Value in your Worth

Posted on 17 Jan 2023 @ 10:24am by Lieutenant JG Lisald Vaat & Captain Erik Larsen

1,892 words; about a 9 minute read

Mission: Outbreak
Timeline: Several hours after Lisald/Spangler JP

ON


Lisald thanked his friend, Albert Spangler, for coming over on such short notice, and watched him leave. He felt a bit better. At the very least, his legs had stopped taking him on adventures around his quarters. He never did get a satisfactory answer from his friend about the monkeys he kept referring to during their conversation. If they had their way, Commander Larsen and Captain Bane would be ok with Lisald transferring back to Science.

As the minutes dragged out like a knife, Lisald's self doubt and anger began to remanifest themselves. The silence was deafening in his quarters, and, going on what Spangler had recommended, Lisald tapped his commbadge.

"Lisald to Commander Larsen." Lisald waited for the Executive Officer to respond.

Buried under a mountain of crew reports, Erik Larsen was grateful for the small solace that interruption granted. “Larsen here. What can I do for you, Mister Lisald?”

"Sir, are you busy right now? I need to see you, to talk to you. It's important, uh, urgent, sir," he said, his voice wavering at the end, despite his best efforts. He didn't want to sound this way, to feel this way, and yet, here he was, sounding and feeling this way. He felt, trapped? He didn't know, for sure. He just knew he felt like he was different now.

Something about the timbre of the young Lieutenant’s voice troubled Erik. Lisald did not strike him as someone that would ask for an urgent meeting unless it was something…well, urgent. Lisald just didn’t seem to be the dramatic type. “I always have time for my crew, Lieutenant. Would you like to come to my office? Or would you prefer a more casual setting, like the Arboretum?”

Vaat gulped hard, hard enough that it was likely audible over the comm. "Uh, neither, sir. I, uh, I don't think I can manage. Would you, uh, come here to my quarters?" As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he had regretted the whole thing. In fact, he was ashamed. "You know what, nevermind Commander. Sorry to bother you. Lisald out." He quickly turned the commline off, yanked the commbadge from his shirt and threw it as hard as he could. The violence surprised him, and the relief he got from the sight and sound of it shattering against the bulkhead was immediate and immense. Before he knew it, he had upended the glass table sitting in the center of his room, it shattering into millions of pieces. The contents on top of it, a holopicture of his mother, his father and him on an expedition that he had set up when he was 15 broke when it hit the deck. He turned, grabbed a chair and threw it as hard as he could at the viewport behind the couch. The instant before it hit, he wondered if the chair would go through the transparent material, and wondered how good it would feel to let the vacuum of space take him from this mortal coil. The chair hit, the leading leg bending against the transparent aluminum before rebounding off and hitting the display table that housed his diplomas he had earned, each of them crashing to the floor. The glass pane to his Doctorate from Bajor shattered as it hit the deck at an odd angle. Fitting, as that is how Vaat felt now, shattered.

Okay, that was not right at all, Larsen thought as he got up from his desk. He queried the Computer to locate Lisald’s quarters and made his way there as fast as the turbo lift car would carry him. In less than three minutes, the Executive Officer was standing outside Lisald’s quarters. He rang the chime and received no answer except for a loud thud.

“Computer, override the lock on this door. Authorization Larsen Beta Four Two.”

The door opened with a loud pneumatic hiss and Larsen entered. Lisald seemed almost surprised. Erik held up his hands in front of him, a gesture to show he was unarmed. As the door closed, he spoke. “Did you expect me to let that go, Lisald?”

Vaat looked at Erik with defeat. His words were hollow-sounding as they came out through huffs of breath. His quarters were completely destroyed. "That is all I want to do. Let go," he said. There was no emotion to his voice, no sadness, no hope, no despair, no joy.

“What is stopping you?” replied Erik, stepping a little closer to the Bajoran. “And what can I do to help you let go?”

Finally having the choice in front of him, the emotions that had been pouring out of him in anger, started to seep out of him in grief and in defeat. Tears started to fall, though he didn't feel them. "I want to go home. I don't belong here, not anymore."

Hearing those words from Lisald was almost like someone had slapped Erik. Even though the two of them were not close friends, Erik still felt a certain affection for his colleague…almost like Lisald was a younger brother of sorts. “We want you here on the Cygnus, Lisald. But only if you want to be here. I don’t want you to stay because of a guilt trip.“ Erik placed a hand gently on Lisald’s shoulder. “If you can’t be here anymore, you have my unequivocal support.”

