"Letters from a Clerk - March 15, 2398"

Posted on Sun Aug 18th, 2024 @ 4:18am by Crewman Adelaide Kirkby

Mission: Season 6: Episode 5: A church beyond heaven
Location: Adelaide Kirkby's Quarters
Timeline: MD01
2573 words - 5.1 OF Standard Post Measure

[ON:]

Letters from a Clerk – March 15, 2398


My name is Adelaide Kirkby, and I am a clerk at the clerical pool. I was assigned to the USS Elysium eighteen months ago. There isn’t anything special about me to warrant such a posting. I was just one of the available clerks in the pool and the Starfleet Marines needed someone to help keep their records and files in order. Someone to help Colonel Azhul stay on top of the administrative part of managing a detachment of shipboard Marines.

But, six-months ago, this ship and crew experienced a disaster. For too many people, our encounter, our crash with the quantum filament was a life-ending event. For everyone, it was life changing. And, up until that point I was content to be “just” a clerk from the clerical pool. Happy to help in any way that I could. Until that day when everything changed. You see, up to that point in my life and career, I was so sure about who I was and what my purpose in life was. I think? I think I thought that I knew the direction that my life was going. And the filament changed all that. I knew then that I didn’t really know who I was or what I was capable of or where I belonged. Or if I even belonged anywhere. I was a part of this crew, I had served on other Federation facilities before, and once on a starship for six weeks. But nothing long term.

But, on that day, September 4th, 2397, the day we hit the filament, I learned in the starkest terms possible, what it means to belong.

Before I get to that day and how I changed and how it changed the lives of so many of the people that I care about in this crew, I want to tell you why I am doing this. Writing these letters. I feel it is important to note that Elysium had a history and archives department. Those crewmen are all dead. They were killed, along with so many, when the ship crashed. And by no means am I suggesting that I am anything like an archivist. I am aware that Starfleet crew and officers keep personal as well as official logs. This will be different. This is my attempt to write down what happened “today” as I see it. From my own perspective. I will try to be dispassionate about it as I can and just record facts as I understand them and as I know them. Because, I think, that element will be missed unless someone else records it. Someone like me. This isn’t for posterity or for some grand purpose. This is just me, Adele and what I see, what I heard…how the day makes me feel and what I think.

Feeling like you don’t belong…anywhere; that you don’t fit…anywhere is a terrible kind of poverty. One can feel isolated, alone and adrift. You can be surrounded by people and still feel alone. I want to get that out there at the start. And let me say that I am not a Marine. So, I wasn’t expecting that I’d have even the slightest connection. I was there to do an administrative job. One that I know I do very well. Being a clerk in the pool you kind of have to be okay with getting an assignment, maybe for a little bit, make friends with the client and then you’re gone. The job or the task is over. So, you learn, kind of, depending on the assignment, how much of yourself to invest in the people you are trying to help. They requested services and I am here to fulfill that request and there is this kind of transactional nature to it. And that’s the way that works. I am used to that, and it doesn’t bother me. And that’s how I got started.

But this place was different. The top person, the top Marine in charge is a Colonel. Colonel Azhul Naxea, a Bajoran and the highest-ranking Marine on the whole ship. She has a lot of responsibility and from the start, I could see that she needed help with simple, but important, tasks. Like personnel and staff records, communications, reports, logistics. All of the reporting and paperwork that keeps an organization like the SFMC running. She made me feel a part of the department and appreciated. I got to help people, Marines, get the right benefits, recognition, family care and career opportunities that they were entitled to get. The Colonel helped me feel like I was part of something bigger. Part of a mission. Not just some secretary that was a temp.

And, I think what impressed me, what still sticks with me today, is that she treats everybody like that. No matter how busy she is, she makes the time to talk with her staff and her front-line people. Not once has a Marine come to the office and can’t see the Colonel. She stops what she’s doing, she gives that person her full attention. She listens and she asks questions, and she listens again. She does more listening than talking, I think. But people feel heard. And,, she is the top Marine on the ship. If you’re a Marine in a fire team, now that I know what a fire team is, and the boss listens to you, really listens to you. Well, I don’t think you can do better.

And that’s what leaders do. I’ve seen what happens when the top person doesn’t listen. Doesn’t take care of their staff. It never ends well. The Colonel’s XO, Captain Tonelly, well it used to be Captain Tonelly, he is the same way. He is closer to the grunts I think than most. But he also is available. Available and caring people.

So, now that you know that part, I can tell you about that day. September 4th, 2397, the part that changed me. I woke up to a headache and being disoriented. I heard alarms and the lights wouldn’t come on. There were hull breaches and fires, I thought maybe we were under attack. I couldn’t understand what was happening around me. I struggled to my feet. I was trapped and I knew that I had to get to safety. I was pinned down by my own bed. My roommate had the nightshift, so I was alone. And I have never been so scared in my life. At times, I heard explosions, the power came on and went off again. My ears would pop and then I couldn’t breathe. Then my ears popped again and air was rushing in. I couldn’t see very well in the dark. I heard screaming outside my room. Artificial gravity was on and off again. I was calling for help and no one heard me. No one knew to look for me. And I had nobody to call.

That was probably the darkest moment of my life. Feeling like nobody would miss me. Not having the chance to tell my mom or my dad how much I loved them and would miss them. Not saying goodbye to my brothers. My room a wreck. And how to explain being in pajamas that read on the pajama top, “Clerical workers do it by the book”? I didn’t want some rescue crew to find me days later, suffocated in those pajamas and not being able to explain myself.

