The Third Degree
by Lt. CDR Lair
71228.21
Before Grilled
--=Starfleet Command, San Francisco California, Earth=--
by Lt. CDR Lair
71228.21
Before Grilled
--=Starfleet Command, San Francisco California, Earth=--
Lair Kellyn was at wits end.
She was about to lose her last tenuous hold on her temper, when Micah Samson returned from the med-station down the hall with a small glass of water and a tiny white pill.
"Here, Kellyn, try this." He offered. "I think it'll help you feel a lot better."
"What's in it?"
"Dimenhydrinate."
"But I'm Bajoran, think I can take it?"
"Database had it listed way down at the bottom of drugs that are safe for Bajorans. It's very old, it's never used much anymore because usually hypo anti-emetics are so much more effective."
"Not on me, apparently." Lair hoped she could keep the water down as she took the tiniest sip of it and swallowed the pill.
"If I keel over, they'll have to take me to Sickbay. This is ridiculous. I've been waiting and the rest of you have already all been-"
Before she could finish her sentence, the assistant to Admiral Vox finally reappeared in the doorway.
A very tired looking Fleur Le Marc emerged from Vox's office, and Lair thought once again that it was very odd that a Starfleet Lt. Commander would be kept waiting while a civilian who had been on the ship and not involved directly in the mission was interrogated- rather, debriefed- first.
But that was how this situation had played out, and Kellyn was only grateful that Arie was sleeping quietly in a large chair in the corner of the waiting area, oblivious to the passage of time.
Arie herself had even had her own form of 'debriefing', which had occurred in the presence of two Starfleet Counselors while the Admiral, supposedly, asked questions into an earpiece and the counselors relayed them in terms Arie could understand.
Kellyn had thrown a fit when they said she could not be present, but they promised her that she would be advised of the outcome of the evaluation and that Salvek would, as well.
Lair wondered what they'd done with Salvek. He'd been isolated from the rest of the group the moment they had arrived at Command, and she was getting anxious to know what was really going on here.
"Lt Commander Lair, if you please."
"About freaking time," Lair muttered, as she caught Fleur by the sleeve on her way by. "Keep an eye on Arie while I'm in there?"
Fleur nodded, and sat down on the chair beside the softly snoring child.
Lair strode into Vox's office as quickly as she could, considering she still felt as if she were riding the tide aboard a large ship on a very angry sea.
She really hoped Micah's miracle pill would help soon.
"Lair Kellyn," The man's voice was almost a purr, it was so soft and resonant. "I am Jonas Vox. Please, sit down." He stood in the middle of a room that was empty, save one chair for the person being interro- debriefed.
"Thank you, Admiral, Sir." Kellyn's tension showed in her voice, making the 'sir' at the end sound a bit less respectful than she had intended.
"You don't look well, Commander Lair, are you ill?"
"Yes, in fact, I am." she said, grateful that the pill finally seemed to be kicking in. "I had a really bad reaction to something served at dinner last night. . .something called. . ." She could hardly say the name without having to gulp back the lump in her throat, "Gingerbread."
"You became ill from the cookies?"
"Fleur, she. . .made a big house out of it, for dessert at the end of the meal you so graciously requested for us. And don't get me wrong, the rest of it was great. It's just that as soon as I smelled it baking, I felt queasy. By the time it came out of the oven and she put it on the table. . ." Lair sighed. "I had to make a quick exit from the room so everyone else's evening wouldn't be spoiled."
"Did you go to Sickbay?"
"They tried everything they had in their arsenal. They just said in the end it had to be my particular Bajoran body chemistry. It's peculiar."
"Like you are." Vox said simply.
Lair's hackles rose, but she resisted the urge to take the bait. "If you say so, Sir."
Vox pulled out a PADD and began to scroll through it. "Well let's get down to business and get this over with, then, since you're not feeling well."
"Yes, sir."
"Your career has been," He searched for the right word. "Colorful, Lair Kellyn."
"Could say that."
"You've been promoted and demoted so many times it's hard to keep track."
"Yes, Admiral, but if I may,"
"Go ahead." He said with a wave of his hand.
"Only one of those demotions was for misconduct, and it was a very long, long time ago. The other reductions in rank have been voluntary and enabled me to serve where I was most needed."
"By Starfleet or by Salvek?"
"Pardon?"
"Where you were most needed to serve Starfleet and the interests of the Federation?" Vox stepped away and turned his back on her as he peered out the window. "Or your husband's?"
