Dinner For All Part 2 of 2

Posted on 04 Feb 2023 @ 8:40pm by Captain Bane Plase & Lieutenant JG Lisald Vaat & Lieutenant Maralen Seitha & Lieutenant Commander Temerant Bast & Lieutenant Commander Elodin Devan MD & Lieutenant Commander Raviran Dattek-Winters

4,052 words; about a 20 minute read

Mission: Outbreak
Location: Hartley Quarters
Timeline: after Dinner for All Part 1

Somehow, against all laws of physics it seemed, the Hartley's had managed to set up a table in their quarters and even set up a seating plan to make it easy for everyone to get a seat.

After a very successful course of starters, everyone was joining in with the chatter across and around the table when the main course arrived. Ravi had helped their hostesses plate up and waitress the whole course and everyone now had their full plates with each of their preferences and dietary needs accounted for. It was a feat of sheer genius on Kin's part and Ravi was full of admiration for her abilities with organising it all.

The food was delicious and there were many comments and much praise and admiration of the dishes available. Drinks were plentiful and happy conversation was continuing all around the whole group.

Ravi had begged Kin'Fuji to move her on the seating plan so she wasn't in direct line of sight of Lisald and nor near enough to have to go past him to get up to help.

By the time the whole party got to desserts, cheese, coffee and mints, or any given alternative to that level of courses appropriate to their tastes, cultures or preferences, it was as if they'd all known each other for years, not just the very tiny amount of time that was the real fact of it.

Captain Bane cleared his throat to get everyone's attention. In traditional Bajoran custom, he would have knocked an elucite stick, a small wooden rod that had about the same consistency and feel of a tulip poplar on Earth, against a slate of dacite rock. On Earth, he knew it was customary to tap a spoon or fork against a crystal glass. And on Qo'Nos, to slam the goblet of bloodwine on the table. Since they were not on Bajor, Earth or Qo'Nos, he felt this were appropriate.

Immediately the din of conversation stopped, all eyes on the Captain. "Very special thanks to Lieutenant and Doctor Hartley for their hospitality and the delicious food." He then looked around to the rest of the people gathered here, his eyes falling on, and holding for a moment, each person. "And special thanks to each of you, and to this larger family. I feel the Prophets have blessed each of us for bringing us all together, to carry this grand adventure into the unknown."

Maralen had listened a great deal and talked a little during the meal. He had learned long ago that one learned more about those around him by listening vigilantly more than talking. And what he had learned tonight was that this was a group of warm and embracing people. They did, as the captain had just described them, seem to be a sort of extended family, a concept that he had not felt in many years. He remembered it -- that was the good side of having an eidetic memory -- but that remembrance only meant that he knew what he had been missing all these years. Maybe...

Raising his glass, he nodded to the captain's statements. While he did not share the man's religious beliefs, Maralen did not begrudge Bane his beliefs. "And may this family of ours weather any storm the universe brings our way."

"Hear, Hear!" Ravi agreed softly.

This seemed to spark off a chorus from others around the table.

Temerant raised his glass and echoed the cheer. He was new to this family, along with many of the others, but he already felt welcome. The feeling of family was more intense on this ship than on his previous postings, but then his previous posts hadn't been this far out into deep space, and personnel turnover was significantly greater, which was counterproductive to creating this sort of bond between crewmates. And his previous Hosts hadn't served in Starfleet, so the Bast symbiont had no reference to compare the sensation to.

Elodin, sitting across from the Trill at the table, bowed his head at the Captain's mention of the Prophets, and raised his glass of springwine. "May the Prophets guide our path and lead us to safety," he prayed.

Bane, for his part, smiled at the cheers and responses to his impromptu speech.

Further down however, Lisald Vaat frowned and lowered his head, not in a manner of respect or in a (very human) pose of prayer, but instead one of defeat, or maybe it was resignation. The man had been unusually quiet and reserved this evening, save for a bit of a fuss between him and the Assistant Chief Medical Officer a bit earlier. Beyond that, he had largely kept to himself. Not that he hadn't tried to mingle and rub elbows.

Maralen was nothing if not observant. Vigilance always. That had been one of the first Lessons the Realm had taught him. It had saved his furry butt many times over the years, but now it served to alert him to the fact that one of the crew gathered here was not feeling the joy that this was intended to inspire. He remembered the man from earlier -- they had not chatted long, but Maralen remembered everyone and everything. Lisald Vaat. He also remembered seeing the same man have a conversation with a lady who had then tried to run out but been stopped by one of their hosts. He had wondered at the time what that had been about, but itwas none of his business, and so he had not asked. It was still none of his business, but there was definitely something wrong, and that warm core the Realm had tried to destroy felt a desire to help.

