Polychronion

Posted on 17 Jul 2020 @ 1:14am by Lieutenant JG Sofie Ullswater

1,843 words; about a 9 minute read

Mission: Episode 17 - Crystal of Life
Location: USS Kali - Sciences Briefing Room
Timeline: MD 03, Late Evening

[ON]

Lieutenant Marin Vasile ran Kali's small science team. When Sofie had been assigned as a science liaison he had instantly made her feel welcome so as the evening hours lengthened of her second day aboard she was not at all unhappy when her frantic reverie of reading was broken by him calling out as he entered the lab "Sofie! What are you doing still up?"

She spun around on her chair to face him "I never though staying up past my bedtime would be something I'd have to worry about as a Starfleet officer Lieutenant."

He gave her a little grin and walked to the room's replicator. "Want anything?" From those first moments of the discovery of fire through the era of the kettle to the current age of matter replication the act of asking if someone else also wanted a hot drink has been a universal part of the human experience and for Sofie the answer was always yes.

"Tea please." He gave her a look as if asking for more information before she remembered that unlike with Callin and Matt he wasn't entirely aware of her preferences "Black, Ceylon. Thanks!"

He smiled and put the commands into the replicator. He returned a moment later with the drinks in hand and handed Sofie hers before sitting down opposite her. "So liaison officer," he said gesturing to the pile of documents in front of her "What science does the mighty Galileo bring us?"

She shoved one of them towards him, he hit a button on it and a 3-dimensional projection of a simulation started playing. "Protomatter, solitons, something about potential huge explosions." She sighed. "One of my colleagues on Galileo sent this over. At least we know what's going on now."

Marin looked up from the display for a moment "You sound a bit deflated Ensign."

"Well," Sofie replied with a slight grimace "It confirms what I already knew. After the first battle Galileo was a bit light on senior officers - I got called to a senior staff meeting. Commander Kohl asked me for a theory on how the debris travelled this far. The one I suggested was a bit out there, as soon as I was out of the room I knew I was probably wrong." In all honestly she was surprised Kohl hadn't laughed in her face, the only explanation she could come to was that he didn't know enough about that niche area of research to know how bad her idea had been.

In response Marin made a joking whistle "One year from the academy to the senior staff. That's quite the meteoric rise." He paused and took on a conspiratorial grin "So, what did you say?"

Sofie blushed, and glanced away "I don't know why Kohl didn't just shut me down. Apparently he was the science officer on the previous Galileo, he should have known better." She was ever so slightly embarrassed about her exuberant suggestion of Avila drift at the meeting and given how quickly Plumeri and the rest of the science team had come up with the true explanation it only got worse.

"Come on Ensign," he laughed, "Your secret's safe with me."

She took a deep breath, turned away for a moment and then looked him in the eye "Avila drift."

The lieutenant seemed slightly taken aback "That is pretty wild." he nodded, almost as if impressed by it. "No wonder Kohl had you transferred here." It was meant as a joke and Sofie took it as such but there was a tiny part of her, the part that still clung on to her small amount of pride, that was still felt hurt over it.

She laughed despite it "I will admit that determining the methods of travel of chunks of classified debris has never been my field of speciality."

"Fields of speciality eh?" the lieutenant shook his head as if recalling an old happy memory and then seemingly began to ramble a bit as he gazed at nothing. "I used to love botany. Though I might become a botanist in particular. But as soon as I ended up here things had to change. Kali is a warship, I didn't really realise it until I was in my first battle on the bridge. We're all Federation instruments, just as much as the targeting array, the sensors and the biobeds. There's little room for botany these days."

Sofie looked away. Memories were flooding into her mind of the previous days - her own first time on a bridge during battle.

---

"Captain, with the damage that we have taken, and unless I move power from critically important systems, I am unable to fully reinforce the shields."

"Objection noted. Now turn us around. That's an order, Mister Wyatt." The captain's voice had been stern, almost harsh in tone. Sofie had already been scared of the ongoing situation but the way the captain said it... It had been chilling.

Then came "Sofie, find me a way through their shields. You have one minute!"

---

"I'd never been in a battle until the other day." She sounded cold.

