Little Space for Refuge

Posted on Jun 08, 2014 @ 9:42am by Lieutenant Commander Aerdan Jos & Phia & Lieutenant Commander Cade Foster & Storm Bomba
Edited on on Jun 08, 2014 @ 9:44am

Mission: http://thefrpg.com/sim/missions/id/7

“Little Space for Refuge” (Continued from “Getting back into the Swing of Things”)

~*~
Location: USS ARMSTRONG
Stardate: 2.140606.2245
Scene: Guest Quarters
~*~

What had he done?

Ensign Arjan Jos, the PENDRAGON’s biggest coward, sat morosely on the bed of the dimly lit guest quarters and stared at his hands.

Superficially they were clean, of course. He had washed them before working to save his brother and some of the civilians they had brought with them. He had washed them after he was told to stop working. He had washed them when he arrived in the room, and three times since then.

And they were still not clean.

Katalina Gorman’s admonishment that he was a ‘shrieking Nancy boy’ still rang in his ears. She was right, and she was one of the few who had uncannily cut through his ‘devil-may-care’ attitude and saw to the heart of the matter. From the war torn forests of DIRGEL, to the plains of NIMBUS III, one thing held true. His cowardice had held him back; and this time it got people hurt.

“What’cha thinking about?” Sef Yelena’s voice was quiet, motherly.

Arjan raised his blue eyes and attempted a haphazard smile. “Oh, nothing.” He lied with an uneven smile.

“Liar.” She smirked fondly. To his credit he had the decency to blush a deep navy. “You know, you don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to… but you shouldn’t lie about it.”

“I…” He raised his head, letting the word trail off. “I don’t really know what to think. My thoughts are a jumbled mess.” He paused and added with a faintly prideful tone. “That’s not usual for me. Usually everything comes easy.”

“Don’t I know it?” She chuckled a little, settling herself on the other end of the bed. “A lot of the doctors and nurses envy you in sickbay. You make everything seem easy.”

“But it isn’t.” He sighed. “I mean some of it is.” Arjan looked up and shrugged. “I’m a great surgeon. Fantastic. It’s like I was born to do it.”

“Were you born to do it?” she queried gently.

He shrugged. “In a way, yes. I was trained as a doctor from an early age – and I actually took to it. Well. Very well. School was easy. Med school was easy. Rising my way up the academic ranks was easy.” He took in a long slow breath. “When things are always easy you never really learn how to deal with the difficulties that arise in life.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s over simplifying things.”

Arjan paused, staring past her, pointedly at the wall. When he finally spoke it was a disjointed change of topic. “I should have done something.”

“You *did* do something.” Sef prompted lightly.

“I should have done something sooner. Before things escalated the way they did.” Arjan took in a deep breath, struggling to put his thoughts in order.

Sef Yelena let her brow furrow downward. From an outside perspective all she saw was a medical ensign, one untrained in combat, leap to the defense of his friends, family and crewmates with a vicious, but brilliant solution when faced with a murderously dangerous foe. “Arjan, what you did was incredibly brave--”

“No.” He cut her off. The word was soft and stinging. “I’m not and I wasn’t. I’m sick and tired of hearing people say that.”

Yelena blinked, taken aback. “Why…how can you say that?”

His antennae curled downwards, nestling in his snowy white hair. It was a position that she had often seen his brother assume, but never Arjan. His posture, from the tips of his antennae to carriage of his whole body was always so remarkably self-assured. Almost borderline arrogant, but always tempered with that charming smile and easy good humor. And yet now, in the dimness of the guest quarters she watched him shrink downwards and pull in to himself. “I don’t understand.” She murmured quietly.

Ensign Jos was quiet for a long few moments, waffling between the merits of talking it all out and proving his cowardice to a woman he considered a dear friend – very nearly a lover – or simply continuing to hide it all beneath his usual charming veneer.

“Look. I hesitated…” he started, his expression furrowing into a deep frown. “If I had acted sooner, my brother wouldn’t have gotten hit. I saw it happening and I just stood there like a jackass…” Arjan stopped, shaking his head, as if he was trying to make sense of it all.

Sef Yelena chewed her lower lip. “She was a combat trained solider, and you’re a doctor. Any sane person would have hesitated.”

“Any sane person would have paused. But only a fucking coward stands there frozen and unable to move until it’s too damn late.” He spat back, angrily balling one fist until he could feel his fingernails bite into the palm of his hand.

The Bajoran blinked, taken aback. “What are you on about? It wasn’t too late, everyone survived.” Watching her companion carefully, she took in a slow breath. “I get it, beating yourself up over the incident is common, but you shouldn’t. She was a dangerous person who was intent on hurting decent people. I don’t blame you one bit for the actions you took.”

She could hear the soft gritting of teeth and when he finally unclenched his jaw, he looked a bit peaked. “I shouldn’t have killed her.” It was matter of fact. “I shouldn’t have froze. If I would have acted sooner things would have been different.”

