More STO writing.
What can I say, I'm inspired tonight. This time it's even longer. It's just a little blurb on the hiring of one of Captain Wayas's new officers, someone who I intend to have as one of the mainstays of my crew. Because with the Federation at war with the Klingons, there's got to be some story behind a Klingon officer on a Federation ship...
I Finish What I Start
Lieutenant Rylia Wayas found herself quietly rubbing her temples for the third time in an hour.
Sure, the admiral had had glowing praise for her. The aftermath of the Borg attack was a whirlwind; with so many good officers lost and so many ships in dire need of crew, her performance had earned her not only an instant promotion, but command of the Traveller; at her rank and age, an unprecedented thing. But by now, it was no longer anywhere near unprecedented. She wasn't the only one to be promoted early to the command of a ship.
They were being called "greenshirts" - green for their inexperience. Not to their face, of course. But the older officers who had been working toward command for years, and passed over for the young, bold and daring who had nevertheless proved themselves, were decidedly bitter. Being assigned to the command of a greenshirt captain was fast becoming a posting of ill repute, regardless of the captain in question.
This made Wayas's life difficult. She needed two officers; a Chief Tactical Officer and a Chief Engineer. Admiral Quinn had told her that engineers were in dire short supply, and he'd send her a Chief Engineer as soon as he could. In the meanwhile, he'd given her a requisition slip and a pass to look over the personnel files for a good tactical officer to fill the gaping void in her upper ranks. And she did need a chief of security, badly. They were going out on their first mission in six hours, a Bolian freighter that was overdue. She half expected it to show up by then, but just in case...
"What do you think, Sivak?" she asked idly, not bothering to look over her shoulder at the Vulcan. He was a little bland, but no moreso than any other Vulcan, and she was coming to trust his judgement. He was watching the profiles on her datapad scroll by, probably reading them faster than she was.
"None of the listed candidates stand out," he replied. "If I were to venture a guess, I would say that the best candidates have already been assigned where they are most needed. What remains are candidates who are either fresh from the academy, or who have negative events on their record." Wayas snorted quietly. In short: The good captains got the best picks. The greenshirts were left with the untried graduates and the washouts. Lovely.
Something caught the Lieutenant's eye, though, and she backed up a little bit in the list. "...Well, that's interesting. He's got a few years' experience, good service record... but he's unassigned, and has been for some time." She frowned, brow furrowing. It looked like nobody wanted to touch him; with his record, he should be snatched up pretty quickly. Why would... and then she saw it, about the same time as Sivak spoke up. "Perhaps it is due to his race."
Ampaak, of the house of Amar'c. Klingon. Of course. Who'd want a member of the race the Federation was at war with?
A faint smile pulled onto Rylia's face. Who indeed.
"Captain?" Sivak raised an eyebrow at her. She turned in her seat, moving to stand up, and her fingers played over the keypad long enough to pull up Ensign Ampaak's location. "Sivak, how do you feel about Klingon food?"
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It was a small bar nestled in a little corner of the starbase, that specialized in the less common alien cuisine. Anyone could find a bowl of plomeek soup at the nearest replicator, but finding someone who made proper Klingon, for example, was a trickier prospect. So while this bar wasn't particularly large, it always had a fairly steady flow of clientele.
That just made the small cleared space around the large humanoid at a table in the corner all the more obvious. His dreadlocked hair was pulled back behind his ears, but hung loose over his shoulders nonetheless, framing his face almost like a mane. It gave him a certain almost bestial look, especially in combination with the ridges of his forehead. The look was entirely at odds with the expression on his face, somewhere between depression, anger, and simple disgruntledness. It was the look of a warrior with no battle to fight. She'd seen it before.
He was nursing a plate of gagh. The going was slow, to judge by the rate he seemed to be eating. Either it wasn't very good, or his mind was on something other than food. She had a sneaking suspicion as to which reason was on the mark.
"Captain," Sivak murmured, leaning in just close enough so that his voice didn't carry. "I believe that it would be best if I waited outside." She gave him a faint nod. The Vulcan would probably be uncomfortable here, or as close to it as he ever got. That just made it a little easier to talk to her prospective officer one-on-one. She strode forward into the bar, to the immediate attention of... most of the patrons.
