A First and Last Conversation

Posted on 25 Nov 2014 @ 10:54pm by Lieutenant JG Delainey Carlisle & Lieutenant JG Wakeham Paul Alasia Ph.D. & Lieutenant JG Delainey Carlisle
Edited on on 02 Dec 2014 @ 6:41pm

1,808 words; about a 9 minute read

Mission: Episode 07 - Sojourn
Location: USS Galileo: Deck 4 - Junior Officer's Quarters 04-0803
Timeline: MD01, 1808 hrs

[ ON ]

Paul stepped off the turbolift and instantly dropped one of the PADDs he was holding, cracking the screen slightly. "Shit." Paul whispered to himself as he knelt down, another Padd slipping between his arm and his body. He picked them up and ran his finger gently over the cracked PADD. He did not relish the small shards of glass that would lodge themselves in his finger before he was able to get it over to someone in Ops for repair. Collecting himself, Paul made his way down the hall before shifting his cargo into a cradle under his left arm and opened the door to his quarters. He was greeted by the svelte, blonde visage of his roommate.

"Evening, madam." Paul greeted in a tone of supercilious formality.

"Evening," Delainey replied, offering a wan smile. She was tired after a long shift of sessions and notes but Paul had a way of brightening her mood with his mock chivalry and sense of humor. Carlisle hadn't been sure if she'd like having a male roommate. At the Academy, of course, she'd had a roommate, but she was part of a quad, so she could keep to herself even in that group of four. Living with another man she'd been randomly paired with was a decidedly riskier proposition for Delainey, who hadn't devoted much time getting to know people of the opposite sex socially.

"What are we up to this fine evening?"

"I was going to go exercise, but then I got hungry. Want to sit on the couch and eat junk with me?" she asked hopefully.

"If sitting on the bed and eating junkfood was in the running why would you even consider going to the gym?" Paul asked with an equal amount of facetious incredulousness and sincerity. He smiled broadly. "I would live to sit on the couch and eat junk food."

Paul sat down on the edge of his bed, leaning over to remove his staid and shopworn boots from the day. "You know, I've been meaning to ask you something for, like, two weeks and I keep forgetting..."

Delainey frowned. She'd been enjoying the comfortable relationship they'd built as friends, and so far, they'd managed to avoid talking about romance or picking each other's brains on the opposite sex. Carlisle felt a certain amount of pressure to offer reasonably sound advice on the subject as a counselor and a woman, though the truth was, she'd been a bit pre-occupied to seriously date anyone. She prayed he wasn't about to ask for an explanation of something mysteriously female, or of being a blonde female, for that matter. "Yeah?"

"I met with another Counselor. I... God, I don't remember his name. About my age. A Lieutenant. Ludicrously chiseled face. You know who I'm talking about?"

"No idea," she offered. She wanted to slip in a comment about not all counselors knowing each other, but she didn't. Frankly, she had a better chance identifying someone by their therapeutic style than their chiseled features.

"Um, um, um." Paul flapped his right hand absently. "West!. Lieutenant West!"

"Anyway, I guess it doesn't really matter much. So, I was putting off and putting off my psych eval and then the Lyshan mission ended, so I really didn't have an excuse anymore so I go in to meet with Lieutenant West. I get to talking about some misgivings I have about Starfleet and at the end of it, he recommends - no, he strongly recommends I start regular meetings to talk. It kind of got me a little nervous. I have no problem talking things out but the implication is a little - I don't know, nerve-racking? Is that standard advice or does that say something about me?

Relieved now that the topic was professional and not personal, she considered teasing him a little. "Oh boy. That's not good. What did you tell him about the voices in your head?"

"That's just the thing! I didn't mention the voices at all!" Paul smirked, his eyes grew wide and faux-conspiratorial. "You think he could hear them too?"

"Probably not," Delainey deadpanned. "We don't start reading minds until the second session. We have *some* standards."

"OK," Paul chuckled "but no, seriously. I was talking about some philosophical problems I have with Starfleet. How it's become a more militant organization in the last few decades and how that gave me some pause about joining. I said I worried I won't fit in. I mean, I don't mind having someone to talk to but I don't know... it was my official psych eval so I felt a little like I was being red-flagged. Am I being paranoid?"

"Yes," Carlisle returned with a grin. "It sounds like he just wanted to help you fit in. A diplomat who doesn't feel like he belongs amongst the people he's speaking for might just have a hard time keeping folks from shooting at us, yeah?"

