. I can´t get enough of goold ol´ Commander sh'Seat-Warmer
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Post by Shawna on Sept 26, 2018 23:34:12 GMT
Deneva.
Taskforce Vulcan.
Operation Seleyan Sun.
Chiron had been thankfully out of the fight, not ordered to the front of any of the lines. Thousands of ships on an offensive. Thousands of ships lost. Thousands MIA. Over a hundred thousand confirmed killed. Hundreds of thousands of injuries. Though being an officer in Starfleet afforded Raqiin more insight and intelligence than FNN could immediately publish, it wasn't her place to inquire about a secretive operation she wasn't part of.
She could only wait for the names of the dead as she worried at the edge of her PADD, nail of her thumb scraping anxiously along the rounded corner.
There were friends out there. People she'd grown close to at the Academy. People from the Bremen who had been transferred elsewhere. People from other ships that may have been destroyed, may have been fine, may have needed towed back to dock. She was thankful that she had no family to worry over. She had been an only child, and none of her other remaining parents had deigned to go into space for more than a symposium or a vacation. (And even then, she was certain her Aenar parents had never actually set foot into space.) She didn't have to, like Sara, worry about a significant other or a child of her own. Oh, sure, there was Oleg, but--that wasn't anywhere near the same.
Did she really want to know? No, stupid question. Of course she wanted to know. She wanted to know who needed mourning, personally, who among the 800,000 casualties she personally knew who needed a visit, or a get well card, or a letter, or a letter to their next of kin.
She started with Zel. And she kicked herself inside. Zeller Moore, something of a stalker since the Academy, a puppydog crush on her that had never gone away, who would out of the blue still send her letters and birthday wishes. Until recently. Until this past year. Until--well, until right around this whole civil war had started. She had, rarely, but sometimes, thought of him. Wondered if he'd died. Wondered if he left. It had been nice, actually, to not dread opening her mail, and she had never bothered to actually look him up. She supposed she would never truly be able to close that chapter of her life without knowing for certain whatever happened to him. Maybe he simply, finally, got the hint.
Moore, Zeller; Lieutenant; USS T'Maran; True Federation defector
Her world tilted on an axis. Defector? True--what? A little digging brought up that the XO of the T'Maran staged a coup, a 31 loyalist who took over the ship and thus made the entire crew defect. Did that mean he was one of them, or was he just...along for the ride because the alternative would have been worse? The list of True ships destroyed, captured, or escaped wasn't available, at least not yet. She didn't know. Would she ever really know?
Lang, Mel; Lieutenant Commander; USS Sea of Linz; active
She breathed a sigh of relief. Mellie, a Centauran who had been her roommate during the Academy years, was still alive and well. The Sea of Linz wasn't even part of the operation either, she found. And a lieutenant commander to boot--she was doing well for herself.
Moree, Lena; Lieutenant; USS Li Shizhen; KIA
Raqiin pressed a hand to her eyes, biting her lip to keep from sobbing right then and there. Lena Moree had been there for her, a nurse on the Bremen, since before Raqiin had ever joined. Their first real meeting, through Lena's daughter being one of the only ways of knowing of a ship from another dimension, had managed to kick off a strong friendship. Lena had gotten transferred to what ended up being one of the hospital ships on Taskforce Vulcan, at Deneva, when the 31 forces began attacking those ships in a cowardly, horrible act. All those evenings laughing in her quarters and chattering. All those sly jokes about dating and advice on how to deal with what felt like the undealable. All of that time spent, now gone up in smoke, the Li Shizhen critically damaged. And no mention of Laney, Lena's daughter, who must be--ten, surely, or somewhere near that. Had she brought her daughter with her? Were they still a family on that ship?
She couldn't bear to find that detail out just yet.
There were bound to be other names she knew among the injured or the dead. And she owed it to herself and to them to find out. But first, but first the overwhelming grief. The horror of war. (A war that, in some respects, she still felt she had a hand in starting.) How was it fair, how was it right? It wasn't. That was war. Not fair, not right, just destruction over a damned disagreement over ideology. Because people couldn't agree on how to protect the lives of trillions, the had to resort to slaughtering each other. She couldn't make sense of it. She couldn't reconcile with that. It had been bad enough when the Bremen had gone to war, ordered to Tzenkethi front lines (only to disappear into a spacial rift and cause other problems), with MACOs stationed throughout, upgraded weapons systems.