What really had their attention, though, was the direction she headed in, and what she did on the way there. "Bartender, I'd like a plate of gagh. Live, if you please." THAT got them staring - and though he tried to hide it, she could see Ampaak had glanced up in curiosity, if only for a moment. The bartender looked a bit surprised, but began preparing her order. Satisfied he was on it, she slid into the seat directly across from her quarry at the table.
The Klingon attempted to resolutely ignore her presence for a full half a minute before he finally looked up at her and uttered a guttral sentence in Klingon. "naDevvo' yIghoS." She recognized it; her Klingon was rudimentary, but 'go away' was a particularly basic phrase. Her response was equally rudimentary: "Qo'." No. He finally looked at her, with mild surprise, just as the plate of gagh was being set down before her. Wayas knew she would regret this in an hour or two, but for now, she tried it without hesitation. It was as difficult as the one other time she'd had gagh, and that hadn't even been live.
Finally, with an even more disgruntled look, Ampaak muttered in English, "What do you want?" She smiled faintly; it was progress. 'What do you want' was the standard Klingon greeting. She decided to start a bit evasively. "Seems a crying shame, seeing a warrior sitting around doing nothing when there's a war to fight." His glare was harsh in response to that, but... it didn't quite seem to be directed at her, even if it was her he was looking at. "Yes," he replied bitterly. "It is a shame." She forced down another bite of her gagh (and noted, with mild alarm, that the more she ate, the easier it got), then continued.
"You have a fairly glowing record, Ampaak of the house of Amar'c. You're young, but you've seen a pretty good amount of action for your first few years of service. Your last captain gave you fairly glowing praise at first. But you were taken off the Davinport, and now here you sit, festering on a starbase. You're not keeping out of the action deliberately, are you?" The question got a rise out of him, exactly as she'd expected. His fist pounded the table, and he sat up straight in his chair, glaring fiercely at her. "I would give ANYTHING to be on the front lines of battle! And yet every honorless petaQ in charge of a starship refuses to so much as look in my direction! I did not join Starfleet to have my integrity questioned!"
Lieutenant Wayas smiled inwardly. His spirit wasn't broken yet, and better, he was itching for a chance. Good. "That's what I thought," she replied as if it were obvious. He seemed a bit confused, and more than a little irritated by this point. "Sir, with all due respect, if you have a poin-" "Ampaak," she cut across him, looking him in the eyes. "How do you feel about being at war with the empire of your race? This isn't a rhetorical question. I want your honest feelings on it."
It was a fair few moments before he answered. "The Klingon empire are fools. War is indeed a fire that makes one strong as steel. But pointless fighting for no cause whatsoever is not the mark of a warrior. It's common brigandry. A warrior fights for a noble, honorable cause. I may not be fond of the Federation's softer stance on many things. But I believe in the cause they are fighting for." Rylia watched his face for the entire time. He had the motivation. But did he have the willpower? "Ampaak, if you join this war, you'll be killing your own kind, for aliens. Are you all right with that?" It seemed as if he was finally seeing the point behind her questions. He met her eyes, and nodded once. "Every one of them is going into battle prepared to die for the glory and honor of Qo'nos and the Klingon race. They have made their decision, and I have made mine."
Wayas thought on that answer for a moment, and decided that she was satisfied with it. That just left one more question. She met his eyes. "Ampaak. Can I trust you to have my back in battle?" It was a delicate question. Taken the wrong way, he might see it as a question of his honor. Taken the right way, it was a question of whether or not he would be able to trust her enough that she could trust him in return. He didn't even know her name yet. But to her relief, he responded with no words; just a simple nod. The earnestness was written all over his face. She allowed the smile onto her lips at last. "My name is Lieutenant Rylia Wayas. Captain of the USS Traveller. We're in need of a Chief Tactical Officer and Chief of Security. If you have no objections, I'll put in the transfer order."
Ampaak's face glowed with a renewed vitality. "It would be my honor, Lieutenant." She nodded her head, and turned her attention back to her plate. The Klingon snorted with amusement. "You don't have to keep eating that for my sake. I won't be offended if you leave now." The Lieutenant quirked an eyebrow at him, and replied simply, "I finish what I start."
