Posted by Lieutenant Commander Eulailia Dacascos (Chief Operations Officer) in Deck 5- Hiding Out

Posted by Lieutenant Miranda Martel (Chief Engineer) in Deck 5- Hiding Out

Posted by Lieutenant Commander Bethany Kovra Gadi (Chief of Security) in Deck 5- Hiding Out
Posted by… suppressed (5) by the Post Ghost! 👻

(snip)

“From our still,” Shara said, allowing a smirk to touch her lips. “Never thought I’d be married to man who owned a still, but hey, life Is surprising.” She took a sip and passed the jar on.

“I think your man and my uncles learned from the same person.” Bethany took another sip as the jar came back to her. A sip this time. They were all going to have hangovers for days, but there was no need to rush to get there.

“Could be,” Shara said with a laugh.

After a moment, Calloway looked over at Dacascos. “You know, sometimes the emotion on the surface isn’t the one that’s actually there. You didn’t make me angry, you made me scared, kid. And I don’t say kid to be derogatory. It’s the reality that I’m sixty-five years old and I spent most of the last two decades having the fear trained out me. Existing in situations where fear gets you killed. It’s not that you don’t have it. It’s there. But you learn to stuff it down so far that it can’t play a role.”

Fear trained out of her. she couldn’t even wrap her mind around what that meant. Eulailia wondered what her Starfleet career would look like when she was 65 years old. Would she be like Shara? Honestly, she because a little frightened maybe her cousin was right, did she really have what it took to be in Starfleet. Her mother tried to warn her that her duties would go beyond what she “signed up to do”.

“What happened to me is that I retired from covert work, from field assignments and I had some knock down verbal arguments with my uppers to get to have that. I’m not supposed to be doing this work, Laila. I’m supposed to be doing a normal duty assignment so that my daughters know where their mom is. I’m supposed to be moving froward from a really chaotic time where I upended one daughter’s life and got to finally meet my other daughter. Instead, here I am, doing the same old work but without the safety mechanisms. I can’t stuff it down the way I need to. Not fully. And that makes me a liability because what’s wrong is that, and I’m not ashamed of people knowing this, but I have PTSD. It’s a result of the last Op I went on and I had it under control until recently. Now?” Shara shrugged. “I’m just trying to not be a liability and get people killed here.”

Commander Calloway, CIO

Hearing her call her by her nickname Laila made her smile. “You have children? Daughters?”
However the fact that she said she “upended” on daughter’s life and “finally got to meet the other” was not lost in her mind. Eulailia wondered what she meant by this. The more Shara spoke the more of a mystery she appeared to her. How did she upend her daughter’s life? Did her work keep her away? And what did she mean she just met one of them? None of it made sense to a girl who was raised by two parents who basically held the status of “politicians” in Starfleet.
Eulailia stammered a bit trying to make sure she didn’t offend Shara with her questions. “Ss..so how did you sup…posedly upend your daughter’s life? Um…did you have to be away a long time on these covert missions? Also.... you said you finally got to meet one of your daughters. Did something happen that caused you to be separated from her?”

Shara inhaled sharply. “I will tell you about my daughters, but I need more shine before that. But yes, my missions lasted a long time. Months, usually years. I would go under deep cover so deep that it would take me weeks to shift back and be myself. Whoever she was.”

Bethany shook her head, “You aren’t. Even on your worst days you are better than the rest of us.” She took a swig on this pass, “You’ll make it back to your girls, I promise. You have your skills, I have mine.” She patted Shara’s shoulder and looked at Lailia. “And I’m not blowing smoke. I don’t give compliments unless earned. Nor am I blowing smoke to make her feel better. I’ll tell you the truth. Now Beth, my alter ego, she’ll tell you the truth, but as you experienced she’ll be cruel about it. UGH Shara remind me to tell you why I get to play the double - double agent this mission.”

Shara wanted to believed that vow, promise, whatever it was that Bethy had just made, but the fear was stuck in her now and she couldn’t be entirely convinced. She thought of Nadine and Micah’s cryptic message to ignore anything she heard about them. Things were still too new, could her daughter still look her in the eyes in the remarkable circumstance where they returned safely?

