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Post by Einar on Sept 1, 2017 7:54:27 GMT
fantastic log CJ - who would have thought that Sara was the one Captain to deal responsibly with emotional trauma and stress, and not just you know....kill stuff.
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Post by Nola on Sept 14, 2017 21:42:24 GMT
Previously...
Sara was first alerted to the emergency by the rapidly approaching organic klaxon that was Ulani's voice.
"Nonononononononooooo!" she called. Repeated light thuds were coming down the hall, and Sara grudgingly allowed herself to return to consciousness. She was laying in the bed she and Thalev had been sharing for the past few months, now devoid of bedding. The room they had slept in was now bare. Most of their things had been packed up the day before, ready to be shuttled to the Chiron. She'd been up late the night before - had in fact traveled some 1600 miles to and from Seattle - and had laid down to take a power nap. She wasn't sure how long she'd slept, but it hadn't been near enough.
"Whazzit?" she mumbled through a yawn. The door to the bedroom slid open. Ulani rushed in, ran in a circle three times, and hopped up and down.
"Momma, I forgot Hosi!"
The wheels in Sara's head turned meekly as consciousness progressively dragged her into the waking world.
"Hosi, Hosi," she murmured. "Was that the Yridian thief?"
"No!" Ulani snapped, still hopping. "He's the Bolian racer!"
"Riiiight," said Sara, finally recalling the canon of Ulani's dolls and figurines. Hosi was the Bolian shuttle racer seeking revenge on Stol, the Yridian thief. "You forgot him? What do you mean?"
"I forgot to pack him! You have to help me find him! You have to!"
Sara loosed a sigh that could've lasted a thousand years, not having nearly the energy to deal with this. Still, she rolled out of bed, wincing at the dull burn in her buttock from the fresh tattoo.
"Okay, we can do this," she huffed, mostly speaking to herself. "Do you remember where you last saw him?"
Ulani hemmed and hawed for a moment, shifting her weight from foot to foot.
"The living room closet?" she guessed, an uncharacteristic lack of certainty in her tone. All the same, she bolted out of the room, Sara lumbering behind a moment later.
She couldn't help but glance at each empty room as she passed, replaying various memories her family had forged in them. The house itself hadn't been anything special - everything about the building was sterile - but it had been the place that Sara had taken the first steps on a journey her younger self ever would have believed she'd want.
The first few months of motherhood had been confusing, dizzying, and terrifying. She'd been in a low-grade panic from the moment she'd put her thumb to the adoption orders. Would she be a good mother? Did she have any instinct for it? Would her animal brain adjust to caring for a child that wasn't of her own making? Her and Thalev must have had dozens of late-night discussions about it, and still the panic remained.
She eventually spoke to a therapist about it, Dr. Harstock, who suggested the mildly upsetting possibility that perhaps a sense of panic was motherhood. With Harstock and Thalev's support, she had slowly begun to accept the idea that she was now a wife and a mother. Lately she even seemed to be enjoying it.
"Is it in there?" she asked after stifling a yawn.
"No!" shouted Ulani, who sounded like she was on the verge of tears. Sara's mind shifted gears, as something resembling instinct told her what was coming. Ulani started bawling and screaming, slapping her head in frustration. Sara scooped her up and hugged her close, trapping Ulani's arms. She braced for the inevitable kicked, shifting Ulani in her arms so she kicked mostly air. She carried Ulani into the open living room, away from any walls or furniture, and just held her through the fit.
These frustrations were common in Cardassian children. Sara had done a large amount of reading on Cardassian child psychology and development. The Cardassian mind was a complex one, geared towards forming and navigating complex social relationships (which went a long way to explaining Cardassian politics). This dynamic developed rapidly in children, and wreaked havoc on their emotions as their minds tried to formulate and analyze complex chains of logic while their emotional development lagged behind. As a result, Cardassian children were often impulsive and easily frustrated.
As a parent, that had proven difficult to handle at first. Distraction didn't work, as Ulani's mind was like a vice - she simply couldn't let go of a problem until it was solved. Encouragement had also seemed ineffective, at least at first. Assuring Ulani that she would figure it out only seemed to frustrate her more, and prolong her outbursts.
Sara eventually managed to ask an actual Cardassian child psychologist about it, and the solution proved to be a counter-intuitive one: she simply had to let it play out. It was the frustration that ultimately propelled a Cardassian's emotional development, in fact, as they had to learn patience and self-control in order to be able to solve more difficult problems.
So Sara simply held Ulani, rocking her gently in her arms as her frustrated sobbing subsided. Eventually she went somewhat limp in Sara's arms, her chest heaving as she caught her breath. Sara pulled her into a hug and Ulani clung to her neck.
"Sorry mommy," she said between sniffles.
"It's ok, hun," Sara replied, giving her a squeeze. "You don't need to apologize."
"We can't leave Hosi."
"We won't."
"But I can't remember where I left him."
"Yes you can."
Sara shifted Ulani once more and set her down.
"Let's think this through," she encouraged, crouching down to Ulani's height. "What's the last time you remember playing with Hosi."
Ulani her eyes on her sleeve for a moment, sniffling between occasional hiccups.
"He'd just won the Utopia Planitia grand prix," she recalled. Sara gently pet her hair, smiling warmly as she worked it out in her head.
"That's right, he'd finally beaten Stol," Sara recalled.
"Yeah!" shouted Ulani, her eyes lighting up. "He got his favorite shuttle back, and he took it- oh!"
Ulani bolted once more, sprinting back towards the bedrooms. Sara sat on the floor and yawned before giving herself a couple of light slaps to wake up. She went over towards the replicator and got a glass water, drinking half of it in one go, which seemed to shake the exhaustion for the moment.
"Yaaaayyyyyy!!!" Ulani called victoriously.
