Episode Two | Teaser - Good Night

Chapter 7
Ha'kan
Not That Guy

Ha'kan had gotten used to mind-numbingly boring work. He just had about an hour left of this and then he could go eat. Go to bed. Get up in the morning and do it all again?

He loved routine because he'd grown up with it… but he hated it because it reminded him of Cardassians. Of doctors with their orders and errands. The guards with their roll calls and humiliating exercises. He was at least sure that no one on the Defiant was anything like those animals.

There were only a few he knew to keep an eye out for. All of them had made it into security. They didn't know how to do anything but inflict pain, so… that fit. At least, in Ha'kan's experience. What he didn't have experience with was Klingons, though. At least… at least, not full-blooded Klingons. Still fit, though.

B'Elanna paused her stalk toward the warp console to come back to watch him from a near distance. Or maybe watch something else, as Ha'kan tried not to bristle when he felt another pair of dark eyes looking over his shoulder. Ensign Vorik, the Starfleet officer on duty, a Vulcan apparently obsessed with monitoring. Honestly, Ha'kan had felt less oversight in the hospital.

He nearly jumped out of his skin when Vorik spoke. "Mister Tabor. Your calibrations are off by a factor of two and a half."

"Back off, Starfleet," B'Elanna snapped, whipping on Vorik while Ha'kan tried to figure out how to remove himself from his position directly between them. "He's just cleaning up the—"

"I am aware of what he's doing." The Vulcan stood a bit taller, and turned more directly to Ha'kan as if trying to cut B'Elanna out of the conversation. "If you would follow the guidelines here, Mister Tabor," he said, handing over a PADD somewhat stiffly, "the calibration will maintain coherence over a longer period. I will demonstrate, if you desire."

Ha'kan tried to take the PADD but B'Elanna snatched it. Ha'kan tried to chuckle, but he imagined even Vorik could hear he sounded nervous. Standing between a Klingon and a Vulcan wasn't really where he wanted to be. "B'Elanna?" He tried to smile at her, but she wasn't having it.

"I think we know what we're doing, Ensign." B'Elanna folded her arms over her chest.

"That may be so," Vorik allowed with a slight nod, "however, the accuracy with which you are completing your tasks leaves much to be desired." He looked at Ha'kan again. "Your phase corrections are setting to an average of four percent. This is beyond the acceptable margin of error."

B'Elanna looked at the PADD in her hand, and then at Ha'kan's screen. Maybe she realized she agreed with him and was just being aggressive for no reason—as wasn't too uncommon. Ha'kan looked from B'Elanna to Vorik then back again, and held his hand out for the PADD.

She slapped it into Ha'kan's hand, but her eyes never left the Vulcan. "It's four percent," she said. Ha'kan hurried to look at the PADD, wondering which bet he'd take in the Klingon-versus-Vulcan situation. He would not take the bet on Bajoran-in-the-middle. "Relax," B'Elanna finished and turned back to her power grid screens.

But, to be completely fair, Vorik was right—his corrections had been less "correcting" and more like… deferring responsibility. But he was going to be here for seventy years. Who cared?

He was depressed. They were all depressed, but, to be fair, he didn't want to be personally responsible for stranding them because of his carelessness.

He didn't want that, but, all the same, he could only barely care about it.

"I am simply attempting to increase our efficiency as a group." Ensign Vorik stood straighter, apparently at a loss for what to do since his authority didn't seem to be working on her. "We have limited crew with even a passing familiarity of the Defiant's power grid. If work is not done correctly the first time, someone else will be forced to repeat the same work later, utilizing manpower and energy, both of which we have very little."

Vorik waited a few moments to see that Ha'kan had continued in his work, and stepped back to the power grid console just over a meter away to see what B'Elanna was up to. It was a small ship. Ha'kan almost breathed a sigh of relief but Vorik spoke again.

"Miss Torres, what are you doing?"

B'Elanna chuckled a little. Ha'kan knew that sound. Something was about to get hit… "I was looking at the power grid design, and I think we could save upwards of three percent on life support systems power if we realigned the lateral plamsa conduit."

Vorik paused a moment, and then: "However, it would have the side effect of overloading the main transfer channel, and a forty-three percent chance of destroying Deck Three, Sections Four and Five." He looked at her, as if expecting an explanation.

Jor turned away, looking terrified. Ha'kan went back to the warp coils. For two seconds. B'Elanna wouldn't leave it alone.

B'Elanna hesitated to smile all the more deliberately, though her eyes were practically laced with the bright and dangerous lights of phaser-fire. "Look again."

Vorik looked at her, one of those eyebrows arched in what almost looked like confusion. "I was quite thorough."

"You looked at it for two seconds."

