The Mystery of the Bretagne - Part II

Posted on Wed 10th Oct, 2012 @ 1:16pm by Colonel Horatio Drake & Commander Paul Graves PsyD

3,049 words; about a 15 minute read

Mission: http://sb109.sim-station.net/index.php/sim/missions/id/2
Location: USS Bretagne: Main Bridge
Timeline: Boarding + 19 Hours

ON:

REMAINING AIR: 2 Hours (Bridge) + 8 EVA

Drake pulled the phaser rifle from around his shoulders and gently placed it on the deck next to him, he could feel both motivation and energy ebbing away from him at an alarming rate. He sighed deeply and analysed the situation. It was more than likely that their distress beacon had got sucked into the expanse - a direct signal was what they should have done in the first place. Despite the likelihood of it suffering a delayed arrival time, it really was their last hope. But it was too late now, they could have only accomplished that with primary power. As soon as the Runabout was destroyed, that's what they should have done.

He rested his head on the bulkhead and tried to calm himself down. "So... why did you join Starfleet, Paul?" Getting his mind off it might just do the trick.

Paul blinked at the question. His thoughts had been wandering aimlessly; he could barely keep an idea in his head for more than a few moments, it seemed, before it withered away like a dream upon awakening.

"What made me want to join Starfleet?" he repeated, just in case he'd misheard what Drake had asked. When the man nodded back at him, Paul went on. "It will probably sound odd to you, but what made me want to join was being in a crowd."

At Drake's puzzled look, Paul went on.

"I hate crowds. It's exhausting to keep the mental shields up, and the mass of emotions always gets through, like rain-water seeping through a cracked roof. But they've always been a fact of my existence, something that had to be endured because the only other choice was to lock myself away somewhere, and I didn't want to do that. Sometimes, if I concentrate on just one or two other people, give my complete attention to them, I'm less aware of the background 'noise,' and it doesn't bother me.

"Anyway, I was required for a psych class to attend a large meeting of people, and I chose to attend a religious gathering--They call them 'tent revivals' on Earth. I'm not particularly religious, so I was curious about the thing. I went, and I was amazed by how the preacher played the crowd like an orchestra. It was extremely difficult for me to maintain control of myself and not get sucked into the crowd's emotions, some of which were quite extreme.

"After I returned to my dorm, it occurred to me that, outside of Betazoid medical literature, very few empaths had ever written about crowd psychology, much less about whether crowds composed of a lot of different alien races were at all similar to those composed of just one people. I wondered if a crowd of Klingons would behave differently from a crowd of Trills, and how they would behave the same, and so on. I decided that the best way to meet a lot of different aliens was to join Starfleet."

He gave Drake a wry look. "I suppose, at the heart of it, I'm what Earth people might call a nerd, but that is my reason. I believe in all the ideals that Starfleet stands for, but they're not why I joined. I was actually very surprised that they accepted me even though I didn't recite the spiel."

"Mmm... interesting", Drake raised his eyebrows - that was definitely unexpected.

Graves leaned his head to one side and glanced at Drake. "So why did you join Starfleet, Colonel?"

Drake mockingly laughed at the question - analysing this, above all else, was the height of irony at this precise moment. "I could tell you I wanted to be challenged... I wanted adventures and excitement - truth be told, though, I'd be lying."

He paused; suddenly, the floor became very interesting. "I grew up with my parents in England and, to say they were traditional, was an understatement - I come from a family of legal minds, and that was what I was destined for. I tried to mention Starfleet a few times to them, but they just shrugged it off as a phase, I suppose. It wasn't until I was half-way through my legal education that I decided to sign up for the Academy... they weren't best pleased but supported me nevertheless." Once again he found himself stopping, trying to make the next part sound right. "My uncle helped from the word go, I never really had to worry about failing a paper or an exam... but that's not how it should have been. So, I suppose, I joined Starfleet in a small, but professional, act of defiance - stupid. It was always about the colour of my uniform and the number of pips, with me.".

He rubbed at his trousers, trying to get an imaginary stain off. "None of that really matters anymore - joining Starfleet was the worst decision of my life. I never got any of that excitement and adventure that they promise you at the Academy... I just got long hours, loads of administration work and expected postings - compliments of my uncle. Starfleet clouded my vision for years and stopped me from seeing what was really important in my life... it stopped me from analysing myself, instead of looking at what other people thought of me.."

He took his Comm. Badge off from his uniform and examined the symbol, as if looking for a clue. "I can never forgive them for that..." he dropped it to the floor "I shouldn't even still be in Starfleet. It's ironic, but in a way it makes sense... returning to the service was a mistake, and now I end up in a situation like this." He started laughing out loud... it was hiding the tears that were threatening his eyes.