"Find him?" asked Sara, grinning. Ulani came running back out with a small Type XIV shuttle model. A dull clanking told her the small blue elephant figurine she'd named Hosi was inside of it.
"Whoosh!" said Ulani, grinning as she ran about. Sara just smiled warmly before finishing her drink and setting it back in the replicator. The dull sense of panic remained as she watched her adoptive daughter play, but it was joined but a sublime contentment. Much like her being a mother, that was something she never thought she'd have.
Life was fun like that.
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Post by Nola on Dec 23, 2017 7:40:32 GMT
SD ??.??
(Note: The timing of this log is nebulous. It takes place some time in the relatively near future.)
<CNS.V'ruuk> <transcript.confidential> <patient.112-n7-548a> <intake>
[Lieutenant Commander V'ruuk, CNS USS Chiron] Ah, Captain. Please, have a seat.
[Captain Sara Sumner, CO USS Chiron (inactive)] Commander.
[V'ruuk] Can I get you anything to drink?
[Sumner] Uh, no, thank you. I'm good.
[V'ruuk] If you change your mind, feel free to ask.
[Sumner] Heh, ok.
[V'ruuk] Would you prefer I address you as 'Captain,' or may I call you Sara?
[Sumner] Sara is fine.
[V'ruuk] Is there anything you'd like to discuss before we begin?
[Sumner] Uh, not really.
[Simultaneous] Okay- Just-
[Sumner] Heh, sorry.
[V'ruuk] "No no, what were you going to say?"
[Sumner] Just... I wanna apologize in advance if I end up being difficult. I've been a counselor myself, and, uh, I'm also a pretty dedicated smart-ass, so...
[V'ruuk] I did see that you've served in that capacity. I appreciate the preemptive apology.
[Sumner] Wow.
[V'ruuk] Wow?
[Sumner] I, uh... You're full Vulcan, aren't you? I don't mean to pigeon-hole or anything, it's just that this is easily the most casual conversation I've ever had with one.
[V'ruuk] I get that a lot. Yes, I am fully Vulcan.
[Sumner] We would get Vulcans in the Academy psych courses, and they never seemed to do well. I think it was the only class I was in where Vulcans struggled.
[V'ruuk] I am certain that's not true. It may be the only one they appeared to struggle with, but most Vulcans struggle with all aspects of Academy life.
[Sumner] Really?
[Sumner] Yes. Vulcans learn very differently from most species. Vulcan children learn through rote repetition and memorization. The children of other species, particularly of Humans and Andorians, learn through intuition. They learn through trial and error, and observation of environmental and social cues.
[Sumner] Intuition doesn't get you through the Academy, though - it's still governed by testing, which is dependent on memorization.
[V'ruuk] Well, yes and no. The Academy does use standardized testing, and, ostensibly, your grades in those areas determine whether you pass or fail. However, it has been my observation that the Academy views such grades more as guidelines than determining factors.
[Sumner] You think the Academy fudges the numbers for some students.
[V'ruuk] We both know they do, I'm sure. To Vulcans, the results of those tests are absolute - your ability to adopt the systems of logic and analysis is vital to your success in Vulcan society, and one could argue it's critical to leading a functional life.
[Sumner] And the Academy is different.
[V'ruuk] For the Academy, a test score is just one of the determining factors of how a student is judged to have grasped a concept. They combine those scores with informal psychological evaluations. A cadet's temperament is viewed as equally important - their ability to get along with others, to cope with interacting with other species and ideologies. To many young Vulcans, this seems unfair.
[Sumner] They think they're punished because they didn't grow up to be conversationalists.
[V'ruuk] To a significant degree, yes. For a Vulcan who is fresh from their primary education, Academy life is... jarring, to say the least. They have only a superficial understanding of Human custom, upon which much of the Academy experience is based. They do not understand parties, or mingling, or small talk. They do not understand the importance of relationships with their fellow cadets, or their instructors. They do not have a firm grasp on the intuitive nature of Human academia.
Do you know Platonic and Aristotelian mathematical philosophy?
[Sumner] Hah, uh, I know that they are things. I think my brother mentioned it to me a couple times, but I was never really a math person. One of my weakest subjects, actually.
[V'ruuk] See, that would drive a young Vulcan insane. You made Captain before the age of 30 despite a relatively weak grasp of mathematics. Such a thing would sink a Vulcan's career before it began.
[Sumner] My math issues actually explain a lot, when I stop to think about my career to this point. Anyway, Aristotelian math.
[V'ruuk] Right. So, the Greek philosophers Plato and Aristotle had differing views on the nature of mathematics. Aristotle viewed mathematics as... artificial. He believed that maths originated in the human mind, and were simply humanity's closest approximation of the measure of the universe - that Humans could never truly measure the cosmos in absolute terms. Plato, however, believed that mathematics was an inherent quality of the universe, that all things great and small were governed by mathematical laws.
[Sumner] The thing I remember most about Aristotle was that he was wrong about everything.
[V'ruuk] He was certainly inaccurate about a great many subjects. If I were a smart-ass Vulcan, I'd point out how fitting it is that Humans ever saw him as a leading philosophical influence.
[Sumner] Ha, if.
[V'ruuk] I'm part of Captain Sumner's crew - being a smart-ass is essentially required.
[Sumner] Haha, more or less, yeah.
[V'ruuk] Anyway, back to Aristotle being wrong - although, to be fair, he was significantly less wrong than many of his predecessors had been. The difference between his and Plato's understanding of mathematics is analogous to the difference between Vulcan and non-Vulcan academia. Vulcans see reason and the memoriztation of facts as an absolute measure of one's intellectual worth. Other species seem to view those things as only approximate measures of intellectual worth. Intangible or subjective measures are sometimes seen as equally valid. For a Vulcan who has been raised to see such things not only as undesirable, but also dangerous, stepping into that kind of environment can be extremely difficult.
