From: Katrina L. Browne (kbrowne_at_wellesley.edu)
Date: Sun Jan 27 2008 - 21:26:19 PST
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“Editorialization from Afar”
Con’t From: ~"No more "USS MERCY" or any other kind of "Mercy" for Kate"
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Location: GS-2
Stardate: 2.80128.0151
Scene: XO’s OfficeTime Index: A couple hours before Kim’s post.
Lieutenant Commander Eishnala sh’Kor’s antennae drooped slowly as the
hours had passed. Having repair crews from a myriad of vessels all over
the station and an Admiral hanging around had precipitously increased her
amount of “paper work” though of course paper had been entirely
removed from the process by this point in Federation history.
While being a marvelous advancement for the speed of human communication
and the centralization of knowledge, this move towards a “paperless”
world was not universally hailed by anthropologists and historians. Data
files fragged, networks disintegrated…and the same had been true of
paper for the tens of thousands of years (sometimes more) on various
worlds, but the rare cache of documents hidden from the ravages of the
environment constantly yielded clues to life in times now long passed. In
a paperless world, would they be remembered? Or would the Gateway and her
struggle for freedom fade from the cultural memory of the Alpha and Beta
quadrant peoples as data files slowly degraded?
Eishnala’s antennae drooped a little more; her eyes slowly hooded. That
was, until, the Andorian woman shook her head to wake herself up again.
Not that she would have needed much help. Ensign Ezri Braxx pressed the
panel on the other side of her door. “Come in.”
A young Trill woman with shockingly red hair, a rarity on her world,
entered the room. “Sir, you have to see this. Turn on FedComm.”
The blue woman frowned for a moment. “What could possibly so
engaging…” she trailed off. “And why were you watching FedComm?
You’re on duty, no?”
Ezri spotted cheeks turned a color similar to her hair. “Sorry, sir. I
actually wasn’t, but Petty Officer Robies was on break and noticed a
teaser for a piece about the station that is supposed to start soon.”
One of the Andorian’s eyebrows rose along with both of her antennae,
registering her doubt. Ezri matched the young woman in a red uniform’s
gaze. Eishnala’s shoulders dropped slightly and the woman nodded,
accepting the even younger Trill woman’s story, before tapping in the
sequence of keys to bring up the FedComm Station.
{{ So, as you see, Commander Davidson seems to have some skeletons, or at
least Cats in her closet. Will this ‘Cat Woman’ of Gateway station
prove to be loyal to the Federation, or does she harbor secret empathies
for the dominion?}} The petit Betazoid woman wrapped up her story.
Eishnala’s antennae had crept back slowly during the piece. “Who is
this Trell woman? And how did she catch wind of that episode?” the
Lieutenant Commander looked up at the operations officer standing opposite
her.
“Trell is a member of one of the registered teams of reporters who
arrived on the station a couple of days ago,” Ensign Braxx noted as she
examined a P.A.D.D. with operation’s details. “She has registered
several interview requests with you,” Ezri amended.
“I’m a little behind on my messages. It seems I get a new one every
ten minutes and a lot of paperwork has been required since that Admiral
arrived. His buddies at Starfleet Command on Terra haven’t helped to
much either, “ she added.
“I don’t know if I’d take that interview. Did you see how tired that
doctor looked? Seems as though Ms. Trell pestered an overly tired, over
worked CMO on a station in an active war zone,” Ensign Braxx said after
a protracted pause. “Seems also like she’s the sort that doesn’t
know the meaning of balanced coverage.”
Lieutenant Commander Kor nodded, “I guess I ought to get back to the
stack of messages awaiting me. Apparently, there ought to be some very
interesting ones. I even noticed one or two from my relations.” Her nose
wrinkled slightly, but the Ensign didn’t notice. The trill woman had had
a few hololetters from home. Or several, was probably a better descriptor.
They had all been sent by family that was supremely happy to hear that
their daughter, sister, niece, ect…was still alive. They had been cut
off from their kin with the closing of the passage between the
quadrants…and a miracle had resurrected Ezri for them—the sort of
letters that Eishnala might have wished to receive if she had been honest
to herself in those quiet moments when one is left alone to their own
thoughts.
Ensign Braxx nodded, “There is also an officer here to see you. Our new
Chief of Security, if I’m not mistaken.”
“Thank you for the feeler’s up.”
Ezri cleared the Commander’s office and a few moments later a purple
haired woman entered the room. In the interim, Eishnala stood and
stretched, looking out her window where ANDARA sparkled benignly. “I
gather you’re here for my old job,” Kor said quietly before turning
around.
Gray accented the woman’s uniform, gray that used to belong to Eishnala.
Lieutenant Palandora nodded, “Lieutenant Trella Palandora,” she
introduced herself. “Commander Daisy Davidson said you’d probably be
the best person to get me up to speed. It is my understanding, relayed by
Ensign Mason who has been leading the department, that you’ve been
meeting with her a lot to deal with day-to-day departmental matters,”
Trella noted.
“Ariel is a good assistant,” Eishnala noted. “Would you care to
sit?” she said, extending her arm and motioned towards the chairs on the
opposite side of her bureau. Trella took up the offer as Commander Kor
continued to speak. “She’ll be a wonderful aid to you I imagine. Ariel
really helped me settle into the department when I landed here…That
being said, Ensign Mason just isn’t ready to lead a department this
critical on this large a station in a brand new war zone…something your
record indicates you should be well suited to, though I imagine the GATE
should be very different from the USS PALAHNIUK. We’ve quite a few
characters running around.”
