Lieutenant Ras El'Heem - Moving on
Ras El'Heem
((Deck 6, Isolation Room, USS Khitomer))
There was a palpable roiling beneath their words like an unseen churn that was losing its ability to feign civility. The words that were being spoken aloud were only the surface of a much more volatile iceberg. It was time to let his pips speak for the second ridiculous time since he’d been promoted.
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!
El’Heem: ::Calmly but stern:: Enough.
Richard didn’t say anything but the look on his face bordered insubordination. Maybe it was just Ras. His irritation was coloring what he saw.
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.
The ensign wasn’t innocent. He had pressed buttons constantly since his arrival and this time he’d accidentally pressed the wrong ones.
Tori: Response
Matthews: Literally said nothing then, you good, maybe we need a brea –
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: Eh, I was being nicer. That was the whole point of being all ‘I get you did risky time travel to see your family again’ just now. :: To Tori :: If the sincerity didn’t come through, sorry, so moving on.
Tori: Response
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: Thought you wanted me to keep my opinions to myself.
So much for calmly. The red dipped into the Kressari’s eyes ever so slightly and something akin to heatburn bubbled up in his chest.
Tori: Response
El’Heem: ::through gritted teeth:: What’s your problem, ensign? Do I have to send you to take a time out in your quarters?
Matthews: Look, I don’t know what you guys want here. I can plan for things that will happen :: He held up his PADD :: I’ve already got a request for people to start working on upping the ration stores and survival equipment in case we can’t prevent crashing or some of us getting stranded on a planet when the Khitomer gets assigned to go after whoever it is that attacks the POW camp. Unless you want us to tell the Captain that we should let someone else do that?
El’Heem: I want you to do your job. If you can’t handle that, we can see if another posting is more fitting of your attitude.
Tori: Response
Matthews: What are the parameters on what we’re trying to solve here? Just the prison incident? Easy, we either move everyone or let everyone go. We just need more detail on how the specific prisoner unites everyone. Do we know in the future if they started now? Would letting them go back to their home worlds derail that from happening? If not, then move them to another prison further into Starfleet territory.
The lieutenant bit his tongue and rolled his eyes. He’d let it go for now, for the sake of progress, but there would be a report about the ensigns behavior after the mission.
El’Heem: ::under his breath:: Oh, look who finally decided to contribute. Tori. What about you?
Tori: Response
Matthews: :: Shrugging :: We’re also probably thinking too hard on it. Mom used to say ‘keep it simple, smarty-pants.’ and we should try and do that here too. For every ‘solution’ we come up with, we probably can think up three things that could go wrong with it. And then we’re going to try and plan for those three things and so on and so on.
Ras let Richard’s comment settle in his mind. There would always be something to question or attempt to fix in a plan, Richard wasn’t wrong there. Still, the gears in his head began to turn in heavy quiet circles. If they wanted to end this for good, they’d have to poison the well. Make the bond between the Tholians and Sheliak toxic. Before the revelation of the commander who united the two, there were rumors of petty infighting. It wasn’t surprising, after all, neither were very tolerant.
Matthews: So, yay or nay for sending the prisoners on their merry little way? Or yay or nay on having them moved?
Tori: Response
El’Heem: I don’t know if that’s enough.
Matthews/Tori: Reponse
El’Heem: Well, just moving them to another location only really postpones the inevitable, right? Maybe it postpones it long enough for Starfleet to make a decisive strike, maybe it doesn’t. And then there’s the bilingual Tholian.
Matthews/Tori: Reponse
El’Heem: Learning a language doesn’t happen overnight. They’re likely already deep into fluency.
Matthews/Tori: Reponse
El’Heem: What if…::pausing:: what if we turned the Sheliak against the Tholian inside the prison before that quartermaster gets the chance to build all that good will?
Matthews/Tori: Reponse
TAGS/TBC
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Lieutenant Ras El’Heem
Science Officer
USS Khitomer (NCC-62400)
K240106RE3