[Sumner] I... I don't want to be critical of Vulcan culture, you know? I get that cultures are different, that I can't really judge whether certain norms are right or wrong-
[V'ruuk] But you do.
[Sumner] yeah, I guess.
[V'ruuk] Not to be accusatory, of course - this is true for most people. Much like Vulcan dependence on logic, a Human's judgment of intangibles has been necessary for survival, at least to a point.
[Sumner] I suppose. Sometimes I wish I could turn that part of me off. Gets me into trouble sometimes.
[V'ruuk] Thus far, at least, it also seems to get you out of trouble.
[Sumner] Which effectively makes it a crapshoot. At some point, it's not going to get me out of trouble, and it'll be my crew who suffers for it, all because I had to be different.
[V'ruuk] Different?
[Sumner] Different. Unusual. Abnormal.
[V'ruuk] That's a fairly common desire for Humans, in my experience.
[Sumner] Yeah, but then you get responsibilities, and you're supposed to let go of that need for distinction so you can be responsible.
[V'ruuk] Is that a fact, or a common sense notion?
[Sumner] I don't know. That's... that's my life, now. I don't know. I don't know what I feel, I don't know what the best options are, and I don't know what I'm doing.
[V'ruuk] What's changed?
<Lengthy Pause>
It may surprise you to learn that I'm something of a pariah in Vulcan academic circles.
[Sumner] I figure there's a reason we don't see many Vulcan counselors.
[V'ruuk] I think Vulcans have taken logic to an unsustainable extreme.
[Sumner] Really?
[V'ruuk] To be sure, logic serves a very important purpose for a Vulcan. It's how we cope with our overdeveloped amygdalae, how we control our emotions and find some sense of peace. But it's also true that emotions serve an important purpose for most sapient species we're aware of, primarily empathy and compassion, two things vital to the pursuit of peaceful coexistence upon which galactic society depends.
Pursuing logic to the exclusion of emotion hurts us, I believe. We need only look at our young ones who struggle at the Academy to see why. The inability to process emotional nuance, or to accept its necessity in interpersonal relationships, causes them to feel isolated. They are disconnected from their peers, and, whether they would admit it or not, this has an emotional effect on them. They often feel resentful, or hurt, which can in turn lead to pride or arrogance as a defense mechanism, which in turn makes them disliked by their non-Vulcan peers.
[Sumner] Perpetuating the negative reputation of emotional expression.
[V'ruuk] Precisely. I fear that too many of us are solely dependent on logic to guide our course. We are rigid, and inflexible, devoted solely to what we see as the 'proper' way to do things. To go back to our analogy, I think Plato had the right of it. I think that the universe operates in an inherently mathematical fashion, and so, theoretically, with enough computational power, a being might be able to truly predict the universe.
But Vulcans do not have that ability. Nor do Humans, or Andorians, or Romulans, or Cardassians, but it's the Vulcans who most often seem to miss the contradiction of being completely logical in a universe whose logic they cannot fully comprehend.
[Sumner] Hm.
[V'ruuk] That's something I admire about Humans, and other species. You see the randomness of the universe as a challenge, as a way to prove yourselves.
[Sumner] Sometimes, yeah. It has its drawbacks, though. Some Humans will look at a universe that is inherently unfair and see it as an excuse to not be fair themselves. That's how you get organizations like Section 31 - they cling to the law of survival of the fittest, not understanding that there's more than enough for everyone to survive if we could just cooperate for five minutes.
[V'ruuk] Nobody has the perfect balance between emotion and logic. I'm not sure one can ever really exist, either. Different situations call for different measures of each. Sometimes intuition is a benefit, and others a crutch. Sometimes logic is wisdom, and others foolishness.
[Sumner] Sometimes impertinence keeps you honest, and sometimes it keeps you reckless.
[V'ruuk] Exactly. You may be occasionally frustrated by your intuition, but I think it's an important tool for you.
[Sumner] But not the only one.
[V'ruuk] That's the hope, yes.
[Sumner] Hah, well, this is gonna be all kinds of fun. <transcript.end>
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Post by Einar on Dec 23, 2017 10:02:10 GMT
....that was the most fun log I´ve read in ages! I wanna see it acted out on stage.
Great writing CJ, that was absolutely amazing
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Post by Deleted on Jan 2, 2018 13:20:27 GMT
I'm with Einar on this one (see, Einar, we can agree sometimes!!) That was excellent CJ. A brilliant log.
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Post by aoibheni on Jan 3, 2018 10:28:23 GMT
I echo what Andrew and Einar have said, for definite. I was also pleased to see a little (accidental?) Hiberno-English seeping in there, too? "I think Plato had the right of it".
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Post by Nola on Feb 12, 2018 19:18:07 GMT
Unpacking - Part 1
Sara was up entirely too early, only half-awake as she stumbled out of her family's quarters and towards the turbolift. She was dressed to train, trying to make a habit of it per her talks with Dr. V'ruuk. A routine was essential when you were on leave to avoid becoming listless, as if she weren't already.
"Deck 6," she called to the lift, rubbing her bleary eyes and trying to slap a bit of alertness into her. She was on the upswing, she told herself. She would get back in her chair soon, and she wanted to be in fighting shape, quite literally.
Stepping off, she moved to the nearest holodeck, only to find it occupied. She had gotten up this early specifically to avoid this problem, but being stuck in The Void had seen holodeck time skyrocket. Fortunately, the other holodeck was open, so she loaded her old warm-up program.
The doors parted to reveal a basic obstacle course, with plenty of bars and ramps and parallel wall segments. Unsure whether she was up to going through the whole thing, she decided to stick to the basics for now: vaults, tic-tacs, and underbars.
"Alright computer, let's load a playlist."
"Please specify desired playlist."
"Oh, let's go with 'lady balls.'"
A hard, driving riff and a righteous shriek filled the air as Sara flexed her wrists.
