I Don't Like It

Posted on 14 Mar 2018 @ 9:17pm by Lieutenant Lake ir-Llantrisant & Rear Admiral Lirha Saalm

2,537 words; about a 13 minute read

Mission: Episode 15 - Emanation
Location: Rigel II - Avondale Production Facility Administrative Complex
Timeline: MD 101 - 1021 hrs

[ON]

By the later hours of the morning, activity inside the administrative complex attached to Avondale Shipyards was in full swing for the day. A motley crew of engineers, dock workers, maintenance personnel, and senior Starfleet officers occupied every deck of the facility and processed the latest updates with haste.

The same complex was also home to USS Galileo's newest captain -- at least for the brief time being. On level five of the upper ward, yeomen darted in and out of various rooms and walked at a brisk pace towards their next important destination. Time seemed to be of the essence and the air felt thick with a sense of urgency.

Despite the palpable atmosphere, Lake ir-Llantrisant navigated the passageways with the languid stride of a Rear Admiral. To look more closely at his uniform, it was clear he was a Lieutenant (Junior Grade) and assigned to the Medical division at that. Lake had scheduled his commute appropriately, which meant he had no need to hurry. He entered the waiting antechamber precisely when he intended to arrive and he maintained his relaxed posture as he stepped up to the front desk.

"I'm here for the Captain," Lake said by way of introduction, as if he were the Captain's doctor, rather than a prospective applicant for the position of Chief Counselor aboard the USS Galileo-A.

One of the many administrative assistants assigned to the facility looked up from his desk towards the man with Romulan features. "You're her 1025? Good, you're on time. Office 15-B, straight back to the left," he curtly answered before adding a "sir" at the end of his sentence.

Acknowledging the assistance of the administrative assistant, Lake offered a gentle nod and he echoed back the words, "Office 15-B," to make sure he heard it right. He looked the seated man in the eyes to say, "Thank you," before turning on his heel. Following the labeled doorways, Lake continued his languid stride towards the designated office. Once he found it, he gently kissed the chime contact with his fingertip.

"Enter," came the reply of a woman's voice from behind the door.

In response, the doors pulled apart and Lake entered the well-appointed office. For all his casual airs, his muscle memory responded to four pips on a uniform collar. His shoulders took up more of the doorway as he moved through, and his footfalls snapped with the stead beat of a march, even if the rest of his body wasn't quite so stiff. When Lake's eyes narrowed on the Captain sitting behind the desk, he recognized the glint in her eyes and the hue of her skin immediately. In contrast, she wasn't shouting at him, nor was she gesticulating wildly this time, which made her look like an entirely different woman to Lake.

He couldn't help himself. "Sir," Lake asked, "Shouldn't you be in prison?"

The question temporarily surprised the Captain Lirha Saalm who looked at the Romulan man with a subtle clench of her jaw. Her dark shoulder-length hair bobbed lightly across the sides of her cheek while she looked down at her PADD and then back up at the junior lieutenant. "Excuse me?" came her first words which were accompanied by piercing and irritated green eyes, a clear indication that things had suddenly not started off well.

As a Counselor, Lake ir-Llantrisant was certainly astute enough with non-verbal communication to read Lirha's irritation, but he wasn't anywhere near psychic. He didn't have enough information to deduce the exact reasoning for her irritation. He straightened up his posture and he took half a step back. "My apologies; have I mistaken you for someone else?" Lake asked, taking a wrong turn in his reading of the situation. "You look very much like her? You look like Lirha Saalm? The one whose court marital went so very poorly?"

She looked like Lirha Saalm? "Oh. That would be because I am Lirha Saalm," came a more forceful reply. "But to you, I am Captain Saalm, and you will address me as such." It wasn't so much the man's realization of her identity that bothered her, but rather the seemingly-abrasive manner in which he'd declared the statement. As if -- for some absurd reason -- she was the one who was being interviewed.

A low guttural growl could suddenly be heard from the floor behind the desk, and a large targ pup slowly walked out into view and stared at the Romulan with dark beady eyes. The rapid side-to-side swishing of his short tail combined with its vocalizations was a sign that it didn't particularly view the man as a friend.

"And this is Snuffles," Saalm introduced.