Paul felt the tears, nevertheless. "That is bullshit, Colonel. Perhaps you were once so shallow a person, but you haven't been that shallow for years. You care far too much to be the sort of man you describe. The development of that sort of caring doesn't happen overnight."

Ashton frowned and looked up, briefly, confused about what he was trying to say.

He nodded, slowly... for the second time in his life, he couldn't think of any words that would have been an apt reply - instead he simply nodded.

He let a few minutes drift by, the words really sinking in. "I appreciate the kind words, Paul - but the truth is that if I hadn't been so career orientated and fixated on rank and position, I'd still have Patrick now..."

Silence fell over them, he just couldn't get across how he was feeling - he felt mentally drained, as if this was a weight on his mind... it was something about these surroundings, he was sure of it. "What I'm trying to say is that I always viewed Starfleet as the shining beacon of truth and justice - I gave them absolutely everything I had... I gave them more than I had... I gave them things that weren't mine to give. That, and my Uncle, made me one of the fastest-promoted officers in the service... I always thought the next rank would be different, the next position would be the one for me. But at the end of the day, through doing that, through devoting the time that I did to them... I lost the only one thing that was truly important to me - I lost the person I thought would always be with me."

"I'm not saying it was my fault - I know the accident was nothing to do with me, but if I hadn't given this pathetic excuse for an organisation even more of my free time, I would have been there - he would have had no reason to get on that shuttle... I should have been there."

A tear now formed in the corner of his eye - he was always able to suppress these emotions these days, providing he kept his mind from Patrick. The second he let it wander and fixate on the memory of him for more than a few seconds, it was like his death had just happened, the wound was once again fresh, salt was being poured into it, and the pain was surreal.

He pulled the maple leaf crest from his tunic and placed it in the palm of his hand. "What good is this if you've got no one to enjoy life with?" He threw it across the Bridge and, immediately after, ripped off his tunic jacket. "What good is this uniform if it's all you've got!" With a primordial scream he tore it down the middle and threw it across the Bridge.

"My life stopped the day I disembarked from the Ronnau, the moment those words were spoken, the moment that realisation struck me... my life finished." Tears were now freely flowing. He removed the hand phaser from his belt and checked the power settings, unsure of what the hell he was doing. "My life was over."

Paul kept a sharp eye on Drake. The man's habit of keeping the phaser rifle with him at all times had not made him comfortable, and the hand-phaser was much easier for Drake to use on himself.

"Except that your life isn't over," he said quietly. "It's beginning. You've been given a great gift--at a terrible price, but still--you have the chance to become a better man than you were. You have the chance now to stand up to your uncle, to tell him that he must take the safety nets away, that he must leave you to succeed or fail on your own merits. Personally, I think that an uncle who truly honored you would have done that from the start. But anyway...You have the right and the obligation now to become your own man, to find out who that is, knowing at last what is truly important to you. You have this chance, Colonel. Use it by not making me fight you for that phaser."

Ashton's head spun round to face Paul... somehow the mention of a fight had almost ignited some animal instinct inside him. Luckily the flame refused to light with just one spark.

"Ashton, listen," Paul continued after a moment. "You say you used to think of Starfleet as a beacon for truth and justice. Well, it still is. It never ceased being one."

He stood and opened his arms to include their surroundings. "This ship responded to a distress call that, potentially, killed everyone on board. They didn't know what they were responding to; they didn't know if they'd be outnumbered or out-gunned - but they responded, nevertheless... because they were Starfleet officers, and that was their duty, to help those in trouble, to protect the weak, to stop injustices from happening. They were willing to stand against any aggressor, to take on any adversary, to uphold the morals and ethics that the Federation has laid down."

He didn't stop, not wanting to lose momentum. "That is why we are Starfleet officers, Ashton. You speak of giving them too much. That may have been the case. But you were giving that time and effort toward that higher purpose." He now stopped for a few seconds and lowered his voice. "I never knew Patrick. But if he loved you and was the sort of person I think he was, he knew and understood this, and he would have been proud to call himself your partner. He would have been proud of you, up until the very end."

Drake was in a state of shock... the speech from Graves had been completely unexpected. He had taken the phaser from his belt with no clear thoughts in his mind - he had no idea what he intended to do with it. All of a sudden, as if from no where, someone had tapped into his brain and given him direction, given him that sense of clarity he was so lacking at that moment in time.

"Why don't you put that thing away?" Paul said quietly with a nod toward Ashton's phaser.

Holstering the phaser back onto his belt, Drake now stood and leaned against the bulkhead.