---
"Are you ready to talk about what happened on the bridge?" asked V'ruuk. Sara took a deep breath as she mulled the thought, letting it out in a huff.
"I'd like to be, so yes," she said.
"Fair enough," replied the counselor. "Let's start with the incident itself."
"I just... I lost my composure," she sighed, replaying the scene yet again in her head. "I think I said something along the lines of 'can't we do anything right on this ship.'"
"I'm sure you've already done a chain analysis on yourself," said V'ruuk. Sara gave a mirthless grin in response.
"Several times," she affirmed.
"Let's hear it."
"I had just come back to the bridge after accompanying Thalev to sickbay. His, uh, implants were being interfered with, and he collapsed. Ulani actually called me on the bridge and said 'daddy won't wake up.'"
She teared up at the memory, still vivid weeks later.
"Hearing that your spouse isn't well - that's one of those things we dread the most, isn't it?" V'ruuk validated.
"Thalev has 'died' on me at least three times," said Sara, eliciting a look of surprise from the Vulcan, something she took to be an achievement.
"How do you mean?" he asked.
"He's disappeared. Just fell off the face of the galaxy, without warning. The first time was when our relationship was on something of a hiatus. Then he was taken by the Borg, and brought back. Then he crash-landed on some planet with a supply ship. Each time just gutted me, and this was before we were married."
V'ruuk stared for a long moment before speaking.
"So, it's been an eventful relationship," he dryly observed.
"You could say that," said Sara, wearing one of her 'no shit' smiles. "This time, it was hearing Ulani's voice that shook me. She was scared, and trying not to cry. My baby. My baby. Not my adoptive daughter, or my ward, but this sweet little angel who's latched herself so firmly on my soul that it supercedes petty bullshit like flesh and blood."
Sara took a deep breath and wiped her tears away. V'ruuk, experienced as he was, knew to let her keep talking.
"So I rushed down, and we called Evans, and we got him to sickbay and put him in stasis. I just wanted to stay and hold my baby, but I had to get back to the bridge. I should have handed the reins to Raqiin then and there, but I didn't."
She took a deep breath to compose herself a bit.
"I've relied so heavily on my family over the last year. No matter how frustrated I got being grounded, or how hard things got when we were back on the move, I had my little girl and my loving, death-defying husband to lean on. Suddenly, my family was compromised, and the ship was navigating several layers of crises, and I just... I didn't have the strength I needed to keep calm."
The Vulcan pariah gave Sara a sympathetic look.
"You know what I regret most about it?" she asked, glancing up to him.
"What's that?" he asked, taking the cue.
"For the smallest fraction of a second, I was actually mad at my crew. I was disappointed."
"You're hardly the first Captain to feel that way," V'ruuk remarked, but Sara was already shaking her head.
"Not this crew. I don't get to be mad at this crew. You have no idea how much shit we've been through, and I do mean shit. We have gone through multiple hells together. We've been trapped in zoos. We've fought wars. I have made mistake after mistake pursuing 'the right thing,' and it's these magnificent fucks that carried me through. And I had the fucking gall to be disappointed in them? I fucking broke the Federation, and they never once showed any doubt in me."
"You think you broke the Federation?" asked V'ruuk, his brows somewhat knit. Sara looked like she might reply immediately, but she stopped herself, closing her eyes and chewing her thoughts a bit.
"It feels like it, sometimes," she said softly. "Read too many articles with my name in them."
"For the record, Section 31 broke the Federation," said V'ruuk. "But that's another conversation. How long after your outburst did it take you to realize you needed to step down?"
"Oh, it was immediate," she said, nodding. "That moment of disappointment pierced me like a knife, even through the stress of Thalev being in Sickbay. When I fist became CO, that was one of the cardinal sins I set for myself."
"To never be disappointed in your crew? That doesn't seem a little unrealistic?"
"I don't care if it's unrealistic," Sara replied with a shrug. "It's vital that I consider my crew as family."
V'ruuk regarded Sara curiously, his fingers tented beneath his chin.
"Why is that?" he asked. Sara stared back at him, flexing her jaw a bit before answering.
"Jonathan Rome."
---
Sara had moved to the gym after her parkour warmup. She could have done her entire workout in the holodeck, but she didn't want to take it up any longer than she needed to. Sure, people might not complain that the Captain is using the holodeck, but she wasn't really the Captain at the moment - better to let the people who were actually working use the facilities.
Chewing her lip, she looked around at her options. Her eyes lingered on the door to the weightroom. She always had to be careful with freeweights - her tendency was to simply lift until she couldn't, and then regret it later. Eventually, she decided to stick to bodyweight training - the weightlifting could wait for another day.
The routine was simple, if grueling: squat-thrusts (she refused to call them 'burpees'), pushups, pullups, and a variety of crunches for the core. Fortunately, she managed to be the only one in the gym, so she picked a corner and got to work. Ten squat-thrusts. Fifteen pushups. Repeat, three sets each, then cooldown, followed by the pullup bar. Ten full lifts, pulling herself up past the bar and then pushing until her hips were even with it, each followed by a leg left once she'd lowered herself again. Three sets, with cooldowns in between.
A few people had meandered into the gym while Sara toweled off between sets. She flashed them a brief smile, but otherwise tried to avoid eye contact. Until she was cleared for duty, she almost felt unworthy of social contact, something she would likely need to talk to V'ruuk about.
As more people came in, she ran through an abbreviated crunch routine before retreating back to her quarters.
---
"I respect Jonathan Rome," Sara explained to V'ruuk. "I love him - he officiated my goddamn wedding, you know? He was a very dear friend, and a great Captain, and I miss him so much..."
"But..." V'ruuk prompted. It was strange what a therapist could convey in a single word like that. This wasn't anticipation, or trepidation. This was encouragement. This was an invitation to voice the thought, an acknowledgment that there would be no judgment of whatever she was about to express.