"I am familiar with Federation starship power grid configurations, and I know the Defiant." He looked at the console again, and stepped in closer as he reached for the console. "Allow me—"

"Don't you touch me!" B'Elanna whirled on Vorik. "Pointy-eared bastard!" Her fist arced wide.

Jor gasped and snapped her lips shut, and Chell looked up from his spot kneeling on the ground. Adjusted his balance as if ready to get up and run.

Ha'kan held his breath. On the one hand, seeing a knock-down, drag-out fight between a Klingon-hybrid and a Vulcan would certainly be something. On the other hand… he would never see that. Even if B'Elanna wanted to pick a fight, she had to crack that Vulcan control first. They'd been here three days—Vorik would be a pretty shitty Vulcan if that was all it took.

On the other hand, B'Elanna was a pretty damn good half-Klingon.

Vorik's hands were shaking, and green blood dripped down his wrist, onto his sleeve. Oh, okay, now, that—that was a problem.

Ha'kan stepped between them, trying to impress his contempt for B'Elanna's idiocy through his eyes followed directly by a begging apology toward the Vulcan. "Alright, uh… you okay?"

Did Vulcans accept apologies? Did that require emotion? How was Ha'kan supposed to know?

Vorik straightened, supporting himself with one hand on the warp control console behind him as he held the back of the other hand under his nose. Blood dripped from his fingers. "I assure you," he said, "physical force is unnecessary."

"Just, everyone, take a breath," Ha'kan said, and glanced to Jor for any kind of help. Backup for whatever his play was to get B'Elanna not-ejected from the Defiant three fucking days into the trip.

"Take a breath?" Vorik repeated, and Ha'kan realized he was never sure if a Vulcan was being genuine or condescending. He drew his hand away to inspect it, ignoring the blood trickling past his lips, onto his chin. "I am… breathing, Mister Tabor."

Prophets. That sounded angry. Tabor genuinely hoped that today was the first and last time he ever empathized with a Vulcan.

Vorik looked to B'Elanna as if to ask if she was breathing.

B'Elanna, to her credit, held her hands up as if in surrender. Or maybe it was innocence, in which case Ha'kan couldn't imagine a more deluded position to take. "I'm—I'm really sorry. I didn't—"

"May I remind you of the severe punishments for assault?" Vorik tugged on his shirt, taking a breath. He wiped the blood off his mouth and chin.

"I said I was sorry," she snapped, and Ha'kan eyed her. What an absolute idiot. "What else do you want me to say?"

Ha'kan watched the Vulcan take a slow, even breath, and then nod. "I will… overlook this offense. Proceed with your other maintenance tasks." He started to walk away, but thought better of it. "Do not continue your work with the lateral plasma conduit until you have cleared the upgrades with Chief Paswan."

Ha'kan watched Vorik walk away, carefully touch his nose with his bloody fingers, and wondered for a whole half-second what he was supposed to do now. Ha'kan wasn't looking forward to being bossed around all the time by Vorik, but they were on the same side. All the way out here, they were, anyway.

He couldn't believe he was even thinking this, but they all just wanted to get home.

He could think of a few Maquis-guys he trusted less than every last one of these mass-produced Federation puppets with hems so straight they could've plotted warp field variance against the lines. Ensign Vorik, perhaps, most of all.

Jor giggled hysterically from nerves behind her hand, muttering a Prophetic oath. Chell scoffed and called Vorik a rude word in Bolian—there was no Bajoran word for a homeless man who pretended he lived in a mansion, so it sounded hilariously clumsy to Ha'kan through the translator. B'Elanna watched Vorik disappear through the door that led to the hatch down to the antimatter injector.

Ha'kan spun and saw B'Elanna still frowning after him. "Hey. Genius." He snapped his fingers in her face. "Are you out of your fucking mind?"

B'Elanna waved him off with a dismissive affirmation. "No more out of my mind than whatever the hell you're doing with those phase coils. I don't want to see any variance more than one percent, got it?"

"Don't change the subject!" Ha'kan gave her a glare. "I'm way more concerned with the fact that I somehow ended up in the middle of some kind of Klingon-Vulcan pissing contest." B'Elanna opened her mouth to speak, but Ha'kan threw his hand there to stop her. "And way further down the line is my interest in watching Riker personally toss you out an airlock!"

"Yeah…" Jor said quietly from nearby. "You're lucky he's not going straight to Tuvok."

"He still might!" Ha'kan didn't take his eyes off B'Elanna. "You're an idiot."

"He's the—he touched me!" B'Elanna slammed her hand down on his console, and it dimmed to indicate it wasn't taking any inputs at the moment. Always did that when it registered more force and contact area than needed—which was about half its active time in a room with B'Elanna Torres. "Either way, Tabor, this isn't about me."

"You could have fooled me!"

"He doesn't respect us!"

"And that was your solution?" Ha'kan laughed. "You are an idiot!"