But these had been their own people, once upon a time. Their own people who just disagreed. Disagreed about how doing terrible things for the sake of peace did not wipe out the terrible things done, of course--she could hardly forget that. But their own people, gone astray. With no chance of reconciliation.
She couldn't make sense of it because it was senseless, and now she, too, felt senseless.
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Post by Nola on Sept 27, 2018 2:12:27 GMT
Brilliant, Shawna
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Post by Einar on Sept 27, 2018 6:59:36 GMT
fantastic log Shawna
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Post by Shawna on Oct 3, 2018 23:05:16 GMT
Stardate 11807.somethingorother (during summer leave, before Sara's bombdrop)
"You've done enough, haven't you?"
Thrit, as ever, was quiet, sipping on tea, so Raqiin didn't take the question with any malice. Her Aenar father, her thavan, had not a single malicious bone in his body nor thought in his mind. There was a small spike in tension in the room, full of the remnants of her immediate family, but not enough to make it uncomfortable. It had been so long since Raqiin had gotten to see her parents in person that even after all the hugging and kissing and smothering of joy, it was still the predominant emotion over the discomfort, the anxiety.
Raqiin kicked her feet up on the couch in thought, caught Tushik's look of get your shoes off the upholstery this instant young lady, and kicked them back down. Taking too many cues from Sara... "I'm not sure what you mean." She said innocently enough.
Alaneb barked a laugh, a surprisingly harsh sound out of her, but with a glint in her blind eye about it. "Oh, don't you?" She shook her head, fingers flexing deftly with needlework she didn't need to see. "He's going to ask you to resign your position, to bow out gracefully. Aren't you, th'se?"
Thrit settled back against his seat with a long sigh. The treatments were going well enough, but he found himself easily exhausted nonetheless. "I was going to get there eventually, thank you."
"You're joking." But Raqiin knew better. "You're not joking."
"You have been injured in the line of duty, gone missing several times, and with this offensive of the Federation's--"
"An offensive that's now over, with Section 31 going into hiding, that I wasn't even a part of."
"--I feel that you have proven your point. Why not take a desk job, or use your brilliant brain and skills for the greater good?"
She bristled, then make herself un-bristle. Thavan always meant well. He was worried. He was worried sick--no, perhaps not a good phrase. Chavrintushik, surprisingly silent so far, finally cut in.
"We don't want to lose you like your charan." Tushik kept a firm lid on her own emotions, her pose still poised and upright. "I say we because I mean we, shei. I may not agree with the very direct way he has suggested a course of action, but the sentiment we can all agree with."
Raqiin stared at her zhavey, then her shreya. "You want me to...quit?"
"No," Tushik's firm reply, and "Maybe," Alaneb's modest. Thrit merely rolled his shoulders, his answer already obvious.
"No," Tushik repeated, crossing her legs and arms in one motion of defiance, firmness. "Raqiin, I understand that Starfleet isn't just a military. It isn't the same as the Guard, and you've always had potential to do great things with or without getting into danger for it. You already work toward a greater good. And if you still believe in this path, then you need to stay on it. I don't want you to go out like Habathi did, but if that day comes to pass, then it's because you thought it to be right."
"To go missing again and to never come back this time?" Thrit did not raise his voice, but it still seemed louder, somehow. "Or to die in a battle she shouldn't be fighting in the first place? Or to be blown up by another terrorist, you think that's worth it? Instead of settling down and joining a medical institute or civilian exobiology lab. Growing old and giving us grandchildren."
"How is that human engineer of yours?" Alaneb shifted the conversation. Her stalks suggested annoyance, but her smirk was genuine.
Every head turned to her. Raqiin sputtered. "My what? My--how do you know about Oleg?" She shook her head. "No, wait, nevermind, it's not like I've never mentioned him, but it's not...serious..."
"I'd love to meet him sometime. Why don't you invite him the next leave you have? Tushik has a recipe with livanian beets that she's been perfecting."
"Sh'za..."
"Don't argue, it's coming along nicely. It's about time you started digging your stubborn heels into cooking." Alaneb set down her yarn and needles with a light laugh. "Raqiin, brightest star in our sky. Am I afraid of the things that Thrit is, that we will bury our child like we buried our bondmate, far too soon? Of course I am. Do I wish you had chosen something safer? Of course. But I also know your mind. As does he, as does Tushik. You got your zhavey's stubbornness along with your charan's spirit. You're not going to quit, not now. Not ever. And some of us know better than to try and change the tide of the sea."
Raqiin drew in on herself, self-conscious. "...Am I that predictable?"