"I don't want to be Jonathan Rome," Sara whispered, a few tears spilling from her eyes as she gave it voice. She tried to speak, but let herself cry instead, her shoulders bobbing lightly as she remembered her friend and mentor, and as she processed the shame in what she'd just said. V'ruuk let her process, offering a tissue when the bulk of it had passed.
"Thanks," Sara said through a sniffle. She dabbed at her eyes and took several deep breaths.
"He was so miserable," she continued. "This job took so much out of him. He closed himself off. He didn't let himself grieve. His crew on the Hyperion could never be sure how he felt about them. He gave everything as a Starfleet Captain, and the job took every bit of it from him. He fought Starfleet's battles. He made impossible choices, and piece by piece it took the light from him, and it left him feeling cold and alone."
"And you're determined to avoid that fate," said V'ruuk, reinforcing the idea.
"I want my crew to know I love them," said Sara. "I want them to know that I see them as family. I don't ever want them to doubt it. And when I go to my quarters at night, I want there to be something waiting for me that's not a bottle."
"Some would say that a certain level of detachment from one's crew is vital to effective command," V'ruuk replied. It wasn't a judgment so much as a symbolic challenge to the idea. One of the things about being emotionally compromised is that one had a tendency to say things they didn't really mean.
"Fuck those people," was Sara's firm reply. "You don't want to go through hell with your subordinates. You want to go through it with your comrades at your side, with your family."
"Do you think your attachment to your crew might compromise your ability to send them into danger?"
"Not for a moment. We have a job to do, and we'll do it, but we'll fight harder and look out for each other more because of that connection. We're all here to serve the Federation. If we have to give our lives to protect it, then I would rather we do so having known this connection."
V'ruuk couldn't help a small smile at that, and he made a note on his PADD.
"Did you ever have doubts about bringing your family aboard a Starfleet vessel?" he asked.
Sara frowned a bit, not in displeasure so much as dread.
"Constantly."
---
"Daddy doesn't like me," lamented Ulani, who was draped over Sara's shoulder in uncharacteristically subdued fashion.
"What?" Sara balked, stopping midstride in the corridor. She slung her daughter into more of a cradle position so she could see her face. "What could possibly give you that idea?"
"He doesn't play with me any more," Ulani pouted.
"Ula, he played with you just this morning," she said. "Remember? Hosi was on the run from the space cops because he stole that shipment of lyrium after being blackmailed by Stol?"
For a brief moment, she worried something might be wrong with Ulani's memory - she was usually much sharper than this.
"Only for, like, 23 minutes," Ulani huffed, pointedly looking away from Sara as she folded her arms. "Then he started to fall asleep. He already slept all night!"
Sara stared at Ulani for a moment before giving a slightly exasperated chuckle.
"Ula, your father's recovering from a very serious illness," she explained, turning the child in her arms in order to make eye contact. Ulani tried to avoid it, but eventually relented.
"He loves you every bit that I do, and I love you more than anything that has ever existed, in this or any universe," she said, pressing her forehead to her beloved daughter's. "He would love nothing more than to play with you every moment of every day, but right now, he needs to rest."
"Okay," Ulani said, meekly and after a long pause. Sara took a deep breath and sighed, glancing down the corridor towards the Zaridis', where she had planned to drop Ulani off.
"Okay," she huffed, before turning about and heading for the turbolift instead.
"Where are we going?" Ulani asked, a hint of concern in her voice.
"To cause all of the mischief," promised Sara.
---
"You may find this hard to believe, but I can be somewhat impulsive," explained Sara, giving V'ruuk a sly look.
"Shocking," V'ruuk perfectly deadpanned. Sara grinned in response, shifting on the couch and fidgeting as she arranged what she wanted to say.
"I want to do the right thing," she said. "Like most people, you know? I want to do the right thing given the situation, and, in the moment, I often feel like the right thing is obvious, so it's a simple thing to just cling to that and go full bore."
"You have a strong moral compass," V'ruuk reasoned.
"I like to think so," agreed Sara, though she didn't look up. "I'm not always so convinced after the fact, though."
"Why's that?" he asked. It was one of those questions where he already had some idea what the answer was, but it was important to let the patient work through it themselves. Sara gave him a brief, knowing smile before doing so.
"I feel like it blows up in my face a lot," she said. "Like, I'll do what I feel is right, but later others will disagree, or circumstances beyond my control will turn what was a good thing into a bad thing."
"Give me an example."
Sara thought for a moment, thinking over the myriad clusterfucks that had marked her time as Captain, from the Riani to the Klingons and the Tzenkethi. She decided to go with a more recent example, however.
"Well, there's how we got here, for one," she offered. "That was kind of a double-whammy of self-doubt because, at first, I responded to the Vaadwuar with violence. They came out, fucked with our hull, so I ordered Marcus to fire. I only wanted to disable them, but their ships were weaker than we thought, so we ended up killing them. Then Raqiin helpfully reminded me that that was kind of a shitty thing to do, that my first reaction shouldn't be violence, and that I should make at least some attempt to be diplomatic.
"So, I did. We found more Vaadwuar, along with some Cardassians, which instantly had me on edge, but then I think to myself 'I have a Cardassian daughter, I can't suddenly start stereotyping Cardassians,' so I approach it diplomatically, and the end result is we get flung into fucking Borg space. I went with my first gut instinct, which was protect my crew, but I saw where that mindset might lead me: shoot first, questions later, et cetera.
"So I decided to go with my better angels, and that blew up in my face, so this whole trip started with my self-confidence pretty shot."
"You've come to rely on that self-confidence a lot, haven't you?" observed V'ruuk. Sara looked up at him, mildly surprised as she considered the statement.
"I guess, yeah," she agreed with a nod. "You know, it was all I had at some points in my life."
"Like your childhood," reasoned the Vulcan. "Breaking up family fights takes a sense of authority, especially if you're the youngest. If you're not sure of yourself, you're easy to ignore."
