Posted by Lieutenant Junior Grade Janna Kingston (Counsellor) in Business As Usual - CNS Office - Tag Kingston

Posted by Lieutenant Commander Serena Stone (Executive Officer) in Business As Usual - CNS Office - Tag Kingston

Posted by Lieutenant Junior Grade Janna Kingston (Counsellor) in Business As Usual - CNS Office - Tag Kingston

(snip)

Janna met Serena’s gaze evenly, undisturbed. She could feel the other woman’s readiness, the coiling of muscles and mind. “Surprises happen every day on this ship, in a myriad of areas. On very rare occasion could we prepare for them. Sometimes, yes, people die. My predecessor was killed by a fellow officer on a mission where she apparently had a secret role few people knew about tracking a traitor. They fought, she died instantly. Instead of continuing on the medical ship in our exploratory fleet I just arrived at, I came here even though It wasn’t what I wanted. And I’ve been here every since. But I couldn’t have predicted that. And no one could have predicted Kallen Reese’s death. But it’s how we deal with those surprises that matters, Serena. So, knowing that you can’t predict everything, how will you proceed as first officer, as the one the rest of the crew is looking to for leadership and an example?”

~Janna Kingston, CNS

A memory came flooding back.

It was late, and a soft breeze drifted through diaphanous curtains, ghostly in the lunar glow of the night sky. The room was otherwise dark, and for the moment, she slept peacefully. Night turned to instant dawn, there and gone in a flash. No sound. The house shook*, slapped by an invisible hand. Serena groggily looked up from the floor, wondering how she got there. Dazed she climbed to her feet. Another bright flash. What? She barely had time to register the thought before she was knocked from her feet again.

And then the ripping crack and green flare of a disruptor struck not far outside the windows. They shattered, flinging jagged shards into the walls. Serena threw up one arm and dove for cover, instinct more than anything telling her what to do. Scrambling for her bed, she found her mother rushing into the room. “Come on, Serena! We’ve got to go!”
“Go where? What’s happening?!”
“We’re under attack?”

Attack? By who? Why? What did do to deserve that? The questions were less thought and more feeling, leaving her bewildered, disoriented, dazed, and more than a little frightened. Her mother was pulling, dragging her out by one skinny arm. She’d never seen her mother in such a state either. Much less her clutching a phaser with the other. And then her dad meeting them both, his expression grim, eyes wide, carrying a rifle. “We have to get to the shelter.” His voice was thin, tight.

“Shoes,” mom demanded, dropping a pair Serena hadn’t noticed her mother scrounge up in the confusion. Recognizing this was no time to argue, she put them on as fast as she could, trying to ignore the tremors and shockwaves. Ignore things falling off shelves. Ignore the pounding in her ears and head.

As she straightened back up, her father knelt, coming down to her eye level, even though she was almost ten, and not that short. “We’re gonna have to run for it, bug. Stick close to your mom. Fast, quick. But quiet and careful when she tells you. You hear?” Serena nodded, and then threw her arms around her father as tight as she could. His hug back was warm as sunshine, hard as iron.

Stepping out into the street of the colony was practically a warzone. A ship she couldn’t identify flashed past overhead, barely visible with it’s running lights and thrusters being the only clue. It’s passage shook the ground, and as she watched, several of the colonists shimmered, vanishing in light. Transported? She thought so. They were taking people.

Nearby. A shape loomed up out of the trees. two.. four. Angled pylons that dwarfed the trees. Golden beams of hard light began raking across the skies. flattened sections like pancakes popped out of each of the pylons, two to a side, coming out like a plug, each one with an oval opening. Out of those openings began flying red-gold stars, screaming and crackling as they streaked into the sky so fast Serena could barely follow. The colony defense grid had finally come online and was fighting back.