Thrit managed a breezy chuckle of his own. "Oh, child. That is the last thing you've ever been."
"On that," Tushik added, relaxing, "I think we can all agree."
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Post by Einar on Oct 4, 2018 6:49:06 GMT
I absolutely loved that. Great writing Shawna
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Post by Shawna on Oct 11, 2018 9:15:44 GMT
Stardate 11810.11
It hurt.
Not pain, no, nothing physical. Not a twist to the stalks or a punch to the gut, although in a way, it felt similar.
The anger, alien and raw, filling her head with a roar, scraping, clawing, overwhelming. Unlike anything else, so big, reaching deep.
She clutched her head as her surroundings fell away. The crew. The ship. Was the anger itself blocking out all else, or was something happening? Something she couldn't stop. Something she couldn't protect the others from. Were the others getting as lost and trapped in the swell of emotion, or was it engulfing her specifically as an empath? Everything felt like it, the wave of noise that twisted her insides.
It all fell away as she, too, fell. Still falling. A deep pit, a well, a chasm of nothingness and the drowning, breathless sense of despairing. Nothing upon nothing upon nothing. Was this how it all ended? Was she truly alone? Was she really...the last?
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Post by Shawna on Oct 17, 2018 19:38:29 GMT
Stardate 11810.17
The blindness had never truly been a problem for Raqiin, not in any traditional sense. Her Aenar half blessed her with the ability to see without sight, moving in pitch blackness like the brightest daytime--some have likened it to psychic echolocation. The Aenar might have blind eyes, but they can sense their surroundings perfectly well. It's useful when the power goes out. It's useful when she's too busy reading a PADD to bother looking up in the halls and has to dodge people. And it's useful when her eyes fail her.
As everyone slowly recovers, it's made clear that the blindness was...psychosomatic is not a generous term, but it's probably the best fitting. Other shifts gave reports as they filtered through sickbay, groups sharing much of the same memories. Hard to describe at best, terrifying and exhilarating and impossible. And while sickbay was more than busy getting each shift squared away with basic radiation treatments, it came back too that the blindness had never really been an issue. A little bit of inflammation of the optic nerve, some overstimulated parts of the brain dealing with sight and memory, but nothing to indicate anyone had actually physically speaking been blind.
That made sense. The vision they were shown had only really been that--a vision. They had never truly been in danger. But it had still been overwhelming. The memory of light burning through everything made her wince even now. As a young child, she had learned to live half in one world and half in another, seeing blurry outlines of familiar things, only knowing the details when closer, and even then, she relied a lot on sound, touch, empathy. She could see, but something as basic to an Andorian child as reading was out of the question before zhavey took her to the city, scheduled surgery. And it had gone beautifully. The only hiccup, something that could never be helped, was a sensitivity to bright light. The lights of the bridge didn't bother her, nor did staring at a screen full of maps and data and diagrams for hours and hours. But where a bright flash could give someone spots in their eyes for a few dumbly blinking moments, it might instead truly blind her for a full minute or two, or worse.
She glances at the jumble of nonsense letters again, now that she can see it, read it, fully. Then at the chronometer. Then at the updates from sickbay, of which there haven't been in the past five minutes, and she should really stop bouncing her leg and tapping restlessly at the armrest. Maybe she's thinking so much about this specific instance, this detail of the not-blindness, because she's still sorting through the rest. They're going to have to report what they saw, but where do they even begin? This race--a race of crystalline energy?--had been...what, annihilated? Under attack by other crystals, like...civil war? But then, that humanoid being that filled the sky... Were they angry at humanoids? For descending from the sky and...
And...and what? What even happened? It's burned into her memory, and yet she doesn't understand. She could try to describe it in vague and wholly inadequate terms, even attempt to draw it, but how are they ever going to truly share the experience with anyone who hasn't experienced it? The adrenaline has long since worn off, but she still is enveloped with a sense of awe-inspiring fear, in the classical definition, the sense-memory of it all. And she's not sure if the deep throb of a burgeoning headache is from inflamed nerves, the visions, the radiation, or just the stress.
Safest bet is all of the above. And easier to focus on the bout of not-actual-blindness and stare at the letters and read updates on the inoculations and occasionally pace around the bridge than to focus on all of the everything that each of them saw.