"I don't serve Salvek. We both serve Starfleet."
"Were you serving Starfleet when you jumped ship, brought a Borg drone back to the Federation Flagship and risked the entire crew by doing so?"
"That drone was Salvek, and his assimilation was not complete, it had just happened. He was more a danger to himself than anyone else. There was no danger to the rest of the crew."
"That's debatable. But you admit that you did this of your own free will."
"Yes, and what's more," she stopped.
"Go ahead, Commander. You're in up to your neck, might as swim to the deep end of the pool."
"What's more, Admiral Vox, I'd do it again."
He made a couple of notations on the PADD, which really irked Kellyn, and she clenched her hands into fists against the arm rests on the chair.
"You are responsible for burning out the Alchemy's transwarp jump drive."
"I am? All by myself?" Kellyn laughed a little. "That's an interesting perspective on the situation."
"Your EMH, whom we have already spoken to, told us that he gave you a choice, quote, your Captain or your Warp Core, end quote. " Vox peered at her through narrow eyes. "You chose to sacrifice the equipment and risk the lives of the whole crew for the life of one person."
Kellyn's blood boiled even harder realizing now that even the hologram had been debriefed before she was.
"The life of the person we were sent to rescue, Sir. To do anything less than follow the order I was given would have been desertion of duty."
"So you were ordered to do it?"
"Salvek made the final decision."
"Do you always agree with all of Commander Salvek's decisions?"
Lair's lip curled up into a lopsided smirk at one corner. "Do you always agree with your wife's decisions, Admiral?"
Vox glared at her, and her smirk vanished.
"I'm not married." He replied. "Not anymore, at least and I'm not the one answering the questions here Commander do remember that."
"Yes, Admiral."
"You have been reckless with sensitive equipment. You have shown in the past a disregard for safety protocols, do I even need to bring up the temporal rifts that your prototype cloaking device caused on Deep Space 23?"
"You can bring them up if you wish, Sir. All I can tell you is that experimentation is just that. We were following our orders to pursue a certain kind of research. We did it to the best of our ability, and Sir if I may be so bold, might I remind you that if not for that research there wouldn't even be a USS Alchemy?"
"That's the only reason that you're sitting here today, Lair Kellyn. Because you did do the work and there is a USS Alchemy. She needs you, and you will be assigned to keep on working on her and bringing her progress forward. You can start by repairing the transwarp jump drive. Do you think you can do it?"
"Oh, I can do it. But I'm not the one you want. You want Salvek. He's the brains."
"Salvek will be reassigned elsewhere." Vox said without hesitation. He watched as Kellyn's eyes lit up like Times Square on New Years Eve.
"What?"
"You heard me, Commander. Your husband is being reassigned elsewhere. There's more."
"Yes?"
"You will be required to place your daughter in a Starfleet boarding school instead of taking her along on future Alchemy missions."
Lair Kellyn stood up from her chair, and with one swift tug, she removed her combadge and held it in her hand. "Admiral Vox, I hereby inform you that I am resigning my commission as a Starfleet officer."
"Just like that?" He said, allowing her hand to hover in mid air, not reaching out for her badge.
"Just like that." Kellyn replied. "Permission to speak freely?"
Vox nodded.
"Sir, I am a loyal Starfleet officer. If you read my record right, you would see that at one point in time and space I even died in the performance of my duty. Then that. . .that. . ." she shook her head, "Temporal sorceress Zanh Liis came into my life, and there I was, back on duty. I have continued to do my duty to the best of my ability through loss, sickness, mourning, and during times of war. I have been a researcher, a designer, and engineer. But that does not define who Lair Kellyn is. Not anymore."
"What does define who Lair Kellyn is, then?" Vox pressed.
"I'm an individual. I'm a wife, and I'm a mother, in addition to being a Starfleet officer." Kellyn continued. "I will not sacrifice my family for the sake of furthering the research that I already gave a decade of my life to and that is safe in the capable hands of others from this point on. If you force me to choose, I will choose to keep my family intact and help Salvek with his work in an. . ." she smiled gently, "unofficial capacity."
"So you have no intention of giving up the work?" Vox asked.
"If I give up my work, then I wouldn't be Lair Kellyn anymore, either."
Vox paced around her in a circle.
"Your daughter has had some emotional problems."
"Don't a lot of Starfleet kids?"
"Granted. But I hear that she went through a delusional phase that lasted months."
