Posted by Captain Sara Kiernan (Commanding Officer) in Life in the Captain’s Chair [Closed]
Sara loved her job. She was a proud Starfleet officer, and a proud ship captain. But her job drained her energy just by its very nature. It had been a tired kind of day. She got home to her quarters and traded her uniform for leggings and a Starfleet Academy sweatshirt. She had big plans with a couch and a novel. Instead of that, she heard an incoming transmission. She sat down at her desk, sighed, put her best Diplomatic Captain expression on and accepted the call.

“At ease Captain.” The screen held an image of her family. Her father, mother, and brother were all smiling at her.
“I outrank you, dad.” Sara relaxed and smiled.
“You can pull rank all you want. Parent still wins”
“I wasn’t expecting to hear from you guys today.”
Her mom chimed in. “We haven’t talked to you in almost three months. And since Jared is here on leave, it seemed like a good time.”
Sara straightened up and put on a mock command persona “You’re on leave, Lieutenant Kiernan?”
“Yes ma’am.” He responded, trying to stay completely sincere.
“Giving your family trouble?”
“That’s the plan, Captain.”
“As you were, Lieutenant.” Sara’s face cracked into a smile and her posture relaxed again. Her younger brother had the same smile spreading across his face.
“Good to see you, Sara.”
“You too.”
“Big chair fitting you okay?” Her father asked. Commander Philip Kiernan held a position as an engineering instructor at Starfleet Academy, and had given up on ‘the big chair’ in signing up for that to have a stable, safe life for his family.
“Like I was born for it.”
“You were. Prime officer in the making your whole life.”
Jared acted upset. “What about me?”
“You’ll be a fine Captain someday too.”
“Can you all talk shop some other time?” Sara’s mother, Charlotte, was the only one in the immediate family with no time in Starfleet. She was accomplished in her own field, working for the Federation Council as a senior aide to one of the Council members. Her work was important, but she felt on the outside of her own family. Phillip, Sara, and Jared all apologized with smiles and tried to shift the topic.
“It’s been a while since we all sat down together like this.” Sara said, not knowing the door she had opened.
“Why didn’t you call us, sweetie?”
“What do you mean, mom?” Sara knew what she meant.
“You came back from- we thought something awful had happened. And you came back and…”
“We’ve talked since then.”
“But you haven’t told us anything that happened. You didn’t call when you came back, we called you.”
“I couldn’t tell you anything. I can’t tell you anything. All charges were groundless and dropped from record. The whole crew were presented with Tri-Star Cluster medals for their service. That is the limit of what I can tell anyone.”
“Why couldn’t you call and tell us that then?”
“Because I wouldn’t have had the restraint to keep to that answer. I would’ve spilled my guts. About everything. So it was better for all of us if I kept my mouth shut.”
“How noble.” Jared suddenly spat out.
“Jared-“
“You don’t get to decide what’s best for everyone.”
“In this case, yeah, I do.”
“Why?”
Sara’s eyes went cold and she became her CO self. “There is no information I can give you.”
“Why?” Jared pressed.
“There is no answer I can give.”
“Don’t go all ‘Commanding Officer’ on me- on us.”
“You keep pushing where there’s no information for you. What should matter to you-“ the mask cracked “What should matter to you is that I’m here. I’m alive. I’m the person you thought I was. There’s always going to be a part of my life I can’t talk about. I can’t change that now.”

Everything went silent.

“Sara?” Her dad spoke up after a minute.
“Yeah?”
“We all love you. That’s why we’ve been so worried.”
“I love you guys too.”

They talked a while longer, but the air is never clear right after the fight. It wasn’t quite comfortable, it wasn’t what she wanted time with her family to be. They all signed off and she saluted her father and brother, as had become customary. They saluted back and the screen went dark. She moved back toward the couch but the novel she had made her plans with seemed deeply unappealing. She slipped on some running shoes and went down to 6 forward.

