Sometime Brass Is Gold

Posted on 11 Jun 2017 @ 5:15pm by Rear Admiral Harold Doolittle & Nesh Saalm
Edited on on 12 Jun 2017 @ 4:07pm

3,134 words; about a 16 minute read

Mission: Episode 15 - Emanation
Location: Earth- San Francisco, Starfleet HQ, Doolittle's office
Timeline: MD 6, 1030

ON:

The next person on Doolittle's list of those to be debriefed was one that could prove to be most interesting indeed. She was Cadet Nesh Saalm, younger sister of Admiral Lirha Saalm, former commander of the late starship Galileo. He wondered if, being that she was younger than most of the crew, would her impression of things be different than the others he had interviewed. "Only one way to find out..." he said to himself. "And that's to get her in here."

Tossing the PADD containing her personnel file onto his desk, he activated his combadge. =/\= Admiral Doolittle to Cadet Nesh Saalm. Please report to my office, 17th floor room 1732 of the Starfleet Administration building immediately. =/\=

Nesh had rolled her eyes when the summons had come. Obviously the Admiral hadn't got the memo either. What was going on with the OPM? How long did it take to tell people she was a civilian? She took time to change into the sober grey skirt suit she had picked out, and make herself look as responsible and grown up as possible, before heading out to the indicated meeting room, and ringing the bell.

"Come..." he called out upon hearing the door chime.

Nesh took a breath, and walked into the room, head held high, almost daring the Admiral and whoever was inside to say something. "Good morning, admiral. I'm Nesh Saalm. You asked to see me?"

"I did..." Doolittle said as he fixed the young, green-skinned girl with his gaze. Unless he missed his guess, this one seemed to have a bit of an attitude problem which meant he might have to take a different approach with her. "Please have a seat and make yourself comfortable," he said.

"Thank you," Nesh sat down in the chair on the other side of the table, and crossed her legs demurely. So far he wasn't pitching a fit. That wa a massive relief. Maybe this could be a grown up conversation instead of another round of people telling her what to do.

"You're Admiral Saalm's younger sister, correct?"

"Yes, by..." she did a quick sum in her head, "twelve terran years, approximately."

"Do you and your sister get along well?" he asked. "Mind you, I am not a psychiatrist and I'm not trying to pose as one. I'm from the Bureau of Personnel and I'm trying to get a feel for how things were on the Galileo."

Well that was a loaded question, and Nesh actually managed to consider her answer. "Honestly? Not really. But we don't hate each other either. We kind of stay out of each other's way, socially. And when I was on Galileo, we didn't really have much contact professionally. Opposite ends of the chain of command."

"What you're saying is that you do your thing and she does hers?" He allowed the barest hint of a smile to escape. "I have children of my own so I can appreciate that." Then to delve into the meat of why they were here, he asked "What can you tell me about the events that led up to the loss of the Galileo?"

"Not a lot," Nesh admitted. "I wasn't really involved in any of the decisions and Lirha didn't talk to me at any point. I know we picked up a distress signal about a week after we left Celes III, and it came from this ancient missing freighter just inside the Paulson Nebula. THe nebula made it really hard to use sensors, so I spent the day or so between picking up the signal and entering the nebula working with the science department to try and adapt some probes to give us better sensors. They were going to be like, whiskers."

"So what did you do then?"

"So we went in to the nebula. I was watching the probes for malfunction, whilst the officers were watching the actual readings. When we got to Recluse, it turned out it was Klingons. We tried to run away, but they blew us out of the sky. I don't know the details but I know we lost the warp core and a nacelle before the Abandon ship was sounded."

"So are you saying it was a trap? You were ambushed?" he asked. "That doesn't sound like Klingons. They love to fight, but they're an honorable race. To them there is no honor in trickery or subterfuge." Doolittle thought for a moment. "How many ships were there? Do you know?"

Nesh shrugged. "It was a trap. But given what they did, I don't think any of them had much honor left." She thought about his question. how many ships. She wasn't sure. "I wasn't on the bridge. People who were got confused. At least three, probably four, on top of the Recluse. Possibly five. I'm not sure."

"After the attack I'm told that you were boarded," Doolittle said. "Did they just beam directly onto the bridge? And do you know how many were in the boarding party?

"I don't think they got on the bridge." Nesh told him, thinking back. "They seemed to come over in small groups to different decks. People from all over said they faced them. But I don't know specifically. We heard they had got to engineering, so we sealed off the science lab. But they weren't interested in us. They ended up facing security so I guess that stopped whatever plans they had."

"Interesting..." Doolittle said after a moment. "I would have thought that, if they were wanting to take control of the ship that the bridge would have been their first objective. I've heard rumors that someone in your crew was able to get word to your sister that a takeover attempt would happen. Do you know anything about that?"

Nesh looked surprised, and confused. "I hadn't heard anything about that. Do you mean the mutiny on the Duja'Q when we were crossing the Neutral zone?"

