Slumber was an escape for Sean Wincott, a world of equnanimity and peace that could not be invaded. The one sacred place where his life was his own.
The world around him was a tattered one. As captain of the Defiant class U.S.S Corrington during the Dominion war, he had faced many a fateful day.
If there was one more frustrating element than watching the federation having to rebuild, and being able to do nothing but wait and hope that it could, one thing more infuriatingly depressing than bidding farewell to the fine and honoured dead, it was the fact that he was not among them.
It was widely held, he mused, that the Klingon obsession with an honourable death in combat was an irrational, prehistoric one, based on an archaic sense of nobility. But it was only now that he was beginning to understand it. It was not for respect and honour, it was fear. Plain and simple. If you never stop fighting, you can never feel the pain of the aftermath. Sean was stuck right in the middle of the aftermath, and the terrible part was, he was never that much a part of the conflict in the first place.
The Corrington had only been commissioned six months before the war ended, so it had not seen as much action as veteran ships, but Wincott and his crew had already seen far too much bloodshed.
He was not suicidal, but there was a nagging sense of inadequacy, a gnawing pang of envy for those heroes that would be remembered simply because they had died.
While he understood that he had played his own part in fighting the war, he also understood that the sacrifices he made would never be recognised with the importance they held for him. One of the hardest aspects of the war's end for most was the fact that many of their loved ones would be dead or dying, that the personal cost would be more than they could bear, but for Sean, it was not a problem. He had no one in the universe to care for, except himself. No one had cared enough to seek him out, to think of his welfare, even his senior crew, and most trusted friends never asked him how he felt. mAybe it was all on the surface. He tried hard to be a strong captain, and a good co, at least on the outside, but he had grown up much too fast. He tried to hide his feelings and the pain he felt, but in all of his masquerading, perhaps it all shone through. He had always been the good friend, the one who would sit down and listen to your woes and dillemmas, drop a few sage words of advice, and head off to a lonely, cold, home with only himself as company. He knew they all saw the happy man with not a care in the world, but they never saw the real Sean Wincott, the Sean Wincott who would burst into tears from loneliness, or scream at the walls for someone to care about him half as much as he cared about them.
But such thoughts were only exaggerated by the war, rather than abated, as one would expect, because sean had no one to lose. He wasn't sure if it was harder to have aloved one die, or to have no loved ones at all.
And so it was that his sleep was peppered with visions of smiling faces, voices laughing, calling his name, and caring for him unconditionally.
The bridge hummed softly with undeniable life and personality, and as the night shift wore on, commander Jason whitfield was beginning to feel like the sound was mocking him.
I can go on forever like this, so there! Can you?
He smiled to himself. With his elbow propped against the rest of the captain's chair and his head in his hand, it would have been so easy to fall asleep, but he steeled himself and sat upright. He couldn't let fatigue get the better of him. Captain Sisko would never have approved. After serving with the late captain on starbase 71???, he had learned that the tradition of such captains as kirk and sisko were well earned. Had learned that, they were not so much eccentricities, but ways of dealing with leadership and command stress. Whitfield had told himself there was a lot he could learn by emulating those men, and dealing with situations as the fleet's finest had. It was strangely awkward, and sparked a pang of inadequacy in him that he had to imitate real captains in order to be taken seriously. He felt constantly on trial, as if some minor slip up would make him less of a man. He knew the crew respected him and his ambitiousness, and some probably found it endearing. But at the end of the day, if he screwed up, he wouldn't be a friend, or a commander learning the ropes, he'd be just another marine who weaseled his way onto a starship. If he stopped for a moment, if he hesitated for even a second, his credibility and prospects could well be shot. In some ways, he had subverted his way into command. As far as formal trainig went, he hadn't any more than a lieutenant commander, and much less experience. It was mostly his rank from the starfleet spec ops division that elevated him to the rank he noe held. Which was why he tried all the more vehemently to do his job wel, and maintain the air of charisma and power that came with the best captains. But, to be far there were others. Garrison, henley, J'tael, picard, Dellmore, to name but a few. Good captains that had done their jobs above and beyond the cal, and had always stayed wihtin the boundaries, always preferred to walk away from a fight than to start one.
