Should I Stay or Should I Go? - Part IV

Posted on Tue 1st May, 2018 @ 3:16am by Commander Mikaela Locke

956 words; about a 5 minute read

Mission: Brushfires
Location: Deck 11 - Station Commander’s Ready Room
Timeline: Decision Day

Oh-seven-thirty, Monday morning. Thirty minutes before the night shift ended and the first watch of day-shift officers took their stations in ops.

Officially, Captain Suzuki commanded the alpha-shift, however, Monday morning was a fairly correspondence-heavy period for her, and so it had been agreed that Locke would oversee main operations, at least for the first four-hour watch, after which either Andrew Eberstark, the station’s strategic operations officer, or the captain herself, relieved her, giving her a chance to catch up on her own admin.

All of that, however, had been hypothetical - and dependent on one important decision.

The doors slid open, to the reception area of Captain Suzuki’s ready room, and Mikaela strode through with purpose. “Is she in?” she asked Yeoman Mejia, without preamble. She wasn’t good at small talk at the best of times and, sometimes, that crossed into a complete lack of nicety too.

"She's in," he nodded. He maintained a differential appearance. He'd read her profile, knew she posed no danger, so he let her pass, maintaining his cover. He'd let the Captian deal with her, that was her specialty.

Locke nodded and walked forward, the door sliding open as she approached it. She took a few paces into the room and paused at attention.

"Commander Locke," Suzuki said, looking up from her desk. "Good morning. Is something wrong? You seem very... stiff."

"Nothing wrong, ma'am," Locke replied, trying to look like she had relaxed slightly, even though she absolutely hadn't. Even as she had walked into the office, there was a small part of her that still wasn't one-hundred percent sure that she was doing the right thing. But the time for reflecting and weighing up was over. It was decision time and she needed to say something.

"I thought you would be interested to know that I have decided to stay on board. Assuming you still want me to?" She added quickly.

There it was out. Verbalised and articulated. While every fiber of her being wanted to take it back, just in case she'd made the wrong choice, she was now unable to. Although, in that brief moment, she mused that perhaps that's what life was about. Making decisions and living with the consequences. Her thoughts briefly flashed to Jason Fisher, but she quickly boxed them in a corner of her mind, to come back to later. There were more immediate matters at hand.

Suzuki smiled warmly. "Thank you, Commander. I am quite pleased with your decision, and look forward to working with you in the months, possibly years, to come."

A sense of relief flooded Mikaela. Knowing that Suzuki wanted her to stay was comforting, to say the least. She smiled back. “Me too, ma’am,” she said, her smile broadening slightly when she realised she actually meant it.

With, what felt like, the weight of a world off her shoulders, she relaxed back into her role much easier than at any point in the recent past. “Is there anything I need to be aware of for this mornings duty shift?” She asked, formally.

"We're going to be seeing more Fourth Fleet vessels coming through," the Captain said, sitting back in her seat and rubbing her eyes. "With the Klingons withdrawing behind their own borders, and the Romulans engaging in a particularly bitter civil war, there's a power vacuum in the Triangle. Indications are that vacuum is being taken advantage of by small interests. At the same time, the Federation can't simply advance our borders, as the other two great powers likely wouldn't ignore such action."

“It’s going to be a delicate balance to maintain, isn’t it?” Locke replied, not really expecting an answer. “I can coordinate any arrivals this morning, and I’ll set up a meeting with our new intel. chief - see what he’s hearing about these ‘smaller interests.’” She wasn’t sure what to make of Jacen Miller yet. He had arrived, unannounced, in ops in the middle of the Samurai’s arrival and hadn’t exactly endeared himself. Since then, they two had barely spoken. She thought about mentioning her unease, but she figured that the captain would respond exactly the same way that she would were their roles reversed. ‘You’re the XO, you need to figure out how to work with him. Get on with it.’

“Will there be anything else, ma’am?” she asked instead, a relaxed expression masking her underlying insecurity.

"Not at the moment, Number One," Suzuki smiled. "Other than, of course, thank you for staying."

Mikaela smiled a little as she nodded. She turned and headed out of the office, sure - perhaps for the first time - that she had made the right decision. It wasn’t necessarily going to be easy, but she had more friends on the station than anywhere else in the universe. In the last few minutes, she had been reminded of her role and, indirectly, of why she took her oath in the first place.

She nodded again as she passed Mejia in the atrium, before strolling out into main operations. She paused, a couple of paces in, to soak in the sight of officers and crew all going about their duties. As she did so, an operations ensign asked her to approve a replication manifest, which she did.

She crossed to the command station and sat down, quickly setting the console to her specification, and she began the process of preparing for any new Starfleet ships that might be arriving that morning. As she worked, she paused, briefly, to allow herself a smile. Suddenly, she felt something she had not felt since before Drake had died...

She felt at home.

 

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