Posted by Lieutenant Dr. Solomon Kane (Medical Research & Development) in Kane’s Quarters- Confessions and Collaboration

Posted by Commander Dira Myqian (Executive Officer) in Kane’s Quarters- Confessions and Collaboration

Posted by Lieutenant Dr. Solomon Kane (Medical Research & Development) in Kane’s Quarters- Confessions and Collaboration
Posted by… suppressed (3) by the Post Ghost! 👻

(snip)

“Absolutely not. I will not condone or be a part of murder,” she said flatly. “Find another way,” she said emphatically. “He’s committed crimes. You might not approve of this method, but we not compromise the integrity of this crew. We bury him using the legal system and that is all. And as for Starfleet Intelligence…” That dark expression from her office began to surface. “They haven’t cared about my input before and they certainly won’t now. I’m a marked woman, Lieutenant. We can try to take it higher, but I can’t guarantee you that I won’t be much more than a liability.” Clutching her water glass tightly, she took a long drink from it, attempting to quell that cold fury that once again tried to make itself known.

Commander Myqian, XO

“Legal system? Seriously? These f÷×=s make a living out of breaking the law and you think anyone is gonna apply the law to ‘em? Good luck with that.” He looked at her and saw the shift in temperament.

“So what’d you do to piss ‘em off?”

Kane, R&D

Could she tell him? He had enough clearance, but even then Dira wasn’t sure. And she wasn’t sure she wanted to hash this all out. This was about Alexis, not her own tousles with intelligence. But… if her experiences there could help reframe everything the way her experiences with obsessive people could, then perhaps it would be worth it. Sipping her water, Dira stilled the anger within her, making it making less important. It was still there but it would not control how she acted right now. “I got to see first hand what happens when a group decides to withhold information from those who needed it most to make informed decisions. Decisions that caused actions. Actions that put innocent people in the line of fire that shouldn’t have been. And people died,” she said, the emotion stripped of her voice. “And me, being the telepath honed in to the guilt in that room when everyone realized what had just happened and ohhh you can bet I called them on it.” She looked up but Dira didn’t fully meet Kane’s gaze. “It was a diplomatic nightmare and in the end it was all covered up and everyone else moved on with their lives.”

Commander Myqian, XO

Kane looked at her for a long time, his eyes not moving and his gaze hard. He didn’t feel sorry for her, there wasn’t pity. But he did understand. He stood and went to the replicator. He put his fingernails on the side of the machine where the frame met the wall. “Don’t tell anybody.” he said as he pulled hard and the entire front of the machine swung away from the wall. The connections and relays were still connected, but someone had added lengths of coupling and wiring to keep them on and powered even as the front swung open. He reached in and pulled out a bottle, and then an odd looking data chip and a well modified PaDD. He swung the ‘door’ closed, put the bottle on the counter,, and walked over and handed her the PaDD and the chip.

Her brows rose and there was definitely a little surprise etched into her features, but also a sense that she should have expected something like that.

The chip was unlike any anyone had ever seen. It was oddly shaped and somewhat bulky, but the overall design seemed… familiar. The PaDD had obviously been modified to play it.

“That chip was in my pocket when I… ‘moved’. Kept it on me as a kind of insurance. In all the hubbub of my arrival, they missed it. So I kept it hidden. It was close a couple of times, but I managed to keep them from finding it. That’s the project that got me on their radar… Operation Dreamtime. Take a look.”

Taking the PADD, Dira began to read… and read.

The file on the chip was grainy and filled with error codes, but it played nonetheless. Operation Dreamtime was a augmented and virtual reality simulation experiment meant to test and assess Star Fleet personnel in a controlled evironment. But Section 31 had taken it over and were testing it as a way to do ‘enhanced interrogation’ on a large scale simultaneously. Their hypothesis was if they could terrify a set group of people enough, then those people would take any opportunity for help… at any price. Section 31, without permission, gassed the entire crew of the USS Chernov and moved them all to a simulated virtual environment. There, they spent almost two full weeks attacking, ‘murdering’, terrifying, and outright torturing the drugged crew who didn’t know they were in a virtual setting. Kane, for some reason unknown to them, didn’t become fully immersed in the environment and kept trying to find his way ‘out, which he eventually did. He and the ship’s Captain shut down the simulation, and Kane physically assaulted the Section 31 agent running it. He was then ‘recruited without consent.

