A Summons Of A Lifetime
Posted on 11 Dec 2019 @ 12:51pm by Lieutenant Commander Tivan & Admiral Zachary O'Connell
Edited on on 17 Jan 2020 @ 8:02pm
2,467 words; about a 12 minute read
Mission:
Epilogue
Location: Gamma Command
Timeline: December 2, 2389
So this was the Gamma Quadrant. Its milieu was both quaint and avant-garde befitting a true frontier. Tivan took a moment at the transporter pad to bask in the atmosphere. Her appointment with the admiralty was not for awhile yet. There was time to stop and smell the roses--a lovely human euphemism if there ever was one.
"Please step away from the pad," the transporter chief instructed. Due to the rank difference, he quickly added a terse, "Ma'am."
"Of course." Tivan suppressed a smirk at the Bolian NCO. "Be well, Chief."
The words caught him off guard, which nearly delighted Tivan. He nodded at her but said nothing more.
Left to her own whimsy, Tivan meandered out of the transporter pad and out to the main promenade. The sights and sounds of Starfleet's finest were familiar stimuli, yet Tivan could sense a tension beneath it all. A weariness pervaded the souls here beyond the standard combat fatigue of rank and file service. Yes, Tivan had read the general reports of the Consortium and all else, but that never told the whole story. One had to see the faces, read the eyes, and touch the souls of those who had survived it. Only then could the echoes of the ones who fell and were lost be heard.
Such silence was deafening. It made Tivan crave a good mocha. She wondered if the station made a good brew of the Vulcan variety. Checking her chronometer, she decided there was time to explore. After the journey, she'd rather feel her best, and that meant a hot cuppa.
If there was one thing that Zachary hadn't yet come to terms with, it was the size of his office. The room afforded by his previous assignment was only a quarter of the size. Not only was this spacious, but there was room enough to contain a conference table, several sofas and sitting areas, and a viewport the size of a Danube-class runabout. Since assuming command of Starfleet's assets in the Gamma Quadrant, Zachary had found his favorite place to standing in the middle of the viewport, gazing out into space.
The size of the window allowed every glimpse of technology to be removed from his peripheral vision. To his left was New Bajor, a colony fought over several times by the Dominion, Consortium, and more. Slowly it filled the window, obscuring the massive starfield as the starbase maintained a rotation. Still in his view were the shipyards. New Bajor hadn't been cleared for construction, but with so much happening in the Gamma Quadrant now, the need for extensive repairs were becoming greater. One of those shipyards contained a vessel commanded by his most beloved frenemy, Harvey Geisler.
Despite their rivalry, Zachary never would have wished upon Harvey the horrors the Captain experienced earlier this year. His ship had been invaded by parasites that had caused a major war centuries ago. He imagined the Dolmoqour would have given the Founders themselves a run for their latinum to see who could be the most manipulative and controlling. The sanity of seven hundred souls was a small price to pay for the continued safety and security of the quadrant, though after reading the reports, Zachary considered that cost to be far too high.
Both the Black Hawk and Captain Geisler were among Gamma Command's best assets. The Black Hawk's wounds had been removed, repaired, replaced, and repainted. Her crew's traumatic scars, however, would require a more tender care. Such care this engiineer-turned-flag officer did not know how to apply.
"Excuse me, Admiral," said a feminine voice from just inside the door.
O'Connell nodded at the view before turning and replacing the visage of space with that of his office and Petty Officer Tanika.
"I just received word, Admiral. Lieutenant Commander Tivan is aboard."
Zachary raised an eyebrow. He had summoned the Vulcan phycologist personally, having known of her prowess for some time. For her to even accept his invitation was surprising enough, and now for her to come aboard the starbase early was even more tantalizing. "Good," he remarked. "Go ahead and call her up here. I can speak to Commander Malcolm later this afternoon."
What were these creatures with bluish purple paint on their faces? From somewhere in Tivan's recollection came the word "Wadi," though scant few other details. The sheer number of species in the galaxy was quite literally astronomical, and so it often required direct interaction to know them. People watching was a fascinating past time.
