Guilt and Recriminations

Posted on Wed Jul 20th, 2016 @ 5:13am by Captain Charybdis MacGregor & Commander Fiona McCray
Edited on on Wed Aug 3rd, 2016 @ 8:38pm

0 words; about a 1 minute read

Mission: Taking Chances
Location: USS Bonne Chance, Deck 6, Sickbay
Timeline: 2265

Duties had been tended to, time had passed and repairs, like the Bonne Chance herself, were underway.

There were four survivors of the Nausicaan asteroid base... surprisingly, two of them were Kolari slave girls who had been rescued from a secure chamber in the asteroid which was apparently a vault of some sort. Charybdis had towed it aboard and deposited it in the shuttle bay where the science teams were currently scanning it to determine the contents. She had employed Transporter Chief Fingerman's newly developed beaming trick to beam the slave girls directly to the brig, along with the escape pod survivors that had been rescued.

Female security were few and far between, but Charybdis had insisted, even if they had to work double shifts. The legendary green woman of this sector were exotic and renowned for their charms and skills, and she was taking no chances. Ideally they were victims here... but again, she was talking no chances. The Captain could dispute her decision upon his return if he wished, but it certainly seemed to her what Lieutenant Celes would do.

The damage to the engine room was not as catastrophic as it had appeared, and already the engineers were making short work of much of the repairs. Aft torpedo launchers were already back online, and she had been assured that warp power would be restored within six hours... and it had. While the Bonne Chance journeyed, she restored herself piece by piece. She might only have a few dents for her trouble by the time the Captain returned, if all continued at this pace.

In addition, a wrinkle to Ensign Tyler's replicator experiment was underway, as the science and engineering teams collaborated to turn broken components into repaired components. It was apparent that a vast library of objects was going to have to be scanned in order for the technology to be genuinely useful in the future, but at the moment the engineers and scientists were rather enjoying scanning undamaged parts, then placing the damaged parts into the replicators to get undamaged parts returned to them. She had forbidden for it to be used in critical systems or structural weak points and demanded structural scans every hour to determine stability, but so far the replicated parts seemed to be holding up perfectly.

The incident report had yet to be written, but primarily because she could not relive the events just yet- they were too fresh in her mind. Instead, with the bridge currently under control and everything moving along as it should, she took some time to visit Sickbay.

Lieutenant Fiona McCray had befriended her from the moment they had met... she was just that way. She either liked you or she didn't, it was as simple as that. She was almost binary... on or off, angry or cheerful, working or not. While she was likely a very complicated woman underneath it all, on the surface she was not... she was simply enthusiastic and cheerful and sunny.

Her best friend, Charybdis realized. She loved Patrick but theirs was a different relationship, and Yuna was a friend, but she kept everyone at a bit of a distance- always listening, seldom speaking of herself, always with probing questions, ever the investigator. Siivas was dear to her but he was more like a father she hadn't known for decades than anything else, the wise man she could always turn to for answers or advice or a shoulder. But Fiona simply liked her and enjoyed her company, and even looked out for her.

And now this.

Intellectually she knew that it was her job, her passion and her duty, and that what Charybdis had done was what needed to be done, and Fiona had done the same. They had saved the ship between them and Lieutenant Junior Grade Selune, the Caitan pilot with her inhuman reflexes. But yet Char had been in command, and everything that happened aboard the ship was her responsibility. So it did not matter how it had happened, so much as the fact that it had happened on her watch. Or even happened at all.

When she had come down to Sickbay, Xian had been expecting her, and showed her wordlessly to the quiet biobed where the chief engineer lay sleeping. A broken left arm, three broken ribs, a punctured lung, a ruptured spleen and internal bleeding... when the section of the shield generators had blown in the overload, a containment rupture had nearly crushed her to death. If it had been anyone else, particularly one of her men in there, they most likely would not have survived. And by beaming her out instead of moving her she might well have saved the engineer's life, she was told.

Seeing the tiny spitfire, lying in bed, so still and pale, that was small comfort to the scientist. There were other wounded in sickbay... forty-two wounded, and miraculously no casualties, with only twelve confined to sickbay. But while she felt the burden of responsibility for them all, it was her friend who brought her to tears. She held the tiny pale hand in her own... even for her diminutive size Fiona's hands were still small and delicate, a boon when working on hard-to-reach components.