Maybe that was the better way. Maybe he was a rash brazen fool who would would him and his crew killed, but that was who he was. Every co of note had brought not just experience to the job, not just their attitude toward command. But their past, their original, honest personalities. They had nothidden behind a facade the wa he was now. Kirk had brought his love of women, and his passion, Henley, as a farmer, had brought a slow, peaceful nature, as had Picard and Garrison. J'tael, a vulcan, had brught unflappable calm and logic to his ship. What would he bring to his first command? A tactical mind of previously unheard of ability?
No.
A calm and patient diplomatic mind?
No.
Scientific brilliance?
No.
All he could think of was his love of the unexpected, the way, in the marine corps, an enemy could jump out at you from anywhere, and you had to be ready, be able to improvise a plan at a fraction of a second's notice.
But, he knew he would learn. There were depths in every man, untapped reserviors of brilliance that lay unknown until unlocked by an epiphany or insight of some kind. Whitfield wasn't sure if or when his moment of clarity would come, but he hoped it was soon.
He really needed something to keep him awake.
Dignity.
Such a simple word, beholding of a taste either simple and cherished; or so bittersweet that one's heart cringed at its sourness. Commander Kralok did not concern himself with the question of its meaning to him, for as far as he was concerned; he had none.
But then, he was unsure even of how to define it. Was it a sense of self-worth, or something bestowed upon by others, those instantly possessing of it?
It mattered little, if at all, to him.
Was it the way he walked, the way his arms moved when he strode or spoke, the way he always knew where his hands should be, the sureness of step, the straight back, was it the pitch of his voice, was it the words he spoke?
Or perhaps it was none.
Perhaps it was all in his head, maybe if you did not care how you appeared to others, then you achieved a state of social disassociation that granted instant respect.
Not that he cared.
Maybe it was even more, maybe it was dictated by the amount of respect you give yourself, which to Kralok, was directly proportionate to the amount of respect he received from his peers, which was none. So, consequently he had no self-respect, no dignity, and no self worth at all.
There.
He felt positively Vulcan in his logic, if not in his lack of emotion.
He scratched his head thoughtfully, careful not to disturb the widows peak fringe that adorned his forehead. Yes, he mused, A shame that he felt sorrow at such a realisation.
Surrounded by humans as he was aboard this ship, their expectations and values were slowly and insidiously encroaching upon his own. His first loyalty was to the Empire, that was unquestionable. He would die before he betrayed his people, (especially to humans!) but working on a Romulan ship and a federation one were two staggeringly different concepts to grasp.
On a Romulan vessel, the pecking order was defined, boundaries were solid, and there was absolutely no margin for error. Orders were not questioned, no officer of superior rank was second-guessed, orders were obeyed without question, and personal opinion or personality played any role in any crewmembers role. On a federation craft, though, ideas abounded, and given voice to freely. Orders were queried with gay abandon, and responsibilities were smeared and merged into tasks that suited officers personal needs and desires.
Coddling! That's all it was. Coddling, and an unconscionable lack of order.
But above all that, above the din of mixing voices, all screaming disparate ideas and solutions to problems that required only one, all the chaotic ramblings of overconfident buffoons that believed they knew more than they ever would, was the worst part of the whole starfleet system (if it could be called that). There simply was no respect, and the shallow, farcical posturing of a conglomeration of beings that were so pompous and self congratulatory that they celebrated the ends of wars, as though they had never played a role in starting them!
