I Quit

Posted on 26 Apr 2017 @ 6:20am by Nesh Saalm & Rear Admiral Lirha Saalm

2,356 words; about a 12 minute read

Mission: Episode 15 - Emanation
Location: USS Chaka - Deck 2, VIP Quarters
Timeline: MD -40, 1128 hrs

[ON]

The chime on the door to the quarters Lirha had been given on the Chaka went off, and a moment later, before Lirha could even answer, a slight figure, finger twisting a strand of long dark hair round one finger sauntered in. "I need you to sign off on this."

A padd was thrust in front of Lirha's face, held in a hand as green as her own.

The rear admiral looked up from her work at her desk, barely able to respond to the audible notification of a visitor before she took sight of her younger sister dangling a data pad in front of her face. "Nesh?" she asked with surprise, not only that she had decided to leave the cargo bay, but also that she was speaking to Lirha again. Momentarily, at least. The last two months in Kreanan captivity had no doubt been hard on her sister, and she'd refused to leave her quarters both on the colony and aboard DuJa'Q. And whenever Lirha had attempted to speak to her, she'd been met with silence. She worried deeply about her, and so Lirha's shock was obvious when Nesh had just barged in.

Instead of looking at the PADD, the older Saalm stood and came around the desk, then hugged her younger sister tightly. "I haven't seen you in days..." she whispered in their native Yrevish tongue.

Lirha's little sister stood awkwardly for a moment while the older woman hugged her. then relented a little, and hugged back And then remembered her purpose, and pushed the admiral back. "Well, its not like you made a ton of effort. You hardly broke down the door."

Reaching out with a hand to touch Nesh's hair, Lirha let her eyes briefly fall to the floor before looking back up again. "I'm sorry...there was much that I was involved in and had to plan for. And then when we were aboard DuJa'Q, I had to manage both the Klingon and Starfleet crew. And..." her voice trailed off as she started to shake her head. She knew she was making excuses and that Nesh probably didn't care about any of that. Stepping forward, she tried to put a hand on her shoulder to express her apologies.

"So the fancy admiral was busy. Really busy. And then when those creeps killed you, you didn't think to let me know. And they made a mess of you, and you didn't come and talk to me once?" Nesh looked angry, and hurt and annoyed and sad all at once. "Its like I don't exist. You shut me out, and think sorry is enough?"

"Nesh..." Lirha searched her sister's eyes and tried to find some comfort in them. She had every right to chew her out, and while Lirha had known this was eventually coming, the reality of the heartbreak it was producing made her feel terrible. "Please, I'm sorry. I love you. It was never my intention to make you feel this way," she began to plead.

"Of course you didn't." Nesh spat back, hands on hips. "You never intend anthing. You know why? You don't think of anyone but yourself. You only ever think of me when you need something. You never thought to ask if I was okay. Or even if I had enough hormone suppressant? I didn't want to hide in that stinking hole for weeks on end. But the alternative is getting hassled by every passing klingon. Did that ever occur to you?"

"There were no hormone suppressants on the colony!" Lirha retorted, this time with several edges to her voice. "And stop speaking the Humans' language! You are still an Orion and still my sister, despite what Starfleet or the Kreanans tell you," she admonished.

"I'm not an Orion, am I?" Nesh cut back, sticking stubbornly to Federation Basic. She wasn't going to let her older sister hide behind the illusory privacy of their mother tongue. "I'm not a merchant. I don't trade in goods or fine art or wine. I'm not a pirate. " She snorted, the sound full of contempt. "I'm not even a whore. Just an inconvenience."

Anger began to boil in the older Saalm, and her face turned a deeper shade of green. "Nesh!" she began to scold. "Don't ever talk about yourself that way. Or our people!" Lirha took a step closer to her so that they were mere inches from each other's faces. "Who do you think it was who decided to raise you on Earth? Do you remember why?" Before she could answer, Lirha did it for her. "So you'd never have to resort to piracy or harlotry to provide for yourself."

Nesh gave her older sister a dry look. "Yet another decision someone has made for me. Like going into the academy. Like getting posted with you, rather than somewhere interesting. Like having to schlep all the way to the bloody neutral zone for a bunch of peasants who can't take out their own trash. Did anyone wonder if maybe I wanted to be a pirate?"

"Maybe if you hadn't kept getting in trouble at home in San Francisco, mother wouldn't have asked me to pull favors to bring you into Starfleet," Lirha countered with a shake of her head. "And besides, you were only a baby when we settled on Earth. Someone had to make that decision for you. I hate when you talk like this...so ungrateful..." she fumed.

"What have I got to be grateful for?" Nesh snarled. "I want to be an artist. Not crammed into a little Starfleet box and told what to do. It's the only thing I've ever wanted and you and mom and everyone utterly ignored me. If I'd been doing what I wanted, I wouldn't have got in trouble. I'd be too busy in art school. And that's where I want to be right now." She pushed the padd at Lirha again. "Which is why you have to sign this."

Lirha looked at the slim Starfleet data pad before reluctantly taking it in her hand. "What is this? A transfer request?" If Nesh wanted to get away from her, the least she could do was tell her to face instead of written letters. Or maybe it was something else.

Nesh took a deep breath. This would be the hardest part. "I'm quitting Starfleet. I've had it up to here. And after the last few months, there's nothing they can do for me that was worth that. So I quit. The Academy. Starfleet. All of it." She gave her sister a look of pure challenge, as if daring her to say anything. "This is like, me, choosing for me, for the first time. Ever. I'm not changing my mind."