“*Could* have been different.” She chewed her bottom lip, thinking things had actually turned out rather well all things considered. Both Commander Varn and Commander Jos had recovered, the away team was picked up and the bad guys taken out.

“*Should* have been different.” He countered. “What sort of doctor kills people?”

She resisted the urge to remark back ‘bad ones’ – a joke they would probably chuckle at in any routine day of slinging mild insults through sickbay for amusement. This was not a routine day. “Nobody is blaming you for what you did. The empiricists killed dozens of civilians and were using lethal force against the away team. This was completely under the umbrella of self defense…”

“So she was a shitty person, that still doesn’t mean I had to sink to her level.” He snapped, flexing his hands, feeling the sting as the places where his nails dug into his palm stretched, leaving small navy bruises. “I’m a doctor. I’m supposed to save lives not take them.”

“Hindsight is always better than foresight.” Yelena frowned. “Do you think it could have played out differently?”

Arjan was quiet for several long seconds, biting his bottom lip to keep the words from gushing out too soon. “I think if I hadn’t froze, I could have grabbed her, subdued her – done something – long enough for Suvek to move in and incapacitate her. But instead I was paralyzed, I couldn’t do anything but stare, and when Aerdan went down something… *snapped.* I didn’t even realize I was moving until I was already behind her and by that time I was committed to doing what I did…” he trailed off, as realization struck him. He was scared. Though this time it wasn’t fear of the Terran commander or any other threat. He was scared of himself, what he might do if pushed to the limit.

He didn’t even realize that he was shaking until she put a hand on his shoulder. “And you made decisions that protected your crewmates and innocent people. Personally, I think most people would be proud to be able to say that this was their course of action when pushed to the breaking point.” She paused for just enough to time let that sink in. “Do I think it hurts? Hell, yeah. It’ll take time to digest it all, but stop beating yourself up any more than you have to. There’s too many people out there willing to beat up good people, stop doing it to yourself.”

He blinked, just a little dumbfounded by that, jaw lolling slightly open. Rarely at a loss for words, Sef found the expression both pained and amusing, so much that he had to stifle a smile.

“What?” He finally asked, recovering enough to shoot a vaguely irritated glare towards her.

“I have never seen you at a loss for words before. It was… cute.”

“Cute?” He knit his brows. “I hardly think the word cute applies in this situation.”

“Hey, it worked, though.”

“Worked?” He canted his head somewhat like a dog.

Sef smirked gently. “You found your tongue again, and even smiled a little.”

“You goaded me into it.” He shot back, without thinking. Even his voice was colored with a portion of his usual flippant tone.

“I did.” She affirmed. “I thought it would be good for you to smile and not dwell on this for at least a few minutes. It’s not good to go to bed while dwelling on bad things.”

Arjan sighed a little bit. “I’m not sure if I can sleep. I just keep thinking about it and thinking about it…” his eyes flickered over towards her. He had already had enough mild sedative to keep from freaking out and this conversation was fading to a hazy half-memory. ‘Maybe shower and take that second dose of sedatives?”

“I honestly think that is a good plan, doctor.”

~*~

Scene: Bridge
Time index: concurrent

“That shouldn’t be.” Aerdan Jos’ soft voice cut through the silence on the bridge, it was enough to make the majority of the ARMSTRONG senior staff turned towards him with a querying look.

“Are you saying that Major Towers cannot be on NIMBUS III?” Captain Harcourt asked, her eyes flickering between the Andorian speaking, the communications relay and the viewscreen.

Commander Jos drew in a slow breath. “Not exactly. Anything is possible, but Major Towers should not be on NIMBUS III. He was called away from the PENDRAGON on priority Starfleet business just before the PENDRAGON moved in to investigate the mining operations. He never set foot on NIMBUS III – or at least he should not have been down there by his orders or intentions.”

“Are we sure it’s his signal?” Phia queried, casting a glance at the kids manning the consoles.

“I parsed it me self, Lass.” Angus replied, a note of vehemence in his drawl. “It’s a perfect match for Towers. If it’s a fake, it’s one hell of a forgery.”

Storm Bomba rocked on his heels, gazing out at the planet that was lazily orbiting beneath them. He decided to interject what he hoped was an intelligent question to this discussion. “What if the Major simply lost his commbadge?”

“Majors do not simply lose commbadges.” Phia bit back, not even deigning Bomba with a glare. “Think for a second, prettyboy. How many comm. badges have you owned in your career?”

“Only one but…” Bomba’s jaw dropped open a little, realizing that he actually knew next to nothing about comm. badges or how they worked. He had simply grown up with them being there and working. “But I never lose anything.”

This time it was Cade’s turn to huff. “Look, ever since the 2380’s communicators have been DNA coded to specific officers to prevent this sort of shit from happening. Sure, back in the dark ages you could steal ‘em and tweak ‘em, but ever since the first dominion war they have been engineered to stick with one officer, hopefully their entire career.” He folded his arms across his chest finding himself nodding agreement alongside Phia. “Now if you take ‘em, they should deactivate unless they are within range of the DNA code. And you should most certainly be able to search records and find if one was every lost or destroyed.”