For the Romulans, the conclusion of the recent 'Dominion War' was a time for reflection, and a time of great sadness. Certainly, there would be some mourning for the honoured lost, but there would be a returned sense of emptiness, a lack of distinct and immmediate purpose, that would seep away at romulus's rioch culture just as it had before the empire had joined hostilities. That was the result of complacency, chaos, and a lack of disciplined cohesion. The Romulan species appeared to have more in common with the Klingons, (their sworn and mortal enemies) than they did with their close4 ancestors the Vulcans. Whereas the Klingons held their love of war close to their oh-so readily sacrificed hearts for the sheer love of conflict, the Romulans seemed to seek conflict more because it only ever benefited the species. To be put bluntly, the only losses were those too weak to sruvive, without which the gene pool was decidedly better off. Incredible advancements in technology were hastened into use, a common goal was found for the people, and the superiority of their race was once again proven, igniting the flame of patriotism that would spark the next conflict. A vicious circle, Starfleet would say, that robbed far too many good Romulans of their lives. Human sentiment, born of a compassion that would one day inevitably lead to their races downfall. They would be trying to reason with the element of their destruction, attempting to make peace with it, while the Romulan star Empire, in all of its blazing, furious glory, would be destroying that which threatened them, therefore dissuading any further hostility, and reaffirming order in the galaxy. There was decided ranking, in terms of galactic supremacy, to be certain. The Romulans were at the top of the heap, with the Vulcans a distant second, followed by several races barely worthy of note, then the Horta, then the Cardassians, who, if nothing else, were respectably deceptive and aggressive, as any lower race must typically be. A particularly nasty single cell life form was next down, followed by voles, Tribbles, then humans, then Klingons. It was not a racially biased view, it was just the way the galaxy worked, and he most certainly liked it.
So, being assigned as engineering liaison to a Starfleet vessel was nothing short of being spit on by the high command. But, Kralok had tried to take it in stride, doing his job with as much efficiency as was possible on this disordered little ship. As the moths, weeks, and days of the war came to a close, he relished the thought of returning home, to order, and his people. He envisioned a comminque from high command, from general Sela herself, apologising for the injustice done to him, the sheer horror of what he must have been through, and offer him a promotion, his own ship, and her personal commendation for grace under extreme fire. Instead, what he got, was a ten line message from an officer a rank below him;
From: Sub-commander Vorewl
To: Commander Kralok
Congratulations on your actions during the preceding conflict, and for serving under potentially adverse conditions.
You have been recommended by your superiors as a prime example of Romulan integrity, and a premier example of the empire's commitment to the expansion of understanding, and the protection of its culture.
Therefore, we of the High Command have decided to assign you to your current assignment indefinitely.
We are certain you will do all within your power to bridge the gulf between Federation and Romulan with respect and dignity.
Congratulations, and good luck on your mission.
-Romulan High Command
Respect and dignity.
One he could not achieve, and the other he did not even posess for himself.
It was going to be a very long assignment.
The world around him was a tattered one. As captain of the Defiant class U.S.S Corrington during the Dominion war, he had faced many a fateful day.
If there was one more frustrating element than watching the federation having to rebuild, and being able to do nothing but wait and hope that it could, one thing more infuriatingly depressing than bidding farewell to the fine and honoured dead, it was the fact that he was not among them.
It was widely held, he mused, that the Klingon obsession with an honourable death in combat was an irrational, prehistoric one, based on an archaic sense of nobility. But it was only now that he was beginning to understand it. It was not for respect and honour, it was fear. Plain and simple. If you never stop fighting, you can never feel the pain of the aftermath. Sean was stuck right in the middle of the aftermath, and the terrible part was, he was never that much a part of the conflict in the first place.
The Corrington had only been commissioned six months before the war ended, so it had not seen as much action as veteran ships, but Wincott and his crew had already seen far too much bloodshed.
He was not suicidal, but there was a nagging sense of inadequacy, a gnawing pang of envy for those heroes that would be remembered simply because they had died.
While he understood that he had played his own part in fighting the war, he also understood that the sacrifices he made would never be recognised with the importance they held for him. One of the hardest aspects of the war's end for most was the fact that many of their loved ones would be dead or dying, that the personal cost would be more than they could bear, but for Sean, it was not a problem. He had no one in the universe to care for, except himself. No one had cared enough to seek him out, to think of his welfare, even his senior crew, and most trusted friends never asked him how he felt. mAybe it was all on the surface. He tried hard to be a strong captain, and a good co, at least on the outside, but he had grown up much too fast. He tried to hide his feelings and the pain he felt, but in all of his masquerading, perhaps it all shone through. He had always been the good friend, the one who would sit down and listen to your woes and dillemmas, drop a few sage words of advice, and head off to a lonely, cold, home with only himself as company. He knew they all saw the happy man with not a care in the world, but they never saw the real Sean Wincott, the Sean Wincott who would burst into tears from loneliness, or scream at the walls for someone to care about him half as much as he cared about them.
