The World Through Your Eyes

Posted on Tue Aug 9th, 2022 @ 7:01am by Lieutenant Commander Rin & Captain Samuel Woolheater

Mission: MISSION 0 - History Speaks
Location: USS Elysium - DECK 32 - MARDET OFFICES
2793 words - 5.6 OF Standard Post Measure

[ON:]

=== USS ELYSIUM – NCC 89000 – DECK 32 – MARINE COUNTRY – MARDET OFFICE - 0800 HOURS – END OF SHIFT ===


1ST Lieutenant Samuel Woolheater, tired, but happy, was about to end his shift for today. Marines of the first platoon had spent the evening running holodeck simulation on the shooting range and in hand-to-hand combat. That had been two-hours ago now. Woolheater had showered and changed out of his PT’s and back into a duty uniform. He was expecting company from the Intelligence Department. None other than the Chief Intelligence Officer, Lieutenant Rin. Sam finished entering the data, the sharp shooting scores and verifications, plus the observations of the physical practices that were performed in this evening’s training for a report. This report and others like them would be reviewed by the MXO, Captain Tonelly and the MCO, Colonel Azhul. And Sam was very good at writing a detailed report.

The office was quiet now, except for the music that was playing. Debussy: Part III. Clair de lune. It was perfect for him as he relaxed and waited for Lieutenant Rin. He opened a PaDD and was reading about a new ziplining adventure that he’d like to go to. Inzerta Prime, a variable gravity world where there were mountains that floated above an azure ocean. Three moons and lush vegetation. Zipline from “island” to “island”. For Sam, this would be like “camping”. As he thumbed the PaDD, the music played in the background.

He heard the door to the deck open.

Rin stepped in, a woman of average height with chin length black hair, perhaps 40 years old judging by appearance. Two prominent implants sat above and below her left eye, and she was dressed in the black and gray of the Intelligence department.

She came over to the only other person in the office and held out a hand. "Lt. Woolheater? I'm Lt. Rin."

Sam stood up from the chair as the Starfleet officer entered the office and approached. He first noticed the pips on her collar and then the color. ~Intelligence~, he thought to himself. Sam had a few poor experiences with the Intelligence folks. In his experience, their works was about as useful as a weather report on Risa. And about as useful as a Klingon dentist. And just as painful. It wasn't their ass out there taking the heat when things got fouled up and wrong. Sam remembered his last OP and the failure it was. And it seemed to him that Intel was never "wrong" - it was poorly executed by guys like Sam and Colt. Somehow the screwups were their fault but the succeses never were.

He pushed all of those feelings down because he next saw the implants. And even from this distance they were clearly Borg. ~Ooohhh kaayyy. Fine~ he thought. "Lieutenant Rin, a pleasure to meet you. Welcome to the sixty-second marine detachment. Better known as 'marine country'. You picked a perfect time to stop by. For many marines the day is just starting with the Alpha shift. Can I get you anything? Coffee perhaps?" Sam said with his most hospitable tone of voice.

"Coffee would be nice, thank you," she replied. "I've made it a point to familiarize myself with all of the departments, but this is the first ship I've served on which had a Marine detachment. I've been negligent in not coming down here sooner and introducing myself. Captain Tonelly said you'd be able to show me around, walk me through things?"

Sam ordered a coffee service from the replicator as he listened politely. A carafe of hot coffee with all of the trimmings. Cream, sugar, spoons and an official "SFMC" mug were on a green corked serving platter. Sam placed it on his desk and said, "It would be my pleasure Lieutenant. Captain Tonelly told me to expect you and that I was to escort you with 'white glove' service." He smiled genuinely as he sat down and interlaces his fingers before him on the desk. He tapped a button and the music stopped. "There we are el tee. Please help yourself. We can take a walk when you're ready?"

A slight expression of being impressed by the presentation crossed her face as she poured herself a mug and added a bunch of sugar to it. "Thank you."

"I think you're very through in getting to know all of the departments. That's a good idea. I want to do that too. I'm still fairly new but, I'll do my best to answer any questions you may have." She was one of the Ex-Borg folks. What a horror that must have been. Sam didn't particularly like the Borg. They were the galaxy's viral contagion. Swarming through entire star systems like a virus and killing, 'assimiliating' everything that got in the way. But, times have changed and so has his attitude towards those strong, lucky people who made it of that experience alive. The person who sat before him was a Starfleet officer and that meant a great deal to him. Sam asked, "What kind of Intelligence work do you do? I mean..do you have a specialty?"