I Finish What I Start
Lieutenant Rylia Wayas found herself quietly rubbing her temples for the third time in an hour.
Sure, the admiral had had glowing praise for her. The aftermath of the Borg attack was a whirlwind; with so many good officers lost and so many ships in dire need of crew, her performance had earned her not only an instant promotion, but command of the Traveller; at her rank and age, an unprecedented thing. But by now, it was no longer anywhere near unprecedented. She wasn't the only one to be promoted early to the command of a ship.
They were being called "greenshirts" - green for their inexperience. Not to their face, of course. But the older officers who had been working toward command for years, and passed over for the young, bold and daring who had nevertheless proved themselves, were decidedly bitter. Being assigned to the command of a greenshirt captain was fast becoming a posting of ill repute, regardless of the captain in question.
This made Wayas's life difficult. She needed two officers; a Chief Tactical Officer and a Chief Engineer. Admiral Quinn had told her that engineers were in dire short supply, and he'd send her a Chief Engineer as soon as he could. In the meanwhile, he'd given her a requisition slip and a pass to look over the personnel files for a good tactical officer to fill the gaping void in her upper ranks. And she did need a chief of security, badly. They were going out on their first mission in six hours, a Bolian freighter that was overdue. She half expected it to show up by then, but just in case...
"What do you think, Sivak?" she asked idly, not bothering to look over her shoulder at the Vulcan. He was a little bland, but no moreso than any other Vulcan, and she was coming to trust his judgement. He was watching the profiles on her datapad scroll by, probably reading them faster than she was.
"None of the listed candidates stand out," he replied. "If I were to venture a guess, I would say that the best candidates have already been assigned where they are most needed. What remains are candidates who are either fresh from the academy, or who have negative events on their record." Wayas snorted quietly. In short: The good captains got the best picks. The greenshirts were left with the untried graduates and the washouts. Lovely.
Something caught the Lieutenant's eye, though, and she backed up a little bit in the list. "...Well, that's interesting. He's got a few years' experience, good service record... but he's unassigned, and has been for some time." She frowned, brow furrowing. It looked like nobody wanted to touch him; with his record, he should be snatched up pretty quickly. Why would... and then she saw it, about the same time as Sivak spoke up. "Perhaps it is due to his race."
Ampaak, of the house of Amar'c. Klingon. Of course. Who'd want a member of the race the Federation was at war with?
A faint smile pulled onto Rylia's face. Who indeed.
"Captain?" Sivak raised an eyebrow at her. She turned in her seat, moving to stand up, and her fingers played over the keypad long enough to pull up Ensign Ampaak's location. "Sivak, how do you feel about Klingon food?"
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It was a small bar nestled in a little corner of the starbase, that specialized in the less common alien cuisine. Anyone could find a bowl of plomeek soup at the nearest replicator, but finding someone who made proper Klingon, for example, was a trickier prospect. So while this bar wasn't particularly large, it always had a fairly steady flow of clientele.
That just made the small cleared space around the large humanoid at a table in the corner all the more obvious. His dreadlocked hair was pulled back behind his ears, but hung loose over his shoulders nonetheless, framing his face almost like a mane. It gave him a certain almost bestial look, especially in combination with the ridges of his forehead. The look was entirely at odds with the expression on his face, somewhere between depression, anger, and simple disgruntledness. It was the look of a warrior with no battle to fight. She'd seen it before.
He was nursing a plate of gagh. The going was slow, to judge by the rate he seemed to be eating. Either it wasn't very good, or his mind was on something other than food. She had a sneaking suspicion as to which reason was on the mark.
"Captain," Sivak murmured, leaning in just close enough so that his voice didn't carry. "I believe that it would be best if I waited outside." She gave him a faint nod. The Vulcan would probably be uncomfortable here, or as close to it as he ever got. That just made it a little easier to talk to her prospective officer one-on-one. She strode forward into the bar, to the immediate attention of... most of the patrons.