But such thoughts were only exaggerated by the war, rather than abated, as one would expect, because sean had no one to lose. He wasn't sure if it was harder to have aloved one die, or to have no loved ones at all.
And so it was that his sleep was peppered with visions of smiling faces, voices laughing, calling his name, and caring for him unconditionally.
The bridge hummed softly with undeniable life and personality, and as the night shift wore on, commander Jason whitfield was beginning to feel like the sound was mocking him.
I can go on forever like this, so there! Can you?
He smiled to himself. With his elbow propped against the rest of the captain's chair and his head in his hand, it would have been so easy to fall asleep, but he steeled himself and sat upright. He couldn't let fatigue get the better of him. Captain Sisko would never have approved. After serving with the late captain on starbase 71???, he had learned that the tradition of such captains as kirk and sisko were well earned. Had learned that, they were not so much eccentricities, but ways of dealing with leadership and command stress. Whitfield had told himself there was a lot he could learn by emulating those men, and dealing with situations as the fleet's finest had. It was strangely awkward, and sparked a pang of inadequacy in him that he had to imitate real captains in order to be taken seriously. He felt constantly on trial, as if some minor slip up would make him less of a man. He knew the crew respected him and his ambitiousness, and some probably found it endearing. But at the end of the day, if he screwed up, he wouldn't be a friend, or a commander learning the ropes, he'd be just another marine who weaseled his way onto a starship. If he stopped for a moment, if he hesitated for even a second, his credibility and prospects could well be shot. In some ways, he had subverted his way into command. As far as formal trainig went, he hadn't any more than a lieutenant commander, and much less experience. It was mostly his rank from the starfleet spec ops division that elevated him to the rank he noe held. Which was why he tried all the more vehemently to do his job wel, and maintain the air of charisma and power that came with the best captains. But, to be far there were others. Garrison, henley, J'tael, picard, Dellmore, to name but a few. Good captains that had done their jobs above and beyond the cal, and had always stayed wihtin the boundaries, always preferred to walk away from a fight than to start one.
Maybe that was the better way. Maybe he was a rash brazen fool who would would him and his crew killed, but that was who he was. Every co of note had brought not just experience to the job, not just their attitude toward command. But their past, their original, honest personalities. They had nothidden behind a facade the wa he was now. Kirk had brought his love of women, and his passion, Henley, as a farmer, had brought a slow, peaceful nature, as had Picard and Garrison. J'tael, a vulcan, had brught unflappable calm and logic to his ship. What would he bring to his first command? A tactical mind of previously unheard of ability?
No.
A calm and patient diplomatic mind?
No.
Scientific brilliance?
No.
All he could think of was his love of the unexpected, the way, in the marine corps, an enemy could jump out at you from anywhere, and you had to be ready, be able to improvise a plan at a fraction of a second's notice.
But, he knew he would learn. There were depths in every man, untapped reserviors of brilliance that lay unknown until unlocked by an epiphany or insight of some kind. Whitfield wasn't sure if or when his moment of clarity would come, but he hoped it was soon.
He really needed something to keep him awake.
Dignity.
Such a simple word, beholding of a taste either simple and cherished; or so bittersweet that one's heart cringed at its sourness. Commander Kralok did not concern himself with the question of its meaning to him, for as far as he was concerned; he had none.
But then, he was unsure even of how to define it. Was it a sense of self-worth, or something bestowed upon by others, those instantly possessing of it?
It mattered little, if at all, to him.
Was it the way he walked, the way his arms moved when he strode or spoke, the way he always knew where his hands should be, the sureness of step, the straight back, was it the pitch of his voice, was it the words he spoke?
Or perhaps it was none.
Perhaps it was all in his head, maybe if you did not care how you appeared to others, then you achieved a state of social disassociation that granted instant respect.
Not that he cared.
Maybe it was even more, maybe it was dictated by the amount of respect you give yourself, which to Kralok, was directly proportionate to the amount of respect he received from his peers, which was none. So, consequently he had no self-respect, no dignity, and no self worth at all.
There.
He felt positively Vulcan in his logic, if not in his lack of emotion.
He scratched his head thoughtfully, careful not to disturb the widows peak fringe that adorned his forehead. Yes, he mused, A shame that he felt sorrow at such a realisation.