"Delusional?" Kellyn's anger grew exponentially and she once again clenched her fists. "She wasn't delusional. She wanted to be a Klingon, to emulate them because she had been afraid of them. Counselor K'Raye said that it was because if she could be like the thing she feared, if she could best it somehow in her mind, then she wouldn't be afraid. This situation arose after a long separation from her father. So you can see why I am in no hurry to separate her from her father again."
"She's a point of weakness in you."
"Do you have children, Admiral?"
He ignored the question.
"I choose to turn that 'weakness' as you put it, into a strength. Being a mother has made me a more compassionate person, and much better able to handle crisis in the other areas of my life. Mothers have to be ready for anything."
"You would raise her on a Starship when she would have much greater stability at a school on Earth or Bajor?"
"She wouldn't have her parents at a school on Earth or Bajor. That is the stability that she needs."
"And if you were to get separated from her?"
"It's happened before." Kellyn answered honestly. "I can only hope that if anything befell us that her Chosen Ones would care for her."
Vox saw that Lair had managed to hold her temper back the entire time, and was impressed. From what he'd read of her record, he expected she'd have thrown the chair at him by now. She had apparently, come a very long way in the past several years.
"Again, I ask you, you think this is the way to raise a child?"
"It's better than the way my parents raised me," Kellyn replied flatly. "And I've done all right."
Kellyn was still holding her combadge in her hand and once again extended it toward the Admiral. "My resignation, Admiral Vox. I wish you would accept it so that I can go claim my daughter and find my husband. Please."
Vox smiled at her, his eyes suddenly twinkling. "Put your badge back on, Commander Lair. You're going to be needing it."
He moved to a bookshelf built into the wall and retrieved another PADD. He activated it and held it out toward her.
"Clearance codes, granting access to the Chief Engineer of the USS Serendipity to all areas. Every system on the Sera has redundant security protocols, so there are a lot of alphanumeric commands to memorize. You'd better get started. You are to report first thing in the morning."
Hesitantly, she accepted the PADD. "Commander Salvek?" she asked softly.
"Manifest, Lt. Commander Lair."
Kellyn scrolled to the right screen, and saw Salvek listed as XO. The space above it, CO, was still empty.
"Our Captain?"
"You will find out," Vox replied, "Soon enough. Dismissed."
She was about to lose her last tenuous hold on her temper, when Micah Samson returned from the med-station down the hall with a small glass of water and a tiny white pill.
"Here, Kellyn, try this." He offered. "I think it'll help you feel a lot better."
"What's in it?"
"Dimenhydrinate."
"But I'm Bajoran, think I can take it?"
"Database had it listed way down at the bottom of drugs that are safe for Bajorans. It's very old, it's never used much anymore because usually hypo anti-emetics are so much more effective."
"Not on me, apparently." Lair hoped she could keep the water down as she took the tiniest sip of it and swallowed the pill.
"If I keel over, they'll have to take me to Sickbay. This is ridiculous. I've been waiting and the rest of you have already all been-"
Before she could finish her sentence, the assistant to Admiral Vox finally reappeared in the doorway.
A very tired looking Fleur Le Marc emerged from Vox's office, and Lair thought once again that it was very odd that a Starfleet Lt. Commander would be kept waiting while a civilian who had been on the ship and not involved directly in the mission was interrogated- rather, debriefed- first.
But that was how this situation had played out, and Kellyn was only grateful that Arie was sleeping quietly in a large chair in the corner of the waiting area, oblivious to the passage of time.
Arie herself had even had her own form of 'debriefing', which had occurred in the presence of two Starfleet Counselors while the Admiral, supposedly, asked questions into an earpiece and the counselors relayed them in terms Arie could understand.
Kellyn had thrown a fit when they said she could not be present, but they promised her that she would be advised of the outcome of the evaluation and that Salvek would, as well.
Lair wondered what they'd done with Salvek. He'd been isolated from the rest of the group the moment they had arrived at Command, and she was getting anxious to know what was really going on here.
"Lt Commander Lair, if you please."
"About freaking time," Lair muttered, as she caught Fleur by the sleeve on her way by. "Keep an eye on Arie while I'm in there?"
Fleur nodded, and sat down on the chair beside the softly snoring child.
Lair strode into Vox's office as quickly as she could, considering she still felt as if she were riding the tide aboard a large ship on a very angry sea.
She really hoped Micah's miracle pill would help soon.
