Destiny

Posted on 04 Dec 2021 @ 9:22pm by Commander Scarlet Blake & Rear Admiral Lirha Saalm

2,495 words; about a 12 minute read

Mission: Episode 18 - Cold Station 31
Location: Regula I - Level 16, Administration Module
Timeline: MD 02, 0918 hrs

Previously, on Secret Orders...

"Oh," Saalm suddenly remembered with a snap of her green fingers. She abandoned her bags and started to sift through the various sized PADDs on her desk. "I almost forgot. You will need to file all of the current and upcoming maintenance reports - both from Galileo and the station's personnel." She finally found the correct data pad at the bottom of the pile then handed it to Jeysa. "The ship's senior staff will also need copies of them. This way we won't accidentally detonate the warp core because a repair to the anti-matter injectors went unreported."

Taking the PADD Jeysa slipped it into her pocket, she'd read it later when it came to distributing its contents. "I'll make sure they get it Captain."

Lirha sighed and looked around one last time. "I suppose this is the last time we will see each other for a while. Thank you, Jeysa. Enjoy your time here and I will see you soon. Dismissed."

"See you in two weeks Captain." Jeysa turned and headed for the door.

And Now, the Conclusion...

[ON]

The door to the administrative module hissed shut behind Petty Officer Zeror, leaving Galileo's captain alone again with all of her baggage still half-packed. Lirha sighed and sat down in the desk chair to take a break. She leaned back in the seat and rubbed her forehead with her olive fingertips. Those same digits soon found their way to the commbadge pinned to her breast which she lightly tapped.

"Saalm to Blake. Report to my office - Level 16, section five, starboard hub."

"On my way," Scarlet's voice came through the comm, soft with slight distraction. It didn't take long for her to reach the office, letting herself in when the confirmation came through. She glanced around with mild surprise, taking in the sight of half packed bags. "Are you taking the ship on a joyride?" she asked with curiosity, quickly realising that something didn't add up.

Lirha looked up at her fair-skinned XO from her desk then stretched her arms out to the side. "I think that would be preferable. But Starfleet has an urgent matter for me to deal with while Galileo is undergoing resupply. I'm scheduled to depart the station by 1000."

Scarlet watched her with surprise before it settled into a look of actual annoyance on the usually calm features. "They do know you've only just arrived?" she moved to sit with her, shaking her head. "Lirha, you need a break too. The last few months have been, frankly, staggering for you."

"Yes, they know. That is why my presence has been 'requested'." The captain sighed then looked over into her first officer's blue eyes. She gave her a tired yet reassuring smile. "I will be fine. I can rest during the shuttle voyage." Blake's concern for her well-being didn't go unnoticed. The two of them had grown very close over the years; their lives were undeniably intertwined as both CO and XO of the same Federation starship.

Blake searched her eyes for a long moment. She had no doubt that she could do it, she just didn't think that she should. Not after everything that had happened. However, she also had no doubt that Lirha's mind was already made up. "Are you going alone?" she asked quietly.

"Yes. My trip is of the classified nature," Lirha revealed. "I wish I could tell you more. At least my destination, if nothing else." She rolled her green eyes then rubbed her forehead to suppress a budding headache. Privately she knew what awaited her and wished she could confide in Scarlet. But to do so would compromise the integrity of the mission.

"And I wish you could be strolling down the promenade with a cocktail," Scarlet replied with a weak, half smile, shaking her head. Lirha had a firm sense of duty, she wouldn't shirk responsibility that had been laid at her feet. "Promise me that you'll at least get in and out as quickly as you can. Don't let them pull you into anything more."

Saalm gave Blake a knowing look. "You know I can't promise anything when it comes to these sort of assignments." She wished she could. She really did. Not just to reassure Scarlet, but also her younger sister and the rest of Galileo's crew who would eventually find out about her mysterious absence from the station. "If things go as planned, however, I will be back before the end of shore leave. Two weeks at the most."