Surrounded by humans as he was aboard this ship, their expectations and values were slowly and insidiously encroaching upon his own. His first loyalty was to the Empire, that was unquestionable. He would die before he betrayed his people, (especially to humans!) but working on a Romulan ship and a federation one were two staggeringly different concepts to grasp.
On a Romulan vessel, the pecking order was defined, boundaries were solid, and there was absolutely no margin for error. Orders were not questioned, no officer of superior rank was second-guessed, orders were obeyed without question, and personal opinion or personality played any role in any crewmembers role. On a federation craft, though, ideas abounded, and given voice to freely. Orders were queried with gay abandon, and responsibilities were smeared and merged into tasks that suited officers personal needs and desires.
Coddling! That's all it was. Coddling, and an unconscionable lack of order.
But above all that, above the din of mixing voices, all screaming disparate ideas and solutions to problems that required only one, all the chaotic ramblings of overconfident buffoons that believed they knew more than they ever would, was the worst part of the whole starfleet system (if it could be called that). There simply was no respect, and the shallow, farcical posturing of a conglomeration of beings that were so pompous and self congratulatory that they celebrated the ends of wars, as though they had never played a role in starting them!
For the Romulans, the conclusion of the recent 'Dominion War' was a time for reflection, and a time of great sadness. Certainly, there would be some mourning for the honoured lost, but there would be a returned sense of emptiness, a lack of distinct and immmediate purpose, that would seep away at romulus's rioch culture just as it had before the empire had joined hostilities. That was the result of complacency, chaos, and a lack of disciplined cohesion. The Romulan species appeared to have more in common with the Klingons, (their sworn and mortal enemies) than they did with their close4 ancestors the Vulcans. Whereas the Klingons held their love of war close to their oh-so readily sacrificed hearts for the sheer love of conflict, the Romulans seemed to seek conflict more because it only ever benefited the species. To be put bluntly, the only losses were those too weak to sruvive, without which the gene pool was decidedly better off. Incredible advancements in technology were hastened into use, a common goal was found for the people, and the superiority of their race was once again proven, igniting the flame of patriotism that would spark the next conflict. A vicious circle, Starfleet would say, that robbed far too many good Romulans of their lives. Human sentiment, born of a compassion that would one day inevitably lead to their races downfall. They would be trying to reason with the element of their destruction, attempting to make peace with it, while the Romulan star Empire, in all of its blazing, furious glory, would be destroying that which threatened them, therefore dissuading any further hostility, and reaffirming order in the galaxy. There was decided ranking, in terms of galactic supremacy, to be certain. The Romulans were at the top of the heap, with the Vulcans a distant second, followed by several races barely worthy of note, then the Horta, then the Cardassians, who, if nothing else, were respectably deceptive and aggressive, as any lower race must typically be. A particularly nasty single cell life form was next down, followed by voles, Tribbles, then humans, then Klingons. It was not a racially biased view, it was just the way the galaxy worked, and he most certainly liked it.
So, being assigned as engineering liaison to a Starfleet vessel was nothing short of being spit on by the high command. But, Kralok had tried to take it in stride, doing his job with as much efficiency as was possible on this disordered little ship. As the moths, weeks, and days of the war came to a close, he relished the thought of returning home, to order, and his people. He envisioned a comminque from high command, from general Sela herself, apologising for the injustice done to him, the sheer horror of what he must have been through, and offer him a promotion, his own ship, and her personal commendation for grace under extreme fire. Instead, what he got, was a ten line message from an officer a rank below him;
From: Sub-commander Vorewl
To: Commander Kralok
Congratulations on your actions during the preceding conflict, and for serving under potentially adverse conditions.
You have been recommended by your superiors as a prime example of Romulan integrity, and a premier example of the empire's commitment to the expansion of understanding, and the protection of its culture.
Therefore, we of the High Command have decided to assign you to your current assignment indefinitely.
We are certain you will do all within your power to bridge the gulf between Federation and Romulan with respect and dignity.
Congratulations, and good luck on your mission.
-Romulan High Command
Respect and dignity.
One he could not achieve, and the other he did not even posess for himself.
It was going to be a very long assignment.