"Lair Kellyn," The man's voice was almost a purr, it was so soft and resonant. "I am Jonas Vox. Please, sit down." He stood in the middle of a room that was empty, save one chair for the person being interro- debriefed.
"Thank you, Admiral, Sir." Kellyn's tension showed in her voice, making the 'sir' at the end sound a bit less respectful than she had intended.
"You don't look well, Commander Lair, are you ill?"
"Yes, in fact, I am." she said, grateful that the pill finally seemed to be kicking in. "I had a really bad reaction to something served at dinner last night. . .something called. . ." She could hardly say the name without having to gulp back the lump in her throat, "Gingerbread."
"You became ill from the cookies?"
"Fleur, she. . .made a big house out of it, for dessert at the end of the meal you so graciously requested for us. And don't get me wrong, the rest of it was great. It's just that as soon as I smelled it baking, I felt queasy. By the time it came out of the oven and she put it on the table. . ." Lair sighed. "I had to make a quick exit from the room so everyone else's evening wouldn't be spoiled."
"Did you go to Sickbay?"
"They tried everything they had in their arsenal. They just said in the end it had to be my particular Bajoran body chemistry. It's peculiar."
"Like you are." Vox said simply.
Lair's hackles rose, but she resisted the urge to take the bait. "If you say so, Sir."
Vox pulled out a PADD and began to scroll through it. "Well let's get down to business and get this over with, then, since you're not feeling well."
"Yes, sir."
"Your career has been," He searched for the right word. "Colorful, Lair Kellyn."
"Could say that."
"You've been promoted and demoted so many times it's hard to keep track."
"Yes, Admiral, but if I may,"
"Go ahead." He said with a wave of his hand.
"Only one of those demotions was for misconduct, and it was a very long, long time ago. The other reductions in rank have been voluntary and enabled me to serve where I was most needed."
"By Starfleet or by Salvek?"
"Pardon?"
"Where you were most needed to serve Starfleet and the interests of the Federation?" Vox stepped away and turned his back on her as he peered out the window. "Or your husband's?"
"I don't serve Salvek. We both serve Starfleet."
"Were you serving Starfleet when you jumped ship, brought a Borg drone back to the Federation Flagship and risked the entire crew by doing so?"
"That drone was Salvek, and his assimilation was not complete, it had just happened. He was more a danger to himself than anyone else. There was no danger to the rest of the crew."
"That's debatable. But you admit that you did this of your own free will."
"Yes, and what's more," she stopped.
"Go ahead, Commander. You're in up to your neck, might as swim to the deep end of the pool."
"What's more, Admiral Vox, I'd do it again."
He made a couple of notations on the PADD, which really irked Kellyn, and she clenched her hands into fists against the arm rests on the chair.
"You are responsible for burning out the Alchemy's transwarp jump drive."
"I am? All by myself?" Kellyn laughed a little. "That's an interesting perspective on the situation."
"Your EMH, whom we have already spoken to, told us that he gave you a choice, quote, your Captain or your Warp Core, end quote. " Vox peered at her through narrow eyes. "You chose to sacrifice the equipment and risk the lives of the whole crew for the life of one person."
Kellyn's blood boiled even harder realizing now that even the hologram had been debriefed before she was.
"The life of the person we were sent to rescue, Sir. To do anything less than follow the order I was given would have been desertion of duty."
"So you were ordered to do it?"
"Salvek made the final decision."
"Do you always agree with all of Commander Salvek's decisions?"
Lair's lip curled up into a lopsided smirk at one corner. "Do you always agree with your wife's decisions, Admiral?"
Vox glared at her, and her smirk vanished.
"I'm not married." He replied. "Not anymore, at least and I'm not the one answering the questions here Commander do remember that."
"Yes, Admiral."
"You have been reckless with sensitive equipment. You have shown in the past a disregard for safety protocols, do I even need to bring up the temporal rifts that your prototype cloaking device caused on Deep Space 23?"
"You can bring them up if you wish, Sir. All I can tell you is that experimentation is just that. We were following our orders to pursue a certain kind of research. We did it to the best of our ability, and Sir if I may be so bold, might I remind you that if not for that research there wouldn't even be a USS Alchemy?"
"That's the only reason that you're sitting here today, Lair Kellyn. Because you did do the work and there is a USS Alchemy. She needs you, and you will be assigned to keep on working on her and bringing her progress forward. You can start by repairing the transwarp jump drive. Do you think you can do it?"