"I'm a data analyst," Rin answered, sipping her coffee. "I'm good with numbers, patterns, correlations. Which is good, because I'd be a terrible covert operative. I'm told I have a memorable face."

She smirked slightly with the comment as she took another sip. "What about you? Any particular reason for being a scout and sniper? Or are you just very good at it?"

Sam answered her first question. He was glad that she was enjoying the coffee, "A mask tells us more than a face though" he said. He was alert and animated with a lightness to him. He was also a humble soul and not much into grandstanding, "Marine Corps has taught me how to blend in and disappear. Comes in handy. Sometimes. How'd you know I was a sniper?" he asked so pleasantly. A merry grin on his face as he cast her a look, "Have you been peeking over my shoulder?" he said with a playful tone. He laughed, "Oh...yeah...you're Intel. I guess you'd know these things?"

She smiled and nodded. "Yes. Although it being your primary job function, I don't have to get far into the personnel file to know that."

"I'm just good at it. I know what I'm doing and get the job done. Y'know...I just...do my job and come home in one piece." From another person that might have sounded arrogant. But not Sam. It wasn't a boast or an inflated ego. It just was what it was.

"That's all we can ask for. So, shall you show me around?"

"Of course! Well, let's start here? This is the main admin office for the marine detachment . We're Division Six, HQ in on Galaxy Station. From there the detachments come, we're the sixty-second and we have four platoons. One-hundred and sixty-two marines serve on Elysium. You already know the Colonel and the MXO. From this admin office we take care of the daily running of the man and women in the sixty-second. Uh...over here on this LCARS display is the duty roster and here is today's active duty training schedule. So, we've got some holodeck training going on. There's some sniper/target training in an hour, uh.....right now, you might like this, there is cortége drill for the honor guard. We'll see them on our way about. Uh....monitors around the deck, armory here, office here, locker room here, firing range...etcetera." He looked at her for any questions. "Shall we?" he indicated to the door.

"Lieutenant, relax," Rin said. "I don't need to know every panel, although I appreciate the thoroughness. I'd just like a better sense of how things go on down here: what a day is like, what the security procedures are, how fast you can gear up in an emergency, information that helps my department work better with your department."

"Ah" he said and stopped. "Well" he said and stepped through the door. "There it is" and held out his hand to the main open area of the floor. Walking slowly as he spoke he said, "We try to keep things varied as much as possible. Some marines here are, well they're not 'new' but not as seasoned. I know of a sharpshooter, Colton Renth that has quite a lot of experience. Sometimes he will mentor other marines who need some finish on their skills. Hand-to-hand, CQB, live fire exercises, that sort of thing. There is some classroom work, but most of it is in the field. I just got recertified myself for sniper." He paused, "When was the last time you were in the field Lieutenant?"

"A few months ago we received a distress call from a ship which had crashed decades ago. I was a part of the away mission," Rin related. "We discovered a temporal anomaly which needed to be shut down. According to the person responsible, I'm going to encounter him at some point in ancient Babylonia. So I'm brushing up on ancient Babylonian, just in case."

"What about you?" Rin asked. "You've recently come aboard. How does this compare to your previous assignment?"

"Ancient Babylon? Sounds...intriguing" he said with an interest. "Temporal anomalies always...I don't like them. I have enough trouble with just this timeline."

Sam thought about the last op, the smile vanished from his face, 'crestfallen' would be a good word describing his features now. He simply said, "My last op? My last op. I....lost my protectee. It took me...hours crawling on my belly. A scientist. Didn't deserve to die...like that. I wasn't fast enough. People died. People? No, that's not right. One person." He folded his hands behind him. "That was my last op." He took in a breath and then let it out. "Anyway. Can't fix dead" he said as he thought of Emily too.

Rin winced at her failure at conversation, failing to hide it. "My apologies. I didn't mean to bring up bad memories."

He nodded in acknowledgement, "You could not have known. I can imagine that perhaps you folks in Intel sometimes have a bad day too? You make a mistake, we get wrong info or we misinterpret the info and...yeah." He nodded and let the uncomfortableness of it sit for just a moment.

"Yes, everyone has bad days, and the worst days are when we lose people." She nodded solemnly in agreement. "If I may ask, how do the Marines deal with such things? You're at the front of the fight. You're more likely to lose comrades. How do Marines deal with that? I'm asking about the organization as a whole, how it deals with such things."

