Posted by Captain Zachariah Cobb (Commanding Officer) in Sausage and Scuttlebutt

Posted by Lieutenant Casela Synthi-er (Counsellor / RTF) in Sausage and Scuttlebutt

Posted by Captain Zachariah Cobb (Commanding Officer) in Sausage and Scuttlebutt

(snip)

Casela sipped her coffee very slowly. Wanted Cobb’s blessing? Blessing for what? The color drained from her face slightly…surely not? She and Ryder were going to have a talk later. Cobb would see the flash of fire and steel cross her eyes.

She wasn’t sure what to respond to Zachariah’s statement. It was all so....personal. “Yes, he is.” She shrugged. His blessing was nice she supposed, but really, she liked Ryder enough, that she didn’t care what the captain or anyone else thought for that matter. As for the rest, well, that was something that was…personal, but she grinned anyway over the rim of coffee cup. “I like to think so.”
Lt Synthi-er, CNS

Zachariah frowned. This was not the reaction he had been expecting. But then all prior knowledge of Casela considered, was her guardedness truly so surprising?

“Come now, Cass,” he attempted to counter, “You are a grown woman who is more than capable of making her own decisions. And I am not, nor would I ever attempt to replicate, your father. But I am the captain of this ship and Commander Raauhl is my first officer. And as such I appreciate the respect for the chain of command he has demonstrated in bringing this to my attention.”

He studied her closely over his coffee, curling steam from the warm liquid like an outpouring of fire from the Counselor’s eyes. He was well aware of her intolerance for rank and position, even shared it on certain occasions. But ultimately, he alone was responsible for holding this crew together and if the chain of command was the scaffolding on which this entire house of cards rested, then so be it.

“And that is where my own interest begins and ends,” he concluded. “I meant what I said before, Cas. As long as I see no trace of it seeping into your duty then I care not what my officers get up to in their precious spare time. But you can forgive an old man a slight degree of pleasure in seeing his friend grapple for happiness, surely?”

• Captain Zachariah Cobb

She was quiet for a long time. Cobb may never replace her father, but he was that important to her. She’d been on this damn boat too long. There were to many people on this ship that mattered to her now. She didn’t put much stock in rank, but that really wasn’t an issue here. She could pretend it was, but it wasn’t. This had to do with her job, with the risk she put them at. She could ask for a transfer, she could reach out to the section and be moved, she could just leave. That didn’t solve the issue though. The only way now, with a public announcement, such as it was, was to stay and keep an eye on them, protect them herself.

She sipped the coffee and then ran a hand, agitatedly, through her hair and looked at him. “Who does that? Really, Zachariah, who willing gets their name associated with mine? Like, a personal connection. Not in a passing they were on the same ship for at time, way, but connected the two names together. What in the hells was I thinking? It’s not like there are nice people looking for me.” She glances over at him. It was written all over her face, here with Cobb, and no where else but with Ryder, would she show how much she was struggling with this. She was frustrated and legitimately concerned. “He keeps telling me its all ‘in my past.’ The man has no sense of self preservation. What have I done?”
Lt Synthi-er, CNS

Finally they came to the heart of the matter. Shadows. Every past transgression cast its own pall against the warmth of existence. None walked untainted through the glaring haze of life, although for most their history cast only the lightest of shade. But every now and then, an individual might find their own cover so substantial, so weighted, as to become a tomb. And never had it been more true than for the two individuals currently in this room.

“I’m sure Ryder would be flattered by your appraisal of his innocence, Cas,” Cobb remarked, only marginally in jest. “How do you think he worked up to First Officer on an ARU vessel, eh? You think he dazzled them with his test scores? His performance in the Kobayashi Maru?”
The old man shook his head.

“This has nothing to do with innocence, Cobb. It has to do with facing the evil in the world head on and knowing who’s behind you, and then the rest of us who are the monsters that chase down that evil. It’s not about innocence. It’s about the darkness that doesn’t let go. Some of us have it and others don’t.” Her voice snapped like steel swords clashing against each other. “It’s better than the rest of you, thinking he got it by sleeping with every woman from his grade school nurse to the admiralty to get here. Which we both know isn’t true either.”

“Aye, we do know that isn’t true,” Cobb fired back. “And so does everyone else on this ship. Or if they don’t then you can send them to me.”
Taut shoulders began to raise defensively, open palms placed against the edge of the desk for support as Zachariah got to his feet and leaned in to lock eyes with Casela. “There is a vast chasm of intent between camaraderie and contempt and while I was not the last to tease Raauhl on his popularity with the crew, not for one moment have I ever doubted his strength, his courage and his qualifications for the position!”