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Post by Einar on Oct 18, 2018 6:26:38 GMT
I just love your logs
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Post by Shawna on Nov 22, 2018 13:32:55 GMT
Stardate 11811.22
The days following were not comforting. Valletta's crew, what was left of them, still lost their ship. The mysterious Maddox was still out there, despite the desires of the Khopesh to take chase. The massive and disturbing extra-galactic ship was still out there, still causing exotic particles and dangerous radiation, and still being a potential threat. And Raqiin compromised her morals. That last bit should not have felt as dramatic as it did--she was still a far, far cry from 31's despicable acts. But giving the order to attack still hurt her somewhere along the moral compass.
And it felt stupid.
Long ago, she had vowed to take up pacifism in whatever way she could. It was a traditional Aenar way, one that didn't tend to mesh well with the greater Andorian culture, but after charan's passing in the Dominion War and her own personal discovery of the biological science, it only made sense to her to disallow violence in her life, even under dire circumstances.
Compromises had been made, of course. She could not fault others for doing their jobs and protecting their people, so long as she was not expected to do the same. Violence against inanimate objects was something that, in retrospect, she felt was something she shouldn't have argued about and was fine with doing to pass her training (thought she still tried not to make that a common occurrence). She would even carry a weapon--if ordered to, if ordered to despite arguments against it. She wouldn't like it, and she wouldn't use it, but she would do it.
But enacting violence that could or would harm another living thing? She never advocated for that. All life was worth protecting. It was nothing spiritual or religious so much as just what felt right. She would always try communication first, every time. There had to be a way to resolve conflict without shooting at each other senselessly.
Wasn't the same true, too, though, that violence enacted on people through her inaction was still violence that she caused? She hadn't wanted to shoot at the Maddox even while they were bearing down on her ship, and the minefield maneuver with the gravitic torpedo was extremely dangerous though not, she would argue, directed at nor with the intention to harm Maddox, just get them off their tail. If Khopesh wanted to open fire, that was their own choice.
But she had just sat there while pilots of Mustangs died, decimated in fire. Working on other solutions to other problems, sure, but sat there all the same. Would they still be alive if she had chosen to get Maddox off their tail sooner? If she had done a better job dissuading them through a hail of fire, even if it was just to take out their weapons sooner, or their shields, their engines? Was there anything she could have said differently that would have made them change their minds? She wasn't out to hurt anyone. Maybe a few tactical officers would have gotten burnt from exploding consoles. Or what if instead an armed torpedo exploded in their armory, taking out who knew how many people? Just because they were the enemy didn't mean they deserved to die, even if 31 did not share the same views.
Was her hesitation, her inaction in the face of her own personal code of pacifism, what killed those pilots? Both ships firing on one had caused Maddox to turn tail and run, which thus prevented more bloodshed. How all right was violence to keep more violence from happening, fighting fire with more fire? And now that she had launched her own brief counterattack, was she then destined to continue down that path? How much violence was too much violence? What, truly, was the difference between the death of one in battle and the deaths of hundreds, thousands, millions other than sheer weight? Would it now be expected of her to launch into battle fully any time phaser fire was exchanged rather than try to find creative, non-lethal solutions?
What did Valletta's captain think of her? That she was careless in losing the rest of the ship towed along behind them, that she was lazy or arrogant for not launching herself fully into the assault?
What did her crew think of her for avoiding battle even if it would keep them from further danger? That she was cowardly, that she was sticking too firmly to old and outdated personal beliefs?
And what did the mystery ship think, out alone in the middle of lonely and dangerous space, fighting tooth and nail for just a couple of ships, setting up elaborate traps, for what purpose? What was the point of fighting anymore? Why couldn't they just sit down and talk?
Why couldn't people just talk.
It made her wonder if she was being childish about the whole thing. It made her wonder if her Andorian half was breaking through, the more emotionally volatile side as opposed to the blind telepath side--no, don't go there, don't think about that. Was she overthinking it? Was she clinging too hard? Would any of her parents care? Would Sara have done better, even if she would have been more violent? Would this whole 31 side of things be done if she hadn't been in charge?
It was a guilty spiral where there were no good answers, and it was driving her up the wall.
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Post by Shawna on Jan 3, 2019 17:15:13 GMT
Stardate 11812.13 w/ Annie as Penelope Evans (potentially incomplete)
Two ships on their way, quietly, back to DS4, and a whirlwind of emotions beat inside Raqiin's chest. Or rather, her head. Her cheeks were still wet, and with the immediate problems solved, a woozy wave came over her. "I'm-" She steadied herself on the arm of the chair, taking a breath, two breaths. Steady now. The visions clattering too loudly, the otherworldly sisters rattling around behind her eyes. Have to make sure she's steady and not drop in the middle of the bridge again. "I'll be in the ready room."