Miranda sighed, a mixture of decompressing some, and in empathy. “Well, you’re not alone there, Chief. I’ve not really done any cloak and dagger work. Not my specialty. Making stuff is, and making sure everything works like it’s supposed to is.” She glanced between the three of them. “Gadi already knows this. I don’t know if you’ve looked at my file. I’m sure you could get in there too,” she said, focusing on Dacascos. At the same time she decided she liked the name Laila, it actually made her smile a little, internally. “Couple years ago, the Shamshir was on patrol, and we were near a nebula a lot like the one we just left. Got hit with an electronic warfare package and an ion beam that tore down most of our defensive capabilities. Oh temporarily of course. Well they boarded us. Hit us with anestazine. What holdouts there were folded up fast. The rounded us up, put us in the cargo bays. Our chief engineer managed to lock out the main computer before they went down. So they wanted ht codes to get back in ” Her expression dropped and she snagged the jar, taking a long drink. the fumes burned her nose, and made her eyes water. Or at least that’s what she told herself.

“I have not looked at your file. But now I understand why you are concerned about those of us who are hesitant about this mission. You are worried that some of us will fold.”

Shara had. She knew what was coming. But reading details on a strangers file was different than having someone describe their pain to you. It hit differently.

She’d told the story enough that she knew she could get through it. They didn’t need all of the worst details. But enough. “I knew my chief. Was a good person, but would crack like an egg. We couldn’t afford to lose such a vital piece of military hardware like a Federation warship. So I stole his rank pip, put it on, told them I was the chief and had locked out the computer. I hoped it would give time for rescue or for the rest of the crew to re-take the Shamshir.” Her expression dropped and she took another smaller sip, then offered it to whoever wanted. “They had a hold of me for a long time. Did pretty much whatever they wanted, and whatever they thought would get me to talk.”

Miranda let that silence hang for a long time, like acrid smoke.

Eulailia clasped her hands together, in a ball, close to her mouth. Miranda’s story was terrifying to her. What did she mean they did whatever they wanted. Goosebumps being to emerge on her body and she shifted uncomfortably, reaching for the jar.

For a moment Shara slipped. The sounds of the facility filtered through her mind. The anguished cry of pain from a woman who had no idea what was going on and was too drugged out to comprehend the fullness of the situation she was in. Shara stood by watching with heartless outward indifference even as inside she wanted to scream. Over and over again. It had bene like that for so long. A scream she couldn’t fully let out until much more recently. Until Micah. Until Tennessee. Arms braced on her knees, her hands shook slightly. Her mind drifted back to the mountains their cabin was nestled in, to the warmth of a cup of coffee in her hands as she watched the sun rise from the front steps. She breathed deeply. Her hands stopped shaking and she could listen to people talking again.

“So… This whole operation is pretty triggering. I went through a year of intensive therapy and flew a desk, until it was starting to chafe. I wanted to get out and back to … exploration. But either somebody higher up in Starfleet really believes in me, or this is some cruel, sick joke. Or I’m in one elaborate nightmare that I can’t wake up from.” She took a deep breath and let it out slow, shifting a little to get more comfortable on the floor. “I do remember that the only thing that got me through the initial things was clinging to task and purpose. The medals and awards are cold comfort. I didn’t do it for that, but to protect the people next to me.”

She focused on Calloway for a moment. “So it’s different, but… You’re not alone on the PTSD front.” She looked over to Laila. “So while I don’t know this specific group, I’ve met plenty exactly like this. I could have become one of them if I hadn’t decided to join Starfleet instead. It scares the hell out of me to be back in a similar position. At the same time, it scares me that I could wind up just like ‘em, after all that’s been done to me. And then with Starfleet breathing down our necks, the very people I sacrificed so much of myself for, likely to wind up as stardust… or enjoying a prison somewhere… for doing my job. It’s a real effin’ pickle.”

“I am starting to understand,” she said quietly and sadly.

“I wish to anything that might be Divine in the Universe that you didn’t have to,” Shara said quietly.

Gadi put an arm around Martel’s shoulders and squeezed before letting go. Hers was a hard story, but she had made it through when she wasn’t prepared for it or trained for it. She survived a whole lot better than most others could have.

“But at least these two can help, rather than stumbling around completely blind when things are bad. They’ve been here before.” That brought out a momentary and wry if not sardonic smile. Just for a second or two.

Martel, messed up monkey

Bethy shook her head as the stories came around to her, “I’m not drunk enough yet.” Calloway knew, Martel knew some of it. Her hesitancy though was partly she was still struggling with coming to terms with the mission, another part was she didn’t want to overwhelm Dacascos too much. That someone worse than the people who attacked Martel was helping them and training them and could turn on them any second. That was something for herself and Calloway to deal with. Well mostly Bethany, she was the expert there after all. That thought made her reach for the jar again. “But to give you some idea, my psych file says I suffer from ‘Reasonable Paranoia.’ In other words ‘just because I’m paranoid doesn’t mean someone isn’t out to get me.’ My skill set is a little different from Calloway’s, and I’m still a kid compared to her. And our life expectency is 35-40 years old. She’s 65, that should tell you enough right there.”