Quietly and stealthily, he moved from the seat he had been occupying while others' attention was on whatever conversations they were now having with one another -- he was not actively listening to them. Making his way around the table, he made sure to make a little noise before reaching his target so as not to startle the man -- he knew he could be fairly intimidating if one was not expecting him.

Reaching Lisald, he spoke softly to the man, intending his words to be for Lisald alone. "Are you all right?" he asked softly. The obvious answer was 'no', but he had observed that many of the life forms in this galaxy used that question more as an offer of listening than as the obvious question it seemed to be.

Lisald looked over at the person speaking to him. Cracking a smile on his face, he nodded and responded. "Hey! Yeah, I am just fine," he lied. Then the smile flipped into a frown, his eyes dropped to the floor. He shook his head and amended. "No, I'm not. I'm afraid I hurt the feelings of a close friend, and I think my time on this ship is coming to a close." Just getting all that off his chest made him feel better. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to ruin your good mood with my melancholy."

Maralen was no Counselor, and he hadn't been sure the man would talk to him that openly. Hell, he wouldn't have, not to a virtual stranger which was what Maralen was to this poor man. But then, he reminded himself, these people didn't have his background. They hadn't been taught to mistrust everything and see the traps everywhere. In a way, he felt honored that Lisald confided in him. For a moment, though, he considered how best to respond.

"You didn't ruin my mood," he started honestly. "Please don't mistake my calm, contemplative manner for being 'down'. I'm always this way," he assured with a smile. "As to the rest..." he paused, his expression becoming thoughtful. "I'm going to guess the lady you were speaking to earlier." She had looked upset after whatever conversation they'd had, but there were any number of reasons that could cause that, some of which would place no blame on Lisald. Maralen assumed nothing. "Why do you think your time here is ending? Has Starfleet reassigned you?" he asked, opting for the most obvious reason that assumed nothing about the man's personal affairs but opened a door for him to share further if he wished.

The toothy smile that Maralen gave was a bit unnerving for Lisald, but he did not let on that it bothered him. As an Anthropologist by training, it fascinated him as much as it unnerved him. Of course, any discovery in anthropology did that often to the discoverer. "Yes, it was her. She is Dr. Ravi Dattek-Winters. We are friends, and no, Starfleet isn't reassigning me. I know you weren't aboard for this ship's last mission. During that mission, I was seriously wounded in the line of duty, so," he said, a bit of an unexpected laugh escaping his lips, "I am having an existential crisis. I am heavily considering leaving Starfleet and going back to Bajor. It is safer there," he concluded. "Ravi, er, Dr. Winters, doesn't seem to care for that idea, and is upset she is losing a friend, I guess."

There were two very clear sides to this situation, even on just Lisald's side that Maralen could see right off. One, whatever had happened to him on this last mission had put a scare into him, one so deep that it overrode whatever it had been that had made him join Starfleet in the first place. And because of that, he now wanted safety and stability, things very much lacking in Starfleet. And two, he obviously felt terrible for the pain his choice caused his friend and likely wished to alleviate it. But that would require him to change his plan, and part of him was very much afraid of doing that or he wouldn't be considering leaving the fleet in the first place. Of course, Maralen could also be reading the man completely wrong -- he was no Counselor -- but he doubted it given the physical indicators he had been observing.

"May I ask, what drew you to join Starfleet in the first place?" he asked, his voice still quiet.

For a moment, the expression on Lisald's face was neutral, almost blank. However, it soon cracked a smile, if a small one. "I earned a double doctorate on Bajor before applying to Starfleet Academy in Alien Archaeology, and in Anthropology. I wanted to visit far-off worlds, to dig in the dirt, and to piece together the history of a long-forgotten civilization, or to rediscover history for a people that had forgotten it." His eyes came into sharp focus as he looked at his companion. "I seem to have lost my way somewhere along the lines. I never wanted to do anything else other than that. I somehow managed to find myself first as this ships Chief Science Officer, then, quite unexpectedly, as the Chief of Operations. I was suddenly chasing rank and position and prestige rather than science and truth and understanding." He sighed, then concluded. "And that is that. That is why I do not believe I belong in Starfleet anymore."

Maralen considered the man before him and what he could sense from him carefully as he spoke. When Lisald spoke of what he had studied for and why he'd come out here, Maralen could sense the pleasure he took in that. When the man moved on, however, Maralen frowned. Fortunately, his tail was coiled around his waist, its tip tucked under the coils, or its tip might have flicked. He could now smell a mixture of emotions, none of them pleasure. But he felt that perhaps the man was dealing in extremes. Either be in Starfleet and go in directions he didn't want or get out of Starfleet and be what he'd trained to be. Did it really have to be so black and white?

