Lieutenant Tasha MacFarlane - For the Love of a Child
thoyte99
((Deja Brew Cafe, Iana Station))
sh'Shar: Well, I am a qualified mechanic, certified to work on worker bees, shuttles, and other auxiliary craft. That's where I'll be helping out. I'm also a pilot, although I don't think that will come up.
MacFarlane: Aye, probably not at first, though if yer program supervisors deem yeh t’ be settlin’ in well there is a slim chance we could get yeh in a pilot seat near th’ end o’ yer year. Supervised o’ course.
sh’Shar: ::softly:: You shouldn't get my hopes up like that, you know.
Tasha could see the hope her words had spiked in the Andorian. The minute facial expressions, the way the antennae moved. Flying evidently meant quite a bit to sh’Shar.
MacFarlane: I dunnae mention it lightly. Yer record on th’ station will ‘ave t’ be impeccable f’ yer supervisors t’ even consider it.
sh’Shar: Let me just unequivocally state, my intention with this program is to be, as you say, impeccable. I will arrive early every day and go home every day. I'll work to the letter of the law in everything. That's the plan. But if I can't fly, I can't fly, and I'm okay with that. That's not why I'm here.
Tasha nodded and took a sip of her tea. She observed sh’Shar for several long seconds. Everyone she had met in the program had their reasons for being there, the single drive that kept them focused and gave them the motivation to push through the hard times. But what was it for sh’Shar?
MacFarlane: Yeh ‘ave an interesting record sh’Shar. They dunnae let just anyone fly an FA-150. Starbase one-eighteen, Independence-A, an’ a pilot on th’ Avandar. All good postings from what I read about ‘em. Then yeh dropped out after th’ Avandar was decommissioned in ninety-one. Six years later, yer tryin’ t’ come back. May I inquire as t’ what brought yeh back?
A drop of the antennae, as though they were trying to hide. This was likely a sensitive subject.
sh’Shar: I'm back because of a nine-year-old girl named Benna sh'Shar. Who has the misfortune to be my daughter.
A child. There was no greater reason in Tasha’s eyes to do something, than for one’s own offspring. So despite her burning curiosity, she waited, sh’Shar would share her reasoning, in her own way, in her own time.
sh'Shar: Benna lives on Andoria with the other three of my group. Until I... fell off the wagon, she would visit me for three months of the year, a quarter of the time as is fair, and she still messages me often. But all that ended. Now, over the last couple of years, there's been a disturbing trend in her messages. And now she needs my help.
Tasha nodded, but said nothing, a silent encouragement to continue.
sh'Shar: As an engineer, I'm sure you understand when I say... Benna has the smart person's curse. School bores her. They teach her things she already knows. She gets put into advanced classes, which helps for a little while, but then she learns everything they have to teach too. They can't just make a "Benna Class" so she has to go through the motions, waiting a whole year which is an eternity when you're that age, waiting to get bumped up another grade so she can learn more things. Every new year she has the best time of her life, every end of the year is a misery. Her messages are full of the same things: "I want more. This is too easy. I hate it. Nobody understands me."
MacFarlane: ::softly:: Aye
sh'Shar: Benna's already well ahead of her age in everything and it's not enough. She's starting to act out, out of frustration, because she's trapped in a room learning things she already knows. She has no friends. She's lonely. She hates her teachers and wants to quit school. Her other parents think it's a behavioural issue but I see it for what it really is: she's just so smart that she can't relate to her peers, because her true peers are about sixteen or seventeen or eighteen, not nine. What she needs is... what she needs to be surrounded by the best and brightest in the galaxy, in an environment where she doesn't know everything, where she has to study and apply herself, where she can genuinely be challenged, where there is an infinite amount of "Benna Classes" for her to go to, and I can't think of a bigger pond for that very big fish that is her brain than a starship.
Mikali sipped her ice cold water again.
sh'Shar: So here I am. I know we could apply as civilians, but... but that's not enough. She doesn't just need a parent, she has three of those back on Andoria. What she needs is a role model. She needs someone who looks like her, talks like her, that understands her. Someone... she can look up at and think, that could be me one day. Until she realises that she could be so much more.
The idea of being someone else's role model, especially someone as good as Benna, was as alien as it was terrifying. But that was the hand she had been dealt, and there were no do-overs.
sh'Shar: That's why I'm back. Because I promised the smartest nine-year-old girl in the galaxy that she could have her tenth birthday on a starship. ::she smiled a little:: If it works out, you are more than welcome to come. There's a big piece of cake in it for you for taking the time out of your busy day to help me.
MacFarlane: ::Smiling warmly:: It would be an honour.
sh’Shar: Response
Tasha slipped a PADD out of an inner pocket and passed it across the table to sh’Shar
MacFarlane: They gave me th’ schedule f’ yer first week. There are a couple o’ shuttles due f’ general maintenance tomorrow. They’re expectin’ yeh at oh-eight-hundred hours in maintenance three. If yeh want more work after yer first shift, I ‘ave a Barzan Feighter due in at fifteen-hundred tomorrow. They reported an issue with their long range sensors tha’ needs t’ be checked out.
sh’Shar: Response
MacFarlane: But tha’ is tomorrow, today is f’ meetin’ people an’ settlin’ in. ‘ave yeh found yer bearin’s on th’ station yet? I’d be ‘appy t’ give yeh a tour.
sh’Shar: Response
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Lieutenant Tasha MacFarlane
Senior Engineering Officer
Iana Station
G239311TM0