Sara considered that in silence, thinking back to all those fights, and all those times she felt she had to step in to keep things from escalating. So many times she'd had to feel like the adult, and, to a child, being an adult meant knowing what you were doing. Being an adult meant having everything figured out.
"Bringing my family aboard was an impulsive decision," she said after a long while. V'ruuk had let her sort that in her head without interruption. In doing so, she had found her way back to her original point.
"You always hear about how Starfleet vessels should have families aboard, because they're not supposed to be warships. See, I believe in that Starfleet. I believe that conflict should be our last resort, that it shouldn't define it, so I told myself that I should lead by example, and bring my family aboard. I told myself that I shouldn't be a warrior, but a wife and a mother who just happens to be a badass CO," she explained.
"Do you feel that was a mistake?" asked V'ruuk. Sara didn't answer immediately, fidgeting with her hands and occasionally wiping away a tear as she thought.
"Thalev almost died," she whispered. "And every time the ship shudders, I think about Ulani and how scared she must be, and I get so mad at myself that I brought her here. I get... I get so pissed off that I had the nerve to adopt such a perfect little girl when I knew, I knew, that my job was dangerous, that I could be killed or my ship destroyed on any given day. And I did it anyway, because it was what I wanted, and I told myself it was the right thing to do."
V'ruuk gave one of his sympathetic looks, letting her continue.
"And I think back to Jonathan, and I wonder if he didn't have it right the whole time. Maybe it's not a Captain's place to be happy, to have a family. Maybe I'm being selfish by thinking that it can be any other way. Maybe I'm not really cut out to be a wife or a mother, or even a Captain. Maybe my whole fucking life is wrong, you know? Maybe every decision that I ever made was wrong."
"Because that thing you became so dependent on, that self-confidence, is shaken," V'ruuk offered. "That thing that had become the core of your moral foundation has been dealt a blow, or a series of blows, and it's left you feeling lost."
Sara only nodded, every word of that true.
"Let me ask you this," V'ruuk suggested. "If you had to choose between your family or your career, right now, which would you choose?"
Sara chuckled, as if this had been the very question she'd been asking herself. She fidgeted and mulled and ran a hand through her hair as she tried to decide, feeling like the course of her life depended fully on the answer she gave. In the end, she gave the only answer she could.
"I don't know."
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Post by Einar on Feb 12, 2018 20:58:08 GMT
I am literally at a loss for words CJ. That was fantastically written and I feel gutted, but in a good way
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Post by Nola on Feb 12, 2018 21:12:32 GMT
Exactly what I was going for. I'm glad you liked it, Einar! This is all stuff I've wanted to explore with Sara before this, but I'm only now getting around to it.
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Post by Einar on Feb 13, 2018 12:32:30 GMT
Jonathan also never wanted Sara to end up like him
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Post by Deleted on Feb 13, 2018 16:02:49 GMT
CJ, that was.. frankly, brilliant. Well done. I think it opens up some potential stuff for Sumner and Idrani, we should chat
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Post by aoibheni on Feb 21, 2018 19:12:08 GMT
"You think you broke the Federation?" If I hadn't already fallen in love with Sara, this would have done it.
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Post by Nola on Mar 15, 2018 10:27:48 GMT
Unpacking, Part 2
"Ready?" whispered Sara, who was crouched stealthily around a corner near the entry to main engineering.
"Ready!" Ulani whispered back, a wicked grin on her face. Sara watched the corridor leading into ME closely, eventually spotting the mark: a Bolian crewman who was slowly meandering along, engrossed in her PADD.
"Now!" bade Sara, motioning for Ulani to make her move. The little girl stifled a giggle as she trotted out and approached the crewman.
"'Scuse me, miss?" Ulani greeted in a disturbingly well-practiced tone. The Bolian looked startled as she was addressed, and it took her a moment to find the source.
"Oh, uh, hello," she said, wearing a slightly awkward smile. Ulani batted puppy dog eyes and put on a hopeful smile.
"Can I has a hug?" Ulani asked, rocking back and forth on the balls of her feet. The crewman gave a nervous chuckle and looked around, as if to find whoever was supposed to be in charge of this child.
"Sure," she finally agreed, though she seemed less than enthused. She knelt down and hugged Ulani, and Ulani hugged her back.
"Tanks!" she said before scampering off, taking a roundabout way to get back to her mother. Confused, the crewman turned and stepped into Engineering. She was greeting by a departing colleague, who did a double take and laughed at her.
"Ha, nerd!" he chided.
"What'd you just call me?" she asked, a deep frown on her face. For a moment, Sara wondered if this prank was about to blow up in her face. She contemplated bolting.
"You got tagged," the other crewman said, pointing at her shoulder. She furrowed her brow and reached back, pulling off a small sticky note. 'NERD!' was written upon it in big black letters.
"Oh, that little shit!" the Bolian huffed. Cackling drew the attention of the crewmen to where Sara was lying in wait.
"Gotcha, nerds!" she taunted, just as Ulani had made her way back.
"Is that..." the other crewman asked, as the pair ran off, laughing with glee.
"This fuckin' ship," sighed the Bolian.
---
"Is there, perhaps, some part of you that doesn't want to be reinstated?" V'ruuk asked. Sara frowned, feeling a great many things all at once: annoyance that he would ask, indignation at what he might be implying, fear that he might be right, and so on. She knew better than to answer immediately by this point.
"I think," she began, meticulously perusing her thoughts, "if I'm going to be honest, some part of me would prefer to not be a Captain any more."
"Which part?" V'ruuk coaxed. She ran her hands over the shaved parts of her head. This answer wasn't coming so easily, which was generally a good sign - now they were digging into the deep shit.
"The part of me that's tired," she offered with a shrug. "The part of me that always wants to give up, to admit that something is too hard."
