The reality of things...

Posted on Tue Apr 19th, 2011 @ 10:32am by Lieutenant Xylia Lischka & Captain Nathan Cowell MD

Mission: Renegades
Location: Commodore's Ready Room
Timeline: Following : 'Aftermath and the Admin that follows...'

Hours after the order from Cowell was given to search the lower decks for survivors, a bloody and disheveled Xylia made her way toward the Commodore's Ready Room for the second time that day. Or was it? She couldn't be sure any longer. She stopped in front of the door and smoothed a hand over her uniform, having no idea how bad she looked at the moment. Not only was there blood on her uniform, but she also had it on her hands and a few smudges on her face and neck. There definitely wasn't any time for her to look at herself in the mirror.

In Starfleet, time became irrelevant and so did sleep, as far as she was concerned. But, right now, she was beginning to feel the wear and tear of the days events. So far, she spent hours on a cargo ship searching for cargo and trying to recover vital information, then the wretched Romulans attacked the ship, which proved emotionally draining, and following that, there was the search and rescue mission on board the vessel she called home.

If she could get her hands on just one of them, she would gladly rip them limb from limb and bring the head back to Cowell as a trophy. Perhaps he could mount it above his desk like one would with the head of a deer or a moose. Not that he would.

Taking a deep breath, Xylia alerted the man on the other side of the door of her presence, the chime being heard only on his end. Truth be told, she was a little nervous about being here. The last time she sat down to talk to her superior, they were attacked, and she was hoping beyond hope there wouldn't be a repeat performance. At least not until she had a chance to close her eyes for a few minutes. For now, it was business as usual, and she closed her eyes, waiting for the Commodore to grant her entry.

Commodore Nathan Cowell had spared a few minutes, or rather nearly an hour, to get his Ready Room back in order. Nothing was broken, thankfully, more because of the objects' resilience rather than any preventative measures on Nathan's part. The sudden chime of someone waiting to enter his office had come just as he had finished rehanging his Civil War flag. He didn't bother to turn toward the door, merely opting to beckon the person inside with a resonating "Come!" while he surveyed the job he'd done with his restoration project.

Xylia walked through the door, moving it out of the way so it could close behind her. She spotted the Commodore hanging his flag as she clasped her hands behind her back. "The search and rescue has been taken care of, Commodore. The injured are being tended to as we speak."

Nathan didn't acknowledge her right away, opting to make sure everything on his wall lined up before he returned to his desk and sank down into the chair. While he was sure he already knew the answer to what he was about to ask, he went ahead anyway...

"How many didn't make it?" the Commodore inquired.

"Including the initial number, twenty-two. We found two more buried under some debris on the lower decks." Xylia stated. This part of the job was horrible, and she definitely felt bad for the old man. She could only imagine how he must feel. "We found seventeen survivors. Six of them were critical, but the medical team seemed optimistic."

Being a physician himself, he knew that optimism was almost always for everyone else's benefit rather than a statement of reality. He would likely be reading about six more deaths before it was all said and done if things were as bad as he figured they were around the ship. Nathan didn't bother to correct her, it wouldn't have helped the situation and likely would have just have made the whole ordeal that much harder for her to deal with. Yet another burden in a long string that came with sitting on the side of the desk he was on.

"I take it there are portions of the ship that are unusable then. Do me a favor, get with Engineering and find out how many of those sections are non-essential areas that we can just forget about for the time being. I'd rather not waste time with them if I don't have to. Once you get a handle on that, I want you to start blocking them off, either by force fields or in the sections that aren't under power for the time being, with people or make-shift barriers. I'm not saying I want you to put a man on every entry point to the abandoned sections, but I don't want people wandering into places we just can't afford to fix for now," the Commodore instructed her.

"I'm on it." Xylia stated, making her way toward the door. She paused and looked at the man over her shoulder. "For what it's worth, Commodore, I'm sure the Romulans will get theirs."

Nathan chuckled at that, "Trust me, kiddo, I'm going to see to it personally..."