Vaat looked at Erik again, the weight of his hand both repulsive and welcoming at the same time. He was conflicted. "Wanting and belonging are two different things. I put everything into this. Everything. What did it get me? Someone else is occupying the role I truly wanted aboard this ship, as per the last Commanding Officer. The position I earned is also now occupied by someone else, per the current Commanding Officer. I hate him for it, too. HATE him," Lisald bellowed in Erik's face. "If Bane wanted me on this ship, he would have shown it by not giving my seat away, by giving me time to heal, physically and mentally. If I belonged here, you would have said so. All I have to show for my time here is this damned scar on my chest, and an empty hole where passion used to be."

"If you don’t feel you belong here, then I doubt me telling you that you belong here would convince you otherwise.” Erik let out a long breath before continuing. “Look, I can’t speak for previous COs. And whatever Captain Bane’s reasoning, it’s my duty to support him. But I also have a duty to you…your well-being is important to me. Not just because it’s my job, but because I personally value you. However I have failed you as your Executive Officer, I take responsibility for that.”

Lisald blinked several times, trying to process the information he had just heard. His brow furrowed in confusion, he asked, "How in the Celestial Temple is it your fault? How did you fail me?" Until this moment, he hadn't considered that anyone had failed him but instead that he had failed everyone else. He was the one that got wounded. He was the one that couldn't perform his job and got shoved out of it while he was laying in the sickbay biobed. He was the one that was broken now and couldn't hold himself together. He was the one that was no longer needed. "Commander, I am the one that has failed. I am not sure I can do this anymore. If I could just get some sort of....I don't know," he paused, "Indication that I am needed and wanted here, maybe that would change things." His head dropped completely. The defeat within him was complete.

There were several moments of pregnant silence while the Executive Officer did nothing but look at Lisald Vaat. It made Vaat incredibly uncomfortable, but not because he felt he was in trouble. Quite the opposite, actually. Vaat felt shame that he was letting his commander down. He felt shame that his commander felt he had let Vaat down. Other than the laugh he had with Spangler earlier in the day, this was the only time he had felt anything in weeks. Vaat knew in his logical part of his brain that this was a good thing. "Commander, what will I do if I stay?"

“There are civilian roles in the Science Division,” Erik suggested. “Much greater autonomy, plus the flexibility of making your own research timetable.” The XO exhaled through his nose. “I value you, as a colleague and somebody I would like to call a friend. I do not want to lose the experience and knowledge you possess because you are not fulfilled in your current position. You don’t have to answer now, but please give it some consideration. Will you do that?”

It had never occurred to Lisald that he could stay on in a purely research role, as a civilian. He briefly wondered how that would work, then remembered that Larsen had asked him a question. "I..." he began, paused, then continued again. "Yes, I will consider it." Lisald didn't know how he felt about losing his commission, but he did know that he suddenly felt a lot better about his future prospects. "Seriously, thank you, Commander." Lisald really meant it, too.

“I would do the same for anyone,” said Erik with a broad smile. “But you’re welcome. I am at your disposal to discuss the logistics whenever you like.” He panned his head around slowly. “Normally, this would have to go into the security logs. But I think we can keep it between us. Can I help clean up this mess?”

Lisald looked around, feeling incredibly embarrased and ashamed at the mess. "I think I would like that," he said, looking at the shattered diploma, his eyes unfocused. Maybe cleaning up and fixing everything with the Executive Officer would be symbolic and therapeutic to him. "Thanks for not reporting it. Where do I even start," he asked, almost rhetorically.

“Well, the good thing is that this all can be recycled. With a little creative transporter work, this can literally just go away. Unless you really want to pick glass shards out of the carpet for a few weeks?”

Lisald smiled at the rhetorical question. "Defenently not. I think once we are done here, I need to go talk to Dr. Winters," he alluded, not leading on to what he needed to see her for. "Would you be willing to arrange a meeting for me with Captain Bane about potentially staying on in a civilian capacity?"

"Absolutely," responded Larsen. "I will speak to him once we are finished here. I would expect that he will contact you later on today."

Vaat bowed his head in gratitude. "Thank you so much, Commander." He looked around the mess, and without another words, turned over the chair that had been upended, the first in a long afternoon of cleaning and repairing things, with the help of his friend and First Officer.

OFF

A character developing JP between:

Lisald Vaat
USS Cygnus

and

Lieutenant Commander Erik Larsen
Executive Officer
USS Cygnus

 

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