"Looking Upon The Stars For Answers"
(Previous Post: "Welcome to the ANUBIS")
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Stardate: 60325.2200
Setting: USS ANUBIS, Stellar Cartography
The sight of the Shillian scientist looking at the stars displayed on the large curved wall of Stellar Cartography had not been something new, in fact that exact sight had almost become the standard making it almost a sure bet that the scientist could be found there if not at her station at the back of the Bridge.
That reasoning had been why First Lieutenant Pravat, the Enaran head of the Marine Corps onboard the ANUBIS, had gone to Stellar Cartography after having been informed that the Chief Science Officer had not been at her station on the Bridge.
As familiar as the scene had been to him, Prav immediately picked up on there being something different the moment he had stepped onto the platform set in the center of the nearly spherical room. Although all the Enaran could see was the back of the Shillian woman he knew even before they exchanged their first words that something had been bothering the scientist. This foreknowledge had not been obtained by his natural ability but simply because the man had learned to read the scientist in ways that he had not even realised. As the Marine looked up at the area of space currently being scrutinized by the sensors of the ANUBIS, Pravat understood what, or more precisely who, had been on the mind of the Chief Science Officer.
"I heard about what happened to Enaii," Pravat said in as supportive of a way as he could. Death for a Marine was an integral part of the job, and one way to help deal with this aspect was to accept it and to have those who returned home to carry on with their lives. Thinking too much about those who had not made it back or those who had been on the receiving end of their weapons would only insure that more would share that same fate at a later time, so dismissing the feelings and images had become second nature to the First Lieutenant and his men. Luckily for the Shilian woman the Enaran knew that not everyone could handle this type of situation in the same manner, but that did not mean that he knew how to help others deal with the lost of a fellow shipmate. That was by definition the job of the Counsellor, not that of the Marine Command Officer. "You need to let her go and carry on with your life."
"That might work for you," the Shillian scientist replied while asking the computer to provide an electromagnetic analysis of the interference field around the planet that the ANUBIS was moving away from, "but that is not the way that I do things. Something happened back there and I want to understand what took place and why our sensors suddenly were able to reach the surface of the planet when beforehand all of our efforts to get any sort of readings from the surface proved unsuccessful. I mean magnetic field of a planet does not change by itself, there had to be some sort of external element that came in contact with the atmosphere causing the change we saw take place. Since our sensors failed to pick up on any sort of solar flares or other sources of electromagnetic pulse that could have come in contact with the planet to result in the observed polarity change, I am exploring other possible reasons that might explain what took place. Maybe by doing so I will be able to identify the cause of the transporter malfunction that resulted in the death of Lieutenant Commander Enaii, and that for me will be the closure I seek."
This had not been the first time Pravat had been on the receiving end of an overly lengthy explanation provided by the Chief Science Officer of the ANUBIS, but the way that the Shillian scientist had made her argument seemed to border on obsession. The Enaran Marine could not be one hundred percent sure but he suspected that there had been some ulterior motive in the search for an explanation that the Chief Science officer had set upon.
"Even if you find the cause," Pravat said while sighing, "it will not change what happened. Lieutenant Commander Enaii is not coming back."
"Do you think I do not know that!" The Shillian woman snapped, a reaction that completely took the Enaran man by surprise. It was only after the scientist realised what she had said, or more to the point *how* she had said it that the Chief Science Officer slumped back into her chair and began crying. "Enaii came up with this crazy plan and it was up to me to check for all of the possible problems and have everything in place to make sure that what happened did not. If I had found a reason to delay her beaming down by only a few seconds the change in the interference field would have occurred and the transport sequence would have been successful, instead I chose not to go against her and because of that she died. I would not be feeling so bad if it had not been that Enaii counted on me to make sure that everything was in perfect readiness and that because of my failure our Commanding Officer has lost her wife and Talia has lost her mother. How am I supposed to look either one of them in the eyes knowing that I was the cause of what happened?"
The Enaran man stood motionless and speechless for the longest time unable to think of an appropriate response to what the Shillian woman had said. Pravat doubted that Maya had been in anyway responsible for what had happened, but it was beyond any doubt that making the scientist see this in other light would not happen with a few words. The marine would need to come up with something else and he figured that right now had neither been the time or location for it, so the Marine First Lieutenant left Stellar Cartography without saying or doing anything more. Maybe a hug would have been called for, but truth be known he had not been the type to give such comfort, even to the distraught Shillian.
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Jessica Solarik { maya_992003@yahoo.com }
Lieutenant Commander Maya
Chief Science Officer
USS ANUBIS
"To see the world in a grain of sand, 2005 post #380
and a heaven in a wild flower.
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
and eternity in an hour."
- William Blake (British, 1757-1827)