"If it helps any, I've known loss, too," Paul said reluctantly. "I never lost anyone I was in a deep romantic relationship with, but I did lose my best friend. He...Keris committed suicide shortly before I left for Starfleet Academy. I'm sure it was part of the reason I was so eager to go at the time."

Paul stared up at the Bridge ceiling, unable or unwilling to meet Drake's gaze. "It took me completely by surprise. I was reading email during lunch one day and saw that I had a message from another friend of mine. The message was to inform me of Keris' death. He--he jumped off the roof of a building. I didn't even believe it was suicide at the first moment; I thought it had to have been some bizarre accident, that he'd fallen off the roof, not jumped."

Paul wrapped his forearms across his chest and continued to stare at something only he could see. "I was supposed to be the perceptive mindhealer candidate, and it completely blindsided me. I had no idea Keris was feeling in the least depressed about anything. Even his own wife had no idea. He left for work that morning just as cheerfully as usual, kissed her good-bye, and left. To this day, I can't figure out why I didn't notice anything! How could I hope to treat anyone for mental illness or even normal stress if I couldn't even tell that my best friend was suicidal? I never gave him a shred of help because I never knew he needed it!"

Disgust at himself laced his tone, and Paul didn't bother to hide it. "I needed mindhealing myself before the first semester ended. My grades cratered. I'm sure, if I'd been studying any major other than Counseling, I'd have been booted out of the Academy, but the instructors there were mindhealers themselves. Three of them called me into a meeting and made me tell them what was wrong." He gave a ragged breath and couldn't entirely fight off tears. "I'm sorry. It's been several years since that happened, but if I dwell on it, my feelings are still raw, it seems. Seeing an empty chair at a table will do it; sometimes, just looking out a window."

The only thing Drake could do in this situation, with the tears still wet in the corner of his own eyes and now Graves opening up, was to put his arms out and gently hug him.

"Listen, if we ever get out of this - we'll get through these problems." He could feel himself starting to regain composure, but something didn't quite feel right - he had lost control and, despite his emotional state returning to normal, he didn't feel fully in control of his faculties. "Just because Starfleet say fraternising with junior officers is wrong - doesn't mean to say we need to take it as gospel!" He chuckled slightly and released his, holding his by the shoulders - he was trying to inject some much-needed humour into the situation....

Wha-at? Paul thought. Something sounded very wrong about that, but he couldn't articulate what. All he knew was that, for the moment it lasted, Drake's embrace had felt like light brightening a deep, dark, hidden pit in his soul. He had never before thought that light could reach there. In simple gratitude for that, he returned the embrace.

Paul let out a sigh to force himself to relax and straightened. "Thank you, Ashton. That helped," he said quietly.

He could see Paul was beginning to regain his composure as well. Suddenly he felt very hot... despite now wearing only his under-tunic, he could feel sweat start to form on his brow.

The two officers carried on talking and discussing the highs and lows of their careers... and their personal lives. It had been a number of hours before the conversation started dwindling to a natural close.

"Listen, I think the best course of action now is..." Drake stopped in his tracks, a shiver - more intense that the one earlier - run down his spine and every hair on his body, once again, stood to attention... he could hear voices, and this was only one place they could be coming from. He ran to the turbolift shaft and tried to listening more intently.

"Can you hear that?!" he asked.

Paul gave Drake a tired look. "I hear nothing but the ship creaking...shattering itself into bits, little by little. What do you hear?"

"Somebody's calling for help... Jesus Christ, we're not alone on this ship...," he replied in a quick tone.

"It's your brain," Paul said. "It's starved for sensory input, so it invents sounds for you to hear. Be glad you're just hearing voices and not endless music, as some people do."

"It doesn't matter." Drake was contemplating what this could mean. "We need to move."

"We'd better put our EVA suits back on." Graves said, moving back toward the tactical console, where his suit and helmet lay on the floor. "Restoring life-support to the lower decks will take too long." Then he stopped in mid-flow as a wave of heat suffused his body. "Wait a minute," he said, turning back to Ashton. "There's no life support anywhere on this ship except for the bridge. How can anyone else possibly be alive?"

Ashton had also returned to the tactical console to gather up his suit... as soon as Graves spoke those words it was like his brain suddenly became a giant muscle. The logical and rational side was pulling him in one direction, but his instinct - inbred into him by Starfleet - to help those in distress - pulled him the other.

"I don't know... at this point, it doesn't matter... we just need to get down there."... the instinctual side won.

OFF:

Lt.(jg) Paul Graves
Chief Counselor
SB Protector

&

Lt. Colonel Ashton Drake
Commanding Officer
SB Protector

 

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