Lieutenant Ras El'Heem - Flexing a new muscle Pt. 2

[Ras El'Heem]

((Deck 6, Isolation Room, USS Khitomer))

 

Tori: If you've got a brilliant plan we haven't thought of... now would be the time.  Just don't expect your sense of morals to save you from the Alliance.  They don't have a problem taking no prisoners.

 

El’Heem: That’s what separates us from them, Tori. Remember that.

 

Matthews: :: Turning to Ras :: Okay am I missing something here? Doesn’t a prisoner camp have Starfleet officers posted there? We’d have to include actually killing our own people if we just go scorched earth on the place. Or am I mistaken? Is it like automated? Or are we just ignoring some of the innocent people we’d be killing. :: He turned to include Tori :: Including prisoners that have already been taken captive. Who probably worrying they’ll never see their own parents, or kids or anyone again.

 

Nevermind, the thin ice was beginning to give. Ras sighed again and met Tori’s gaze.

 

Tori: Heavens...  Is there a point to being so absurdist?  I'm not your enemy.  Straw man fallacies aren't going to help any of us.

El’Heem: Yes ::turning to Richard:: Let’s keep things productive, ensign.

 

Matthews: Sorry guys, I know this is just talking around in circles on my end. So let’s just take the time we have now, and work on solutions. Reasonable ones. Yeah? And before Ohnari comes back and rebuilds Tori as the bionic Betazoid. Should we call your mom? :: The last question was directed to the girl on the table :: No judgment, I’m thirty . . . :: He brought up a hand and quickly counted a few fingers :: forty-something depending on what you count. And I still want my mom when I get stuck in sickbay. And she doesn’t come with baked goods . . . actually mom’s cooking would be what would put you in sickbay. :: He shook his head :: No one tell her I said that.

 

The Kressari scratched the ridges on the back of his head with a quiet rasp of irritation. Richard would never survive a day in diplomacy. He had no tact, no subtly, and certainly no sense of when to hold his tongue. Catty Richard could be amusing, and even useful when the tension needed cutting. But now it only built walls where they needed doors.

 

Tori: Oh, please, Ensign.  Try to cloak it with "sarcasm" all you want, but you've done nothing but judge and deride me the whole time.  Why stop now?  :: Beat :: Though if you expect someone to take you seriously, Ensign, maybe you should start with your own advice - "Do unto others and all that."  There's nothing funny or cute about billions of lives on the line - including those of your crewmates.

 

The man had avoided therapy for as long as he’d been posted there. Maybe it was time to let things play out. Ras just watched the two, ready to step in before someone drew blood.

 

Matthews: Response

 

Tori: I know why you're talking in circles.  You're terrified.  I can tell.  You're scared, just like the rest of us.  You just found out you're going to die, and you're realizing no one will really remember you in the future - not even your friend Ras here.  But ask yourself this - how can you be friends if all you do is try to joke around and never take anything seriously?   I'm being serious right now.  Give me a serious answer, Ensign.  Or are you afraid there's nothing of substance under your emotional armor?

 

She wasn’t wrong, not entirely. The ensign never doffed his armor of sarcasm, but meeting cruelty with cruelty, even justly earned, was wrong. Tori may not have had any code to answer to, no Starfleet creed humming beneath her skin. But Ras and Richard did. And as he watched it all unfold, Ras couldn’t help but think he’d let it drag on longer than he should have.

 

El’Heem: ::sternly:: That’s enough.

 

Matthews : Response

 

Tori: Good!  Be angry!

 

Ras blinked at the sudden rise in intensity Tori’s voice took on. The room was no longer just warm, it had grown stifling. Something coiled in the tension. Electric. Predatory. He rose to his full height, the motion slow, each vertebra unfolding like the ratcheting of some great mechanism. The light caught on the lines of his face and cast shadows that distorted his expression. He didn’t interrupt her. Not yet. He let her finish her piece, because it was going to be the last wound either of them would inflict on one another.

 

Tori: Be afraid! It means you might just understand the tiniest sliver of what it feels like to watch whole species and cultures slowly slink off to forgotten extinction.  Your attitude can't hurt me.  In fact there's very little you can do to me the Alliance hasn't already done, besides kill me - and even that's half-done.  :: Motioning to her body under the blanket. ::  I need your passion and your help, not your attempts at humor.  If you've got something, let's hear it!

 

That was it. The moment broke and the taut tension relaxed. It didn’t need to snap. A faint breeze seemed to brush the back of his neck, and a coolness fell over him. The heat that had built in him began to drain away. When Richard opened his mouth to speak, Ras lifted a hand to stop him without looking away from Tori.

 

El’Heem: ::Calmly but stern:: Enough.

 

Matthews: Response

 

El’Heem: ::turning to Richard and raising his voice:: I said enough. ::turning back to Tori:: I recognize that your situation is dire. You’ve witnessed unimaginable tragedy. I get that. But you came to us to help you, and we are going to do just that, but let me get one thing straight, Tori, you will show some respect to the crew of this ship.

 

Matthews: Response

 

El’Heem: ::cutting him off:: And you. You’re an officer in Starfleet, I need you to act like it and get over whatever gripe you have with our guests. I don’t like the mechanisms in which they decided to come here any more than the next person, but we have our orders. Your opinion is better left in your quarters. Do you understand me, ensign?

Matthews / Tori: Response

 

Ras hadn’t realized that his heart rate had increased and he was breathing hard. He did his best to stifle it in an effort to maintain his air of authority.

 

El’Heem: Good. ::more calmly now:: Now. Glassing the whole facility is off the table. Assassinating someone for crimes they haven’t committed yet, is off the table. I want the next things to come out of either of your mouths to be ideas and ideas alone. Matthews?

 

Matthews / Tori: Response

 

TAGS/TBC

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Lieutenant Ras El’Heem

Science Officer

USS Khitomer (NCC-62400)

K240106RE3