"Oh, I can do it. But I'm not the one you want. You want Salvek. He's the brains."
"Salvek will be reassigned elsewhere." Vox said without hesitation. He watched as Kellyn's eyes lit up like Times Square on New Years Eve.
"What?"
"You heard me, Commander. Your husband is being reassigned elsewhere. There's more."
"Yes?"
"You will be required to place your daughter in a Starfleet boarding school instead of taking her along on future Alchemy missions."
Lair Kellyn stood up from her chair, and with one swift tug, she removed her combadge and held it in her hand. "Admiral Vox, I hereby inform you that I am resigning my commission as a Starfleet officer."
"Just like that?" He said, allowing her hand to hover in mid air, not reaching out for her badge.
"Just like that." Kellyn replied. "Permission to speak freely?"
Vox nodded.
"Sir, I am a loyal Starfleet officer. If you read my record right, you would see that at one point in time and space I even died in the performance of my duty. Then that. . .that. . ." she shook her head, "Temporal sorceress Zanh Liis came into my life, and there I was, back on duty. I have continued to do my duty to the best of my ability through loss, sickness, mourning, and during times of war. I have been a researcher, a designer, and engineer. But that does not define who Lair Kellyn is. Not anymore."
"What does define who Lair Kellyn is, then?" Vox pressed.
"I'm an individual. I'm a wife, and I'm a mother, in addition to being a Starfleet officer." Kellyn continued. "I will not sacrifice my family for the sake of furthering the research that I already gave a decade of my life to and that is safe in the capable hands of others from this point on. If you force me to choose, I will choose to keep my family intact and help Salvek with his work in an. . ." she smiled gently, "unofficial capacity."
"So you have no intention of giving up the work?" Vox asked.
"If I give up my work, then I wouldn't be Lair Kellyn anymore, either."
Vox paced around her in a circle.
"Your daughter has had some emotional problems."
"Don't a lot of Starfleet kids?"
"Granted. But I hear that she went through a delusional phase that lasted months."
"Delusional?" Kellyn's anger grew exponentially and she once again clenched her fists. "She wasn't delusional. She wanted to be a Klingon, to emulate them because she had been afraid of them. Counselor K'Raye said that it was because if she could be like the thing she feared, if she could best it somehow in her mind, then she wouldn't be afraid. This situation arose after a long separation from her father. So you can see why I am in no hurry to separate her from her father again."
"She's a point of weakness in you."
"Do you have children, Admiral?"
He ignored the question.
"I choose to turn that 'weakness' as you put it, into a strength. Being a mother has made me a more compassionate person, and much better able to handle crisis in the other areas of my life. Mothers have to be ready for anything."
"You would raise her on a Starship when she would have much greater stability at a school on Earth or Bajor?"
"She wouldn't have her parents at a school on Earth or Bajor. That is the stability that she needs."
"And if you were to get separated from her?"
"It's happened before." Kellyn answered honestly. "I can only hope that if anything befell us that her Chosen Ones would care for her."
Vox saw that Lair had managed to hold her temper back the entire time, and was impressed. From what he'd read of her record, he expected she'd have thrown the chair at him by now. She had apparently, come a very long way in the past several years.
"Again, I ask you, you think this is the way to raise a child?"
"It's better than the way my parents raised me," Kellyn replied flatly. "And I've done all right."
Kellyn was still holding her combadge in her hand and once again extended it toward the Admiral. "My resignation, Admiral Vox. I wish you would accept it so that I can go claim my daughter and find my husband. Please."
Vox smiled at her, his eyes suddenly twinkling. "Put your badge back on, Commander Lair. You're going to be needing it."
He moved to a bookshelf built into the wall and retrieved another PADD. He activated it and held it out toward her.
"Clearance codes, granting access to the Chief Engineer of the USS Serendipity to all areas. Every system on the Sera has redundant security protocols, so there are a lot of alphanumeric commands to memorize. You'd better get started. You are to report first thing in the morning."
Hesitantly, she accepted the PADD. "Commander Salvek?" she asked softly.
"Manifest, Lt. Commander Lair."
Kellyn scrolled to the right screen, and saw Salvek listed as XO. The space above it, CO, was still empty.
"Our Captain?"
"You will find out," Vox replied, "Soon enough. Dismissed."
-------------------------------
Lt. Commander Lair Kellyn
Chief Engineer
USS Serendipity NCC-2012
Lt. Commander Lair Kellyn
Chief Engineer
USS Serendipity NCC-2012