Long in the Tooth

Posted on Jun 08, 2014 @ 9:43am by Captain Kassandra Thytos
Edited on on Jun 08, 2014 @ 9:44am

Mission: All Our Yesterdays

"Long in the Tooth"
(cont. Little Space for Refuge)
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Location: USS CENTURY
Stardate: 2.140607.1710
Scene: Main Engineering

Alain Trebond paused in his gristly duty to glance worriedly at Captain Thytos. He couldn't believe how close he'd come to shooting his own squad leader. That would have looked really good on his record. Killing is CO on his first real assignment.

Fortunately, Captain Thytos seemed to be blessed with the rare sort of luck that went hand in hand with quick thinking, and had escaped death by phaser and ignominious crash to the deck plates. She'd brushed off his concerns and refused to transport back to the ship, but he suspected it was more out of sheer stubbornness than her really feeling as 'hunky-dorey' as she claimed. The look on her face was positively grim, and she was being indiscriminately snappy with everyone no matter what they did. Definitely abnormal behavior from her.

It had taken him a while to get used to her brusque manner, but he'd quickly realized that she wasn't a mean or cranky person. Her insults, sarcastic comments, and public dressings down were always targeted with laser beam precision at specific shortcomings she saw as likely to shorten the life of the object of her wrath, or of his squad mates.
She was quick with praise when it was deserved, but praise was reserved for exceeding the high standards she expected from them, and so her praise was rare and highly prized and sought after by the Marines in her care. She was a bit standoffish, but quick with a teasing remark, and took ribbing from her teams with good grace and a chuckle.

Alain liked her. She reminded him of his favorite auntie, the one who always helped him and his brother get into trouble, and then laughed at them when their mom found out.

He caught her eye as she reached with her left hand under her armor plate and poked her side, wincing. It was kind of funny. She'd preformed the same maneuver at least a dozen times since the gravity had come on, as though she thought that maybe she was just imagining how sore it was. Or maybe it was just that indefinable something about really bad bruises that made them addictive and irresistible to prod.
He sympathized. She looked away guiltily.

"You OK ma'am?" He finally asked as he placed the transporter beacon on the body bag and pinged the transporter chief. The bag shimmered and disappeared into the nothing void. Trebond wrinkled his nose. The idea of not existing creeped him out if he thought about it too long.

"You mother henning me or something, PFC Trebond?" Captain Thytos put a hand on her hip and arched an eyebrow, a hint of exasperation in her voice. "I'm fine. Nothin' a stiff drink can't fix in five minutes.
Stop treating me like your decrepit granny."

"I wouldn't dream of it. My granny's way more spry than you are at the moment. Ma'am." He grinned back at her. That garnered a lopsided grin from the captain.

"You wanna add 'with all due respect' to the end of that, kiddo?" She loaded up the data she'd taken on the next body's position and location when found onto a fresh transporter beacon and tossed it to him.

"Would that make it less cheeky?"

"Naw, but it's just good form. You know. CYA- cover your ass. Everyone knows you're bein' rude, but cos you say you don't mean any disrespect, no one's really gonna say anything. It's like a nice ribbon for delivering a turd sandwich to someone." The lopsided grin turned into a toothy smile.

"Thanks for the life lesson, ma'am. I owe you a drink the first time I get to use that maneuver and actually avoid getting in trouble." He joked back, slapping the transporter beacon onto the bag and watching as it was whisked away to its destination.

"Mmmmm. There's another body over there." She gestured through a wall.
"In the Jeffrey's tube. I'm going to go check on Cindy Chatterbox."

Kassandra turned to walk away, her sensor nets flickering as she passed through the shadows, she 'watched' as Trebond disappeared into the Jeffrey's tube. A wave of sadness settled in her chest. She remembered being like him once. Optimistic, sure that she was going to save the entire Federation.