"He doesn't respect us because of you!" B'Elanna threw a hand in his direction, then at Chell while she glared at Jor. "We're not some backwater bums who don't know a micro-caliper from a monkey wrench. Our engineering is better than competent, and I'm not gonna let anybody think any differently. And I'm right about the plasma conduit, by the way."

"Who cares?" Ha'kan asked. "Look, I'm sorry I'm not an actual engineer. I'm doing the best I can, but I didn't have two semesters of some fancy Academy training—it's not like you're actually the real thing, either."

"And who cares what Vorik thinks, anyway?" Jor asked.

"What Ensign Vorik thinks is what everyone else thinks," B'Elanna snapped. "I'm not saying to impress him—but I am saying that if you embarrass me or Riker because you decided to half-ass your assignments, I'll figure out a way to smash your face in quietly."

"Okay, okay, calm down." Jor walked away, Chell scurrying behind her.

"I'm serious. Clean that up, Tabor. Whatever else that arrogant son of a bitch may be, he was right about your phase corrections."

"Yes, ma'am."

She smacked the side of his head. "Don't ma'am me."

"That's still assault, bitch."

She whacked him again, and walked away toward the hatch to the anti-matter injector. She stood at it for several seconds before apparently thinking better of it, and went to her other maintenance tasks.

Ha'kan sighed and tried to figure out what he'd been doing.

The big difference between doing this job on the Valjean and doing it for the Defiant was that the Valjean had over thirty-nine years' worth of lightyears on her impulse engines. The Defiant was as uptight as—well, a Vulcan, probably. The tiniest little particle out of place, and she was complaining about it in red lights and klaxons. Also, she almost shook herself apart at warp nine, and they still hadn't figured out how to fix that.

Probably a whole host of other problems he wasn't aware of.

But Ha'kan was a decent engineer even if he wasn't all that smart. He was great at math, due probably in part to his work in the hospital calculating dosages, estimating resources, and reckoning abysmal survival odds. He was used to working with extremely low percentages. So he slowed down and focused. There was something aspirational about the fact that Vorik could look at the grid layout for two seconds and just know what a change would mean.

Ha'kan didn't know if he wanted to be that good at engineering. But it would be kind of nice to be that good at something.

One percent turned out to be impossible to his current skill level, but he was consistently hitting under two percent by the end of his shift—better than what Ensign Vorik asked for. Unfortunately, he'd already left and Chief Paswan seemed to be giving everyone praise whether they deserved it or not.

Ha'kan couldn't quite believe it, but he was pretty sure he preferred Vorik's fastidious supervision to Paswan's genial distance.

Jor hovered over his shoulder while she waited for him to finish the last coil and followed him to the mess hall.

"So. B'Elanna's pissed," she mumbled while she watched the replicator create the hasperat she'd asked for. "You are, too."

Ha'kan just copied her order. "Show me someone who isn't."

She smiled bitingly. "Fair enough."

Just as they were sitting down to eat, Edathan Jarvin stepped up behind Jor peeked over her shoulder at the hasperat in her hands. "Think you'll ever broaden your culinary horizons?" He grinned at her, winked as he reached across the table to take half of Ha'kan's.

Alright, so maybe there was one person on this ship that wasn't irritated. Despite the age difference—Eddie was twenty-eight and Jor was twenty-two—Ha'kan had seen Ed's interest since the first moment he saw these two in a room together. As far as Ha'kan could tell, though, the only person who didn't feel the electricity was Jor.

With a huff, Ha'kan watched Ed take a bite of half of his hasperat. "Yeah, sure, help yourself, Eddie. And hi to you, too."

"Hi, Tabor," he said, entirely focused on Jor with what he could only classify as adoring eyes. Ha'kan only watched long enough to admit to something between amusement and jealousy—not for Jor; hell, no. She was like his sister. But for something like that. "I'll grant you, it's a good choice. But it gets boring."

"I like it." Jor flushed at Jarvin's attention, but didn't make eye-contact. "And besides, of all the times to be critical of a little comfort food." Jor sighed, unfolding and then re-rolling her hasperat. It was a weird habit unique to labor-camp Bajorans—to see what was inside before biting into it.

Eddie seemed to take that more seriously than Ha'kan thought it warranted… but, to be fair, everyone was at least mildly depressed right now. Hell, even Vorik was probably almost depressed. Though he might not be if he hadn't just gotten punched in the face.

"Okay, fair…" Eddie said. "But tomorrow I'll treat us all to pizza."

"That'll probably be tough, considering Jor and I will be on night shift starting tomorrow. If I'm not mistaken, you're day shift." Ha'kan watched Ed's face fall at the news. "Don't you know this? I thought Riker was your department head."

"He might be surprisingly Starfleet, but he certainly has a more hands-off management style." Eddie shrugged, sitting down next to Jor. "I guess it comes from being stranded alone on a planet for eight years or whatever."

