Ensign Wei and Captain Smooshy's Play Date

Posted on May 03, 2020 @ 4:50am by Lieutenant Jasmine Yu
Edited on on May 03, 2020 @ 4:50am

Mission: Last Days of Empire

“Ensign Wei and Captain Smooshy’s Play date”

(contd from ‘Love is an Open Door’)

**************************
Location: USS PHOENIX
SD: [2.20] 0502.2233
Scene: Lieutenant JG Arion’s quarters


Lieutenant Jasmine Yu and Lieutenant JG Owen Arion were busy chatting over a cup of green tea and some delicacies of Trill origin, while their canine companions were enjoying their playdate – running, laughing, shouting – no wait – it was running, barking and jumping. A corgi puppy and an adult pug were having the time of their lives, dashing around the place, playing whatever sort of games that dogs did.

Wei, now a little over seven months old, was hitting puppy adolescence and was becoming a little handful. She had continued to train the pup in between her shifts and sometimes during the shifts when she was down in her office. The corgi usually hung out in the security centre during those hours, having become a familiar presence, like part of the team now. Since the puppy had been chewing on anything including shoes, PADDs, furniture legs, Jasmine had replicated a few chew toys for the little one to gnaw on. She let out a sigh, spotting Wei attempting to chew on one of the centre table’s legs.

“Wei, no,” she called out to the puppy. The Asian pulled out a small yellow ball and tossed it in the corgi’s direction. Wei leapt up and caught the toy with her mouth before laying down to chew on it. Smooshy pulled out a brown, bone shaped stick, sitting down beside his new friend and started chewing on the toy’s edges. “Sorry about your table,” Jasmine said, giving the Trill an apologetic look.

“That’s okay.” Owen smiled. “I am used to it. In fact, if you examine all my furniture and most of my belongings, especially footwear, you will spot a lot of bite marks.” He let out a chuckle. “Smooshy was like that at Wei’s age and still is, from time to time.” Smooshy lifted his head up and barked. Wei dropped her chew toy, stood up and began running around, releasing a series of barks. The pug, not wanting to miss out, stood up as well and started chasing after her, also barking.

Jasmine sighed, realizing it was little Wei who was winning the competition for the louder and more consistent barking. But Smooshy, having longer legs, managed to overtake her as the dogs continued circling around the living room.

Owen lifted the cup to his lips and sipped the tea. “Why did you choose to adopt a corgi?”

“Well,” Jasmine replied. “Corgis have been my parents’ favorite breed for as long as I remember. I guess it is why I may have developed an affinity for them. In fact, my mother and father are currently raising a corgi, Mai Li, who is now around six years old. And we used to have another corgi, Gao, during my childhood but he had died just a year before my parents adopted Mai Li.”

“Well,” the Trill said, grinning. “I am apparently the first Arion host to adopt a pug, a wonderful experience to be remembered by future hosts.”

“Yes…” She paused, watching Wei head butt the side of an empty sofa. “Wow, Wei, when did you learn how to do that?” The raven haired woman let out a hearty chuckle.

“I am afraid she has learnt it from Smooshy,” he said, grinning at the tan coloured dog. Smooshy looked at them, his adorable brown eyes meeting the Trill’s gaze as he wagged his curly tail. The pug then took his turn at head butting the sofa, drawing out laughter from the two dog owners.

Wei jumped around, barking, while Smooshy trotted behind her. Jasmine shook her head in amusement, sipping from her cup.

“Jasmine,” Owen brought up. “Is it true that Wei has informally been made a member of the security department and even afforded a rank and title?”

Jasmine let out a chuckle, grabbing a cone shaped delicacy – some kind of Trill pastry filled with a sweet purplish jelly like filling. “Well, unofficially, we address her as Ensign Wei now and I have designated her informally as our chief watch dog…actually more like watch puppy for now. She’s still in training.”

“I am sure she will become a valuable addition to security just like Captain Smooshy has been for counseling as our chief therapy dog.” He laughed just when the two dogs stopped their running and sat down on the floor beside their feet. “I am surprised security doesn’t seem to be annoyed by Smooshy after all the trouble he gives all of you because of his wandering.”

