Posted by Lieutenant Julien Smith (Doctor) in Captain’s ready room

(snip)

Julien nodded silenty. He knew he could find out, but he didn’t know if he was ready to. Besides, this was not about him, this was about Ghubari. He looked back into her beautiful eyes, his were full of empathy.

It was an awkward moment of silence, but as she looked back at him Ghubari relaxed and understood he was not holding it against her.

“It seems you went through a lot in the last few years. I made it a point to read your mission reports, but there was a fair number of them that were classified, even on Fleet Captain level. That’s never a good sign in my experience.” he said. It was an invitation to talk if she wanted to. He knew full well that there were many topics that a Captain didn’t want to talk about with his crew, because it was part of the job to carry the brunt of the burden and a good leader took that on and didn’t delegate it down.
But he also thought he knew her a little, so he didn’t force the topic.

• Julien

The slight scratching of her thumb rubbing circles around the pads of her index and middle fingers was the only noise in the room for a moment as she looked out her expansive windows. “It’s not… been easy, for sure,” she said quietly before her eyes settled on him again. “I know you must have gone through a similarly difficult time when your own ship was destroyed. Losing the old Athena though, for us, was bittersweet. Done in the name of necessity and absurd orders to save things on a level of magnitude our daily lives can’t begin to comprehend. It was this changing point. Incredibly difficult things had happened before and since, but that day changed everything for me personally, not just as a captain. If I hadn’t gone through that, I very much doubt I would have ever come to marry Konral. And that’s just a small piece of it.”

How much could she say, really? He was cleared for this current mission, even as sort of underground as it was, but that didn’t mean he was able to know the intimate details of some of their most classified missions. And yet, he would understand, either way. That alone made her want to, because it was nice to have someone who would truly understand the predicaments she had been in over the years- without judgement.

Fl. Captain Koraia, CO

He watched her looking out of the window and understood why she did that. His glance followed hers, out into the vastness of space and in his mind’s eye he saw the wreckage parts of the old Genesis floating around aimlessly as if it had been yesterday. Vividly he remembered his own thoughts back then, his gut-wrenching feelings… had they found all bodies? Could he have done anything differently to prevent it? Had been his fault?
He looked back at her and took a deep breath.

“My first thought when we lost the old Genesis and some crew members was a very egoistic one that I never told anybody. I wished I was one of the casualties.” he said. “I just wanted to be free of it all, and in those seconds I’d have given my life for that.” he lowered his glance and shook his head slowly.

“You don’t act on such thoughts of course, you just feel guilty for them.” he said. Did she want to tell him what weighed so heavily on her mind? He didn’t knowm, all he could do is give her the opening. If she wanted to there were ways to make the classified information safe with him that a normal human being did not have.
He was also curious about the story of her pervious XO, a being not entirely unlike him, and one he would have loved to meet. But he was gone and his disappearance was classiefied as well*.

• Julien Smith
  OOC: *I suppose it is

OOC: That was the plan.
IC:
“Yes,” she said in agreement, finally shifting her amber gaze back to him. “It’s harder now. It’s difficult to admit that, but when it just 100 people on a tactical destroyer there was a certain understanding about the dangers inherent in the type of missions we went on or were dragged into. So much death, Julien,” she said, hearing the own ache in her voice. “But now, I wander the corridors thinking, ‘What the hell am I doing?’ Because it feels like there is a perpetual target on my ship regardless of its mission profile and crew. By the Ancestors, Julien, there are families and children on this ship. And we’re still going about the galaxy like we’re on perpetual red alert and our weapons are hot. It’s been necessary, but damned if I don’t feel guilty.”

Fl. Captain Koraia, CO