Caretaker - Part III

Posted on Thu 22nd Feb, 2018 @ 5:35pm by Commander Mikaela Locke
Edited on Thu 22nd Feb, 2018 @ 5:54pm

712 words; about a 4 minute read

"Personal Log - Stardate seven-zero-zero-nine-two point three.

Colonel Horatio Drake is dead.

As of an hour-and-a-half ago, I have formally taken command of Vanguard and I am... terrified.

I have been an XO for about five minutes and am barely qualified for that, let alone to command a faculty of this size, and, while I have headed up a department on a starbase before, this is a whole different quidditch game. There are some two-hundred thousand people on this station and I am suddenly responsible for all of them. Every life - resting on decisions that I make.

I am not ready for this.

I am under no illusions that Starfleet Command will allow this situation to continue indefinitely - they will send an experienced CO to relieve me, and I will have to return to my former role, and that will bring with it a fresh set of challenges. Assuming, of course, they want me to remain as XO - which is not a certainty, of course.

I have told the senior staff and, while none of them have said so publicly, I can see the uncertainty in their eyes. They way they look at me. They know I'm not ready for this too. They have no confidence in me.

And I am supposed to lead them. And not just lead them, but to lead them through a time of transition; to lead them through a time of intense and deep grief.

And I am unable to do that objectively, because I am in pain too. I am grieving more than any of them know.

But it's not just the responsibility of command that is weighing on my mind.

Colonel Drake was the one who offered me the position on Vanguard because he saw something in me - potential, or something, I don't know. He has always seen more in me than I have seen in myself. Even at the Academy, he, somehow, singled me out in a class of a hundred senior-year students, pulled me aside at the end of the lecture and encouraged me to pursue a career in intelligence. I was nineteen years old and somehow he could look into my future and see something that I had no idea was there.

I knew Starfleet would change my life - but that single decision was the best one I ever made. And I made it because of him.

To be invited to Vanguard to be XO, working with a man that I admired so much and owed so much to, was the single greatest thrill of my life and my proudest moment. I owe so much to that man.

And now he is dead.

And I have to step into his shoes - shoes that I can never fill.

Shoes that I never should have had to fill.

Colonel Drake's death came about because he led a boarding party to a shuttle, to apprehend a killer. Something which, as commander of this station, he should never have done.

Something that I should have stopped him from doing. He made the decision to lead that boarding party and it was my job to remind him of his responsibility to this crew and to this station. If anyone should have lead that boarding party it should have been Perry... or Sawyer... or even me.

I should have been on that transport not him.

And I understand that if I had been, I would probably be dead now and not him.

Right now it's a trade I would gladly make.

Because I failed him.

I didn't do my duty. I didn't do my duty to him, or to Starfleet, or to this crew who now have to mourn his loss with me.

I should have stopped him...

I could have stopped him but I was too weak to confront him. Too weak to stand up for myself and to demand that he listen to me, because, damnit, I was right!

I WAS RIGHT!

I WAS RIGHT, YOU STUBBORN BASTARD!

[crashing]

[sobbing]

I should have stopped him...

I could have stopped him...

But I didn't.

Colonel Horatio Drake is dead...

...And it is my fault.

Computer... End log."

 

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