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Time Index: 24 YEARS AGO, unimportant planet, unimportant conflict,

"Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.”The voice floated up from behind Kassandra, through the murky dusk. She sighed, in something nearing contentment, despite the flashes of red explosions, and the whine of phaser fire overhead. They were the escape vehicle, waiting for the rest of their squad to return. The ship was ready, and they were keeping an eye out for them.

"Bleak, Seph." She smiled slightly, and looked over her shoulder at her companion. "D'ya really think we might become monsters?"

"Yes." The man's voice was ruminative, thoughtful. "Don't you think so?"

"I don't." Kassandra responded obstinately "It's about protecting our families, preserving freedom, and bravery. We're doing good. Besides, they asked the Federation to intervene. We're here to stop a long and bloody conflict. Yeah, we've had to kill out of self defense, but ultimately we're going to give them peace."

"Maybe. But a wise man once said fighting for peace is like fucking for virginity." Even though she could not see his face, she could imagine him, face upturned to the three moons, hazel eyes looking at some point just beyond the dark, sharp lines of the transport ship.
Somewhere along the line he'd had Andorian blood introduced into the family, but it had been diluted enough that it only made him look impossibly ethereal rather than alien. It seemed he was going to let that thought hang, but then he said suddenly: "Remember that drop of food we made today?"

"Yeah, the aid package for the village we accidentally bombed?"

"It was poisoned." He said it gently, like someone breaking the news to a child that Santa Claus didn't exist.

"What?" Kassandra bolted to her feet, narrowly missing a stray streak of phaser fire. Her companion yanked her back to the ground. "But why?
That means we're not better than-"

"Tactics. They were with the splinter faction, most of them anyhow.
Our commanders made a decision, most effect, least amount of Marine Corps casualities." Sephian shrugged.

"But. But..." Kassandra felt a drop of moisture run through the grime on her cheeks.

"See? Gazing into the abyss." Her companion reached a hand around and squeezed her shoulder. There was a long moment of silence. "Kass, why are you here. You shouldn't be here, you should be back home, going to dances, fussing about your make-up, talking about boys. Not here, taunting death, getting ready to kill people."

Kassandra was silent for a long time, processing the new information.

"I thought it was what I wanted." Kassandra finally admitted. "I thought that there was good and bad, and that I would rest easy every night, knowing that I'd helped to make the Federation a better place."

"And do you?"

"No. I want to go home."

"It's going to hurt for a long time, kiddo. But you'll learn to live with it. Even us dreamers and idealists have to learn to build a shell to protect ourselves, because it's ugly out there. But here, the Ends justify the Means."

"But in the end, what we're doing is right, isn't it? We are helping these people in the long run, we are liberating them?" She looked out at the not so distant battle field, and waited for him to respond.
When long seconds dragged into minutes, she finally turned to look at him, and immediately saw why he hadn't answered.

Even 24 years later, she could still remember that moment perfectly.
The moment her idealism died.

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Time Index: Present day

Kassandra shook the memory away. Funny how the older you got, the more often you found yourself lost in memory.

[[Captain Thytos?]] Stonn's voice burst forth from her chest [[We have had something of an emergency with Commander Crichton, and had to beam back to the ship.]]

"Is the Commander OK, and is it something that could potentially impact our operation down in engineering?" Kassandra responded, hand dropping to the quick release of her phaser rifle.

[[That is a negative, Captain Thytos. There was a malfunction with the computer system he was working on. It exploded, similar to what happened to Lieutentant Rochemonte on the listening post. I believe it might be best if you were to stick close to her, ensure she does not get into potentially dangerous systems. Make sure you check them to ensure they are not dangerous.]]

"Aye aye." She furrowed her brow. She felt like she was missing part of her conversation with the Vulcan, and she was annoyed by the idea of having to work more closely with Cindy Rochemont. It would no doubt be another couple hours of witless prattle. Unless PFC Trebond had sufficiently cowed Cindy. Kassandra very much hoped that was the case.

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NRPG: Point of no return time right?

Alix Fowler
writing for
Captain Kassandra Thytos
Marine detachment
USS DISCOVERY