In the Realm -- and to an even greater degree with the Singers -- it had been very clear-cut for him. He was what They needed or wanted him to be. End of story. But here, in Starfleet, in the Federation, it was supposed to be different. One was supposed to be able to choose his own path.

"Is it possible that you are making this decision as a reaction rather than a choice?" he posed the question as just a seed for thought, adding by way of clarification of his point, "It does sound as though you've gone down a course you didn't intend to and you don't favor. But that doesn't mean that you can only continue down that course if you stay in Starfleet," he advised gently. "Not that I'm trying to tell you what you should do. I'm not. I would just hate for you to make a decision in emotion that you might later regret."

Lisald shook his head, indicating that he didn't think the Ledaran was trying to tell him what to do.

Thinking for a moment, he decided that perhaps if he gave a little about himself, it might help the kind advice to seem less meddling and more sharing. "Since leaving my... former employers" -- that was not the descriptive he had wanted to use, but it would do for now -- "I very quickly learned that the universe exists in shades of gray rather than the very narrow definitions They had given me to live inside of. I learned that what they made me isn't all I could be or had to be, that no matter how far down that course I had traveled, I could always choose to change my path." He gave a short pause for Lisald to process that. "Just because Starfleet has taken you down this course doesn't mean that you can't change it. Does it?"

The Bajoran furrowed his brow a bit. "Doesn't it, though? I used to be the Chief Scientist on this ship. Now it's him," Lisald said, pointing at Albert Spangler. "Then I was the Chief of Operations, but now it's him," he said, then pointing at Temerant Bast. "My options on this ship, and in my view, Starfleet, have closed, leaving me behind. The only 'path' that I see now is a path out of the uniform and off this ship, and back home to Bajor. Believe you me, and the Prophets as my witness, I wish desperately that this was not the case."

Maralen followed the pointing as Lisald indicated the officers who had replaced him in each role, but his eyes came back to Lisald afterward. "All right, the chief positions are filled, yes," he acknowledged the truth of that fact easily. "But from what you've said, that wasn't the job you wanted anyway," he reasoned. "Are there no positions on the ship, or in Starfleet, for the kind of science you wish to undertake?" That was a sort of rhetorical question even though his tone was kind and reasonable, showing no sarcasm or 'pointiness'. He was merely trying to help. Of course, there were such jobs, at least in Starfleet. And as to the ship? Maralen reviewed the manifest in his mind, coming up with the answer... yes.

"This is true," Lisald nodded, speaking to the fact about the trajectory his career had taken him, and never being happy in them. "As you are well aware, being in Starfleet yourself, you know that Starfleet is inertia-driven. It is very nearly unheard of that someone would take a step backwards, to take a demotion. Literally the only instance I can think of off the top of my head was when Admiral Kirk was demoted to Captain after the Probe incident on Earth. That was what, a hundred Terran years ago? And let's be real with each other," he said, a bit of an edge to his voice, "That really wasn't a demotion now, was it? They placed him back in the position in which he excelled at for so many decades prior to earning a flag rank. It may have been a demotion in rank, but it was a promotion in both prestige and ability. Beyond that, I cannot think of a single other person that had been demoted or taken a step backwards, can you?"

This was one of those moments when having an eidetic memory served him. "From all that I've read of Starfleet history, no. And for Kirk, that was basically giving him what he wanted, in a sense rewarding him," he agreed. "But there isn't any reason why someone couldn't step 'backwards' as you say, is there? There is no regulation against it." Again that memory was aiding him; every regulation was stored and retrievable as needed like any other memory. At least these were not painful, he thought a bit bitterly.

"None that I can think of," Lisald said, his spirits raising briefly. "Still, there is no precedent for it. Who knows what Captain Bane," he said, indicating to the elder Bajoran at the head of the table, "Would do or say about it. Plus, Captain Bane doesn't particularly care for me. The first time we met was a disaster, then he gave me a tongue lashing during the last mission, before we knew about the Crystalline Entity. Since then, he has not said more than a word or two to me. As far as I know, he never came to Sickbay when I was next to death. If a Senior Officer of his cannot even get an audience when they are on Death's doorstep, I seriously doubt he would be willing to go against the grain of Starfleet order for him." Lisald exhaled, then took in a deep breath. "I've already thought of that, of course. Maybe not in depth, but I have thought of it."

