The Terms of a Debate

Posted on 01 Jan 2019 @ 6:48am by Lieutenant JG Sofie Ullswater & Lieutenant Lake ir-Llantrisant

2,705 words; about a 14 minute read

Mission: Episode 17 - Crystal of Life
Location: USS Galileo-A - Deck 7, Arboretum
Timeline: MD -175 - 1028 hours

[ON]

As soon as the double doors hissed apart, revealing a view to the corridor, Lieutenant Lake ir-Llantrisant hopped up from the bench where he was sitting. His canny gaze on the entrance caught sight of Science-teal piping on a Starfleet uniform. As if by Pavlovian response, Lake took one long stride forwards with his arms open in a gesture of greeting. Then, he took one long stride back when he realized it wasn't the science crewmember he was expecting: Sophie Ullswater. Rather, it was a dark-skinned Human, Crewman Leander Fionn, who appeared flustered with an assignment.

Crestfallen, Lake lowered himself onto the bench again. This was for the third time, mind, since his early arrival to this appointment. The longer he waited, the greater the pungent floral scents of the arboretum filled his sinuses. So distracting was the aroma, Lake didn't even notice when Sophie truly arrived in the arboretum.

Though he would easily be forgiven for it as Sofie's entry was more of a skulk than anything else. If any one type of person could make her feel as guarded as a Ferengi is with an ombudsman it would be counsellors. She'd been early too, but not wanting to make an untimely entry she'd waited down the corridor a bit. But as time marched on she decided she couldn't wait about forever (Leander had given her a dodgy look) so she donned her most inscrutable smile and walked into the tree filled room with the precision of a dancer and the furtiveness of a fox.

She sidled up to the bench were Lake was sitting and seeing that he seemed lost in thought and trying not to startle him she cleared her throat loudly once and said softly "Hello?"

Despite her best intentions, Lake recoiled from Sophie, raising his fists close to his chest given he was so clearly startled. He muttered out a, "guh," and cursed out a, "By Vorta Vor," until he cleared his throat and shook his head. "My apologies," Lake said and, eventually, he made eye-contact with Sophie. Rolling his shoulders back, Lake slowly rose to his feet. "My sincerest apologies, Ensign Ullswater. Hullo," he said, far more evenly.

Still recovering from the slight shock of Lake's reaction Sofie responded "No worries sir, I'm sorry to have startled you." She made a conscious effort to wipe the expression of surprise from her face and replace it with something more resembling a professional officer greeting a superior. "It is a lovely sort of place to get lost in ones thoughts though." She said and gestured nonchalantly at the trees.

"Truly, a unique environment aboard a Starfleet starship. Our only refuge from metal and upholstery and more metal," Lake said, agreeing with Sofie's point and embellishing it further. "I understand this is your first starship posting," Lake said, rising to his feet to stand with Sofie. "What's your first impression of a life lived in corridors?"

"I will be honest," she responded, starting to find her feet in the conversation "Having only been living that life for about a week I haven't yet fully solidified an opinion on it. Things seem fine so far though." It was an honest answer thinking about it she hand't really had time to think about it yet.

"Fresh eyes can see the most," Lake said. He swept a hand out to indicate a direction, and he started to walk, hoping Sophie would keep pace with him. "What would you say is your favourite part of this new tour of duty -- either realized or potential?"

"Well I think that..." she had started so confidently but as soon as it came to the substance of the sentence Sofie trailed off as she realised she wasn't entierly sure what it was she was going to say. The back of her mind raced trying to work out what might be her favourite part. "I'm not really sure, I think its more of the whole package. I couldn't point to a single thing. I suppose it all the little bit come together to make me feel part of the crew and that's what I'm enjoying right now."

"That's encouraging to hear," Lake said, and he made some effort to hide his surprise. "I'm sure the Captain would love to hear how enmeshed your feeling with the crew. I must admit... I'm still feeling a little bit transient from time to time."

"Well," she laughed softly ducking under a low hanging branch from one of the pristine trees "I wouldn't say enmeshed is quite the right word yet. I still don't know everyone's names in my own department let alone any of the others, but I'd like to think I'm settling in." Of course she would like to think that - was it true though? Didn't really matter, so long as the counsellor though she was settling in she could try to keep out of his gaze.