"And *then* you'll have a week off?" Blake pressed, but with a small smile that time, sitting back. She was less concerned about what this mission might mean or spell out, and more concerned for Lirha's welfare. They would face whatever they needed to face as a crew, together, and stronger for it. But standing on her own, that was something else entirely. "I know you're a machine when it comes to getting the job done, but even the strongest people need some rest. You're flesh and blood too," she added the last with a touch of teasing, but only because she wanted to get the message across without her feeling she was being gotten at.

The captain was quiet for a long moment while she conceded to the truth. Blake was right. She shouldn't be forced to work herself so hard. But what choice did she have? To disobey orders again and ruin - once and for all - her Starfleet career which she'd worked so hard to rebuild? She hesitantly glanced at Scarlet then rose from her seat to sit close to her on the sofa. Their thighs touched and she reached out and softly squeezed her leg. "I know you care about me. I feel the same about you," she said. "Three years ago I would have insisted on refusing this order...but I've come to accept that Starfleet is a selfless career. What we do for the Federation is in the best interests of all the quadrants. I think," she let out a breath, "when I was on that Tholian vessel with Ensign Alexander, everything was put into a new perspective."

Blake hadn't been with them, it would be a lie to use the well trodden phrase 'I understand'. But she did know Lirha and the sense of duty that drove her. That she did understand. "Of course," she said softly, nodding as she watched her with a slight sigh. "I just reserve the right to force you to sleep for three days straight when you get back," she finally relented with a soft chuckle.

"Are you volunteering your quarters?" Lirha teased. Her green eyes brightened to Scarlet. "I could use something to look forward to when I return," she thought to herself before suddenly realizing she'd spoken out loud.

Blake laughed at that, arching an eyebrow with a small smile, slapping her knee. "I'll take that as a rather wonderful compliment. The reality of you crashing in my quarters would be a very excited little girl trying to introduce you to every single one of her toys..."

The mention of a small child reminded Saalm of the XO's daughter. She smirked at the thought of being harassed with stuffed Human toys throughout the night. "How is Lily? Older, I assume. Wiser?"

"Hm, not sure about wiser," Scarlet looked upward as if weighing it up, but a small smile played on her lips. "She's still pretty convinced there's a lady that lives in the ship and makes it work, she's decided that Starfleet would be better with knights in it and she's still kind of sure that you're a princess on the run so she has to call you Captain Stardust to protect your identity..." she looked to her with a soft chuckle. "I think that was something Aria said."

"That would make an interesting holonovel. I'm often amazed by the creativity of young Human children. When I was her age, I was just beginning to work onboard my family's trade freighter." Lirha looked out through one of the room's large windows into the stars then slowly reminisced. "There was never much time for play or fantasy. Every day was learning deck layouts, maintenance protocols, docking procedures, languages of foreign customers...Ferengi was the worst."

Blake studied the features that were half turned away from her, reading them as much as the words. It made sense. Her sense of duty, her work ethic, it made sense with the description of her childhood. "If you had that freedom," she said softly, resting her head in her hand, her elbow propped on the back of the sofa. "If you could go back and be young Lirha again, just for a day, and do anything in the universe, what would she do?"

Saalm didn't respond at first. Her posture remained frozen while her eyes still searched the cosmos for answers to lifelong questions which perpetually eluded her. When she eventually spoke, her voice had become flat and quiet. "When I was fourteen, all of us were working on board a dilithium hauler. The Concorde. My parents had requisitioned the ship from an Earth crew after scrapping their old vessel for parts. It was the middle of the Dominion War so the regular trade routes were volatile. But we were Orions...we traded in all political environments."

The captain didn't speak again for almost a minute while she continued to stare out into space. "During a trading run in '74, our ship was ambushed by Nausicaan pirates. They boarded us with superior numbers then started to kill the men on our crew. The women and girls - they transported them to their raiders to sell to the Syndicate. They tried to take me too but my father protected me. They...killed him."