In this case it just reminded her of how small and frail her friend truly was... without the animating spirit that was so much larger than her form, she looked to all the world like a broken doll.

The ship had been tended to, her duties had been discharged for now and Charybdis had time to herself. And with that time she held her friend's hand and disintegrated into a sniveling wreck as she let go of the dam she had been holding everything back with so that she could see the ship through the crisis.

"I'm so sorry Fiona... so, so sorry. I should have been more aware, I should have had the shields up, I should have protected the ship better, I should have known we were in a red alert situation," she sobbed in a whisper so as not to disturb the other patients. "I should have come up with a better way to save us, I should have been smarter, I shouldn't have let you down... I shouldn't have let you get hurt. I'm... so... sorry!" She laid her head gently on the wee engineer's chest and sobbed for a moment.

"Jay-sus Christ," the words were a soft croak barely above a whisper. "I didna ken Vulcans could be Jewish," the harshness of the words were gentled by the soft fumbling stroking of her hair.

Slowly Char moved her head off the engineer's chest and left the small hand tangled in her mane of dark hair that tumbled down from her crown. "Fi! Oh, Fi... hi." The vulcanoid smiled and mopped at her tears. "I, uh, didn't think I would wake you..."

That got a snort. "Hi Lass, I thought it was rainin..." she patted the vulcan's hair reassuringly, "I've been in an oot." The engineers accent was thicker than normal. Her r's rolled pleasantly with a slightly dreamy cant to them. Evidently the medical staff was giving her the good drugs because she didn't seem to be in much pain.

"Since I doan think heaven would have me and it isn't nearly hot eno' fer hell...I take it that it worked?" Fiona asked with a groaning cough.

The science officer nodded. "The ship is safe... we actually obliterated their base carrier, and they never launched a single fighter. We've a few prisoners in the brig, and while there are injuries- mostly from your department- nobody died. You saved the day, Miss McCray." Charybdis beamed like an proud parent and stroked the engineer's hair.

The woman's eyelids fluttered downward and she shook her head. "Jus' m'duty... I hurt my poor girl but she came through... guid. Guid team those boys... buck wild tha' lot o them."

She blinked like a befuddled owl then frowned. "Damage report? Shite... I can hear thet she's runnin rough."

"Not so bad, really. Phasers are still charging and the forward launchers still aren't clear, but your boys have warp drive back online and there are about a dozen systems that aren't back up to full repair yet. I know you are wanting to get right back in there and supervise, but your men are doing a great job down there, really exemplary work. And you are restricted to bed rest for at least tonight.... the Sickbay staff will decide tomorrow if you can leave sickbay. Returning to duty we'll discuss... I know you will heal faster in your engine room. But we can talk about that tomorrow, okay?"

"Mmm... fine now... jus... a lil bit muzzy headed." Fiona insisted as her eyes began to droop shut again.

The pointy-eared minx gently stroked her friend's cheek and smiled, her voice quavering slightly. "You scared me there."

"Scared me too... damned ship was cursin at me..." Fi's eyes closed then abruptly opened wide "You lied ta him... dinna ken thet Vulcans could."

"I suppose they can, they just don't. But I'm not..." Charybdis furrowed her brow. She wanted to tell her friend the truth... and she would. But not here, and not right now. She kissed the pale, warm forehead and stroked her unruly mane of tangled red hair.

"I promise I'll explain it all to you someday... the whole story. But to save our ship and our friends, let's just say I'd do a lot of things Vulcans don't do." She smiled an odd little smile at the lass of the heather, a bit sad and hopeful all at the same time. "Now you get some rest, okay?"

That seemed to satisfy Fiona because she gave Char a sleepy smile and her eyes closed as she relaxed. "S'okay, souns like a plan," she mumbled, then she was completely out again.

The road leading to this place and who the woman in the blue science uniform was in the here and now had been rather... unpredictable. But as she folded her friend's hands over her stomach and tucked her in absently, almost reflexively, Charybdis knew without a doubt that she had indeed found her way home.

 

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