Ramblings from an old man

Posted on 02 May 2013 @ 11:47pm by Marine Captain Ray Fernandez (Ret.) & Commander Scarlet Blake

2,877 words; about a 14 minute read

Mission: Episode 03 - Frontier
Location: USS Galileo - Blake's Office
Timeline: MD 05 1900 HRS

ON:

Ray pressed the chime and waited patiently as the door slid open to Blakes' office. Even though he knew that it was simple protocol that forced him to submit himself to these ridiculous evaluations, he figured that he would play the good guest and not piss off the Captain and the other senior staff members until he was good and ready.

Besides, the duck he had eaten the other had been delightful, and you can never be a poor guest to such a good cook.

He spotted the young woman and brightened up significantly. Can't look like a grumpy old man in the face of a woman, it was poor taste...at least, that's what his ex-wife had said...and she had run off with everything but the house .

Probably would have taken that too, if I hadn't taken my leave to go see her...heartless bit...

"Captain Fernandez," Scarlet stood quickly with a smile, straightening unconsciously. She still retained her marine posture, but it became even crisper in the presence of another marine, retired or not. She offered her hand out to him, her eyes warm as they met his. "I'm Counselor Scarlet Blake, please, come and sit down and get comfortable. Can I get you anything?"

"double scotch on the rocks and a bottle of vodka to wash it down?" Ray chirped sarcastically. "I'm fine Miss Blake, but thank you for asking." He looked her up and down for a second before chuckling.
"How long were you in?" He leaned back, more at ease. "You have an aire of military precision that most seem to lack...or at least from what I've seen. You got a back a little straighter than most and your eyes. Former security or former marine?"

Scarlet chuckled at that, her eyes shining as she sat down with him, getting comfortable. "Marine," she admitted, tilting her head before shaking it. "Nowhere near as long as you, I'm sure. It was about seven years in all, but that includes my training. It's nice to see someone here who suits green."

"We're a dying a breed, taking up other professions now a days. " Ray sat back a little more and drummed his hands on his walking stick softly. "Seven years eh? That would have ended with you as a Lieutenant? Or were we ambitious enough for that Captain rank?" He asked. Pleased to be in the company of another marine.

Scarlet couldn't quite help a soft laugh at that, arching an eyebrow as she tilted her head. "Captain," she replied, knowing it answered the other half of his question. Oh yes, she'd been ambitious. "What about you? How was your time?"

I stayed long enough to grab me a Lieutenant Colonel and then got out before they could ground me. " He explained. " Once the war was over, the Marine Command wanted to take out the marine corps from active duty saying that we were no longer needed. I told them they were wrong and one thing led to another and here I am." He waved his hands in the air in exasperation. "Politics." He grumbled.

"It often plays games with all of us," Scarlet agreed, nodding with a small smile to him, able to understand his frustration. "How are you finding it, now that you're here?"

Ray shrugged. "Less politics, more trauma. It's not hard to see the damage that has been done on whatever joy ride you all went the first time around. "There is so much barely contained depression on board I thought it was contagious." he replied bluntly.

Scarlet watched him with interest at the words, leaning forward slightly. "Could you tell me what makes you think that? Or is it just a feeling."

"You could say it's a feeling, but it's there if you know where to look. " He explained after pausing for a second. " There is a lot of tension in Security, from what I've seen, something tells me that Stone wasn't as well received as he could have been." He leaned back.

"A lot of it stems from Stone and is happenings on board the ship, but a lot seems to be emotional baggage from whatever mission you all went on." The vet sighed. "It's hard not to see it when you've experienced it yourself, you know?"

Scarlet nodded, understanding well as she smiled softly to him. "Is it enough to cause you worry?"

"Wouldn't you?" He retorted.

"Perhaps," she replied, taking a deep breath that verged on being a sigh as she thought about it. "There's a fine line between natural reactions and a deepening ripple effect," she mused, rubbing her neck for a moment with a slight frown. "What was your experience?" she asked gently. "You said you could see it because you've experienced it."

He smiled, seeing how she tried to spin it back to him, he had thought she had been sufficiently distracted. My fault for bringing me back into the conversation. He admitted to himself. "I was in the Dominion War through it's entirety as well as two ships and more suicide missions than you'd be able to count. Which would like to know about miss Blake." He chuckled heartily.