Holding his ground, Lake tilted his chin down to lock eyes with Snuffles. "Hullo Snuffles," Lake said. His demeanour towards the targ was utterly pleasant and utterly fake. He really didn't even make an effort to show genuine emotion. It was a targ, after all. Too, Lake nodded his head in Saalm's direction, and he was far more genuine in saying, "Captain Saalm. Of course." For all of his confusion and dismissal --flowing from his first meeting with Saalm-- Lake both recognized and respected Starfleet protocol. Starfleet had apparently decided that Saalm had earned his respect, regardless of her behaviour to him before, and that really was good enough for Lake. Folding his hands behind his back, Lake said, "I thank you for the gift of your time today."

"Yes, yes," the captain non-chalantly waved her green hand in a dismissive manner, her posture slightly relaxing once all introductions had been made and the mood began to unwind. "Sit and tell me why you've applied for assignment on my ship."

Hardly a heartbeat had passed in the time it took for a sense of conviction to wash over Lake. He hardly needed to think about his answer at all. "It's for the adventure, of course," he said. After closing the distance between himself at Saalm's desk, Lake fluidly lowered himself into the proffered chair. "I've been hooked firmly by your new Galileo's mission to the southern border of the Federation. For all our varied forms of exploration at Starfleet Officers, how many of us are truly blessed to boldly go... out there."

Lake's dark eyes lit up as he spoke, further explaining, "Upon reflection, I believe Starfleet has... created me for an assignment such as this. Patients struggling through the isolation that can come from starship life has been a common thread sewn through my career -- from the research I performed at Starfleet Medical to my tours as a crisis counselor out of Starbase 74. You will be hard-pressed to find many counselors with my precise mix of life experiences that will flow towards treating the officers on your new Galileo."

She listened to his claim of expertise which initially seemed impressive. But she wasn't immediately sold on the pitch and, as any captain might, continued with her diligence. "Have you experienced isolation yourself? Have you ever been so far from your home that it becomes a distant thought?" she tested.

As usual, Lake's first reaction was prickly. He tilted his head back and he pursed his lips and he shot Lirha a look that basically said, girl, are you playin'?. By the time he opened his mouth, though, he spoke softly, slowly, thoughtfully. "I was born in an orchard on Romulus," he said. That was about as long as he could maintain eye-contact with her. His expression went diffident, as if he didn't look directly at her, she wouldn't be able to see what he was feeling, through his eyes. "The house has burned away, so have the trees, the soil, even the tectonic plates. Can't get more distant than gone.

"I was rescued by the Federation as as refugee; my whole family was" Lake explained. He supposed Lirha already knew that, already knew the facts, but was assessing what the meant to him. "Before the fall of Romulus. The Romulan Star Empire declared my parents traitors and they defected to save our lives. Do you know, they never told us what happened? I don't really know why. It's-- it's-- it's an uneasy feeling to have a government hate you, and you don't even know why.

"But even here, I'm alone," Lake said. Almost, he could almost look Lirha in the eye again. There wasn't pain and horror to be hidden; no, there was fire. "I earned my citizenship and my commission. I have a place here, a purpose. But a few weeks back, there was a man flirting with me, a Starfleeter, and he implied I was the first Romulan he'd met who wasn't a Tal Shiar spy or a self-hating Vulcan impersonator. He liked me. He was aroused by me, and that's still what he thought of me."

Saalm pursed her lips in thought while holding his eyes as he spoke. "Maybe he found you exotic? A rare conquest from a foreign land to satisfy his curiosity?" she proposed, giving him a knowing look which betrayed the way she herself had been viewed as a young Orion at the Academy and on assignment. "I know this feeling well," she sympathized.

"If I may ask, Captain," Lake asked, and he leaned forward slightly, his eyes growing wider, "How do you manage it?"

Her head tilted slight to the side when he asked the question. Almost as if the answer should have been obvious. "I didn't. Not after the first time," she answered with conviction and simplicity. "Instead, I made sure those around me never dared to look at me that way. I learned to become a e'qarh. The Humans call them chameleons, creatures that adapt and camouflage to their surroundings. I learned to show people what I wanted them to see...and to use that skill as an advantage."

