80306.10
Concurrent with Adjustments
-=Illusions Lounge, USS Serendipity=-
Warren Dalca walked into the ship’s lounge, deep in his own thoughts. He smiled at some of the passing crew, though he still didn’t know anyone on the ship too well. They probably didn’t know him either, and he was all right with that. He’d barely been on board.
But as a security officer, he had an approach to things. An approach he used on the Mockingbird, and one he intended to use here, and that was getting familiar with everyone. Keeping the ship secure was a job that went down to the individuals, and everyone’s safety and well being was paramount to his work.
He grabbed his tray from the replicator, turned and scanned the lounge. Recognizing Rada Dengar, Warren was reminded of his inability to ensure the safety of Lair Kellyn.
As illogical as the notion was to him, he felt he needed to address it. Rada had been there in Engineering, had helped keep things under control. Warren wasn’t even sure if the man would recognize him, but he walked over to his table anyway, offered a quiet smile, and nodded to the empty chair opposite him.
“Mind if I join you?” Warren asked.
Rada was startled by this but he did his best not to show it. Whilst Rada had made some friends onboard the Sera he knew that he wasn’t known for having an overly social nature and was surprised that a crew member he barely knew would come up and want to talk to him.
“Sure, go ahead,” he said nonchalantly. He took a sip of what looked like a Raktajino to emphasise this nonchalance.
In reality it was a caffeine free recipe Rada had pre-programmed into the replicators, it tasted like a bitter version of chocolate milk but smelled close enough to the real thing to fool most.
With a mixture of nervous energy resulting from fear of messing up the easy stuff and a secret adrenaline from the complicated stuff Rada had never really required much stimulation in this job. Still he felt it was best to keep up the appearance of reenergising himself so that people didn’t think that he had been slacking off when he should have been using up energy.
He instantly regretted seeming so calm. Yes, he wanted to seem like he didn’t care that Warren was joining him but he didn’t want to seem like he didn’t ‘care’. He thought he had better quickly show some interest to counteract his disinterested manner.
His first instinct was to ask Dalca what brought him here, but he realised that that was far too close to asking what he was doing here which was far too close to asking why hadn’t he left yet which was, frankly, pretty rude.
“So, how are you going?” he asked instead.
Warren sat down and replied “I was wondering if I could speak with you… candidly.”
Rada noticed a strange look in Warren’s eyes; a look that was all too familiar. Before learning to disguise it he had come to know it well.
It was not very settling; prompting Rada to ask that question he had hated to hear through out his youth, “What’s wrong?”
Warren searched for the right words, “The other day…On the Alchemy …what happened to Commander Lair…” He sighed. “Do you know what caused it yet?”
Rada was glad that this was a question he could answer and seeing Dalca’s state of mind decided it was best to speak as matter-of-factly as possible “Yes, we’ve traced it back to a faulty batch of EPS Conduits.”
“EPS Conduits? Was there any way that it could have been prevented?” Warren asked, his voice revealing he was searching for a particular answer.
“There was no way anyone could have known,” replied Rada.
“Maybe if we’d been prepared for the attack…if we saw it coming? Are there stress tests that could have been performed?” asked Warren , still searching.
Most people would probably have taken this as an accusation but Rada had been where Warren was just a short while ago and knew that this was merely part of the search. Rada realised that being in security Dalca must be blaming himself for what happened to Kellyn, this experience Rada knew especially well, it had almost been his end.
“I’m just… look, what I really want to do is apologize, I guess.” Dalca leaned back in his chair and folded his arms. “I know no one saw it coming, and I still don’t see how we could have been any more prepared, but…”
“That’s not enough.” Rada finished Dalca’s sentence for him “Look, I know what you’re going through, all of the logic on Vulcan wouldn’t make this any easier because it’s not a logical situation. You blame yourself even though you know you shouldn’t. There’s nothing you could have done and yet you still feel as though you have to apologise.”
“I just don’t like feeling…”
“Powerless.” Rada concluded, speaking more for himself now than for Dalca. “It’s times like this when we’re reminded of our on insignificance in it all. When we’re reminded that no matter what we do there are things far beyond our own control; sometimes we actually want to blame ourselves because at least then we have some degree of influence over it all, at least then we may be able to prevent it from happening all over again.”
Rada saw that Dalca understood but it still didn’t help him for the moment.
“Let me tell you a story about a friend of mine from a little over a decade ago. We were both studying on Angosia III and getting some experience for when we applied to the Academy. We were doing the grunt work of building an anti-grav platform; you know shifting materials, stress tests that type of thing. Then one day when we’d tested it with enough weight we decided that it was ready for use and the designer, he would have been around about my age, decided to give it a go. It lifted him up in the air about a meter before giving out and dropping him on the ground.” explained Rada, his mind reflecting back.
“Was he hurt?” asked Dalca, caringly.
Rada explained. “It was just a broken arm; it was nothing that modern medicine couldn’t quickly fix, but that didn’t stop my friend feeling guilty. He felt so guilty that when the materials manager walked past and saw his face he decided that it must have been my friend’s fault and dragged him into his office. He shouted at him until he was blue in the face about how he could be so reckless and my friend just stood there and took it.”
“So was it his fault?”
“Actually no,” explained Rada “We later discovered that it was caused by faulty materials which the materials manager had supplied us; that was why he was so angry with my friend, because he felt guilty himself.”
“So your friend’s name was cleared, then,” suggested Dalca.
“Yes,” answer Rada “but it made little difference. From that day on, my friend swore that he would never be caught out again, that his face would never betray him again. From that day on, he has never let those around him see what he’s really thinking or feeling and I have no doubt that it’s eating him up inside.”
Dalca just sat there for a reflective moment and then asked “Why did you just tell me that story, Rada?”
“Because I don’t have the answer you’re searching for,” explained Rada. “All I can say is that you should never try to carry the burden alone.”
Warren took a long drink from his glass, smiled politely, and nodded. Then he adjusted his line of questioning, arms on the table and leaning forward, piercing the moment. “How are you doing?”
Rada just took a final sip of his drink, sighed, lent forward to match Warren’s posture and said “Now that’s an answer you already know.”
He then stood up, turned around and placed his cup in the replicator to be recycled, allowing Warren the moment to consider what he’d heard. The half-Deltan thought about it for as long as he needed to. A few seconds at most was really enough to puzzle things out. And now, he was faced with an opportunity to move things forward. A chance to reciprocate in some fashion. It was time for a… break.
“Hey Rada,” the security officer called after him, “ever play Billiards?”
Even though Rada was aware that Billiards was probably the least violent Terran game which involved hitting things with sticks, he still wasn’t too keen on the idea. That didn’t however affect his response as this wasn’t a situation where he was concerned with what he wanted.
“No,” he replied “but I’ve always wanted to learn.”
Warren finished his drink, stood up, and nodded firmly in Dengar’s direction. “When we come into port… I know a place.”
“I’ll be there.” replied Rada with a smile.
Security Officer
USS Serendipity NCC-2012
and
Ensign Rada Dengar
Engineering Officer
USS Serendipity NCC-2012