"What is it you think that part wants?" he prompted.
Sara glowered as she thought, ruminating on that for a bit.
"To not have to try so hard," she answered. "To not have everything feel so dire. To not have to feel responsible all the time, to just fucking have fun for a while."
"What do you do for fun?"
"Nothing," she huffed. "Right now, I do nothing for fun. I look after my daughter. I take care of my husband. I do my damnedest to not constantly check in with the Bridge, to stay out of Raqiin's way."
"So, at present, you don't really do anything for yourself?" the counselor probed. Sara gave him a mirthless smile, fully seeing what he was getting at.
"Nope," she affirmed, shifting to lay on the couch. "There are things I wanna do, I just feel like I never have time."
"How is Thalev doing?" he asked. "Is he able to watch Ulani for a while?"
"I think so, yeah."
"So what would you like to do with yourself? You can get some time if you need it."
Sara sighed and closed her eyes, suddenly feeling exhausted. In her mind, she kept running back the same arguments against this very thing. She didn't deserve to have fun - she was on medical leave, not vacation. She didn't deserve to take time for herself - she'd fucked up too much recently. She didn't deserve to be happy - she was too much of a disruptive little bit-
Her eyes snapped open, realization dawning on her as she pushed herself back up to a sitting position. Tears rimmed her eyes, her father's voice echoing in her mind as clear as if he'd just yelled at her that morning. It was as if some thick curtain had fallen, revealing for just a moment the machinations that had brought her to this place.
V'ruuk resisted the urge to ask her what she was thinking. She'd get to it when she was ready.
---
Her fingers caressed a rosewood fretboard, gliding along thick, silky gold strings. A soft, contemplative surfer twang filled the room in response, emanating from her old replica Schecter Hellraiser. It was one of her few actual, non-bass guitars, naturally tuned to drop-d, making power chords all the easier. She liked to think she was fairly decent on the bass, and could play some complicated basslines, but playing lead on guitar always seemed just out of reach. Thus, she tended to stick to rhythm.
She played a final chord, letting her fingers glide steadily up the neck to create a lilting, slightly discordant sound before palming the strings silent. She stared down at her effects board, chewing her lip indecisively as she looked at the options. She was trying to stay mindful of the moment, to keep her thoughts from wading too deep into the muck of anxiety, with middling success.
Sara heaved a sigh and rubbed her eyes. What was she doing? This was her idea of fun? Sitting alone on a holodeck, staring at an effects board she used at raucous shows in her Academy days? Feeling sorry for herself? Languishing in existential fugue while she strummed some California bullshit?
Her eyes settled on the classic orange pedal in the middle of the bottom row.
"Fuck that noise."
Sara stood up and kicked the stool she'd been sitting on, sending it skittering across the photonic stage before stomping on the distortion pedal. She strummed an open note, filling the air with a deep, static thrum. Then the experimentation began. Overdrive! Reverb! Wah! No, fuck Wah!
She layered and tweaked various bits of flange, phase shift, delay and tremolo until she got the sound she wanted, a sound she'd always equated with her freedom, whether it was from her parents, her grades, her worries or general adult responsibilities. This was the 'fuck it' sound, the one they'd open the show with, the one that punched the crowd in the face right out of the gate. This was the vibration, the hum that filled the voids in her chest and brought syncopation to the din of her mind, smoothing all the wrinkles and opening her soul to the universe around her, a vibration connecting all things present.
Figuratively, anyway. It was mostly the syncope that she loved - the dirty, grinding static that brought her thoughts into focus; brought balance not by negating what was there, but by complementing it; and made clear what had once been obscured:
She was Sara Goddamn Sumner, and she wasn't havin' this shit. Fuck yeah she could be an awesome wife and mother. Fuck yeah she could be a kick-ass Captain who fought the system from within, and you bet your fucking ass she could be both at once.
The Riot Girl put a booted foot on the volume pedal, steadily pushing it to max, the assault on her ears matching the spreading fire within until she could feel the forces burning and humming in her chest. She briefly palmed the chords before breaking into a rapid-fire riff, forcing herself to remember what 'fun' was.
---
"I do want to retire," Sara announced immediately upon sitting down. V'ruuk quirked a brow in that way.
"Someday," she said after a dramatic pause. V'ruuk only gave a small smirk in response.
"Years from now. Decades, maybe, after I've done all the things I wanna do in that chair."
"And what things would you like to do?" he asked, settling back into his seat.
"To lead by example. To inspire others to do the right thing."
"Mhm," nodded V'ruuk. "Anything that's not a vague cliche?"
Sara gave him the finger and a smirk on her own. He gave an inviting shrug.
"I want to prove that doing the right thing is worth the pain it brings," she explained. "Yes, it's hard. It's real fuckin' hard, and sometimes it's gonna blow up in your face, but what matters is that you fucking try. So many just don't, y'know? They just... a hard thing happens, and it fucks 'em over, and they just fuckin' quit. And I get it - it's so easy to quit. It feels good to quit, right? It's like, uh... what's that myth with the guy pushing the rock up the hill?"
"Sisyphus," said V'ruuk. The irony of a Vulcan educating a human on human mythology didn't escape her notice, but she was on to something.
"Right! That guy - how much better would he feel if he could just stop trying to push that fuckin' rock? You have this heavy shit to deal with, and you stop trying to deal with it, and it can feel like you've solved it, right? You decide that it just doesn't matter, and there are other things you'd rather do with yourself, and it feels like you've unlocked some secret that, uh... anyway, point is that some things matter, right? As much as you might want to think otherwise, they just matter, and they matter to more people than just you, and by ignoring them and fucking off to do your own shit, you're only fucking those people over."
"You swear a lot when you're rebounding," V'ruuk noted. Sara gave him a somewhat exasperated chuckle.
"Counselor, I have piercings in my crotch," she declared. V'ruuk stared, brow furrowed and his mouth slightly agape in astonishment.