“I’m working to search out Major Towers’ records…” Ensign Brittany Larsen, the science officer on duty replied. “But the files are reading as corrupted. I’m having a difficult time accessing them.”

Phia looked over, her expression somewhere between disgust and pity. Ensign Larsen looked like she was barely a day over twenty one and this was almost assuredly her first posting. Probably her first mission. While the Counselor despised inefficiency, at least this kid was honest and trying hard. But trying didn’t matter in cases like this. “Move. I need your console.” To Larsen’s credit, she didn’t protest, she simply moved out of the way.

While Phia worked, Harcourt turned towards the rest of the officers gathered. “The signal is coming from part of the desert region of Nimbus III.”

“I thought it was all desert.” Cade muttered, earning a stern glare from Harcourt. The Doctor frowned, chewing on his lower lip as he realized he was in the company of people who were completely unused to his normal personality and banter.

“It is mostly desert.” Harcourt returned. “But in this region there are also cave formations.”

“Brilliant.” Angus grimaced. “Perfect place for someone to hole up.”

“Perfect place for am ambush.” Aerdan murmured. It prompted a few uneasy stares, and the Andorian slowly realized he just spoke something that both O’Malley and Harcourt were already well aware of, and yet unwilling to speak to the rest of the crew. Just as slowly he realized why, as a ripple of concern went through the young bridge crew, beginning and ending at the shocked expression of Lt. Commander Bomba.

“Why would anyone want to ambush us?” The Risian gasped, his brows knitting in confusion as he tried to work the implications through his brain. The only thing he could come up with was only very horrible people plotted against good, stately Starfleet officers. And how horrible could the people be on the ‘planet of galactic peace’?

Cade rocked on his feet, mulling the same thing over, though with a far more intelligent thought process. “What could you average Nimbus pirates gain by baiting a Starfleet away team? It’s not like this ship is carrying cargo or latinum…” He trailed off and looked over towards the Chief Engineer and Captain. “Or is it?”

Angus shook his head. “Nae, we dinna have important or particularly marketable on the ship…” He trailed off. That much was true.

“No biological compounds, or engineering materials that could be used in black market dealings? Things that could be processed into something else?” Cade pushed, in the exact same way he went digging into medical mysteries.

“No.” This time it was Harcourt who responded. “The ARMSTRONG doesn’t have access to sensitive missions like that.” She paused and gazed out at Nimbus III. “Usually.”

“This mission is an exception to the rule?” Commander Jos queried.

“It was unexpected.” Angus replied, looking over at the assembled. “A ship of this size and class isn’t usually sent this far beyond the boundaries of the usual routes.” He glanced around the bridge, implicitly adding ‘especially with the crew of children we’re tending.’

Aerdan let everything sink in and offered a slow nod. “Counselor Phia has a point.” He spoke carefully. “You have fulfilled your mission to Starfleet’s requirements. It would be prudent to back off and allow a better prepared ship to engage this mystery.”

“I’m not so sure Starfleet will let us off the hook that easily.” Rose returned with a low tone. “Despite protestation, they deemed us the best ship for this mission, and we were specifically ordered here. We may well be ordered back here, even if we do leave.”

Aerdan furrowed his snowy brow, watching Harcourt’s face. There was something else going on, something else that the PENDRAGON staff was reading clear as day. Beyond that only Phia and O’Malley seemed to be aware of it. The rest of the crew were either too inexperienced or too incompetent to see the red flags being raised. “You believe the ARMSTRONG will be required to show due diligence in investigating this matter?”

Harcourt gave a long slow nod of assent. She didn’t believe – she knew straight out that unless they wanted to disobey orders, the ARMSTRONG was pressed to this matter. “Reception of the signal is in our sensor logs, therefore we must find some way of getting information on what is causing it.”

The Andorian commander straightened up and drew a breath in through his teeth. “Perhaps we can assist your crew, expedite the research efforts and get the ARMSTRONG back into friendly territory as quickly as possible.”

Rose offered a small smile of agreement. “That would be welcome assistance, Commander.” She turned before his all too perceptive gaze could see the frown form in her expression. Rose Harcourt wasn’t sure if there was any friendly territory left for the ARMSTRONG anymore.

~*~

NRPG: Shawn’s cooking up how Tower’s comm badge left his possession. Meanwhile the ARMSTRONG will be sending an away team down there

Justin: is Thomas recovered? Did you want him on the bridge or the away team?

Let me know! We can JP if’n you guys like!

PS: I’m sending Bomba on the away team. For some shrieking nancy-boy goodness. He can overtake Arjan as ‘the ship’s coward’ ;-)


"Why do we fly? Because we have dreamt of it for so long that we must"

~Julian Beck