-To Be Continued-

-Sara

Sara made her presence as small as possible going into the lounge. She avoided the gazes of officers she knew would recognize her and sat at the bar. The bartender walked over. “Don’t see you often.” He quipped.
Sara offered a weak smile. “I don’t want to dampen the crew’s off time.” Someone sat down next to Sara.
“What can I get you while you’re here then, mysterious stranger?” The bartender protected Sara a little.
“Earth classic. A Negroni.”
“You have good taste.” The woman next to her remarked.
“Thank you.” Sara turned and met the deep, brown eyes of her companion. She saw the young woman’s features flood with fear as she recognized the ship’s Captain.
“I apologize for speaking out of turn, ma’am.”
Sara laughed. “We’re off-duty. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Thank you ma’am.”
“You want to know something funny about being Captain of your own ship?” The young woman nodded she did. “You don’t get to be a member of the crew anymore.”
“What do you mean?”
“People look to you for what to do when things go wrong. The crew needs you to be ready with answers, with a plan, with steadiness. You don’t really get to be the woman who’s just having a bad day.”
“Is that why you’re here ma’am?”
“Save the ma’am for when we’re in uniform.”
“Yes ma’am.”
“I think I remember seeing you during a walkthrough of Engineering.”
“Yes ma’am. Petty Officer Maria Vargas.” She looked terrified to introduce herself.
“Good to meet you.”
“You too, Captain.” Maria started to leave, but stopped. “Can I ask you a question?”
“Shoot.”
“What’s the officer track side of the Academy like?”

-2383-
An Admiral surveyed the new class of cadets. He paced back and forth, looking over and appraising all of them. “Welcome to Starfleet Academy, Cadets. This is a place where you will be challenged to meet the highest standard to be the next class of officers in Starfleet. If you cannot meet that standard, you will not graduate. But if you can, you will leave here already accomplished and holding a rank with no limit to how high you can rise.” Someone went through the class, pinning rank pips to them that marked them as first year cadets. The Admiral concluded. “Welcome to the hardest thing you have ever done. You wouldn’t be here if we didn’t believe you’re up for the challenge.”

Deep in her second semester, Sara was buried in her studies. She had set her mind to doing well enough to get a good assignment. She didn’t understand that how she did on her calculus II midterm had almost no bearing on that. Her roommate was staring at technical manuals for fighter pilots. Kara was focused. She knew where her passion was and she was chasing it. She didn’t want to sit at the helm of a giant ship, she wanted to fly small craft. Their interests couldn’t have been more different, but they bonded over their passion for what they did and how deeply they wanted to do it well.

-2400-
“The Academy is brutal. They don’t let up for a second, academically or on readiness training. But that keeps you close with the other Cadets. I’m still friends with some of the people I graduated with.”
“Enlisted training is a lot shorter but it’s intense.”
“Being in Starfleet is intense.”
“Yes ma’am.”
“Why do you want to know about the Academy?”
Maria looked embarrassed. “I did well on the other parts of the exam but I don’t do sit-down knowledge tests well. So they said I wasn’t academically ready. I settled for enlisting.”
“Enlisted personnel are the backbone of everything we do.”
Maria rolled her eyes like she’d heard that a thousand times. “And officers treat us like shit. Like shit they just stepped in.”
“Who?” Sara was ready to end someone’s career.
“Ma’am-“ she was suddenly afraid.
“I won’t tolerate mistreatment of any member of my crew.”
“Captain please. Don’t do anything. I don’t want to be the one who went whining to the Captain. It won’t solve anything. I’ll just be a snitch nobody trusts.”
Sara hated it. But she nodded her agreement. “If I hear anything from the Chief Engineer or another staff member-“
“Then you can handle anything any way you want. You are the Captain.” Maria tried to laugh it off. Sara didn’t laugh. Maria shifted gears. “I thought for sure you’d bring up field promotions when I talked about enlisting.”
“No. About ten years ago, I was assigned as Chief Science Officer on the USS Dunkirk. The best scientist on my team? Senior Chief Petty Officer Oresav Th’thaarran. He had 15 years experience on me and we both knew it. He’d never gone through the officer training even though his performance well merited it. He was doing the hard work. And he was good at it. He was crucial to running my department. And I learned very quickly to never take my enlisted staff for granted.”
They were quiet for a while.
“I guess your bad day hasn’t gotten much better.”
“Eh, you brought back some fond memories. I appreciate it.”
“You’ve really been in long enough your first Department Head job was ten years ago?”
“Thanks for pointing that out.” Sara laughed. “I signed up as soon as I could.”
“Me too.”
“How long?”
“A year and a half.” Maria suddenly looked shy.
“God you’re young.”
“Sorry ma’am.”

They laughed and chatted the evening away.

-To Be Continued-

-Sara