Company (part 6)

Posted on Fri Mar 16th, 2018 @ 8:44am by Commander Rylie Cattmor & Lieutenant Commander Orin ch’Valri
Edited on on Fri Mar 16th, 2018 @ 8:53am

1,153 words; about a 6 minute read

Mission: Ripples
Location: Ra

[CONTINUED]

[OLD]

Cattmor turned to face the ex-marine, protocol mixed with confusion racked his mind, clearly seen by her own. She nodded slightly, and stepped around John to attend Orin's office, pressing the control to make her attendance known. After a second, the doors parted and she passed the threshold allowing the doors to close behind her. "You requested to see me?" she asked, trying her hardest not to allow her mind to jump forward in the conversation.

[NEW]



Orin stood in the dark room. As the door closed he turned to face Cattmor and cleared his throat. "We need to come to some kind of understanding. We both want the same thing and fighting over which idea is best is going to get everyone killed." He paused slightly, placing his hand on his console and tapping in a code. "So, I am not going to fight with you anymore and just put it all out on the table." Several monitors around the room began to light up, revealing files and reports, of previous missions and operations performed by Orin and his team. While the majority of them were marked as classified, they all appeared readable. No piece of information was blacked out and left to mystery. Orin was truly putting it all on the table for Cattmor.

Rylie looked around the room as the monitors lit up displaying a plethora of information she'd not seen before. Her telepathic instincts stretched out, but she read minds, not computer screens and terminals. "What am I meant to do with this?" she asked innocently.

"Over 90 operations and missions, and on record, only a handful of losses. Each operation planned out and performed with a zero body count, but you and I both know that nothing ever goes to plan. So you have to improvise and work to survive. Every Marine out there is trained to only kill an enemy if necessary, and while our tactics may seem extreme, we succeed under dangerous measures. One might call that luck, but I don't. I call it skill. Each member of my team has been trained to put his, or her, life on the line should the need every come down to it. To sacrifice themselves for if there is no other alternative. You may not believe in them, but that doesn't stop them from believing in themselves." Orin paused, walking around the desk and slowly over to Cattmor. "I'm not asking you to relinquish command, far from it. I am asking you to remember why we were placed here. This is what we do. This is how we are. If you can't work with that then I will gladly, but reluctantly, place in a request to be transferred somewhere else for you to bring in someone to more your liking. However, until then, we need to come to some kind of understanding so we can make it through this mess and pull our people out of the fire. No matter the decision, I will not turn away from you. I will back your play, even if I don't think it will work, but it won't keep me from pushing myself to get it done and make it work. You don't trust me, I get it. So don't trust me." He held his hand out, gesturing to the reports on the screen. "Trust the reports."

"This is absurd." Cattmor intoned quietly. "This has nothing to do with trust, commander. If I didn't trust you, you wouldn't be a member of the Ranger's crew, period." She took an intake of breath before continuing, "All of this," she said nodding to the monitors along the walls, "are just statistics. What you guys did on...Gree's'uun Five," she probably read incorrectly from the screen, "has very little bearing here, now. So you haven't lost anyone, your success rate is near on one hundred per cent. You call that skill, I don't call that luck, I call that flicking unbelievable."

She took a breath, her gaze wavering around the room a brief second before centring on Orin once more, "One thing that you have to remember, commander, is that you are not an autonomous marine unit anymore. You are Chief of Security of a starship, operating under Starfleet Operations code of practice. You are responsible for more than your old unit, you have a duty to protect your whole department, your whole ship, and the whole of the Federation. You have to step out of your mindset of 'it's the unit against all', because that's not the way this works. You, and your unit, were placed here to head up the security team of the ship, as Starfleet officers. We may work the same masters, but Starfleet and the Marine Corps have always had differing ideals and methods. Your job now, is to think differently."

"Now, believe or not, I hold the same belief as you; I don't want to fight over which idea has better merit, more balls, or chance for success. You say that's the situation your people signed on for, to die if necessary for the greater good, well, Starfleet does as well, so you can count me in too. I'm just not ready to pay the piper just yet, I just want to get out of this situation with my skin intact. Now, if you want me to exercise my role as the X-O, I will; turn the stealth off, and dock with the station, as they requested. We need answers and we sure as hell aren't going to get them out here."

"I don't go out there looking for a body count!!" Orin screamed, narrowing his eyes behind his goggles. "Those men out there are trained to avoid dropping people, but it doesn't always work out that way. Sometimes we have no other choice because we run out of options." Orin gestured to the monitors again. "This.... all of this is to let you know that this is what we do. We may not do it the way you want, but we do it just the same. That ship out there approached us as a hostile and threatened us to surrender. If they were trained by the same masters that you speak so much, then you would know that a Starfleet Officer wouldn't do that especially to another who is flying under the same banner. We showed no intent to attack them. I would consider it suspicious, but you would label it as an innocent accident. If things go south, we need to be prepared to do something about it and not be caught surprise. You may not like our methods, but in a situation like this, they may come in handy."

(To be continued...)

Commander Rylie Cattmor
Executive Officer

Lieutenant Commander Orin ch'Valri
Chief Security/Tactical Officer

 

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