Maralen considered what Lisald said carefully, the Strategist in him coming into the foreground. Adapt. Strategize. That was what he had been trained to to, adapt to not only battle situation changes but pretty much any situational change around him. And Lisald's latest assertions had definitely constituted a change in the situation as Maralen had viewed it up until that moment.

On the one hand, some officers did decide matters in that way, based upon whom they might be annoyed with or who might have gained their favor most recently. On the other hand, what he had observed of Bane so far did not lead him to think that Bane was such an officer. Though, in fairness to Lisald's points, Maralen had not had the chance to observe Bane for very long, so his own assessment of the man might be erroneous.

Move on, his mind admonished him in the voice of the Executive as it often did when strategizing. After all, it was that man who had trained him to be so strategic.

Then there was the assertion that Bane had not visited him in Sickbay. One, he had been unconscious and therefore unaware of who might or might not have entered. Two, even if it was true that the captain had not come, there could be any number of reasons for that that had absolutely nothing to do with the man before Maralen now. He suspected that Lisald was adding it to the list of reasons the captain would refuse his request on the grounds that he felt that the captain was already annoyed with him. Not that Maralen could blame him. Many would have made that leap in Lisald's place, he guessed.

Maralen pulled out an empty chair beside Lisald -- whoever had been occupying it had moved away to carry on their own conversation elsewhere -- as he responded. "All of that may be true, and I am not going to question your perceptions of it," he began. "After all, you have been here far longer than I. But it would be bad form for a Starfleet captain to base a command decision on his personal feelings about an officer rather than that officer's quality of performance. That would represent the reverse of nepotism. Have you observed the captain demonstrating any such behavior before?" He was not attempting to get the man to badmouth the captain; quite the opposite. He was trying to show him that he shouldn't fear that, that he already knew better.

I hope I'm right about both men anyway, he thought very privately.

Lisald thought about it for a moment. His lizard brain wanted to scream out that he had, in fact, seen Bane do just that, that he had it out for Lisald. After all, their first encounter had been, in the mind and memory of Lisald, a complete disaster. However, Lisald's cerebral part of his brain had to admit that Bane had done nothing to warrant Lisald feeling the way he had. Bane had been exactly what Lisald needed: a firm and consistent leader. And who knew if Bane had visited him while in Sickbay. Well, Ravi would know. So would Dr. Elodin. But Lisald wasn't about to ask them at this point. It would seem vain and shallow, somehow. He could also ask the Captain himself, but he wasn't going to expose himself to the Captain any more than he had to. Maybe someday he would ask Commander Larsen. Surely he would know. "Honestly, I have not. Of course, I rarely see him engaging with anyone other than the XO. He is a pretty private man, I think. At least, with me he is. Has he ever, you know, talked to you," Lisald asked, his eyes shining with rapt curiosity.

Maralen replayed his encounter with the captain in his mind. The man had seemed warm enough though always busy. "To be fair, I am new and have only spoken to him once prior to tonight," he admitted. "And that was pretty much to report in. I really don't have enough personal experience with the man to say what sort of man he is." He smiled slightly, making certain to keep from showing his fangs as much as possible given that he had sensed Lisald's discomfort when he had smiled fully before. "But I very much doubt he spends his time thinking up ways to torment you," he added as a gentle tease meant to lighten the other man's spirits.

A smile cracked on Lisald's face. "Yeah, probably not." The two sat in silence for a moment, listening to the din of conversation from the others. Presently, Lisald spoke again. "Thank you for this, and thank you for being you." Under different circumstances, Vaat thought that he and Maralen would become friends.

Maralen could smell the sincerity as much as hear it. And he was touched by it. He smiled once more, though still careful not to show full fanga. "I can only be me, but you are welcome." He paused, knowing what he was about to say was normally a Counselor's line; but he liked the other man, thought they might even become friends if Lisald stayed. So he added after that momentary pause, "And if you ever need or want to talk, my door is open to you."

"That is very welcome and appreciated. Thank you." It was the start of an amazing friendship, he thought. He hoped Maralen felt the same way, as opposed to someone that was just an emotional leech.

At the head of the table, Bane marveled at how quickly and how perfectly the crew had gelled. He took special note in the deep, hushed conversation between the new Chief of Security and Mr. Lisald. He saw the conversation ongoing between Kin'Fuji, Christina and Ravi Winters. He noticed that Bast and Dr. Elodin were in conversation across the table from each other. Most surprisingly was the conversation going on between Spangler and the Counselor. Though the din was loud, he could not pick up on any specific conversation from any one of the many conversations going on at the table. Finally, he caught the eye of his Executive Officer, Commander Larsen, sitting opposite him at the other end of the table, and gave a small, but visible nod, a great deal gone unspoken between the two senior-most officers.



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