"Perhaps I'm getting two things confused here," Doolittle said. "But since we've entered that subject, why don't you tell me what you know about that."

"After we'd been on Kreanus for a few weeks, we were all told what the Kreanan's wanted us for. They wanted us to go to Kronos," her own contempt for Klingons let her deliberately mispronounce the Klingon home world. "And negotiate an end to all of Klingons raids into the nebula trying to get to Ko'raH. So they packed us onto their ancient battle cruiser and sent us off the the neutral zone. This was when my sister deigned to inform us all she was actually still alive."

Doolittle looked down at the PADD he held for a moment, then back to the young Orion girl. "According to your records, you were a cadet here at the Academy, but you submitted your resignation several weeks ago. What I am about to ask is completely off record and has no bearing on this investigation whatsoever. It is simply my own curiosity and you are in no way obligated to answer if you do not wish to. Why did you suddenly decide to resign?"

Oh, where to start? So many reasons... "Mostly I was just fed up with it all. I'd had enough. I never wanted to be in Starfleet. I just did it to keep Mother and Lirha happy, and it was okay at first. But after being nearly blown up on the Galileo," she ticked it off on her finger, "nearly frozen to death on Kreanus," she tapped another finger, and then quickly started moving on through her other grievances. her voice getting faster and more angry as she continued. "Having to barricade myself in a room for weeks on end on DuJa'Q because I hadn't anything to keep the randy klingons away. My own sister not bothering to tell me she was still alive. My sister!" That of all of them hurt the most, not that she wanted to admit it.

"And then she gets nearly killed again, fighting off the mutiny. And then we we get back on a federation ship everyone was wangsting over what was going to happen when we got back here, as if we hadn't all been the victims of it all, even if Lirha was too stubborn to surrender, I'd had enough. I don't want to be part of any organisation that's going to crap all over people for doing their best."

She realised that might have been a little strong. "Excuse my language," she added.

"No offense taken," Doolittle replied. "In fact, had it been me, the language would probably been even stronger," he added with a slight grin. He could certainly understand how she would feel that way after all she had been through. Hell, he had almost resigned himself during his plebe year. Old 'Iron Ass' Crossman, his warp propulsion instructor had ridden him unbelievably. "Starfleet believes, as the US Marines did... 'You have to tear 'em down to build 'em up', and unfortunately that's not for everybody." Then, he switched subjects again. "Tell me about the conditions on Kreanus? I'm told it wasn't pleasant, but give me your impression of it please."

"Its was hideous. Everything was old, and falling apart, and it was so so cold. They let us use their sick bay, which was primitive, and packed us into a couple of dorms. The food was terrible. just like pink replicated protein goop. but the Romulans and Klingons got better then anyone else. They wanted us to work, but I didn't want to do anything for them, so i just hung out with the people who were too weak to really do anything. And it just went on like that, for days. It was really boring. And cold. They watched us really closely. We couldn't sneak away to plan escaping or anything. And it turned out, they chipped up like targ pups to make sure they knew what we were up to."

"You mentioned earlier having to barricade yourself in to keep the Klingons away..." Doolittle spoke slowly and carefully in an attempt to not offend the young girl. "Some questions are as difficult - or maybe even more difficult - to ask as they are to answer. Did any of the Klingons attempt to force themselves on you at any time?" If her answer was 'yes' it was his intention to file a formal protest along with charges, with the Klingon High Council.

"I didn't wait until it got that bad. After two days it was clear from the looks and sniffing their filters couldn't keep up with the output from Lirha and me, so I didn't run any risks." Nesh shuddered. "With all due respect, Admiral. Human's are easy to handle, but Klingons are far more difficult. I'm realistic about my chances with a pack of overeager Klingons. Which is none."

"I'm glad to hear that no harm came to you in that respect," the admiral replied. "Is there any other information you can think of that might prove beneficial to this investigation?"

There was a very long pause while Nesh considered her answer. (Yay for being grown up) she thought. So much had happened. There was so much to say. And how Lirha had ignored her throughout the ordeal still rankled, and truthfully she hated her elder sister, just a little, for that. But...

"Lirha failed all of us. Some more than others. Over and over again." Nesh thought of the fallen, the science officer and her husband; Commander Wiggins; the head of research. And the brutality handed out to the pilot, and the feline ops officer. Oh, how many ways had her sister screwed up? But...

"But she loves Stafleet, her ship and her crew, more than her own family." She gave a short bitter laugh at that. Wasn't that the painful truth? But...

"But there is nothing you can do, no punishment you can hand out, that is going to punish her, hurt her, more than she is punishing herself and has been doing so ever since she woke up on that gods-forsaken icecube of a world."