Trella smiled. “I imagine. There was a note of an attempted
assassination recently in the records.”
Eishnala grimaced slightly. “And our prime suspect has again gone
missing from custody,” she pointed out. Lieutenant Kor checked the
chronometer on the display. “Day shift is about to end and I bet you’d
like to settle into your accommodations. I warn you that they might be…a
little dusty. We’ve cleaned out a lot of quarters and got them
straightened since the first attack, but the second has put us a little
behind,” she smiled weakly. “On the bright side, it’s
private….something that is in short supply these days.”
“I noticed that you’ve had to setup several refugee and medical
dormitories over the last couple of months.”
The Andorian nodded, “And an orphanage. Fortunately, we’ve been
processing a lot of those children. Reconnecting them with family in the
Alpha quadrant. Counselor Nurunyon thinks that we’ll be able to close it
soon.” Eishnala failed to mention the long nights she spent watching
over those who could only hope to sleep poorly. Counselor Nurunyon had
seen it as an elegant solution to her problems of adjusting to not living
in a group sleeping environment like Andorians traditional do. Lieutenant
Kor didn’t speak much about those months, except of course, to Counselor
Nurunyon. Those conversations had been brisk and had mostly dealt with
issues that had arisen with her charges so that the counseling department
could better see to their needs. And it was both wonderful and painful
watching the ward slowly empty as children found parents separated by the
unknowable irony of the wormhole aliens, but perhaps more painful was the
fact that the wormhole had been open for weeks now and the dorm still was
at least a quarter full. “Anyways, I’m happy to give you a tour of the
station.”
Trella nodded, “Is there anything that needs attention immediately?’
Eishnala smiled wryly. “Bad question. The list is about as long as my
arm and we’d like to smooth your transition…” The Commander sighed.
“Well…there *is* this reporter.”
“The Trell woman?” Trella asked.
“You’re very perceptive,” Eishnala smiled.
Lieutenant Palandora paused for a moment, awkwardly. “…Ma’am, I
can’t do anything to silence or impinge this persons rights. The
Federation allows freedom of the press.”
“Of course not,” Commander Kor said lightly. An antenna of Eishnala
twitched involuntarily as a pause roughly inserted itself into their
conversation. “…Out of curiosity…and I hope you don’t mind me
asking…would you feel the need…to set this particular boundary with
me?”
Trella sat across from her superior officer stoically. Where another
person, perhaps a lesser person would have been uncomfortable to plow on,
the Lieutenant felt no qualms explaining her reasoning. “Trell has been
a leading reporter on matters related to the closing of the wormhole and
the station since its reopening. She did a lot of stories on the separated
families, but has since tried branching into “harder” work. The story
of GATEWAY STATION has been widely circulating in the media, both before
and after the reopening of the wormhole. Some of those reports have
focused on the personalities and the histories of the senior staff. Your
relationships with the Captains Kane and Lawson have been analyzed at some
length by FedComm on its slower news cycle days.”
“What ‘relationships’? I was a subordinate officer under both of
them. In the case of Captain Lawson, he wasn’t even my direct
superior,” Eishnala said, her voice rising slightly. She had heard a
crewman or two hush up when she walked pasted them and thought nothing of
it. **Perhaps I should have.**
“The incident with the TALINTH VI PRIDE has feature heavily in many of
those stories,” Trella said with a shrug. “Anyways…all I know is
what I’ve read…and I, of course, heed it with a large grain of
Tarcalian salt.”
The Andorian folded an arm across her chest and with her other hand
lightly messaged the bridge of her nose. “The board of inquest
determined that no parties were at fault and the file was supposed to have
been sealed as it pertained to junior officers.”
“You know…reporters…sealed doesn’t mean a whole lot,” Trella
tried offering.
“What *exactly* has been reported about me?”
Trella, for the first time during their conversation, shifted in her seat.
“I’m certain a far more accurate account can be found by searching
your name among recent news stories and editorials. Most have focused on
Kane, but you’ve come up with some frequency.”
“*Captain Kane*,” Eishnala said, reinforcing the man’s rank, but the
sentiment really had very little barb to it.
Trella inclined her head to placate the other woman slightly. “It
doesn’t hurt that your…personal life…has created a bit of a scandal
on your homeworld. You know the media…treason and sex…all they care
about. Your mates have been pursuing the matter through Andorian courts
and the news since your disappearance.”
“Editorials? Treason?”
The Vissian shifted again. “There have been quite a few discussing
whether or not the GATE’s secession should be treated as treason. Many
have also blamed the GATE for the conflict we’ve found ourselves in.”
Eishnala nodded, listening to this litany of things she had not found it
fit to pay attention to. Yes there was a war, but as it had really just
started the media had little else to preoccupy itself with other than
scandal and slander it seemed. The Andorian absentmindedly stroked an
antenna. “And what is you opinion?”
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NPRG:
Long time since I posted. Hopefully I should be caught up for a little
while in RL.
I also hope I handled Trella okay. If not, Jasmina, shot me an email.
Also, TAG.
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Katrina Browne
Lieutenant Commander Eishnala sh’Kor
Executive Officer
GS-2
From HyperNews_at_youth.net
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