And Tivan could not have asked for a more fascinating moment to observe. It was not every day that one could watch a Ferengi get hustled in the game of trade by a superior specimen, but this Wadi seemed more than a match. Tivan canted her head to one side, observing the nuances of body language and facial expression. They were too far away to be overheard, but as Tivan sipped her Vulcan mocha, she could still eavesdrop in a manner of speaking. Clearly the Ferengi was getting the short end of the deal. And, unless her powers of observation were dulled, she suspected the Wadi had some level of psionic prowess which supplemented his powers of persuasion. Tivan permitted herself a mirthful chuckle.
It was an entertaining floor show in the promenade cafe, but as in all things, the end came all too soon. A young woman in a yeoman's uniform cut a swath straight to her little table.
"Greetings," Tivan said to the yeoman. She sipped the last of her cuppa and wiped her mouth dry. "I suppose Admiral O'Connell is ready for me. Lead the way."
Once she stepped off the turbolift, Tivan was amazed to see that the admiral's office comprised most of this level. She had seen entire aboriginal villages contained within such dimensions. Such ostentation of design was meant to strike awe and send a strong message. The admiral certainly struck a picturesque pose, back lit as he was by the ambient glow of New Bajor through the floor-to-ceiling view port. Just what sort of man had asked for her by name?
Tivan approached, but stopped halfway between the view port and the turbolift. Let the yeoman announce her presence and be the one to disturb the admiral's contemplation.
"Admiral," Tanika said as she waved one of her dark skinned hands at the woman who accompanied her. "Lieutenant Commander Tivan."
"Thank you, Tanika," Zachary said with a smile, crossing the office to meet both women near the entrance. He outstretched a hand for Tivan to shake if she preferred. He had enough experience with teal-collared officers that not all of them were attached to protocol or rank. "Would you like anything before we start? Tea? Water?""
Glancing down at the proffered hand and then back up at the man, Tivan offered a faint smile. "No, thank you."
It was a universal gesture of hospitality, but Tivan knew human psychology well enough to understand the subliminal obligation it would place her in the admiral's debt. The amount was inconsequential, curiously enough, as the human psyche recognized the shift of power regardless of the degree.
She did shake his hand, though. If she rejected his hospitality, she needed to affirm her cooperation and subordination all the more.
Grief. Remorse. Resolve. An interesting but not uncommon combination. The admiral had summoned her for help in some matter.
"So how may I be of assistance?"
Before she would take heed of any words he spoke, Tivan took note of his nonverbal cues. They were far more important, and would set the context for the remainder of the conversation.
Zachary wasn't surprised the woman cut straight to the chase. After all, he had summoned her all the way from her last assignment, and then to his office earlier than scheduled. Every indication he'd given plainly stated that this was an urgent matter.
He gestured to a nearby couch, indicating that they should sit. "I don't suppose you are up to speed with events that have transpired in the Gamma Quadrant over the last eighteen months or so?"
"I may have caught a snippet or two," Tivan teased through her solemn expression, "but I would love to hear a summary from your perspective."
Zachary sat down on a blue chair which featured a simple upholstered but high back. He leaned against that back for now. "Eighteen months ago, Starfleet nearly lost its presence in the Gamma Quadrant thanks to an organization called The Consortium. Its members had slowly infiltrated our task force, and at all levels. No one knew of their existence, much less who was friend or foe, until they officially revealed themselves. At the time, I commanded the USS O'Carroll, and my XO just happened to be one of them.
"All in all, even though the Consortium only had a few hundred operatives, most were able to overthrow their starships under the guise of following orders. Tens of thousands of personnel wound up following illegitimate orders, and thousands more perished by the time we managed to fully rip the veil off. It has taken a long time for those who participated in that conflict, myself included, to heal and to freely trust the person wearing the uniform beside them."
Tivan nodded. That jived with the reports she had heard. "But that isn't why you've asked for me here today."
"No," the Admiral said simply. "The last traumatic event the Federation, as a whole, truly suffered was the Dominion War. The Consortium Crisis certainly doesn't hold a candle to it, but it was costly. Throughout this year, pretty much every Captain, every crewman, has been redistributed throughout the Federation. Fate managed to keep only one crew together, and that is why I asked for you."