A hand on her arm yanked her gaze away from the defense towers. Her mother was pulling her along, her grip was a tight band. She did her best to keep up. Her mother’s long, fast strides ate up ground, but Serena spent so much time running in the forests and hills the flat streets of the city weren’t much concern, even with debris from the attack littering the place here and there.*

It was one thing for someone across from her to have a strong enough emotion that Janna could either get a trace of it, but it was quite another to be bowled over by such a strong surge. But she had breathed through it as Serena had her moment and managed to find her composure again.

The redhead blinked away the unbidden memory. “No, you can’t predict everything,” she agreed. “Doesn’t mean you can’t be vigilant. Doesn’t mean you can’t be prepared. Training, skills. And while you can’t prepare for every contingency or eventuality, the idea is to be flexible. Have a playbook, but don’t be married to it. Be ready to play it by ear. Adapt, improvise, overcome. Something we get drilled into our heads in security training from day one. It’s vital for any ship and crew, really. You do it enough, you get good at it. Which is part of the competence-confidence loop. We’re all taught to be self-reliant. Doesn’t mean the surprises are rainbows and butterflies. Just means you carry a phaser in one pocket and a smile in the other, use either as necessary.”

Stone, XO

Kingston nodded slowly, as much to check herself as it was to show she was taking in what Stone said. “And I’m certainly not asking you to discount your training, but I’m wondering if you can think of any surprises that could be actually positive. Doesn’t have to be related to being on duty.” As always, there were reasons for how she approached topics of conversation and this time was no different.

~Janna Kingston, CNS

She ws still and quiet for a moment. not in a guarded way, but as her gaze fell it turned inward. Introspective. She nodded after a moment with a small sigh. “I mean, sure. But” Another sigh, this one of exasperation as she searched for how to express where she was coming from. It didn’t have anything to do with duty. Or being on duty, or off duty. Well, that was a start. “It has nothing to do with being on duty. It has everything to do with.. we’re in the Wild West out here. When seconds matter help is hours away, or even days or weeks. And we’re supposed to be the help. For starters. And there are lots of people out there that don’t like us. Somebody could decide I was an obstacle and put a bomb in my quarters. Or ambush me in the dark. Or any number of things.”

“Say somebody decides to get the bright idea to throw a surprise party in my quarters for me. Yeah, that’s a fun idea. At least normally. But doing that to me is … I very bad idea. It could go fine. Or somebody might get shot, or hit. Especially if they’re close to me when the lights come up. Now, it was intended to be a good thing. It’s not a good idea to startle and scare me. Everybody’s gonna have a bad time after that. Because I’m going to feel like crap, someone else is injured or worse. And it’s just not good all the way around. Give me a heads-up first? Things go much better.”

“And no, I don’t want anybody to get hurt. Would I ever intentionally harm anybody here? No, not unless they were trying to harm me. But in the dark, surrounded by shadowy figures, I’m outnumbered, wouldn’t you immediately be ready to fight your way out of this ambush? Because, it actually is an ambush. just a friendly one. Also it’s an invasion of my privacy and space. So there’s that too.”

She still wasn’t sure she was really conveying her reality on the matter. And it probably only hurt her case. Did she sound paranoid and deranged? Probably. But she’d spent so much time seeing the worst in people. And having to deal with the nastiness most others didn’t want to, or couldn’t deal with. She doubted there wasn’t a seasoned security officer, tactical officer, soldier, or marine that felt much the same. Bad things didn’t wait for you to be on the clock. And while there was plenty of good, springing it on someone wired for combat wasn’t a good idea. And that didn’t even get into the career-enders, relationship-enders. Divorce territory like infidelity. That was always a wonderful surprise, wasn’t it? Or when someone crashed a vehicle because of bad or impaired judgement.

“I’m pretty sure that statistically there are a lot more bad surprises than there are good. Divorce. Infidelity. Assault. Murder. The list goes on. Are there good surprises? Of course. I’m all for them. But they’re few and far between. Everything else is kinda crap. I’d be happy to be proven otherwise though.”

Stone