Meanwhile, on Outpost 3 (Part 4)
richyulin
((“Mess Hall” on Outpost 3, Day 9 of Roshanara’s Shore Leave))
Rahman: You know, sometimes I think the designers of the Kobayashi Maru needn’t have bothered to come up with such a convoluted simulation for a “no win scenario.” They could have just made the test be about parenting a stubborn teenager.
::She chuckled now, letting in some levity into an otherwise sobering conversation, but the Rodulan paused, over-thinking it.::
Core: Well, I guess if you think hard enough, it *is* a test about parenting stubborn teenagers. Given that it’s usually teenagers doing the test and the Klingons doing the parenting.
::At that, she returned a hearty laugh. The captain leaned back now in her chair, crossing her arms.::
Rahman: I don’t think you’ve ever told me how you did on the test, actually. Assuming you did take it?
Core: I took it. Much to my CO’s distaste, I’m sure.
::She had stopped laughing, but a toothy grin remained.::
Rahman: Oh? Come on now, you can’t just leave it at that.
Core: It . . . wasn’t one of my finest moments, that’s for certain. I made up for an abysmal performance with additional classes.
Rahman: Additional classes? That bad, huh?
::He sighed, leaning against the table, covering his eyes with his hand, very visibly cringing at the memory and glad that it had never come up during his tenure as the Invicta’s First Officer.::
Core: I evacuated my ship before entering the Neutral Zone when communications broke apart, and took on warbirds without a bridge crew.
Rahman: Hmmph. Maybe that would have counted for something in the original version with Klingons. Honorable sacrifice and all that…
Core: Honour wasn’t really my thought. Or, well, I guess, it *might* have been a factor, in your culture’s terms. The idea was to preserve as many lives as possible - save the lives of my crew, and maybe be able to avoid detection when entering the Neutral Zone and sneak the civilians out, calling their added numbers aboard my ship as what would have been my crew.
Rahman: So you saved your own crew then at least? That should have counted for something surely?
Core: You’d think so, but being a lone-wolf on a Starfleet vessel is a big no-no, since we’re supposed to be relying on each other. Not to mention that while I evacuated them and figured they’d be fine in Federation space, I didn’t keep an eye on them. They were ambushed in their shuttles and escape pods, taken prisoner or destroyed. I left them totally and utterly defenseless from spatial attack.
::Roshanara released a long sigh. Now an academy instructor herself that proctored the occasional final exam for senior cadets, she knew just how ruthless the test makers could be when it came to punishing examinees for their choices.::
Rahman: You couldn’t have known...
Core: Meanwhile, my daring plan to sneak past the Romulans obviously did not go quite as well as I thought it would. The Kobayashi Maru took fire, was destroyed with no survivors, and I went to warp in hopes I’d at least rescue the ship. Which, would have been fine, if I’d actually noticed my warp drive, among other things, had been severely damaged before I effectively blew myself up by making the warp jump.
::At that revelation, Roshanara let out a short laugh, a reflex really. But she quickly caught herself. She cleared her throat.::
Rahman: Ahem. I’m sorry. ::She tried again to stifle a giggle, only half-successfully.::
Core: No. Go ahead. Laugh all you like. My CO did.
Core: Believe me, I know. And it feels cliche to say, but it was different for me, at the time. Back then, the idea that you couldn’t rescue everyone with diplomacy, without violence, was foreign to me. I went in thinking that I was . . . I guess “superior”, I suppose, in my Rodulan understanding of how the galaxy worked. To lose everyone, to fail like that, was quite a shock.
Rahman: I suppose that’s what it’s for. To give us that first taste of failure. After all, for most cadets, failure -- real failure -- is as alien as the Andromeda galaxy. We all had to be high achievers with ridiculous CVs just to get in to the academy. Better to experience failure during those years and learn how to deal with it than find out first hand out in the field -- where real lives are at stake.
Core: Ah - see, you had to have “a proper good CV”. I had to be proficient in *literally everything* thanks to the Rodulans being neutral towards the Federation. ::He shook his head, thinking back to just after the test.:: I cried that night - that was a bad week for me. That test toppled me over the edge.
::He scooped another mouthful of paste, licking his spoon clean before continuing.::
Core: It’s alright, though. I had to mentor a poor engineering student on Seventeen who apparently decided to have his ship ignore the Kobayashi Maru entirely and just continue on it’s journey. He was asked to go through career counselling after that.
::The captain flashed a smile as she watched the Rodulan continued to eat his meal.::
Rahman: Well, at least you have an interesting story. My experience is far more boring.
Core:::grinning:: Don’t tell me - you hacked it and passed because you “don’t believe in no win scenarios”. Honestly, they have to upgrade their security systems.
Rahman: Ha, nothing so dramatic.
Core: No?
Rahman: Believe it or not, I didn’t even try any solution from an engineering angle. Instead, I decided to go right in to rescue that damn ship. And when the Romulans appeared, I argued with them about their interpretation of the treaty text and the specific terms that were ambiguous enough to permit rescue.
::She let out another deep sigh.::
Rahman: ::flatly:: I wasn’t very persuasive. It was right about when I was insisting on an arbitrator that they severed the comlink with a curt volley of torpedoes and blew me up.
::The Rodulan bit his lip, putting his spoon down to clasp his hands together under his chin, black eyes glistening as he stared at her.::
Core: It might have been years ago, but I am immensely proud of you.
Rahman: Oh?
Core: Nothing but talk? Most cadets during my year started with torpedoes themselves. You did your homework - proper work for a Starfleet captain - and here you are, in the big chair, for real.
::She looked at him once-over.::
Rahman: Hmmph. Maybe it would have worked if you had tried it. ::She grinned.:: Clearly, I wasn’t as charming.
TBC…
Captain Roshanara Rahman
Commanding Officer, USS Veritas
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&
Lieutenant Commander Tristam Core
Components Specialist, Outpost 3
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