"I don't know how that's relevant," he said.
"It's a cultural thing," Sara explained. She folded her legs under her on the couch. "I may have been born four hundred years late, but I'm a bit of a punk rock girl. Swearing is generally seen as uncouth, and vulgar - a mark of immaturity. It's a stubborn cultural norm, and cultural norms are the mold with which kids get battered into what their parents think is 'proper,' which prevents them from ever really exploring who they actually are."
"Like your brother," observed V'ruuk. Sara spread her arms outward with a flourish, like she were presenting some invisible prize to the Vulcan.
"And where do the piercings come into play?"
"It's counter-culture. See, when punk was a thing, there was a lot of anti-sex sentiment in mainstream society, and it was seen as a rebellious act to dress up your sex parts."
"Uh-huh." V'ruuk frowned in thought before giving his head a small shake. "Anyway, please, continue."
"If I quit now, after all this shit has blown up in my face, I'm part of the problem," she summarized. "All this stuff with Section 31? Yeah, a lot of it was people being actively unscrupulous, but it was also all the people who turned a blind eye to it that allowed it to become such a big problem. It was all the Admirals who knew and did nothing. It was all the rank and file who decided to just ignore it rather than try to fight something so powerful. I can't be one of those people. I refuse to be one of those people."
V'ruuk nodded slowly, finally bringing up his PADD and making a few notes.
"So, what happens on the days where you don't feel so strong?" he asked. Sara thought for a moment before replying.
"I lean on my family, like I was. And if something happens and they can't lift me up, I'll find a way to be strong so I can lift them."
"And how will you do that?"
"I... need to find some friends," she answered with a frown. "I can lean more on my senior staff than I have, and I can actually do social shit while I'm off the clock. I, uh... well, I've got some ideas for that."
"Oh?"
---
Sara frowned dubiously at the art PADD she'd been drawing on. Her design skills hadn't improved much since the Academy, but maybe that would be a good thing - it was supposed to look shitty, to a degree.
"Whatcha makin'?" called Ulani, who had snuck up on her mother like prowling cat. Sara fumbled the PADD a bit before turning to face her daughter, hiding it behind her back.
"Oh, uh, just a poster thing," she said, knowing full well that wouldn't be satisfactory.
"Can I see?" asked Ulani.
"Um, well, it's kind of, uh, not appropriate, which probably only makes you more determined to find out what it is," Sara said, realizing her folly too late to stop it. Ulani only smiled in unnervingly innocent fashion. Sara chuckled and pulled out the PADD, showing her daughter and imagining a conversation Thalev would have with her later about the things she'd been exposing their daughter to.
Ulani narrowed her eyes and perused the poorly-drawn poster.
"Warp 69?" she asked, brow quirked. "Can ships warp that much?"
"No, they cannot," Sara confessed. "It's a joke."
"What's the joke?"
"I'll explain it when you're older," she promised.
"I'm always older, though," Ula protested.
"Don't I know it," Sara groaned, rubbing her eyes before closing the image. "I'm sure you will learn it in time, but now it's time for bed, so it will not be tonight."
"Lame," Ula grumbled.
"Yep," Sara commiserated. She set the PADD aside before plucking her daughter off her feet and cradling her in her arms.
"Song or story?" she asked. "And no, the story can't be about the joke."
Ulani stuck her tongue out before answering.
"Song."
"Can do," said Sara. She gently flopped into Ulani's bed, stretching out as the Cardassian girl snuggled close.
"Alright, this one's an old one, but it's new to you, I think. Ready?"
"Ready, momma!"
Sara took a deep breath, relaxing her diaphragm as she gently cradled her little girl. She thought briefly on the past few weeks, and the trials and tribulations of trying to set her mind right, of all her worries about having her family with her. As she looked to Ula, and her inquisitive little eyes, she knew she'd made the right decision.
"A dream is a wish your heart makes, When you're fast asleep. In dreams, you will lose your heartaches, Whatever you wish for, you keep.
"Have faith in your dreams, and some day, Your rainbow will come smiling through. No matter how your heart is grieving, If you keep on believing, The dream that you wish will come true."
Sara's voice trembled lightly in that second verse, and she had to blink away a few tears, smiling at her own cheesiness. She looked to Ula, who wore a frown of concern.
"I love you, baby girl," she said, petting her jet black hair. "Do you know that?"
Ula nodded, still wearing a look of worry.
"Your father and I love you very much, and we always will."
"Is that song true?" asked Ula. Sara gave a somewhat sheepish grin, not entirely sure how to explain it. In a very real sense, the song was bullshit. Dreams were all well and good, but dreaming never really did any of the hard work it took to make things better. Then again, without the dreams, there'd be nothing to drive those efforts. So...
"Yes, baby doll. It might not always seem like it, and sometimes you might find that you want to give up on your wish, but if you hang onto it, if you weather the troubles, you'll find that your dreams come true in ways you might not have expected."
"Like how?" Her brow had furrowed a bit in thought. Sara sighed softly, still petting her daughter's hair.
"Well, there was a time that your father and I wanted to try and conceive a child through other means," she said. "Our jobs made it difficult, as did biology in general, but we never stopped dreaming of having a child. After a number of harrowing adventures, we decided on another way to accomplish our dream. And that, my love, was when we met you. The moment we laid eyes on you, we knew you were our dream."
Ula thought on that for a moment before wrapping her mother in a hug, which she returned firmly.
"I love you too, momma," she whispered. "And daddy, too."
Sara grinned and kissed her daughter's forehead before tucking her in.
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Post by Einar on Mar 15, 2018 15:26:25 GMT
your writing makes me feel inadequate, it´s that good.
keep it up CJ, this just made my day
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Post by aoibheni on Mar 15, 2018 21:43:33 GMT
Can I please have Sara as my Mam?
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