She wasn’t afraid to lock eyes with Cobb, but she was brought back to herself by the fire in his reply. It was a slight thing, small twitch in the corner of her left eye only, as if something flew at her and she blinked. Only the most observant would see it.

“I get it, Cas. I do. Apathy is a warm blanket only ever big enough for one. And we both know the chasm that exists between the trials we would take upon ourselves and those we would lay onto others. But the Commander is not as fragile as you might think. Even by your inimitable standards.”

“Isn’t it you who said, ‘The void is a lonely place to walk all alone, and while I would never drag another down here to accompany me, since you fell by your own doing, then I am glad you at least landed by my side.’ I would not drag him here to this void by any means. It’s not a joke, it’s not cute, it’s not arrogance on my part. I would not drag someone I love to this hellish void.”

“Neither would I,” he whispered, collapsing back into the chair as if his body had been transformed into a vacuum, devoid of every atom of breath. “Neither would I.”

So familiar, this maelstrom in which she now churned. On the sea bed, his own former struggles lay sunken by history, by loneliness and solitude and the active choice not to join with another. That singular pain, of a heart truly shattered, he had seen in the eyes of his wife, the morning she had fled from the beast that was her husband. It was a pain that he knew he would never himself feel. A pain that he could never bear to witness in another, ever again.

He winked and reached for his coffee. “Give the lad a chance, eh? We can always lock him in containment if you find you’ve made a mistake.”

• Captain Zachariah Cobb

A chance? Isn’t that what the problem was. She was ever so glad, insert extreme sarcasm here, that Cobb thought it was funny. If it all went south she’d be the one in the brig or containment.

She drew herself up, it all locked behind a mask, again. “Those are my updates for now, Cpt. Lazol is a loose canon and Anders might be a spy. I’m sure the rest of the crew can determine how to deal with them. If I’m dismissed I have other appointments due to arrive soon.”
Lt. Synthi-er, CNS

“Cut the crap, Counselor!” Zachariah roared. It was his blows that had driven her to this retreat, his refusal to to meet her on the same open ground, to reveal the shared pain they both knew boiled within. Was the damage already too great to draw her back out?

She flinched, it was a quick blink and quicker visual appraisal of the captain. She knew, there was a dangerous formidable man in there, but never had she expected to see it turned on her. She wasn’t so unobservant to not know that she’d caused, that she’d goaded him. But if he’d goaded her and she was never one to back from a fight. He could see it, the anger, turned inward and vibrating through her. The sneer across her face, looking so much like she had the first time he’d laid eyes on her in the CIC. She wouldn’t release it though. But her voice was harsh, raised in wrath, at the circumstances. “You do realize that we’re arguing the same point! We’re on the same side of the coin here! You argue just because you can!”

“I know,” he attempted an offering of truth, “something of what you’re going through. There is a reason I remain single, after my mistake with Prim. And, all physical evidence possibly to the contrary, it has not been for the absence of offers. It takes a certain kind of person to inflict such pain upon another, even within the framework of battle. But to wreak such misery on a fellow soul, simply for daring to love you? To sever a hand for the crime of daring to touch you? Tear out a tongue for uttering your praise? People like that, people like me, were we to crumble to dust tomorrow then I doubt even hell would shed a tear.”

Oh she knew, she knew what she risked, and it wasn’t herself. She hadn’t told anyone what Sandman had shown her, or what Hampton had made her live though. The risk was all to real. It wasn’t figurative, it was real and it had been threatened and risked and had been prevented but only barely. What would happen next time?

Attempting to break through her barrier, Cobb reached out and placed a hand on her own.
“When you look in the mirror, Casela, do not let it be my face that you see. But if, truly, a monster stares back, then I will never question you for doing what you must to protect those around you. To protect them from yourself.”

• Captain Zachariah Cobb

“No Hell won’t shed a tear it will scream in terror when the likes of us approach the gates for entrance. But somewhere, some where here in this life someone will, otherwise why do we do what we do?” She wouldn’t answer the rest. She saw a monster every time she looked in the mirror, like Frankenstein’s monster. pieced together by mutilated bits. But that create wasn’t really a monster was it? Oh she was being too philosophical. “I’ll find my way, Zachariah, and if I don’t,” she shrugs, “I won’t drag those I love with me.”
Lt. Synthi-er, CNS