Placing one foot slowly in front of the other, Lake walked by Sofie's side and moved away from the low-hanging branch too. "What would you say you're most excited about," Lake asked, since Sofie had said she was feeling settled, "coming aboard the Galileo?"

Sofie smiled to herself upon hearing the question. She smiled because this seemed to be the sort of question that everyone kept asking her. It had come up in her interview with the captain, in small talk with other members of the crew and even in her letters home. Enough people had asked her at this point that she was pretty sure she had managed to craft something approximating the perfect response. "I suppose I'm looking forward to working as part of this team. Seeing new things and discovering previously unknown places and all the while doing it as a family of explorers. That's something to get excited about right?" Then in what she - in that moment - considered a stroke of genius turned the question back on the Lieutenant. "What about you, why do you find this particular little ship exciting?"

"We're running to the edge as fast as we can, sweaty and out of breath," Lake said, savouring the words as much as savoured the reality of what he said. "We're running to the very edge of everything we know, and trust, and need in Federation space. It appealed to me to get away from family and comfort, and see what's beyond. See what happens next.

"I heard you say you want to be part of a family of explorers. It sounds as if family is very important to you," Lake continued, pivoting back to what Sofie had spoken about. He spun a hand in the air, as if that would help him evoke the memory. Looking to Sofie, Lake asked, "What would it mean to you to make a family aboard Galileo?"

Sofie bit her lip in anticipation, the game was afoot. "Trust, camaraderie, shared purpose?" She quickly listed some things as she stopped and leaned against a nearby tree patting its bark with one hand. Answering his question didn't matter too much to her, but what the counsellor had answered made her feel like she had a way out of what felt like interrogation. "You ask me about family after you say you're running from it. Don't you think family is a good thing?"

Shaking his head slowly, Lake considered her question with his lips pursed, his lower lip especially protruded. "I can't think of anything," Lake replied, "that I consider to be a good thing. Not universally good. Especially not family." --When Sofie stopped by the tree, Lake left a distance between them-- "Trust and camaraderie can facilitate any relationship, but I don't see how subjective, ephemeral concepts can a family make?"

A difference? A debate? Finally something Sofie felt wholly comfortable with. She stood her ground, not moving forward to catch up instead relaxing further against this well placed tree. "Every family can have its troubles certainly but I would argue that the concept of the family is in and of itself a valuable thing that should be fostered. That network of family, the tribe, its wired into us all..." She wavered slightly not entierly sure where she was going with this train of thought.

"That sounds to me like a utilitarian approach to family. Family has its uses," Lake replied. There was a similar mismatch of intonation in the way he spoke. On one hand, he sounded generally interested in the train tracks Sophie was laying out, and on the other, he sounded intentionally contrary. "In Romulan society, family is your entryway, your first impression, and your golden ticket. It's how you're defined. It also comes with obligations; absolute obligations that cannot be ignored. These things have their uses and their costs, but I wouldn't measure any of them as good per se."

Sofie nodded, considering what the counsellor was saying. It made a deal of sense to her - perhaps their paths to their conclusions were the same but it seemed they differed greatly on the answer. "That obligation, that cord tying us to our families - surely it must be good or else why would we not just cut it?" She looked accusingly at him but it was clear that beneath her hostility she was clearly enjoying it "I think its you being utilitarian here. Family can not be boiled down to a set of rules and duties - it is transcendental."

"Then describe it for me," Lake said, waving his hand for emphasis. As much as he stubbornly refused to agree with Sofie, he was challenging her --practically taunting her-- to convince him of her perspective. He welcomed her perspective, even if his demeanour came across as combative. "I can appreciate it may not exist in concrete, tangible terms," he said, "but tell me what transcendental good you have experienced from your own family. I sure didn't detect any from mine."

Sofie's reaction to this next jab was slow - she had been ready to parry with some homiletic adage and had been building one up in her mind right up until that last sentence he said. It shocked her back into the real world in some sense, clearly this person before her has had a not too helpful relationship with their own family. She felt in the wrong suddenly, like she was treading on something personal, something that might hurt.