They were walking slowly through the marine areas as the spoke. Her questing hit a little too close to home. Sam remembered the day he lost Emily and not a damn thing he could do about it. But, they pinned an award on him for sharpshooter excellence and he just had to be strong. But, it wasn't him that was strong. "I...uhh..." he stopped and turned his emotions off. That's what it felt like. He said, "There are tough times. Times that you have to do things, or see things that you don't want to do or see. And yet, you have to do it. You have to charge that hill. You have to go into a hail of phaser fire. And, the only thing that keeps you going is that you know that the person next to you, on either side, or behind you or in front of you they won't leave your side. You are going together and, you do things right, you're coming home together. One of you might be in a bodybag. But you're coming home. We don't choose the fight. We don't start the fight. But we will finish it. So, its like family y'know? And yeah, I know that some people have pretty shitty families. But here, when you're a marine? You get the best of the best. And we're in Starfleet. So, its even better. Working alongside and together with you nice folks." He paused and said, "I've lost people. I've had to write those letters home to the families. Its an unpleasant task. But, its the last, or one of the last things we can do for them. Then I gladly do it. What matters is the mission. You know? Sometimes...it can feel like we're just expendable. Sometimes...I feel like....Intel puts us there, in the line of fire, to grind up the meat. Sometimes. I know that's not the intent. But, we don't get a choice sometimes."

Rin paused as they walked, putting a hand on Sam's shoulder and looking at him directly. "That is not how I run Intel here," she says softly, yet intently. "You are frequently the first line of defense or attack. That is the job, as you say. But you are just as valued as anyone else on this ship. You are not something to discard. You are more than a resource. You are not any more expendable than anyone else on this ship. Life is something to be preserved whenever possible."

He hadn't expected that. But it was welcome, "Thank you Lieutenant. That means a lot coming from the Chief Intelligence Officer for a Federation Starship. These mean and women are people too." He paused to remember Emily's face. He could remember every detail but the memory that came back to him was from her last comm from the Jubilee. The fire, the look of absolute terror as she was sucked out into the void.

He could still compartmentalize that pain, thankfully. When she touched his shoulder, he couldn't remember the last time he had been touched. The last time anyone had laid a kind hand on him was back on Titan. How he longed for that connection once again. He realized that a drop, the merest drop of kindness was sweet to a weary world. "What I mean is...when I get in your shoes, walk around a bit and see the world through your eyes....maybe we're not so far apart in our goals? You know? Maybe there is more common ground here than meets the eye. What if we collaborated more? Broke down some of the administrative barriers? Shared and pooled what we know and what we don't know? You would know our strengths, our tactics and methods. And we would know what the mission is with context and meaning? To turn mission accomplished into mission success?"

"That's the thought behind me coming down here, and if this could lead to further collaboration I would absolutely support it, and I appreciate you reaching out."

There was something, much more to this person. He was surprised when he asked, "You are ex-borg yeah? Your implants? How....did you become ex-borg?"

Yup, should just bring pamphlets, she once again thought as she nodded in acknowledgement. Her voice, however, didn't give any hint of frustration or offense as she answered with her usual matter-of-fact tone.

"Psychic pulse went through the cube. Broke the connection with the Collective. Most of the drones went insane, but there were a few who escaped before the cube self destructed. I spent 8 years in the Beta quadrant on a planet called Tavara before a Federation ship made First Contact there. I chose to return with them to learn about where I came from. I was eventually accepted back into Starfleet, which I had previously served with before Wolf 359."

Sam listened and thought that her answer was remarkably succinct and informational. He responded with, "Ah. Well. There it is. Not Tavaran face paint or afast pass on the turbolift after all" he joked hoping for a bit of levity.

She nodded with a slight smile. "You've taken the topic more graceful than most."

Ending up back in front of the administrative offices, Sam said, "We may never know where we last laid our comm badges, but one thing is certain; the Universe likes diversity. Diverse ideas, languages, people and viewpoints. I hope that finding common ground proves fruitful for both of our departments. If you don't have any questions for me? Then this is where our 'tour' ends." He indicated to the coffee mug, "Keep the mug if you like? Next time, you can give me a tour of the Intelligence Suite perhaps?" he asked.

"I'll see what I can do. I hear the chief is a bit of a hard-ass. Good day, Lieutenant." And with a bit of a smirk, she exited marine country.