A Clear Decision
Posted on 09 Jul 2023 @ 10:22am by Captain Corvus DeHavilland & Major Declan Finn
Edited on on 29 Jul 2023 @ 2:48am
Mission:
M3 - Into the Deep
Location: Captain's Quarters - USS Pathfinder
Timeline: M3 D13 - 2245HRS
2411 words - 4.8 OF Standard Post Measure
It had been one hell of a day, even by their more recent standards, one that had taxed her mind near to the breaking point. Not just because of the amount of things that had to be handled, but because of the perpetual dance around the gigantic cloaked elephant in the room that seemed to be there in every conversation. Every single one. It was enough to drive someone mad and it nearly had Corvus there.
Late the night before, by the ship's time, they’d finally come into range of the last of the Starfleet comms relays. As planned, her reports had gone out immediately but the problem was they’d come in just as immediately as well. Every single status update, request, report from Commander Zayne and other minutiae had come through in a cascade of data that had overloaded her to say nothing of the Ensign at the comms station filtering it for everyone.
The signal burst to OC took a few hours, and by her math was with the Admiral less than an hour before she was getting a response with a laundry list of questions. It had been like that all day on a rapidly decaying time delay between responses. By the end of the day, the responses came almost instantly and ended in the afternoon with a face to face with Admiral Sepandiyar.
That had been the hardest part of it all - lying to the man’s face. She kept trying to convince herself that she wasn’t ‘lying’, she was just omitting information. But it felt the same to her. The man wasn’t easily snowed, but he seemed to take it at face value though she couldn’t help but feel like he was omitting information too. Like her omission, she tried to convince herself that it was just her projecting on him but when she had a follow up subspace call with Commander Zayne, she was all but convinced they were both hiding something. When she couldn’t access the archived reports for OC, only what was sent directly to Pathfinder she knew something was wrong.
Was the Admiral aware she was lying and just letting her hang herself? Captain Bowdler had been clear on the protocol in play and she’d further researched it - there was no not following it. Which meant that she was stuck between a rock and a hard place. If she shared it with Sepandiyar, she was breaking protocol. If she kept it secret and he knew, she was ruining a relationship and potentially a command by lying to a four-pip Admiral. It was not the kind of place she wanted to be. Corvus thought she had it tough over Korin, but she’d have happily taken that stress over this any day.
All she wanted to do now was crawl into her temporary bed and try to rest at least for a little while. Tomorrow they’d reach Obsidian Command and the real mess could unfold. If she was where she thought she was, it might well be the last time she came home to OC. Maybe she could find a ship somewhere that needed an XO on the outs with command when it was all over.
The lift ride down from the bridge to her quarters was a quick one, thankfully sans Marine escort. With Major Finn in Sick Bay and their troubles behind them, she’d been able to convince them that there was no need to keep following her like a lost puppy. They maintained their vigil over her quarters and the bridge but she at least didn’t have a tail anymore. Trying to shake the day off of her a bit so she could rest, she walked to her temporary quarters in silence, giving a polite nod to the Marine standing guard over the doorway and headed in.
Corvus stood in the doorway once it closed and heaved a profound sigh. She reached up and immediately untied the tail she’d put her hair into and shook it out with relief as she walked into the room now. She peeled her shoes off with the opposite foot and flung them into the bedroom unceremoniously, followed by her uniform vest as she padded over now to the replicator terminal. She stood there, heaving another slow sigh, staring at the controls. She was hungry, which was why she was there, but her mind was a thousand light years away from the replicator and dinner. Suddenly she was thinking about the Challenger, and life as a Tactical Officer making snap decisions with confidence, or aboard the Praetorian doing the same. Knowing that she had someone over her to check her - something she didn’t have anymore.
The door chime to her quarters rang, bringing her rapidly back to the current moment, realizing as it ran a second time that she was still standing by the replicator. Had she been asleep standing there? Possibly, she hadn’t slept in quite a while and even then not for very long. Corvus drew her hand over her face and turned to the door, walking in an almost zombie-like state just about until she got there. She cleared her throat, shook her hair from her face and pressed the button to open the door just as it rang a third time, presuming it was Calli with something of importance that she didn’t want to blast over comms.
“Commander?” She asked as the door slid open, but instead of revealing the bushy black hair of Commander Zahn, she was met by the chiseled jaw of Declan in the more Starfleet-like duty uniform of the Marines instead of his standard utility fatigues.
“Sorry, you’re not Calli,” Corvus replied.
“Do you have a minute? Are you expecting her? I… can come back later,” Declan replied, looking back instinctively towards the lift.
“No,” she shook her head. “No, I just… never mind,” she tried to smile. “Come in,” she said after a protracted, almost awkward silence.
“Thanks,” Declan said, stepping through into her quarters.
He walked through, familiar with the space but very, very aware of how things had been the last time he’d been here. It had been an outstanding row between them that had ended quite unexpectedly. If he was honest with himself, he wasn’t as upset with himself as he’d been in the moments immediately after. But he was pretty sure that brief connection had vanished with the air he’d vented before he’d jumped onto Korin with his team.
“How are you feeling?” Corvus asked as he walked across towards the couch and viewport looking out at space streaking past to the left.
“Doc said I’m good to be up and about, long as I don’t make any more orbital jumps for a while,” he quipped, trying to laugh, but feeling it fall short.
“At least, use the airlock next time?” She tried to smile back.