Gadi, CoS

Eulailia was starting to be overwhelmed. She’d never had to chance to experience even a little sorrow or grief yet. This made her feel a little guilty. She imagined what she must have looked like to them, some kid in Starfleet probably because her parents pulled some strings for her. The truth was Eulailia did not get her current position by doing covert operations, cloak and dagger work, or surviving a starship jacking. She had gotten where she was based on her communication and operations skills. All administrative types of work. Although trained in basic defensive tactics and maneuvers, she honestly didn’t expect to have to encounter too much danger in her line of work. How naive she was!
Miranda was right, if she was going to get through this mission she was going to need to rely not just on Shara and Bethany, but on her as well. They had been there and had the experience to pull them through this mission. Up till this point she had only trusted Ryley but it was time to expand that circle of trust. She didn’t have anything to fear from either of these women.

She took another drink and again coughed violently, however this time she was able to keep it in her mouth and it didn’t come out of her nose. After she got her breath, she grinned and said, “Never have I ever tasted anything that has as much bite as this shine here.”

Dacascos, COO

Shara barked a laugh. “Oh, if we’re playing this game, then I am definitely playing it backwards. Normally the goal is to get everyone else drunk and be the last one standing. I don’t intend to be sober by the end of this. I’m warning you all because I can hold my liquor. Just be careful there”-she gestured to the jar as she looked at Dacascos-“One whole jar and I woke up married without any memory of how it happened,” she said with a wink taking the jar.

“Ugh”, said Eulailia, “Waking up married, with no memory of it?”, then she laughed and said, “Hopefully he was at least decent looking. My mother says that looks don’t matter nowadays, but I beg to differ. I am not going to marry someone who looks like a Ferengi or a Lurian.” She shook her head.

She was Shara here and Shara she would remain until the point she left this room, or woke up elsewhere and would be subsumed by her alter-ego for this mission. Gadi had joked about ‘Never Have I Ever’, but if the kids wanted to play, she was game. She had shared the edges of her stories with everyone on that bridge nightshift, and she it had all been the truth, but it still was just a handful of anecdotes. If they were going to share here, she would do right by the stories and share. She grabbed the jar and took a swig before putting it back for the others. “Never have I ever run away from home.” It had taken her a long time to realize that she had been running for a really long time, even when she had felt like she was standing still, restless, anxious. But she had stopped running and that’s why everything had been catching up with her.

Commander Calloway, CIO

“Ha!” said Eulailia smiling at Shara but speaking to all three of them, “You all think I never ran away. But I did…even if it was only for an hour, but I did. I attempted to take a shuttle off-planet to fly to the ship where my father was stationed because my mother was being very....annoying. Of course, I didn’t get far. Her security detail tracked me down and brought me back to her. That’s when I found out she had implanted a tracking device in my foot right after I was born!” Eulailia shook her head, frowning, angry. “I of course had it removed immediately when I turned the legal age to do so. Apparently, it’s perfectly legal and expensive to implant tracking devices in your children.”

“Okay so one for Dacascos…” she took a pull. Ferengi shine was a lot worse. “And another for Shara.” She took another pull, what the heck a little blunt honesty, “And I’m still running,” and passed the jar. “Alright, you left yourself open for it and you said you wanna get drunk. Never have I ever gotten married and have no memory of it.” Bethany laughed, it was a cheap shot, but they needed a bit of levity. “One day I have to hear that story.”

Gadi, CoS

“Wait are we playing in reverse? Does this mean I have to drink?”

Miranda held up a finger. “I’ve made shine just about like this. So…” She shook her head. “Do you mean serious running away from home, or like vanishing for a couple days and coming back?” She took another sip though. “Never been married… probably will never happen,” she mused.” Nobody wanted somebody like her. Damaged goods in all sorts of ways.

“Never have I ever lied to a law enforcement officer of any kind.”

Randi

Eulailia looked at Randi confused. She obviously possessed favorable features, would have no trouble finding a husband and was smart. “Why do you think you will never be married? Do you plan to work for Starfleet as an engineer for the rest of your life and think you won’t have the time?”

Dacascos, COO

OOC: Not sure what happened here. Was trying to edit and it looks like I did a double post.