Dira Myqian, with a medical degree and twenty-years of experience as a psychiatrist, had borne witness to the many terrible things others had experienced. It never got easier. But so often she had stepped into that foray with her mask on and shields up. She had little of that here. So, she was deeply moved and horrified and she let it actually show on her face.

“Yeah… thats the kind of s%$# they pulled all the time back then. And still do here. You know I gave that very chip to the Fleet Admiral in charge of my ship? Witha full report and all supporting documents I could find? Kniw what she said? “Thank you.” and that was it. So you’ll understand why that and the crap they’ve done to me here makes me wary of a ‘legal’ solution.”

Kane, R&D

And suddenly she looked up at him and her cheeks felt wet. Wiping at her tears, the cold fury was mixed with a sort of desperation. “They killed Paige,” she said, and though she did not shout, her voice was filled with all she could not say. “It was preventable and they treated it as justifiable. And a civilian went down too. Friendly fire, Solomon. But you know what? Manslaughter is still manslaughter, no matter how you try to reframe it. And I will NOT let us take a life no matter how much we feel they may deserve it. We have to better than stooping to vengeance. When they are playing games sometimes our ethics and oaths are all we have to keep us from becoming like them. Maybe you’ve decided you don’t need your ethics anymore, but there are consequences for any actions we take against Soulis. Don’t think for a second that it’ll just be okay when he’s gone, because Alexis will feel complicit whether you can reason your way out of it or not. DO NOT force that guilt onto her, because you and I both know it will destroy her.” Her chest was heaving and Dira truly looked like she could punch someone, but still she sat there, well in control, holding her glass of water, even if she was sorely tempted to crush it in her hand.

Commander Myqian, XO

Kane looked at her with a wholly flat expression, as if he was a scientist watching a bug and taking notes. But then he nodded and he stood up and went and got a glass, poured 3 fingers of the brown liquid in the bottle into the glass, stoppers the bottle, and came and sat down; setting the glass in front of Dira.

“Go slow, its really potent.” was all he said before he leaned back.

Normally she would never dare while she was on duty, but at the moment Dira really didn’t care. She wasn’t exactly in the best place mentally to be dealing with other work matters anyway, so why the hell not. She reached for the glass, traded it with her water and took a moderate swallow. She turned her head to the side and winced a little, but took another sip.

“Now I don’t know who this Paige was, but I know they were something special to you. I’m sorry that happened… really. But I want to ask you a question…” and he leaned forward and looked at her intently.

“If you could go back in time, to the moment right before Paige and the civilian were killed, and pull a trigger and keep that from happening… would you? Or would you try and save Paige and the other one… knowing that what was about to happen to them would more than likely happen to someone else further on down the road? Because thats where we’re at. We end it and save Alexis, or we save Alexis and someone else pays later. You know damn well thats a fact.” and he leaned back.

Kane

Myqian shook her head.”There will always be another Soulis. Maybe not for Alexis, but for someone else. That’s why we can’t play their game. They want to up the ante and they are counting on us getting angry enough to misstep and make mistakes. Murder is never the answer, despite how many people, yourself included, believe otherwise.” She leaned towards Kane slightly. “Paige was the woman I was engaged to. Paige was an unexpected and lovely part of my life that I have spent the last ten years letting go of, bit by bit. I can’t go back and I won’t. And you want to know something? Paige Hester Sheppard was a loyal security officer who knew she any day could be her last, just like the rest of us who swear an oath and wear this uniform. A lot may be wrong with parts of Starfleet, but if there is one thing I know for certain is that Paige would agree with me. She’d never ask me to take a life, to damage that part of myself to save her life. So you can stop using my dead fiancee as a way to make your plan more acceptable. Have you asked Alexis if that’s what would make her happy? Or were you planning on keeping that all a secret from her too? You know, what she doesn’t know, can’t hurt her or some such nonsense?”

Commander Myqian, XO