“Yeah. Yeah, that’s probably a good idea,” he agreed, “I’m sure you want to get some rest so I’ll be quick. I was able to reach MacTaryn, but he wasn’t on Falkirk. He’s on OC. I think something is up on OC that they’re not telling us. He seemed. Somber,” Declan explained. “I heard you were able to speak to Admiral Sepandiyar?”
“I did,” she replied nervously, taking a step closer to share her concerns with him. Clearly the same ones he was having. “I think the Admiral knows about the Alabama. He was pressing hard on the gaps in the reports. I… I know did exactly as we all agreed. I followed the talking points as closely as I could without sounding like I was reading a script, but I think he knows.”
“If he knows, that means MacTaryn’s there as a show of force,” Declan suggested, letting his mind go down that crazy line of thought as well. “Shit, I was really hoping it was my confusion making shadows. This is not a good thing, Corvus,” he shook his head.
“I thought I was clear with you,” she replied firmly, drawing his eyes worriedly up to her. “That it’s Amélie,” she clarified with a smile.
“Yeah… you did say that,” he replied softly.
“Look. For what it’s worth, I shouldn’t have pushed you away. I value your perspective, and your experience. I shouldn’t have sent you away,” she said, repeating the same thing she’d told him in Sick Bay. She still felt sick to her stomach that she’d been so indecisive. “It’s… that’s not me. I’m just…” she let out a long sigh, shaking her head. “I’m not used to being back on my heels, and I feel like since I took this command, that’s all I’ve been. First the attack, then the mess with Calli, then the Korin, the Pyrryx, the Alabama and now whatever the hell’s going on with the Admiral,” she shook her head. “I can’t decide if it’s all in my head, or if I’m just looking at the death spiral of my career,” she admitted.
“I… I don’t have… I’m not good at comforting words,” he replied honestly, looking as if he was squirming at the mere attempt. He’d honestly tried to work on that. He’d been through more than his fair share of counseling and therapy sessions during his marriage to Victoria that he should have had a better grasp of it, but it’d really only been after their marriage had dissolved that he’d really started to understand what Doctor Lapoor was trying to explain to him. Since then he’d been trying to be better at it, but considering his choice of career and lack of attachments since, he hadn’t had a lot of chances to practice.
“It’s ok,” she shook her head, sighing once more and running her hands through her hair as if that would wipe it away. She gestured now to the replicator. “Can I get you a drink?” She asked, walking that way.
“Uh, yeah. How about… a tea?”
She gave him a sidelong smirk and walked to the replicator. “Computer, two cups of black tea, no sugar, splash of milk,” she ordered. In a moment the hum of the replicator died out and there were two steaming cups on the pad. She took them both and walked over to Declan offering him one and then sitting down on the couch in silent invitation for him to do the same.
“Anything more on Parveaux?” Corvus asked as she sipped.
He shook his head, “He’s stable, but sounds like he’s looking at some serious physical therapy to get back into fighting shape. Hopefully Doctor Mazur can help with that,” he replied. The young man was strong and resilient but anyone that took that kind of damage was going to have the scars from it for a while.
“We’ve got the best facilities Starfleet can muster. He’s going to the right place,” she reassured him, patting his leg.
“I’ve never seen any being like that,” Declan exclaimed quietly. “So strong and so fast. If it hadn’t been for Tahriik… I’d be dead. We’d all likely be dead,” he shook his head defeatedly. “It’s…” he trailed off to take a sip wincing at how hot it was and put it back down as if it had offended him. He looked over at her and softened, “It’s different than the wars. You knew you might have lost. You might have died. But there weren’t a lot of instances where you knew you should have. That everything else in the situation was leading to that one end; and at the last second… the end shifted,” he explained, staring at the table distantly as he spoke. He finally tried to laugh and looked at Corvus. “Sorry, I’m over-sharing.”
“I’m listening,” she replied quietly, putting her hand on his resting on his knee.
“…thanks,” he replied, looking down at her hand and then at her. They held one another’s gazes for a long moment before Declan leaned towards her and she answered in kind, sharing a brief kiss. “I know it was just a couple of days ago,” he said quietly, “But I feel like we’ve both lived a lifetime since,” he all but whispered.
“We have… in a way,” she replied just as quietly.
He just nodded, still holding her gaze, his face inches from her and kissed her again, this time a bit longer. As they separated once more she set her tea on the table and reached for him with both hands on either side of his face, twisting her body towards him. Their brief, simple kiss turned quickly into something far more passionate. Declan let himself be pushed back on the couch and kept kissing her as she put herself onto his lap, pulling the zipper of his uniform down halfway. Shaking his head he pushed her off, stopping her dead.
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” He asked, with a slight shake of his head. “I… I don’t want to hurt you. I don’t want to put you in a place you don’t want to be,” he added kindly. It was far from the truth, he wanted this badly and he knew she was well aware of that. But he couldn’t help but stop her.
Amélie leaned forward, her hands on the back of the couch behind him and shook her head. “I’m done being scared,” she declared quietly and emphatically. “I need to make the decisions I feel are right, and not let myself second guess everything. That’s what took you off the bridge, that’s what nearly kept the away team here, that’s what caused everything that went wrong. I’m done second-guessing myself. I’m making my choice,” she said, smiling crookedly, “This is my choice,” she said, reaching for the zipper again. “Is it what you want?”
Declan nodded slowly and spoke up loudly, “Computer. Turn out the lights.”