What really had their attention, though, was the direction she headed in, and what she did on the way there. "Bartender, I'd like a plate of gagh. Live, if you please." THAT got them staring - and though he tried to hide it, she could see Ampaak had glanced up in curiosity, if only for a moment. The bartender looked a bit surprised, but began preparing her order. Satisfied he was on it, she slid into the seat directly across from her quarry at the table.
The Klingon attempted to resolutely ignore her presence for a full half a minute before he finally looked up at her and uttered a guttral sentence in Klingon. "naDevvo' yIghoS." She recognized it; her Klingon was rudimentary, but 'go away' was a particularly basic phrase. Her response was equally rudimentary: "Qo'." No. He finally looked at her, with mild surprise, just as the plate of gagh was being set down before her. Wayas knew she would regret this in an hour or two, but for now, she tried it without hesitation. It was as difficult as the one other time she'd had gagh, and that hadn't even been live.
Finally, with an even more disgruntled look, Ampaak muttered in English, "What do you want?" She smiled faintly; it was progress. 'What do you want' was the standard Klingon greeting. She decided to start a bit evasively. "Seems a crying shame, seeing a warrior sitting around doing nothing when there's a war to fight." His glare was harsh in response to that, but... it didn't quite seem to be directed at her, even if it was her he was looking at. "Yes," he replied bitterly. "It is a shame." She forced down another bite of her gagh (and noted, with mild alarm, that the more she ate, the easier it got), then continued.
"You have a fairly glowing record, Ampaak of the house of Amar'c. You're young, but you've seen a pretty good amount of action for your first few years of service. Your last captain gave you fairly glowing praise at first. But you were taken off the Davinport, and now here you sit, festering on a starbase. You're not keeping out of the action deliberately, are you?" The question got a rise out of him, exactly as she'd expected. His fist pounded the table, and he sat up straight in his chair, glaring fiercely at her. "I would give ANYTHING to be on the front lines of battle! And yet every honorless petaQ in charge of a starship refuses to so much as look in my direction! I did not join Starfleet to have my integrity questioned!"
Lieutenant Wayas smiled inwardly. His spirit wasn't broken yet, and better, he was itching for a chance. Good. "That's what I thought," she replied as if it were obvious. He seemed a bit confused, and more than a little irritated by this point. "Sir, with all due respect, if you have a poin-" "Ampaak," she cut across him, looking him in the eyes. "How do you feel about being at war with the empire of your race? This isn't a rhetorical question. I want your honest feelings on it."
It was a fair few moments before he answered. "The Klingon empire are fools. War is indeed a fire that makes one strong as steel. But pointless fighting for no cause whatsoever is not the mark of a warrior. It's common brigandry. A warrior fights for a noble, honorable cause. I may not be fond of the Federation's softer stance on many things. But I believe in the cause they are fighting for." Rylia watched his face for the entire time. He had the motivation. But did he have the willpower? "Ampaak, if you join this war, you'll be killing your own kind, for aliens. Are you all right with that?" It seemed as if he was finally seeing the point behind her questions. He met her eyes, and nodded once. "Every one of them is going into battle prepared to die for the glory and honor of Qo'nos and the Klingon race. They have made their decision, and I have made mine."
Wayas thought on that answer for a moment, and decided that she was satisfied with it. That just left one more question. She met his eyes. "Ampaak. Can I trust you to have my back in battle?" It was a delicate question. Taken the wrong way, he might see it as a question of his honor. Taken the right way, it was a question of whether or not he would be able to trust her enough that she could trust him in return. He didn't even know her name yet. But to her relief, he responded with no words; just a simple nod. The earnestness was written all over his face. She allowed the smile onto her lips at last. "My name is Lieutenant Rylia Wayas. Captain of the USS Traveller. We're in need of a Chief Tactical Officer and Chief of Security. If you have no objections, I'll put in the transfer order."
Ampaak's face glowed with a renewed vitality. "It would be my honor, Lieutenant." She nodded her head, and turned her attention back to her plate. The Klingon snorted with amusement. "You don't have to keep eating that for my sake. I won't be offended if you leave now." The Lieutenant quirked an eyebrow at him, and replied simply, "I finish what I start."