With a quick glance across the header of the letter to confirm its contents and format, Lirha then closed her eyes for a short moment before reaching up to rub her green forehead in frustration. Everything her crew -- and in Nesh's case, family -- had been through over the past two months had been terrible. There was no disputing that, and even though Lirha was the older, formally-trained Starfleet admiral, even she had been pushed to her breaking point and beyond. And despite her current anger at her younger sister, she privately felt remorse and regret that she'd been subjected to the same traumatizing events. No teenager should have had to have gone through what Nesh had, and while she might not openly admit it, the young Orion had every prerogative to want to get as far away from the fleet as possible given her recent experiences.

"..Please stay, Nesh..." Lirha whispered with sadness in her voice. "Don't do this. I won't be able to protect and provide for you if you leave."

"That's the point. Nesh slipped into her native tongue out of sheer frustration. As usual her big sister didn't understand anything "I'm a Federation citizen. I don't need protecting. And I have a stipend like every other citizen. I already am provided for. You're just trying to hold on. Why? Why can't you let me be me, and not some sort of ...accessory?"

"Because..." Lirha's voice trailed off while long-ago feelings of sisterly protectiveness and guidance from her own teenage years came flooding to the forefront of her thoughts. She remembered holding Nesh in her hands when her sister was still an infant, and all of the close emotional bonds they'd shared as two of the only Orions on the block where they lived in San Francisco. She suddenly remembered all of Nesh's early teenage years, and the various Human boys who'd oggled over her that she'd had to shield her sister from. "You aren't an accessory...you're my sister, and I love you. And I can't let you go," she said in a soft voice which betrayed her emotions. "You're too young, and the quadrant is full of dangers. I know I...haven't been perfect.. But stay with me and let me make it up to you?"

Nesh looked at her sister, the slightly frightened, needy look on her face, and frowned. Maybe it was too much, to leave her completely. Especially after the last few months. And, not that she wouldn't die before she admitted it, quitting Starfleet and Lirha together was a little more of a step in the unknown than she really wanted to make. "I'll do you a deal. I'm still quitting Starfleet. But I'll stay, for three months. After that, we'll see. Okay?"

Lirha looked up at Nesh, and for a brief moment, she accepted the compromise. But then she began to ponder further about what she'd just said to her sister and how much she cared for her. If anything was true about Orions, it was that their family bonds always held priority over anything else in life. And even though she'd apologized to her sister for the Kreanus debacle, a terrible realization resurfaced: Nesh could have been killed because of Lirha's own actions, and if that had happened, she would never be able to forgive herself. The deaths of several of her ship's crew pained her to the core, but the thought that Nesh could have been one of them made her almost want to vomit. "Okay," she weakly replied, now trying her best to fight off the wetness that was beginning to form on her lower eyelids.

"And no telling me what to do. I'm eighteen. I'm not a little kid anymore." The pout on her face contradicted her somewhat, but she couldn't see that.

Nesh would always be a little kid in Lirha's eyes, but the older Orion understood the complaint and simply nodded. "You will always be the youngest, but I will try," she conceded before holding the PADD back out for Nesh to take. "For now, hold on to this."

"Sign it." Nesh said firmly, dropping back into Federation Standard. "I said I'm staying, but you still need to sign the acknowledgement. Then I can transmit it to Starfleet and its all done. All I'll be is your sister again. And that's good enough for me"

"Nesh, this is a formal Starfleet document stating your withdrawal from the Academy...if I sign this, it cannot be undone. You will have committed," Lirha replied incredulously. "You just told me you would wait and see after three months..."

Nesh screwed up her fists and counted to three under her breath. Lirha wasn't listening already. Great start. It wasn't fair. "I said I'd stay with you. But I was still quitting Starfleet. No more uniforms, no more hormones, no more stupid rules. I won't leave you for 3 months. They're not getting a second chance."

Lirha sighed and shook her head. Not only out of frustration, but at the demanding attitude Nesh was giving her. She understood every element of it, however, and perhaps if the situations were reversed, she would have been the one demanding that Nesh honor her requests. "You are as hard-headed as myself and mother. And even Livana," Lirha grumbled. Apparently it ran in the family.

Scrolling down on the PADD with her lithe fingers, Lirha scanned the contents of the withdrawal letter before finally coming to the bottom of the Starfleet document. She pressed her thumb into the digit-sized box on the data pad then handed it back to her sister. "I hope you know what you are doing," Lirha cautioned for the last time. "Starfleet is an opportunity that many children in the Federation would kill for...and art school is..." Perhaps one in 1,000 artists ever managed to become recognized and gain galactic prestige.

Nesh shrugged. "Starfleet was your dream, not mine" She took the padd back, looked at the authorisations codes and grinned. It was done. She was free. "The failure rate for the Academy isn't far off that, not really. I've got as much chance as anyone. And I want it more." She gave Lirha a big hug, squeezing hard, to say how much she still loved her. "Watch me."

Lirha peered up at the taller, younger Orion with skepticism evident in her eyes. "Yes...I will. Now go get a haircut and a shower. You are a still a Saalm, afterall, and I expect you to look your best at all times."

Nesh gave her an offended look. "I'm not the one who's still looking like an extra from a bad Klingon holovid." She flicked her now much longer black hair over her shoulder. and turned to leave, calling out as she left, "I look fabulous."

[OFF]

--

RADM Lirha Saalm
Commanding Officer
USS Galileo

Nesh Saalm
Civilian,
[PNPC Derani]

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