Nodding at Lirha's admission, Lake said, "That...", and he trailed off, as his gaze shifted over her shoulder. His eyes lost their apparent focus, as he inwardly considered her words. "That is an impressive skill," he affirmed. At least by this point, Lake knew well enough not to mention that time Lirha had disguised herself as a Klingon Commander. He shook his head, and then looked to Lirha. "I don't know how well I can wield it yet."

"But...you're Romulan," Saalm replied with a touch of confusion present in her voice. If there was any species in the quadrant that naturally possessed the ability for subterfuge and deception, it was his kind.

Lake raised a palm to Saalm; the gesture indicated that he took her point, when he said, "Yes," and there was a pregnant pause that followed. He shook his head from side to side, and he added, "But that also means I'm prone to thinking I always know what's best. It can make it... difficult to embody someone else's point of view as my own."

"It's one thing to sympathize with another person -- personally and professionally," the captain started to reply, "but neither of us are empaths and we will never know exactly how another person feels or what motivates them." She shrugged and reached for her hot chocolate on the far side of her desk's LCARS monitor. "Such is life, sometimes."

Shrugging lightly, Lake tilted his head from side to side, and he said, "Let me try," as if it was a congenial challenge between old friends. "When you close your eyes," he asked, "how do you imagine living aboard your new Galileo?"

It seemed like a good question, one that the captain hadn't spent much waking time pondering but had two truths to it. "In my dreams or in reality?" she questioned. "I think every young captain dreams their first command will be exotic -- a chance to live luxuriously aboard a Galaxy-class starship and explore the quadrants with Starfleet's latest technology." It was certainly how she'd felt several years ago as a young CO being presented with her first starship. "But now," she continued, "I've become...accustomed. It's not quite as exciting as it once was, but it's more familiar. I'm more...prepared. And practical."

Lake nodded slowly, digesting and acknowledging each of the truths Lirha was sharing with him. "Let's consider the practical light of day, then," he said, in answer to her clarifying question. He leaned forward, almost imperceptibly. "What do you imagine life aboard Galileo will mean to you?" he asked.

"It's what Starfleet has given me. Another chance to command," she bluntly answered before looking at the Romulan more closely. "Life will be hard for some. Easy for others, perhaps. Six months of duty in isolation will be challenging anyone. But once we arrive, I expect spirits to rise. I expect...our sense of exploration to flourish."

"What expectations do you have," Lake asked, "about what you might find?" The old Romulan Star Empire hadn't been known for a spirit of exploration. Alternating drives between imperialism and isolationism were the watchwords of the world where Lake was born. As much as Lake had phrased the question in a way a counselor might prompt his Captain, his wide eyes betrayed he was curious for his own self too.

"I don't know but I assume it will be significant," the captain answered before leaning forward slightly and lowering her voice to convey a sense of confidentiality. "Starfleet doesn't just send starships like Galileo to unexplored areas along our furthest borders. Not without a reason. There are other vessels better equipped to the task of long-range exploration, and our selection for this mission is...unorthodox, to say the least." She hoped he would understand her inferences.

As much as Lake picked up on Lirha's inference, he didn't have enough requisite information to decode it. His eyes narrowed. The posting hadn't provided exhaustive information about the Galileo's specs and capabilities. Leaning forward as well, and lowering his voice in kind, Lake asked, "And what kind of starships are like the Galileo?"

"Technically," the captain started to answer, "she's the first of her kind. Small, agile, and packed with scientific instrumentation. As true a pure scout and survey vessel as Starfleet's ever designed. But designing starships is not just a theoretical process; simulations can only take a ship so far before it needs testing in more practical applications." She crossed her legs and leaned back in her chair. "Apparently Starfleet has discovered something of interest and wants us to take a closer look."

He tilted his head to one side as a cocky grin split across his face. "Asking as your Chief Counselor..." Lake started to say. Narrowing his eyes at Lirha in a playfully pensive expression, Lake asked, "How much can you tell me about that... something of interest?"



[OFF]

To Be Continued...

Lieutenant Lake ir-Llantrisant
Chief Counselor
USS Hathaway and... Galileo?

Captain Lirha Saalm
Commanding Officer
USS Galileo-A

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