“It’s part of our job to search, locate and return wandering unaccompanied animals to their owners.” She shrugged, stroking her puppy’s fur. “Every time I take Wei out for a walk, she constantly barks and runs up to greet anyone who passes by us. I think she’s starting to develop the herding instinct that all corgis have, considering they are actually meant to herd cattle around.” She took in a breath. “I get nervous at times during our walks on the off-chance we run into the Captain and Wei ends up running up to him. Luckily that hasn’t happened, yet.”

“I understand.” Owen nodded. “I get worried about being summoned to the bridge by the Captain, regarding Smooshy and I’m well aware he is not a fan and so I do my best to ensure my pug behaves to the best of my abilities.”

“Well, I need to teach Wei, make her realize she cannot be herding people around since we aren’t on a farm and this ship’s crew isn’t cattle.” She chuckled, finishing her tea. “Thankfully, she does know not to nip at other people’s ankles.”

“You used to serve on the CAMELOT?” The Trill asked.

“Yes.” She nodded.

“Were there lots of pets at your old ship?” He took her empty cup and placed it down on the tray next to his own. “I know here, pets are quite scarce. I mean, Wei and Smooshy seem to be the only two dogs here. I know Ensign Ryan has a cat and I believe, that new lab tech in science owns a female cat and three kittens, while the civilian spouse of one of the operations staff, has also adopted a cat recently.”

“Right.” Jasmine nodded. Well, as chief of security, she was familiar with the list of pets residing on the ship, especially the mobile ones. That female cat and her kittens were grey Persians. “But back when I was serving on the CAMELOT, I recall at the time of my transfer, there were twenty two cats and nine dogs.”

“Wow, how did you manage all those animals?” The Trill’s eyes widened.

“Well, security there have had a fair share of dealing with a wandering cat or dog,” Jasmine replied with a chuckle. “Actually, at my old ship, there was a pet room set up to keep the pets belonging to officers who were unable to leave them alone in their quarters or weren’t able to take them to their duty stations. In fact, in the pet room, one of the engineers had built a toy console for the cats…you know the fascination, many cats have towards computer consoles for reasons I cannot comprehend.”

“Yes, I think I remember a classmate at the Academy had owned a cat who had a favorite console to sit on and was quite territorial about it.”

“I remember at one point at my last posting, security had to be called to break up a fight between two cats over the toy console.” Jasmine chuckled, recollecting the awkwardness she, the pet room caretakers and the two cats’ owners, had shared over the incident.

“Well, at least the fight didn’t happen on the bridge.” The Trill grinned.

“It wouldn’t have as the Captain had decreed the entire deck, which includes the bridge, to be off-limits to animals.” Yu shrugged.

-----------------------------------
Scene: Lieutenant Dalziel’s office
TI: Later


Jasmine stepped forward, the door sliding shut behind her with the familiar hissing sound. The Asian took a seat on the visitor’s chair, across from the warship’s chief counselor.

Eve Dalziel smiled, grabbing an empty PADD off a stack. “So, how are you this morning, Jasmine?” The Cardassian born officer placed the PADD on the desk in front of her.

“I am doing fine,” the Asian replied. “Just here to maintain my mental health fitness. I also booked an appointment with sickbay for a routine physical checkup for this afternoon.”

“I am glad to hear you are keeping up with both your physical and mental health,” she said before further adding, “especially after such a stressful mission.”

“Those last six months were rather stressful for me to be honest,” Jasmine admitted slowly. “It is the reason why I’m checking in with you so that I can be better prepared mentally before our next assignment.”

“That’s understandable and I am glad you’re one of those officers who volunteer to come see me, rather than the other way around, which is me having to chase after you,” she said good-naturedly, though Jasmine knew it couldn’t be easy for any counselor to go after the crewmembers who treat counseling as a plague.

“Okay, well, Jasmine, how do you feel in general about our last mission?”

Jasmine took in a deep breath, taking on a more serious tone. “Honestly, it was frustrating.”

“Frustrating? In what way?” Eve furrowed her brow.