Penny was still standing near where Raq had fallen, her dark brown eyes watching with concern as Raq headed into the ready room. She had already been worried about what affect the communication with the ship would have before Raq had passed out and suddenly come to again. She had felt helpless, as she sat there next to her trying to think of some way to bring her neural activity down. Crossing the bridge, Penny followed Raq into the ready room without invitation.
There was no argument, though it was unclear at first if Raqiin was even aware of the good doctor's intrusion. She sat on the edge of the desk, as Sara had so many times, features tight, head hung.
"Still spotting me?"
“You could say that.”
Penny studied the other woman’s countenance briefly before flipping open the tricorder in her hand and taking a scan. The neural activity had returned to normal, but she was concerned about residual damage to the synapses. She closed the device again, “How are you feeling?”
Raqiin had to laugh, something tired and drained. "Boy, that's a question for the ages. Physically...fine? Tired. A little wobbly, but, I mean..." She gestured to her head, her stalks skewed into sadness. "Visions from telepathically-inclined extragalactic pseudo-sentient spaceships will do that to you." Instead of lowering the hand, she just rubbed at her eyes and gave one long sniff.
“It was more than just telepathic, it was stimulating the area of the brain that handles emotions as well. You were feeling it as if it happened to you.”
Shifting uncomfortably from one foot to the other, Penny wished she was better with emotions. “It’s ok, you know.”
It wasn’t exactly what she meant. She wanted to convey that Raq didn’t need to be ok at the moment. That she had gone through something deeply emotional, even if those emotions weren’t her own. But she couldn’t find the right words, or the courage.
"I thought I could handle it. Empath and all. And...sure. I came out of it. So did Maddox's captain. It--" Raqiin faltered. "We--" Because she saw, too. But nobody else had. "It understood. Better than any of us ever did, and I couldn't reach out to it, I tried, but it was all--it was all the past, and what's done is... How long was I out?"
“Only about ten minutes or so,” Penny didn’t mention it was a terrifying ten minutes.
She set the medikit she was carrying onto the desk next to Raq and unclasped the hinges with a click. Settled inside were some basic triage medicines, all lined in a row and tucked in neatly. She withdrew a vial and carefully loaded a dose into a hypospray before pressing it against Raq’s neck.
“Synaptazine,” she explained, “should help with any damage that might have been done.”
Replacing the hypo and medicine, she closed the kit and leaned against the desk next to Raq. “You can talk about it, if you want. Or if you don’t we don’t have to...” she really regretted having done so poorly in her psychology survey courses right about now.
Raqiin gave a little hum of understanding at the hypo and tried to relax. Which was difficult when the vision was still vivid, the emotions still raw. "An open wound." That's what it was like.
It was awkward for the medical officer, that much she could clearly feel. A good doctor, less sure on the emotional front. "Do you think..." She rolled her shoulders, sighed. "Do you think there's any chance of pulling the Federation back together again? Between the ships and crews captured...those destroyed...and those still out there, in hiding, do you think we can ever bring this civil war to an end without more bloodshed?"
“I ...” Penny’s voice faltered a bit, “I have to hope so. Otherwise, what are we even doing here?” She turned a questioning gaze to Raq, “If we stop believing in peace, striving for it ... then what have we become?”
"Just lonesome sisters with hearts filled with regrets and all the words we should have said before." Raqiin ran a hand along her hair until her fingers twirled the ends of her braid around them. Trying not to shudder with the sense memory of it all. "That's what it showed us. I don't understand war, Penny; I don't understand fighting. I don't understand why we can't all just solve our differences by sitting down and talking it out. And maybe that's how we salvage whatever's left. We talk about our differences. We reconcile. So we don't tear ourselves apart."
The feeling of anxiety at Raqiin’s question was replaced with a strange calm at this answer. It was easy to feel like The Federation had lost sight of what they stood for when you received orders from some distant admiral. But here in this room, listening to her words, Penny felt like there was still hope as long as there were people like Raq out here on the front lines.
“Whatever it’s intentions, maybe this has given you and the Maddox’s Captain the ability to offer a new viewpoint to the admiralty on both sides of the conflict."
"I hope...I hope so." In some regards, the admiralty was the problem. When they had people involved in 31's activities. How many people had she known who lost their lives in this conflict? How many people found themselves on opposing sides to loved ones? All over an argument on how the Federation should conduct its business. "I don't know what it'll do. They'll be tried, they have to, after a lengthy interrogation. But if this can...mitigate even some of the damage, then...it's worth it. Better than trying to blast each other to shreds."