Kidding aside, for six hours I came face to face with a terrible kind of loneliness and isolation. Disconnected from everyone and with so much of my life undone. I later learned that I was there for six hours as a rescue team worked their way to find me. But it seemed like a lot longer. And all the while, I hear the ship tearing itself apart.

Then, out of the darkness and the smoke and the quiet, I could see a light, then two and then three. I wanted to cry out, but I was so weak, and I could just barely breathe. Instead, I found a piece of my bedframe and banged and banged and banged some more with a broken PaDD. Did they hear me? I kept that up as long as I could. It seemed like ten or fifteen minutes. What I didn’t know is that, to get to me, there was no deck floor. It had collapsed. The rescuers were finding a way across and making sure that they wouldn’t also become casualties.

Here's the best part. The whole point of my letter today. I heard them and saw them coming closer. They were Marines! In their combat armor. They heard me and they came, and they dug me out and pulled me out. It was all such a daze. They gave me a breather and a hypo to help me breathe and stabilize. I remember being surprised and, of course, grateful. But I was totally unprepared for what happened next. They told me that we had crashed into something, and the ship was severely damaged. They checked me over for injuries as two other Marines searched the deck, or what was left of it.

I asked them how did they know I was here? Who else survived on my deck? I was scared and frightened. I was shaky and cold because life support was off. It was dark and I was just in pajamas and bare feet. I later learned the names of the two Marines that helped me that night, Lance Corporal Evan Griffin and Corporal Fin Waltz. Evan answered me and said, “Captain Woolheater told us to come and get you. Make sure you are safe and to bring you back.”

I think I said, “Bring me back?” or something to that effect. I was rather stunned.

Evan nodded, “He told us to come and get you. You’re one of us and we want you with us.” That moment will be with me the rest of my life. I don’t know if I can tell you, how deeply moving that is to me. It was at that moment, that I understood what it means to ‘belong’. I understood a part of them too. When you hear about ‘no one left behind’. Its more than words. It’s a commitment. Its like the same feeling the same concern the same idea that you would do anything to get that family member. That’s how it felt to me. It was profound. They came looking for me. To get me . Of all the things they needed to do, the rescues they had to do, these guys were here because they are my family.

Well, I must have been a basket case. I remember Evan asking me if I could walk. Was I hurt anywhere else? He noticed I had no shoes and was just in pajamas. He carried me. I wrapped my arms around his back and shoulders, and I hung on tightly. And you bet, I cried the whole time. Tears of gratitude. Tears for being a part of something. Tears of belonging. I wasn’t alone. Somebody missed me. Somebody cared. That changed me. And I want to pass that on.

Before I finish, I want you to know that while they came for me, it was not because they only cared that I was OK. They would have rescued anyone. It doesn’t matter. And I am not saying that they only were looking for Marines. I am not saying that other crew were expendable or “not one of ours” and they would have left behind or passed over. Because I know that Security was also desperately trying to reach as many crew as they could. So were rescue and damage control teams. Everyone who could was doing everything they could to make sure everyone was safe. That’s the reality of the situation we faced.

What I am trying to convey is the way my life was changed because they came especially looking for me. Not exclusively. The message I hope I am conveying is that it matters when you belong to a group. And for someone like me, who really is expendable from the clerical pool, it matters a lot when they came for me. And to know that the CO of the first platoon, a Marine Captain and now the XO sent them for me; it choked me up.

When we got to deck thirty-two, ‘Marine Country” the medics checked me out. Then they gave me clothes to wear and shoes. The best part is, after I was OK, they put me to work. And its what I needed. I wanted to help as many people as I could. To let the rest of the scared crew, the rest of the people streaming in that they too belonged. They mattered. They were missing and were found. Just like me. Somebody cared.

And, after that, even though I’m still not a Marine. I’m still just a clerk. I get these people. I get them a little bit more. They are my brothers and my sisters. They are the most annoying, messiest, loud, stubborn, knuckle-dragging, devil dogs that I know. They are my family.

If there is some advice that I can give from this experience on that terrible day back in September. And the months that followed on an ice planet, it would be this. And I’ve thought about this a lot since the fourth of September. So here it is: Each day, find one person.

One person who is crying out.
One person who is asking for help.
One person who is shrinking away.
One person who is as different from you as you can possibly imagine.
One person whom you are absolutely too busy to spend time with.

Whom you are tempted to dismiss or demonize.
Who is on the side of the road on which you are traveling.
Who is absolutely a distraction from things that everyone including you believe is so much more important.

And stop.

Stop what you are doing and listen to their cry. Invite them to share themselves with you. Learn each other’s names. Listen, listen and listen some more. And then when you are done listening to listen some more. Just like the Colonel does.

And then tell them what you have heard and ask, “Did I get it right.” Then ask, “what would you have me do for you.”

Give them a word of courage. A word of companionship. A word of love. And then be open to receive the word they have for you.

And there will be healing.
And there will be joy.
And one meeting at a time, we will begin to travel together along the way. Along this journey home. Along the way to meeting our brothers and sisters we didn’t know we have.

“He told us to come and get you. You’re one of us and we want you with us” changed my life. It can change yours.

This is my letter today. This is history worth remembering.



[OFF:]


Crewman Adelaide Kirkby