Posted by Lieutenant Junior Grade Janna Kingston (Counsellor) in Business As Usual - Redux

Posted by Lieutenant Junior Grade Janna Kingston (Counsellor) in Business As Usual - Redux

Posted by Lieutenant Commander Serena Stone (Executive Officer) in Business As Usual - Redux
Posted by… suppressed (3) by the Post Ghost! 👻

(snip)

“That sounds pretty hectic,” she admitted. “And familiar, I suppose.” The redhead lapsed into silence, her gaze turning far away, looking inward. “I know. I hear you. ‘Give it time’ and all that. ‘Get comfortable.’” The XO shook her head. “But that’s the problem. Getting comfortable. Getting complacent. Losing the edge. Getting weak and soft. All of those things allow mistakes to creep in. Mistakes that get people hurt or killed. That goes not just for me, but for everybody on this ship. We all depend on each other to do our jobs, do it right, the first time.”

She shook her head. “As much as we’d all like to pretend that help is just a call away, the reality is that .. when seconds matter, help is hours away. It’s still the wild west out here. Only the best and brightest, and maybe the luckiest, make it out here. We don’t get to sleep in. We don’t get to say ‘I’ll do it tomorrow.’ Or ‘It’s not that big of a deal.’” She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “There are no second chances out here. Space is an unforgiving place, and that’s without taking into account all the recent attacks along the borders, bad actors, disasters, and unexplained stuff exploration ships run into.”

“Yes, I know everyone is well trained. I know everybody is doing their jobs. And they do it well. But 99% turns into 95%, turns into 80% .. and then something slips through teh cracks. Transporter mishap. Shuttle accident. Lab explosion. Shield failure. Reactor overload. All because people got comfortable. Got complacent.”

“That concern hasn’t gone away.”

Stone, XO

Janna listened carefully and nodded here and there. After Serena finished, she gazed at the other woman with kindness. “What if, just maybe, being settled here isn’t about doing less? What if it means feeling connected to others enough that you want to do more for them, and they for you? If you died tomorrow, would you want it to matter to someone here?”

~Janna Kingston, CNS

Serena listened, but as Janna asked her question her focus turned inward. She turned the query over in her head, examining it from every angle she could think of,. Confusion grew on her face, as there seemed to be no relation to … anything she’d spoken on. It was almost a complete change of topic. Trust the process. Finally, she took a deep breath. “I’m not sure .. what you’re getting at. Are you talking professionally or … privately? Or both? And what’s that got to do with anything? And sure, it would be nice. But that’s not realistic.”

Falling back into silence, she sipped at her tea in thought some more. “I’m not sure it’s ever mattered if something happens to me. I’m just a cog in the machine. I train my people to anticipate rather than wait around for orders. For me to do their thinking for them. At least that was how I ran my team back on the Valkyrie. They still checked in, got approvals, but after a while, they were all capable of operating on their own initiative, within reason. Eventually they were all capable of running, leading, their own teams with as much skill.”

Stone

Stilling everything inside of her, Janna breathed deeply, letting her newfound senses confirm a train of thought. It was this strange blend of practical experience and an intuition she could scarcely explain. “And that’s commendable and a sign you know what you are doing. But you are a still a person, Serena. Your presence here matters. People are looking to you as the XO to show them the way forward, to help them be the best they can be. And you can do that best by leading by example. But you are more than your job. You are so much more than a cog. I know Starfleet doesn’t always do a great job of demonstrating that to its personnel, but here on the Athena each person has value beyond what they bring when they are on duty. And we want to get to know that Serena Stone too.”

~Janna Kingston, CNS

Bump

Serena listened, but with wariness and skepticism flowing off of her. “I’m not really sure there is anything but the job at this point. It’s not like the civilian sector where you clock out at the end of the day and go home to the wife and kids. You’re either on duty or you’re on call, all day, every day. Even when I sleep, it’s always on my mind. Like constant humming background noise.” She shrugged. “There’s no real room for… say a significant other, a white picket fence, two point five kids, and a dog. Not for me anyway. That’s a luxury for.. others. The rest of the crew. They come first. And that’s perfectly fine.”

Stone