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Post by Shawna on Jan 3, 2019 17:26:07 GMT
Stardate 11812.13 w/ Pezzley as Hamlet
Raqiin finally emerged from the ready room, still looking worse for wear but better than that initial moment of coming to. The arrival at DS4 was certainly an event she wanted to oversee: coordinating the transfer of their newfound prisoners and their ship, calling off the search, time to focus and hunker down enough to let the more vivid emotions and visions settle in Raqiin's mind. There was going to be a whole lot of confused debriefing and reporting to happen, but--later. Soon, but later.
She pulled her hair from its braid and ran her hands through it. There'd be time enough for some leave here soon as some of the i's were dotted and t's were crossed. "Hamlet." She crossed over to the Klingon's station, leaning a hip against it. "Thanks for manning the fort while I was...otherwise preoccupied."
Hamlet looked up from his console, giving Raqiin a smile. "Of course, Ma'am."
He sat up a bit in his chair, filing away what he was working on, to fully engage with the captain. "To be honest with ya, it was good to see you in action... I dont believe I've ever seen you utilise your powers before." He gave her a reassuring look, noting she looked almost flustered. " So what's on yer mind?"
"'In action'," she repeated, giving not quite a smile. "You mean trying to communicate with another being with my mind? You should've been on Bremen when I first started. Ask me sometime about the time I drugged myself up to talk to an interdimensional being that could only be seen by a child."
She shook her head, sighing and batting the memories away. So long ago now. "Easier when one side is somewhere along the telepathic spectrum. I think anyone else probably would've been able to, but maybe it honed in on me like it recognized me as captain? Like it probably honed in on Rebecca because she was actively trying to communicate with it? We can only speculate. But speaking of speculation... The ship. It lost power after the fight was over, right? Like it...just shut down?"
"I'm familiar with you're species abilities. Known Captain Ilaihr for too long, not to know what your people are capable of." He chuckles. "But it's damn impressive all the same."
"And, yes, like it had finished what it was doing." He shrugged.
"One or two brushes with full blown telepathy are more than enough for me. Sometimes I think I should've just stayed in psych like my mentors wanted." But that wasn't the point. Her own abilities might have helped, they certainly didn't hurt, but the ship's abilities were far beyond, something fascinating. Something they might not ever get to fully understand. "It can't have just come all this way to try and stop two ships fighting. It's been here far too long for that. If there was space for a crew, for something like...hibernation, stasis pods, anything like that, the engines had still been running all that time. It might be easier to try and board now without all this going on..."
"I can understand that." He chuckled again. "Being the only non-telepathic member of my family, it can sometimes a wee bit overwhelming."
"And, you're probably right. We'll need a better look inside." He rested his arm on the console as he continued. "The technology to create the radiation and exotic particles within the size of the area of space it was doing it, alone, is well beyond our capabilities. Not to mention the metallurgical advances needed to withstand them, the power to harness a massive artifical singularity like that, and the networking capabilities..."
"Bledy thing is a technological marvel, so with things quiet..." He smiled. "Ready on your order, ma'am."
"Much as I'd love to give said order, let's take it slow for now. We still have to deal with this Maddox crew, and I'd like to report our findings to the brass first and see what they think of this...thing. It's not going anywhere. This time. That we know of. And it'd be nice to have a few more science ships to spare to undertake this massive thing..." She laughed, tired, but enjoying Hamlet's gung-ho antics as always. "And if we can finish unscrambling that message, that might go a longer way in telling us a little more of the 'why' if not 'how' or 'when'. We're not gonna solve the mysteries of the universe in one fell swoop. Though it would be nice if it worked out like that."
"As my dear father used to say, 'The improbable we can do, the impossible takes a bit longer.'" The Klingon's eye practically twinkled, as he dispensed with his time honoured wisdom. "I'll get my reports up, and I'll uh... pester the other departments for theirs. You've got those brass to deal with afterall."
"Unenviable." He snorted.
"I think I like your father." Raqiin gave a short laugh and rested a hand on Hamlet's shoulder. "Pester away. Trust me, I appreciate it. I'll be up to my antennae in reports and communiques in short order, and telling a bunch of captains they got pulled away from wherever they were patrolling before for a wild targ chase isn't likely to win my any favors. At least we're not likely to blow up at a station. If you need me..." Her hand slipped away with a little sigh, glancing back over at the ready room doors. "Well, you know where I'll probably be for the most part."
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