"Ensign," Marin moved beside her and made to put his hand on hers as a sign of comfort. She flinched away, pulling her hand close to herself. "You made it, you pulled through. It gets easier."

She shook her head, wrapping her arms about herself tightly. "We didn't make it, Trial didn't make it, we had a mutiny and our captain ran away." She looked downward, ashamed "If it had been any other science officer on that bridge things might have been different."

Marin was more cautious now and spoke softly seeing something he was not unfamiliar with "Nobody could have prevented what happened Sofie. You aren't responsible."

"You don't know that!" The ensign snapped back with real pain in her voice. After a moment she took a deep breath and exhaled "I'm sorry."

"You don't have to be."

"How does it work?" Sofie sighed, her mind trying to grasp what seemed like the unimaginable volume of things this crew must have seen over the years. The loss and the suffering, were all battles like this? "How do you survive it all again and again?"

The lieutenant smiled "We trust each other. We have to. We have Captain Navrin, she relies on us and we trust her."

Sofie could hear in his voice the genuine belief he had in that trust. She'd seen it all over the ship, there was a camaraderie here that she didn't recognise from Galileo, at least not among the junior officers she spent most of her time around. "What's she like?"

Marin smiled trying to offer something comforting "She's a leader, maybe even a hero. We've all fought with her so many times now that its like we're family and she's the mother hen matriarch looking after us all."

Sofie let herself calm for a moment. She didn't feel that way about Captain Saalm. She wondered if she was meant to. She hadn't been on the ship all that long and the captain had faced mutiny. If the rest of the crew couldn't trust her then why should Sofie? She didn't want to think about it. "Tell me about her, Captain Navrin. What's she done that makes her such a hero?"

"I've heard the stories of her earlier career passed down through the rest of the crew. During the Dominion War she was an ensign on the USS Reian, part of the Ninth Fleet." The way he said Ninth Fleet made Sofie assume that it was something significant. She raised her eyebrows questioningly. "She survived both Tyra and Sybaron." Marin continued with a sense of reverence and took a moment to drink some of the tea he was holding.

Sofie failed to hold back a smile "I have no idea what you are talking about."

"You never heard about the Dominion War?" Marin sounded surprised.

She shook her head in response. "I wasn't born in the Federation and I've never cared much for war stories." History had never been her strong suit and as much as Teyal had tried to shove the epic tales of the Dominion war down her throat during their Academy years she had admirably resisted. Maybe even because he had been so excitable about it was why she had never bothered to look into it.

Marin shrugged, "All that matters is she arrived as commander of Kali with Telry and Pärt from Reian when that ship was scrapped. I arrived at the same time, I was just an ensign - assistant science officer. She made full captain after Helecia and that was where I became a lieutenant and ship's science officer. We've fought in several battles now, I think the captain knows exactly how to build a team. Nobody is left behind here."

Was Galileo a family? Maybe not, but maybe it would be if she gave it some time. Maybe one day she would feel the same way about Warraquim, Rice, Mimi, and Sandoval as Marin felt about his compatriots. "You all have each other, I guess that's enough to get through it then?"

Marin shook his head "We still have to be strong, we still have to be brave." He moved to offer her his hand again. For a moment she though she might take it before drawing back once again. He moved away, respectfully "We have to fight with everything and never let go."

There was a moment of quiet. You couldn't hear much in the labs other than the low hum of the engines from deep within the ship's belly. Sofie sat there for a moment looking down at the the table, she closed her eyes and did her very best not to think about it. "I don't think that's me."

"It doesn't need to be."


It was a while before either of them broke the silence.

Marin had that look on his face - wary, almost embarrassed, knowing he was seeing someone in a place of vulnerability. Sofie had seen the look to other faces before, she didn't hate it anymore, She understood he was doing his best. In her mind she had put him in this position and so it was probably up to her to break through it. "Thank you." She said simply, wiping her eyes and looking up with a smile.

"Don't worry about it," she could tell Marin had so obviously been here before "I'm here for you - we get through this together. That's how we get through everything on Kali, together."

"Then I wish you all many more years of togetherness." Sofie placed a hand on the middle of the table between them.

"Many years." Marin agreed.

[OFF]

--

Ensign Sofie Ullswater
Science Liaison
USS Kali

 

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