"Actually, in a way, that's the problem. I'm not totally convinced all of Starfleet wants me to get too good at getting people not to shoot at us. I think the more I envelope myself in the military orthodoxy, the less I'll be able to do my job."

"You're wondering if diplomacy is a dirty word aboard Galileo," Delainey offered succinctly, "and if we keep the purple uniforms around merely to add some contrast to all the teal? Wait...your uniforms are purple, right?" Her reflections tended to get a lot more direct as soon as she hit her quarters.

Paul glanced down at his uniform. "Yeah. Yep. Purple." Paul chuckled. "So, no, it's not that I think Starfleet has no interest in diplomacy - it's just... I don't know. I mean, maybe it's in my head. It's probably in my head."

"I'm pretty good at sussing those things out," Delainey offered dryly. "Just spit it out, Paul. I'm not going to send the folks in the white coats for speaking your mind. This is in the roommate vault," she replied, and then quickly added, "unless you tell me you're plotting a mutiny or something. Then I might have to pull a weapon, which would make me a giant hypocrite. Don't make me a hypocrite, Paul, not to mention a walking cliche. Everyone thinks the shrinks are crazy."

"Alright. Bluntly, Starfleet strikes me as a very aggressive war machine lo these past 15 years. And I think anyone who's in today hasn't been inside long enough to have known it to be any other way -- and anyone who has been around long enough wouldn't want it to be any other way. But I've read the histories and the personal accounts -- I have a deep and abiding respect for this institution -- and it feels off. I had occasion to deal with a senior staff member on board and the way the command staff circled the wagons... I think evertone should read Ben Headly's book about military conduct in 60s... it's called 1701-D. The people running the show back then were a lot more cerebral. Or it least it seems that way to me. Maybe I'm wrong."

Delainey wondered if he'd added the last because part of him was concerned she would blast him for speaking less than glowingly about certain things. After a pause, she offered, "I'm a counselor, so people's perceptions of things are meaningful to me and I try not to get into a back and forth about whether those perceptions are right or wrong. I think your point of view is just as valid as anyone else's. Like anything else, some people are better at striking a balance between two extremes than others. It makes sense to me that after a time of war, people don't want to be perceived as vulnerable or weak again."

"Yeah, no, I know." Paul said. "We want to feel safe and in control. Those feelings are universal to every society and totally understandable. Clearly their feelings are legitimate. I'd like to think mine are as well. That's not really the issue here. The part that scares me is that my opinions are the minority - and certain minority opinions in certain governance systems are only barely tolerated. Framed against a certain institutionalized perception of what Starfleet is, I know my opinions are unpopular. I'm ok with that, I don't mind holding minority opinions. What I do mind is that this war machine culture has become so ingrained that even voicing the opinion that Starfleet is too warlike is cause for me to need psychological assistance, benign as that suggestion might be."

Paul took a breath. "I don't know. I guess what it comes down to is how likely a Counselor is to ask someone to come in for regular sessions. If it's just a stab at being helpful, that's fine. If it's the Counselors wanting to look like they're doing something, that's fine too. If it's just general advice they give to everyone, then obviously I'm reading too much into it. There are certainly a thousand valid reasons for me to talk to someone regularly. I'm insecure. I talk mile a minute. Obviously." Paul laughed. "I can't get out of my own head. I have a tendency to alienate people. Maybe that's what this other guy saw. But after one truncated session? I think it's the other thing. I think I come off like a malcontent when I'm just someone who values a different notion of what Starfleet ought to be. That it ought to live up to its stated ideals. When you're in an insane asylum, everything you do is further evidence that you're insane, especially insisting you're not. That's what this feels like to me. Even after this short time."

Delainey listened, and after a moment, she offered, "I understand you concerns, and while I don't think the mere suggestion you continue counseling is proof of your greatest fear, I'm not going to suggest you're crazy for thinking it could be the start of something bigger. Maybe it will or maybe it won't, but I guess I try to focus on what I know for certain right now, which is that you've been given the suggestion to seek further help without a clear explanation one way or another."

After a beat or two, she added, "That said, I've wondered about certain attitudes amongst the brass and the crew as a whole, and I've had some concerns about their impact on my ability to do my work going forward."

"Did you have any postings before the Galileo?" Paul asked.

Delainey nodded. "Right before Gal, I was an instructor for Starfleet Medical and before that, I was aboard the USS Reliant."

TRUNCATED

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