“I feel like for the last half a year,” she began in a slow, quiet voice, “that we had been sent on this wild goose chase, moving from one location to another to follow up on various leads – all of which led to my worst fears coming true, which was landing in a battle zone, in the middle of a skirmish between the Klingons and the Orions.” She paused to take another breath. “And when we did finally locate the SATET, the Captain made the decision to destroy it and I pushed the button to launch those torpedoes on his orders.”

“You didn’t agree with his decision?”

“I admit, not at first,” Yu replied. “Because at the time, I had believed the SATET, having been repaired, could have just escaped by jumping to warp but after having some time to reflect, I realized the situation wasn’t quite as simple as I had initially thought.”

“So you no longer have any issues with the Captain’s decision.” Dalziel tapped in some notes on her PADD.

“I still have issues with his decision,” Jasmine said, sighing. “However, I’ve come to understand the difficult position he was put in – it was not a win-win situation - and he had to make a tough decision, one that was in the Federation’s best interests. If the SATET had been permitted to leave with all its data intact from their mission, it would have likely damaged our relationship with the Romulans – any progress that we have made in our peace negotiations with them would have just evaporated and we’d have ended up in some kind of war – be it a cold war or a full-scale conflict.”

“I can assume you weren’t at all happy with the Romulans getting involved in the conflict between the Orions and the Klingons and with the Tal’Shiar striking an alliance with the Orions and House D’Ghor?”

“No and I don’t really trust the Romulans.” Jasmine shook her head. “But despite that, I still believe a decision that will ensure peace between us and them is the right one for not just us but the galaxy as a whole.” She sighed. “On the other hand, choosing this course of action may have likely created an enemy out of Is’toQ and his new Klingon Empire – one with potential to create problems for us in the future. But at the moment, the Klingons are still nowhere close to the strength needed to challenge us to a full-scale war. They may still not be unified under one single emperor yet, so it could be a long time before they pose a significant threat to us. And I’m definitely glad we didn’t let Is’toQ take the SATET away. Because I shudder to think what he’d have done with the technology – maybe wage war against the Romulans or us even.”

“You don’t seem to trust him?”

“Correct.” Yu nodded. “After what happened on SHERMAN’s PLANET, I would think twice about making an alliance with an Is’toQ led Klingon Empire. The man looked to be power hungry and very ambitious with a desire to expand the empire’s territory – doesn’t seem like an individual who is willing to work for intergalactic peace.”

“So,” the Asian added after a moment’s pause. “I cannot really fault the Captain for his decision and only history can judge whether it was the right one or not.”

“I suppose that may be true,” Eve said, sighing before taking a quick glance at her screen. “Now, regarding Harrad-Tor. I am aware he already had his disciplinary hearing.”

“That’s right.”

“How are you dealing with Harrad-Tor’s actions? How are you and your staff handling his betrayal?”

Jasmine took in another breath. “I’m not really angry with him but disappointed.”

“Disappointed? How?” Eve raised an eyebrow.

“Well,” the Asian woman said. “For one thing, he should have reported his initial encounter with Dhirissa as well as come clean about his past in the Syndicate and the threat, Liriss posed to him and us by extension – before we had left for the mission.”

“I agree. He should have.”

“What disappointed me was that he didn’t seem to have trusted us as in Starfleet to help him and even protect him from Liriss.” Yu sighed.

“I can understand your disappointment,” the Counselor said in a quiet voice. “He betrayed his oath to Starfleet, even though that wasn’t his intention.”

“I do believe he had never meant to hurt us because he was blinded by love – a love that unfortunately wasn’t real.” The Sec/Tac sighed. “Anyway, it wasn’t the worst betrayal. I’ve witnessed others who had broken their Starfleet oath for far worse reasons with the intention to hurt others.”

“I see your point.” Eve nodded. “Which brings me to another matter, I’d like to discuss briefly.”

“Sure.”

“Well, this is something I heard through the grapevine,” the Counselor began. “But apparently, during your confrontation with Harrad-Tor the other day in your office, you had revealed some personal information from your time on the CAMELOT.” Jasmine blinked. “You know what I’m talking about, right?”

“Yes.” Yu nodded, sighing. “I shared that information to indicate to Harrad-Tor that I empathize with him, regarding falling in love with someone and that same person betraying you to fulfill a certain objective.”