"The one that stays with you most brightly. The one that had most effect on you," she replied quietly, her eyes showing an honesty as she watched him.

"Well, I suppose there was the time the Dominion attacked the Federation...that left a bitter taste in my mouth." He remarked sarcastically. Suddenly his eyes softened. "I'm sorry, that was uncalled for. You're just trying to do your job, and I'm not exactly making that easy for you am I?" He stated, his voice low.

"I have quite the list of things...events, that have been hard to cope with. Between the loss of individuals under my command and the friends that I had made on the Fitzgerald it was hard to keep track of it all. " He sighed.

"And now I have very few friends that are still alive from the war. "

Scarlet had lifted her hand to assure she wasn't offended. In her time as a counsellor, she'd had some insults levelled at her. As her time as a pysch officer in the marines, she'd had more. If she took offence at every sharp word given by someone who didn't like being asked questions, she'd have had a nervous break down by now. "You said they've been hard to cope with. How have you?" she asked softly. Some people had their own effective way of coping with things. Others just closed their eyes and tried to forget about it, which usually led to more problems.

He sighed. "I'd like to think that I can remember everyone whose been under my command since I started. The war left a lot of people in bad sorts and even more dead. " He sighed, as he recalled the faces of hundreds of marines that he knew on a personal level. "Unlike a lot of marine officers, I didn't allow myself to be caught up in the whole idea of telling men and women that they would need to die. I allowed myself to learn all about each individual soldier. I learned who they had left at home, who they were fighting for, what gave them a reason to continue fighting in the hell that we had so easily fell into." He paused as he recalled. A sad smile broke over his intense frown as he started a soft chuckle.

"There was this one bloke...Corporal Henry Jacobs...I'd say he wasn't older than Kiwosk when I knew him. He said he was fighting for an animal shelter up in Boston." He shook his head. "We nicknamed him the dogcatcher after that..." His face changed again as he recalled the battle. "I ordered Jacobs to take down a shield generator that was preventing a beam back off a Cardassian Galor-class. I think it was a an old type 1. He detonated a pair of photons on max: suicided himself into the generator."

He shook his head. "Because I got to know each person under my command, I felt responsable. I guess you could say I fell into that trap that a lot of officers risk falling into. The whole idea that you ordered... that person, you killed those people." He recalled the vividly the long nights of drinking and anger at Frank, and Vancouver...and himself.

"I decided that a message via transmit wasn't enough to let the parents, significant others and etc, that their son or daughter or loved one had been KIA'd. So every shore leave I ended up taking, I would do a circuit, making sure I ended up delivering the KIA's in person, explaining the good and the bad times, and I would sit with the families for anywhere for ten minutes, or ten hours." The sad smile was again on his face, and he reached up to scratch the scar around his left eye.

"I had been married at the time, but she didn't understand what we were doing out there, or why I felt it fell to me to let the others know what happened to their Starfleet member or members...I was had to tell a family that their three sons and two daughters weren't coming home. "

He paused for a moment, letting it all sink in. "I was never around, she was never happy even when I was...I came home one leave to find divorce papers on my kitchen table. She had written a note saying she couldn't take it anymore, she ran off with another man, taking the kids and even my dog. "

"I'm sorry," Scarlet said softly, but honestly, holding his eyes unflinchingly. He had a lot to tell, it was the least others could do to hold his eyes as he went through it. "I know you know this, and I know it will likely feel shallow for me to say it, but I want to say it anyway. You were not responsible for those people's death. The enemy was. The war was. And they made a choice, like you, and like me, to sign that life up, knowing the risks. Someone told me something once, after I lost someone, and it's stuck in my head ever since. 'Would you want your fellow marines carrying the guilt of your death for years? When it was your own choice to put your neck on the line? If the answer is no, then it's likely they would have felt the same too'." She tilted her head to him, giving a weak smile. "I know you can't just switch off emotions just like that. At first it was just something I said to myself when guilt played on my mind. And then, slowly but surely, it sank in over the years. It made sense and I started to feel and believe it. I'm a grown woman, I make my own choices, and I'm damned if someone else is going to call themselves responsible for my choices. My choices are my own. For better or worse. I won't be patronised by someone else claiming responsibility for my mistakes," she gave a small smile; it was clear there was no ill will in the words. "And I'm pretty sure most marines, and Starfleet Officers for that matter, are head strong enough to feel the same. We'll always feel the guilt of survival, but we don't have to take the blame unless we deserve it."