Turning back to her first officer, Lirha's eyes were now bloodshot and full of vengeance. It was a rare moment of raw, unbridled Orion emotion. "If I was a child again, I would kill every single one of them. Then hunt down their operation and kill their handlers."

Blake remained silent for a long moment, just letting her feel it. She needed to. It wasn't often Lirha took the time and space to talk about her past. She reached out, carefully taking a hold of her hand, cradling it between both of her own. "You make me want to as well," she said quietly, shaking her head. "I can't imagine how strong you had to be. No one should have to go through something like that, let alone a child."

"I've had a...complicated life," Lirha said. Fatigue overshadowed her voice. She reached up to her eye lids and massaged them while collecting her composure. "It could have been worse, you know. We all could have died from torture or malnutrition on Kreanus. Or been permanently assimilated by the Borg in the Setisar Nebula. Or..." her speech trailed off aimlessly.

"Just because something could have been worse doesn't make the reality of what actually happened any better, or easier," Blake pointed out, but gently. She didn't want to seem like she was berating her. More, giving her permission to feel the depth of everything that had happened to her. And know that it was okay to be effected by it. "It sounds like you've had to fight for a lot, in so many different ways."

Lirha looked to Scarlet then to the mundane carpet covering the floor of the administration module's metallic deck plating. Then she glanced back again to Scarlet. "There is nothing special about me. I've known many others in the quadrants who suffered worse fates simply because their fortunes didn't fall the same as mine." She sighed and swallowed a hard lump in her throat. "I could have been one of them. I almost was. Sometimes fighting hard cannot change a person's destiny..."

"But it changed yours," Scarlet said firmly, clearly sure of it as she squeezed her hand. "You're not here by accident. It didn't just happen to you. You made this happen. You took control of your destiny by fighting to stay alive, fighting to stay free, and then fighting for what you wanted. The amount of people in Starfleet, only a few will ever become a Captain. But you did it. You retook control."

"I suppose." Lirha wasn't sure if she wanted to go down that rabbit hole. The concept of control was, to her, an obscure concept with a subjective definition. What the Klingons or Cardassians considered to be personal agency varied greatly between their cultures. Even more so in the Federation and Orion Colonies. "You are a kind person with a good heart," she said back to Scarlet, returning a hand squeeze. "Has anyone ever told you that?"

"No, actually," Blake laughed softly despite the blunt words, shaking her head lightly at the idea of it. It wasn't the first description people would tend to think of around her. "Besides, I'm not being kind. I'm just telling the truth as I see it. You wouldn't stand for soft niceties without substance, and I respect you too much not to be honest with you."

The captain sighed then leaned her head back. "Whatever you say," she lightly retorted. "Regardless, you are a good first officer. And my friend. I hope that's an acceptable compliment?"

Blake chuckled at that, nodding even if the slightest hint of colour reached the cheeks of the usually unflappable officer. "Yes, that'll do nicely," she assured with a gentle smile to her. "Is there anything at all I can do to help with your mission?" If she couldn't stop it from happening, maybe there was something that could help it move along.

"I am transferring command of Galileo to you until I return. Make sure all maintenance and resupply operations are completed while I am gone," Lirha answered. Aside from standing in during her absence, there was little her XO could do to directly assist her. "Keep an eye on the crew as well...make sure they behave themselves during shore leave. It's been a long journey and some might be very anxious to relieve the stress."

"A generous way to put it, but I agree," Scarlet assured, unable to resist putting her arm around her shoulders to give her a gentle squeeze. In all their time together, Lirha had never opened up quite so much to her. She hoped it helped to settle her thoughts before her mission if nothing else. "Your crew and ship are safe with me," she gave Lirha's thigh a friendly, gentle slap. "Come on, no time like the present. Let's get to your girl and get her settled in."

[OFF]

--

CAPT Lirha Saalm
Commanding Officer
USS Galileo-A

CMDR Scarlet Blake
First Officer
USS Galileo-A

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