So with all that in mind her response was a cautious one. "A sense of personal history, of ancestry. A place to start from in the world." It felt like a weak answer as she said it. Perhaps through the counsellor's response she could uncover what it was that had started all this off.

Lake wasn't nearly as affected by the personal turn the conversation had taken. He followed Sofie's train of thought, and tied it back to the start of their conversation about family. "Certainly, those are things you'll find among the Galileo and her crew," Lake said. However, more than that, he observed, "You're still speaking in the conceptual. The theoretical. It makes it difficult to get to know you."

The counsellor made perhaps an insightful point. Sofie's mouth curled into a slight grin, her ploy had perhaps been foiled. "Well what is it that you really want to know about me? You aren't here to make me your friend, you're here because its your job." As soon as the words left her mouth she regretted them. She hoped it didn't all sound a bit too harsh.

"What does it mean to you," Lake asked, "to have me express curiosity about you, because it's my job." --He made a point, obviously, to use Sofie's own words-- "To have Starfleet provide me with room and board in exchange for keeping you company periodically?"

"It makes the whole thing sound rather not genuine." She found some spark of annoyance she'd held deep down finally coming to the surface. "Don't you ever feel that? Like you are just a facsimile of company?"

For half a moment, Lake boggled at Sofie with his dark eyes. When that moment passed, his expression turned placid and he let the question hang between them. He took the time to go over that question in his mind, make certain he had heard those words, and all the while he strove to centre himself. "If you really think that, I wouldn't want to know what little you think of me," Lake replied. He made some attempt to keep cool, but his indignation rose up. "This is my career you're talking about," Lake reminded her. "Putting yourself in my shoes, how much of your interest in geology would you describe as artifice?"

"Well that's what Starfleet is right? We all pretend to care about these high ideals of exploration and self improvement. We all say that we love our job because it allows us to do what we love. But there's nothing I love about fixing broken computer terminals or running senseless analyses of the most banal spacial phenomena and in all honesty," she said with a bitter grin "That's all that my job is." Sofie threw her arms up in something like resignation "It may all be a facade but isn't that just life?" She felt something like a spark of victory, like she had reached the culmination of a brilliant argument but it only lasted for a moment as the realisation fell on her like a badly suspended grand piano.

Maybe she was, in fact, not entirely happy with her life.

As the fire and bitterness on her face transitioned to something more like defeat she tried to jump in and say something before the already indignant counsellor tried to kill her. "Look, I'm sorry about what I said." Her previously confident posture moved to something altogether more sheepish "I don't... I don't know what to say. I'm sorry."

Standing back from Sofie, Lake's posture softened. While Sofie may have turned sheepish, Lake's response to Sofie's outburst was to relax. As far as Lake was concerned, this had been the first honest interaction he had had with the Ensign, and he could see it had taken a lot out of her. "I accept your apology in the spirit it was intended," Lake said with a slow nod. "That said, your words haven't hurt me. My government, before I came to the Federation, my government wanted my entire family dead. Words... can't wield much sharpness after that."

Whatever you could say about the New Sydney government, with all its incompetence and corruption, it had not, as far as Sofie knew, ever tried to kill any members of her family. To even suggest such a thing probably gave too much credit to their organisational abilities. To make such a comment would undoubtedly have been in bad taste though and especially given the little discussion the two of them just had so Sofie kept her mouth tight shut and tried to paint herself with a look of sympathy.

Looking at Sofie, Lake aimed his dark eyes right in Sofie's direction. He folded his arms over his abdomen as a defense against how Sofie may take the next thing he had to say. "How would you respond," Lake said, "if I told you I wanted to speak with you again?"

She wanted to have some fight left in her, she wanted to tell him again how she despised the transparency of his feigned friendliness, but it wasn't there anymore all she could find was resignation. She gave a half hearted smirk "I wouldn't be surprised," and shrugged "I suppose it would make some sense."

"Some sense," Lake replied, echoing her words. His emotional reaction would have come across as muddled. Perhaps a little bit amused, or dissapointed, or surprised, or perhaps even resigned as well. "I suppose," he added, "that's the best I can hope for."


[OFF]

Lieutenant Lake ir-Llantrisant
Chief Counselor
USS Galileo-A

Ensign Sofie Ullswater
Science Officer
USS Galileo-A

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