The tale of a lone survivor was indeed a romantic one common to virtually every era of every culture. Tivan couldn't help but admit she found herself captivated in the telling. In no small part, her implied place in that tale was very well constructed. "Are you a student of history, Admiral?" She knew her question was a non sequitur, but she wanted time to think, and there was no better way to buy time than to talk out of turn. "I ask because you spin a good myth. Quite compelling, if I may say so. One might call it the 'stuff of legend'."
As she spoke, she considered her options. On the one hand, she could return to Starfleet Medical and continue perusing the very sort of case files that Admiral O'Connell was discussing. The research was direly important to the future of clinical psychology. Or she could return to the front lines of exploration where she could conduct research on the edge of the frontier with witnesses--or even as an eyewitness herself--to events as they happened rather than reading about them months or even years after the fact.
The choice, in that light, was quite clear. Tivan smiled broad enough to show teeth. "Tell me more of this crew."
Admiral O'Connell raised his right eyebrow in surprise. He'd never seen a Vulcan smile before, despite the fact he knew it was possible. Between the smile, and the use of myth and legend, Zachary could assume that she was either far from the standard Vulcan devotion of logic, or had spent too much time with those who use emotion. "The USS Black Hawk and its crew played a central role in the Crisis. It also recently returned from... what most would call a deep-space assignment. Toss in some good old-fashioned time travel, pre-destination paradoxes, and mind-controlling parasitic organisms, and you've got the ingredients for the stuff of legend."
Zachary paused for a breath before continuing. "It is easy to break up the crew, transfer them to assignments throughout the galaxy. But the fact is, they are the best. And right now, I need the best, and I need them to not self-destruct."
"It would also be more difficult to keep an eye on them if they were flung far and wide." Perhaps the admiral was too classy to say so, or perhaps Tivan took too much delight in her work. Still, it was not untrue. "Keeping them together would make the monitoring of their collective condition a much more tenable affair, but only if your herd had a proper caretaker -- an attendant who knew what to watch for and how to plan accordingly."
The wheels were already turning in Tivan's mind. Combat fatigue. PTSD galore. Possibly even Stockholm syndrome, though long discredited, due to mind-controlling parasites. It was a treasure trove of research. Excitement did not scratch the surface of how she was beginning to feel. "And thus you have reached out to me."
There was that logic that Vulcans were so famous for. "Correct," he verbally confirmed. He leaned forward, reaching for a face-down padd he'd set on the coffee table prior to the woman's arrival. "I've got a quadrant to rebuild, and I need the best Starfleet has to offer at their best, especially on those front lines where others might see weakness or opportunity." He handed her the device, which contained the data other counselors had collected so far, as well as the reports and logs from the Black Hawk's time in the Convergence Zone.
Tivan spared a moment to browse the report summaries of the first page of many. It was satisfying yet unsurprising that her preliminary predictions seemed right on the mark. "Starfleet Medical will be ruminating on these reports for years. And here they are being handed to me along with an assignment to oversee the patients' treatment." Thinking out loud was uncouth, but Tivan couldn't help herself. This was groundbreaking material at her fingertips. "I accept. Please notify the captain of the Black Hawk of my impending arrival. Which is to say that I am ready to begin immediately."
Zachary colored himself further impressed. He had prepared to fight harder for her services as he had not anticipated for this to be over so quickly. "Excellent. Orders are on that padd." What O'Connell didn't acknowledge was notifying Harvey that he should be expecting a new crewmember. "If you need to send for anything, I'll make sure that gets expedited before the Black Hawk departs in two weeks."
Trifles. Tivan was past them. While her research back on Earth would take a blow in the short-term, the overall gain from this assignment would be incalculable.
"Good, good," she said. "Very good. If there is nothing else, Admiral, I have some transmissions to send."
The Admiral stood, both following a gentleman's custom when a lady would rise and depart the table, and also serving an indication that the meeting had come to an end. "Of course, Commander. Dismissed."
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