Posted by Captain Daniel “DaVinci” Colter (Commanding Officer) in Captain’s Ready Room

Posted by Lieutenant Kaia (Chief Engineer) in Captain’s Ready Room

Posted by Captain Daniel “DaVinci” Colter (Commanding Officer) in Captain’s Ready Room
Posted by… suppressed (3) by the Post Ghost! 👻
With the changing of the guards, there was a lot going on, and Kaia thought it wise to welcome their new commanding officer. Therefore, she found herself on the bridge, standing in front of the door to the captain’s Ready Room. It was odd to think there was someone different behind that door. But there was. She held up her hand and tapped the chime - not the regular one, but the smaller button that had been installed at a reasonable height for her.

Lieutenant Kaia
Chief Engineer USS Manhattan

“Enter,” replied a gravelly voice from inside.

The doors opened to reveal what at first glance appeared to almost be a museum dedicated to late 20th century military items. Machine guns, automatic pistols, military plaques and framed awards lined the walls, including numerous Purple Hearts, a Medal of Honor and a Bronze star. Also, on the walls were framed pictures of Army military units. If one looked close enough, they would recognize a younger Capt. Colter with various military rank insignia on the uniforms.

Colter’s favorite item in the collection sat by itself, almost reverently. It was an US Army M24 sniper rifle. The weapon he used to get him safely through the Eugenics War.

Seated behind the desk was Capt. DaVinci Colter himself. A large muscular man whose every muscle was in perfect symmetry.

Capt. Daniel ‘DaVinci’ Colter
CO-USS Manhattan

Kaia took in the display, trying not to frown or narrow her gaze. Unlike humans, she was not an apex predator, millions of years removed from instincts of a creature that was accustomed to being hunted. Her people, while being carnivores, were still mesocarnivores, hunted by larger predators, until only a few thousand years ago. An open display of this many weapons - unloaded or replica as she hoped they might be - in a space meant for command and dialogue was not something she had been prepared to be confronted with.

The depths of her discomfort was not clear to someone unfamiliar with her species, but there was a slight twitch of her tail and a subtle tilt of her ears. Unseen below her uniform, fur on her shoulders and back stiffened with tension. The weapons told a story, the photos another. This was a man who held a fondness for tools of violence, and … some long ago glory days of a time period she wasn’t familiar with. Her gaze flicked onto a few dates that … some mental math, remembering the federation year and the earth year were one and the same, told an ancient story. She didn’t look closely enough to see his face in the photos, and might not anyways considering her brain wasn’t evolved to recognise human faces the way human brains were, but saw the name on the plaques and wondered why this man felt the need to display so many commemorations to… what she had to assume was some ancestor of his?

“Captain. Welcome to the Manhattan, I am Lt. Kaia the Manhattan’s Chief Engineer. I see you’ve already,” she hesitated for a moment, glancing around again, “made yourself at home.” She stood still, just within the doorframe, her tail out of the way of the door so that it could close without hurting her.

Lieutenant Kaia
Chief Engineer USS Manhattan

DaVinci stood up and replied, “Thank you for the welcome, Lt. Please, come in and have a seat.”

The CO sat back down and continued.

“Yes, I’m sure I’ll be spending a lot of time in here and needed to make it feel like home. These. . .items are memorabilia of a time long past. . . .my past. Earth in the late 20th century. Not a particularly peaceful time in Earth’s history.”

Capt. Daniel ‘DaVinci’ Colter
CO-USS Manhattan

“A point in time I’d been told your planet had moved past,” Kaia said, staying in the doorway for now. Clocking the mention of ‘my past’, she re-examined her assessment of the display. A man displaced in time? She was still… disquieted by the tools of violence, but the context made it feel less like a glorification of the past or a threat display, and more like what he said, memorabilia. Something not for other people, but for himself. Still.

“Pardon me for being so frank, so soon after meeting you, Captain. Not all visitors to this space will feel … comfortable,” she gestured at the guns, “surrounded by all this violence. I would suggest that any conversations you have with diplomatic visitors stay out of here, unless it’s Klingons or another culture you know will be impressed by a show of this nature. Some may take it as a threat, in a way that could damage prospects of peaceful relations between cultures.”

Now, finally, she stepped forward and to the offered chair, crouching slightly to ‘coil’ her muscles and, like the cats she resembled, leaped up onto the seat of the chair with a smooth but powerful jump. She didn’t sit - instead standing on the seat of the chair to make her a little closer to eye level with her new Captain.

Lieutenant Kaia
Chief Engineer USS Manhattan

DaVinci offered a wry smile. “I can see your point, Lt., but this is a part of my history. These awards, these, pictures, these weapons are a part of who I am. I’m a soldier, and those awards and commendations say I was a damn good one.” He pointed at a picture on his desk. “That’s me, second from left. January 1991. Just before being deployed to the Middle East to liberate Kuwait from Iraqi forces in Operation Desert Storm.”

“I don’t know if you know anything about my history, Kaia, but I was born on Earth in the 1964. Yes, technically I’m over 400 years old. Most of that was spent on a sleeper ship. After my football career ended, I joined the US Army. Became an Army Ranger and was eventually selected to be a member of the US’s Delta Force, the elite of the elite. I’d like to think we were the good guys in the war on terrorism in Earth’s late 20th century. I fought in the Eugenics Wars against Khan Noonien Singh and his augments whn they tried to take over the world. I followed him into space on a sleeper ship, with the intent to make sure he never returned to Earth to recreate the havoc he once did. By the time I woke on the sleeper ship, Kirk and the Enterprise had already stopped him. I adjusted to this new century and continued my military career in Starfleet.”

“I’m not ashamed of who I am or what I did, Lt. My experiences made me who I am. I’m not a violent man, but when the Federation, my ship, OR my crew is threatened, I will not hesitate to light up the enemy like the 4th of July.”

“I’m not out here to seek war and battle, or conflict. but I will defend what I believe in until my last breath. I hope you can understand where I’m coming from, Lt.”

Capt. Daniel ‘DaVinci’ Colter
CO-USS Manhattan

“We don’t live in that world anymore,” Kaia said, the smile dropping off her face. “I understand your… pride in accomplishments, but a place where you intend to hold meetings with other beings is not an appropriate place for,” she gestured specifically at the large rifle, “weapons of death. This is not a battle cruiser, Captain, it is a ship of diplomacy and relief. This display may be … ‘comforting’ to you, but I do not find it anything close to that. May I be excused.”

Lieutenant Kaia
Chief Engineer USS Manhattan