“I heard that your revelation to Harrad-Tor had led to some chatter amongst those in not just your department, but the marines and a couple from medical and engineering.”

“Wow.” Jasmine looked surprised. “I didn’t realize revealing a past relationship would be a topic for gossip.”

“Well, earlier in the day, I overhead a nurse telling a technician that he was surprised to hear you actually had time for a relationship in the first place.”

“I’m just really a private person and although I socialize from time to time, I’m not much into gossiping.” Yu sighed. Since she had transferred to the PHOENIX over three years ago, the Asian hadn’t really made any effort to date as pursuing a relationship wasn’t really a priority. She just didn’t have the time at present, though she hadn’t written off having one in the future but wasn’t in any rush. “Besides, my little Wei takes up all my time now.”

“So I noticed.” The Counselor smiled. “But did revealing information about your past boyfriend bring about any negative feelings that you had kept buried?”

“Little bit,” Yu admitted, sighing. “So on that evening I did some yoga and had a cup of jasmine green tea, while playing with my puppy and that helped cleared my mind. Honestly, it’s been over six years since that incident so it doesn’t hurt as much now as it did back then. I mean…it is really not a secret or anything. The information is available in the CAMELOT’s reports from that time, which includes my own security report, the Captain’s and acting ExO’s reports plus my psychological files that had been sent here from the CAMELOT upon my transfer.”

“Yes, I remember receiving those files.” Eve nodded. “I do recall from the reports made by the CAMELOT’s counselor that you were regular with your sessions and it was on your own accord without any prodding from them, just like how you do here.”

“True.” Jasmine nodded.

“That must have been difficult for you,” Eve said. “Finding out your boyfriend was a Neo-Essentialist and making the decision to shoot him to save your CO. When did you really find out?”

“Moments before he entered the bridge,” Yu answered. “He had confessed being a Neo-Essentialist to me, seemed satisfied, even wanted me to join him and was all assuring me that everything will be okay soon and added the ship would be getting a new CO soon - one who would be human and that was when I had realized what he was planning to do.”

“It looks like your instincts panned out to be right.”

“Actually.” Jasmine sighed. “I was already on high alert as this wasn’t the first assassination attempt against the Captain so I had been vigilant about monitoring signs of discontent against the CO in combination with displaying any hostile behaviour, particularly towards non-humans.”

“Looks like your vigilance has paid off, considering you prevented the second assassination attempt from succeeding.”

“Unfortunately.” Jasmine looked a little downcast. “I missed the signs from my then boyfriend, despite my vigilance. If I had, he’d have been caught much earlier and the Captain wouldn’t have gone into a temporary coma.”

Dalziel sighed, adding more notes onto the PADD. “Well, no matter how observant or vigilant you are with others, often times, you miss the signs from someone close to you. Or perhaps you may have noticed the signs but didn’t want to accept it because you were in love.”

“I guess you are right.”

“Now,” Eve continued. “If you hadn’t been able to interfere, then what would have been the result?”

“She would have died on the spot as he was targeting her symbiont,” Jasmine replied. “But I had shot him, which had forced him to miss his target and ended up hitting her elsewhere. I guess, by her only going into a coma for a few days allowed the CMO to treat her, thus saving her in the end. Those few days were amongst the most chaotic and resulted in a prime directive violation by the ship’s then ExO that had led to devastating consequences for the evolution of an entire civilization. By the time the Captain had woken up, it was too late. She had tried to mitigate the damage but since further interference would have only made things worse, she had decided it was best to leave that world alone.”

“I can imagine how hard that must have been for all of you.”

“Yes.” She nodded. “Now it feels like a lifetime ago.”

“But in the end, overall, things seemed to have worked out well for you and your former shipmates,” Eve remarked, giving her a weak smile.

“Yes and for that I’m very grateful.” Jasmine returned the smile.

*************************************************************************************

NRPG: Here are the mini-adventures of Ensign Wei and Captain Smooshy as Chief Watch Dog…no Puppy and Chief Therapy Dog respectively ;) And maybe there will be a post from me covering a little backstory from Jasmine’s time on the CAMELOT in the future.


~*~
Ranjani S.
Writing for

Lieutenant Jasmine Yu
Chief of Security and Tactical
USS PHOENIX