Ray nodded, a single grunt of acknowledgement was all that told the young woman that the veteran had heard what she said. As he gathered his thoughts he matched her gaze. " Survivor's guilt is a life long struggle, you don't get rid of it, it just gets less painful. I learned that." He clasped his hands together and let his elbows rest on the arms of the chair. "And it's not shallow for you to say, cliche, maybe. But not shallow." He offered a soft chuckle before continuing. " In my younger days, when all this broke out, I wish I had had someone like you letting me know that after my first order." He gave her a slight wink. "Couldn't say no to the pretty ones anyway."

Scarlet gave a soft laugh at that, arching an eyebrow to him with an amused smile, tilting her head. "I wish I was one of the pretty ones, I wouldn't needed to have studied so much then," she replied, clearly only teasing though.

Ray coughed slightly, more to cover up a laugh than to clear his voice. "I don't have many regrets in my life, I've lived a hard one. The Fitz's med bay probably removed enough shrapnel to build themselves a new shuttlecraft, I lost an eye to a Vorta with a stick and a couple other injuries that make me need this cane." He tapped the solid oak stick leaning against the chair. "But, I had...and I I guess I still have two rules when it comes to being a real officer, not some uptight Captain that sits in his or her chair and looks at PADDs all day.
"You never say you can't do something, and you never make someone go out and do something that you yourself wouldn't do." He held up two fingers as he counted off his mottos.

"If you limit yourself by what you think you can do, you will never be able to improve. Histories greatest heroes show us that by pushing yourself to the maximum of your abilities and then push yourself further, you can accomplish feats that are unheard of. " He chuckled, a half smile on his face once more, eye glittering warmly. "Why, I once held the line by myself against an entire section of Breen and Vorta with their Jem'Hadar shock troops, my squad was either dead or being evacuated and I was the only one left. The only way the shuttle was gonig to successfully lift off was if I kept them off her." He cross his arms and d leaned back in the chair once more. "I had emptied the charge on my rifle, one other rifle and two phasers... and my stun baton. My knife was blunted and I had to resort in using Dominion tech I scavenged from some nearby bodies. My tally was one hundred fifty Jem'Hadar, 45 Breen and 73 Vorta, before they had repaired the transporter." He shook his head, chuckling softly. "The Captain wanted to give me a commendation and I laughed at him. You know what I said?" He almost burst out laughing. "I told him that the commendation should go to the Dominion for being so stubborn!" He grinned ear to ear.

Scarlet couldn't help but laugh with him, shaking her head with warmth. He was the sort of marine legend was made from. "I think you might be right!" she nodded, her eyebrows lifting with a look that was clearly impressed. "I like how you see things. I like that to you it was a hard life, but that doesn't mean there has to be regrets. I like that awareness," she added with honesty, clearly meaning it. Sometimes, a hard life could be a good one too.

He nodded a satisfied smile resting on his face. " You take your victories wherever you can. It's the little things in life that make life worth living." He smiled. " And when life is tough, you look back at those things that keep you going. For me, it's knowing that I'm keeping my son and daughter safe...and my ex-wife to an extent. Now, I know I'll never see them again, but to know that because of my actions, they can live that happy life I could never give them..." He tapped the desk twice with his index finger. "Family is special word, it's up there with love, hate, anger." He paused as he collected his thoughts. "Family, keeps you going, its a safe haven that lets you make mistakes, lets you fall into a place of security. My parents have passed, my siblings have either been KIA'd or have long since passed, no extended family to my knowledge on either side. My son and Daughter are living with my ex-wife who has made sure I can never see my kids. So it's students I train, like Cyrus or like that Lieutenant Rice there, that I've planted the seeds of self confidence without her knowing, or that Commander Coleman of yours, who thinks that no one can see through age and wisdom to see the wonderfully interesting woman underneath, or my old Commanding Officer Frank Sturmgeist who was crabbier than a hermit crab kicked out of it's shell...and even you: the Marine Captain turned counselor..." He let out a big smile, full of warmth and happiness. " you are my family now. The men and women or all races in Starfleet are my family."

OFF:

Marine Captain Ray Fernandez (Ret.)
Former Marine Commanding Officer of the USS Fitzgerald
TRT Instructor
Starfleet Academy, Earth

Lt JG Scarlet Blake
Chief Counsellor
USS Galileo

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