Doolittle could hear the animosity and resentment that was in Nesh's voice when she spoke of her sister's actions. Whether it was right or wrong, it appeared she blamed Lirha for everything that had happened to the crew of the Galileo. "What do you think your sister could have done - or should have done - that would have changed anything that happened to the Galileo and her crew?"

"Surrendered." Nesh said, surprising herself at how quickly she knew her answer. "As soon as she realised there were four Birds of Prey. Fighting was stupid. No-one had to die."

Doolittle understood the young Orion woman's frustrations. After all, at one time he had commanded a starship before being condemned to flying a desk, so he knew what it was like to lose crew members, whether it was in battle, due to accidents, or what-have-you. In fact, his wife had died in a transporter accident while on an away mission. It was easy to second-guess after the fact - and that was something the younger Saalm might not understand.

"There may be something you're missing here, cadet..." he said, purposely using her former rank even though she was no longer a member of Starfleet. "It's easy for us to sit here and second-guess what your sister did now that everything's over. Hindsight is 20/20 while foresight is sometimes blind. In fact, centuries ago a United States president named Abraham Lincoln once said 'If our foresight was as good as our hindsight we'd be better off by a damn sight.' Maybe your sister made some bad decisions. If so, what's done is done. It cannot be changed and if she did, then it will all come out in the investigation. But in that situation, she had to make some very fast decisions based on the information she had on hand, along with the knowledge of the capabilities of her ship and crew. Perhaps she felt they were up to the task. I don't know, and since I was not there, my inclination is to give her the benefit of doubt."

"You will?" Nesh surprised herself by finding the admiral's satement intending to give her sister the benefit of the doubt reliving. A weight she didn't kow she was carrying was lifted. Well, Lirha was her sister. Annoying as she was, she knew that Lirha was probably about to get her heart broken by these investigations, and she still didn't wish that on the annoying cow. Not really. She had expected Starfleet to throw her big sister under the proverbial shuttle. This admiral, most unexpectedly, sounded like he was going to be a reasonable person.

"Mind you, that doesn't necessarily mean she will get out of this scot-free..." Doolittle said. "I haven't spoken to her or to all of the others involved, nor do I know the mindset of the other admirals involved in this investigation. Right now we are just fact-finding. Whether or not any charges are brought against her and whether or not she's found guilty or innocent is something that will be determined at a later date."

"Oh." Maybe the outlook wasn't so rosy after all. From the scuttlebutt, more than a few horrible things had happened to more than a few people who didn't deserve it. But much as she hated to admit it, her sister would have only have done her best. "She would have done her best," Nesh told him, losing a little self control, instinctively wanting to defend her sister. There was only one person in the galaxy allowed to slag Lirha off, and that was her. "I hope it will be enough. She's suffered enough."

"I have no doubt that she did her best and that's why I say I'm willing to give her the benefit of doubt." Doolittle answered. "Those who command starships sometimes are forced to make decisions in an instant that would take others days or even weeks to consider, and sometimes the decisions they make don't always turn out for the best. And sometimes in hindsight we see that a different decision might have turned out in a different manner. I don't know what thought processes went on in your sister's mind nor do I know what I would have done had I been in her shoes. Therefore all I can do is to look at all of the evidence I can and try to be as objective as I can be." He could see the look of concern for her sister in her expression and while he could not guarantee anything, he would do his best to try and relieve her anxieties. "I can't promise anything as far as the outcome of this investigation because quiet honestly I don't know how it's going to go but I can promise you this: I will do my best - and I believe the others will as well - to look at everything objectively and to do everything possible to see that she gets a fair assessment of her actions."

"Prom-" Nesh cut herself off from the nnedy childish reply. "I mean, Thank you, Admiral. She's my sister, and for all she drives me up the wall, she's still my sister. If you know what I mean. " Maybe if Lirha got treated with some, dare she say it, humanity, she'd be less uptight, and start to recover. Be the fun big sister she used to be.

"Actually I DO know what you mean..." he said with a nod. "I have two sisters - one older, one younger - and I know how irritating the both of them could be when we were younger so I understand your situation." He looked down at his PADD and quickly made some notes before looking back at her. "I think we've about covered everything for now although I may want to speak with you again later. In the meantime, please remember, you are not to discuss this situation with anyone else, crew or otherwise, or you may be held in contempt. If you have no further comment or questions then you're free to go."

Nesh stood. "Thank you, sir." She hadn't thought she'd ever use such an honorific to anyone again, but this man had surprised her, and she felt he actually deserved it. Hopefully he would surprise Lirha too.

"You're quite welcome Ca..." Doolittle hesitated as he realized he had almost called her 'cadet' before remembering that she was no longer a student at the Acadmy, having resigned just a few weeks prior. "...ah, that is, Nesh..." he finished a bit lamely before adding "Good day."

OFF:

RAdm. Harold J. Doolittle
Starfleet Bureau of Personnel
Starfleet Command Headquarters

Nesh Saalm
Civilian
[PNPC Derani]

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