"I'd die," Jor said.

Eddie glanced at her, but didn't otherwise respond to the comment.

"He didn't seem to care what anybody did as long as the work got done on the Valjean," Ha'kan said, and he wasn't even sure he meant that well.

"At least you guys don't have to have full staffing like we do in Engineering," Jor said.

"We're on call all the time," Eddie offered, like that was a concession.

"Because we'd all get blown up in an emergency no matter what department you're in. It's the engineers all working twenty-six hours a day to keep those emergencies from happening." Ha'kan didn't realize he was irritated about being placed on the night shift until… now actually.

"That's what I'm saying: we're all working twenty-six hours a day." Eddie sat down, pulling Jor's hand toward his mouth to help himself to a bite of her hasperat. Ha'kan had stopped waiting for a reaction from Eddie: he seemed to have been raised on Bajoran spice.

Ha'kan huffed, rearranging one of the peppers just to distract himself from his short temper. "I'm not a fucking engineer. I don't know what the hell I'm doing. And Jor knows even less than I do," he added, throwing a gesturing hand in her direction.

Eddie smiled at him. "Tuvok set the assignments, but I hear he'll be testing us all in a few weeks. In the meantime, it was based on his observations of our potential aptitudes on the Valjean." The way he said it indicated it was an exact quote.

Of course, it was.

"I hate Vulcans." Ha'kan glanced around, almost regretting what he'd said until he saw that neither of their Vulcans were in the mess hall. So he looked back at Eddie and Jor. "I don't think I mean that."

"I'm glad at least Vorik's an engineer." Jor sighed and watched her uneaten hasperat almost contemplatively. "Even if he doesn't care what he says, at least seems to know what he's doing."

"He's been an engineer for three years. He knows better than any of us," Ha'kan said, quietly. He didn't want any of the Starfleet officers to hear him, and he certainly didn't want any of the Maquis to hear him. "We're not engineers. Maybe B'Elanna is, maybe Michael, but the rest of us aren't even gunslingers. I don't care what B'Elanna says."

"Okay, maybe you aren't," Eddie said, "but maybe you could be."

Ha'kan didn't know if he would. He was… he didn't know what he was. He wasn't an academic or a farmer or an artist or whatever-the-hell he might have been in drastically different circumstances. He was a survivor, and that was it.

Ha'kan finished up his hasperat and waited for Jor to finish hers.

"Got any plans for the evening…?" Ha'kan asked, wondering what to do with the rest of his time.

Jor sighed, and Eddie glanced at her a bit sideways. "No. Why, did you have an idea?"

"No. Not really." Ha'kan caught himself back from wishing he could go home, because he had no idea what that meant. "I guess I should just get some sleep."

Ha'kan stood and looked at the others gathered in the mess. A few Starfleet people huddled together in the corner table. They weren't even wearing their uniforms, but Ha'kan could practically smell them. This wasn't going to last. They weren't engineers, and the rest of them weren't even a crew.

Ha'kan just hoped he was asleep when the inevitable worst happened. That was the only tongue-in-cheek corruption of a Bajoran blessing he remembered from his childhood: something like, Prophets bless your death with sleep. Ha'kan didn't put much by the Prophets, but they didn't bless many people. Everybody died, and most, at least in his experience, went screaming.

Jor gave him a wave as he left that he returned only half-heartedly.

Ha'kan went around the middle deck loop four or five times before stopping at the door to the room he shared with Ensign Harry Kim. It was late, so he didn't doubt his roommate was already in there—as an Ops guy, he would probably only ever be on call at night once the schedules finally came down. But Ha'kan didn't foresee his situation bearing similarity to Jor's and Eddie's, so it didn't matter. If he'd been able to manage long-term companionship of any kind, he probably wouldn't have been here in the first place.

The past few days had been hard. He'd been willfully ignoring the needle that seemed to reach all the way through to his spine and the destruction of the very few personal effects he'd collected in the last two years. Not that he missed any of those replicated trinkets or shirts.

The room was dark, but he could see Ensign Kim in the lower bunk under the standard issue sheets. His nightwear was long-sleeved and solid brown. Ha'kan was almost more familiar with those than he was with his uniform.

With a contained sigh, Ha'kan stripped and popped open the top drawer on his side of the wall. He had… nothing. It was like he'd left the hospital yesterday. Seven sets of smallclothes, though, since he could. Never underestimate the value in a clean set of underwear—and these were nice. Their initial replicator allotment had been really generous.

He heard Ensign Kim jerk and gasp behind him.

"Sorry, sorry, I, uh… didn't mean to wake you." Ha'kan hastily pulled some smallclothes on, realizing that his Federation roommate might not have been as used to seeing naked people just walking around as he was. The Federation sense of privacy was luxurious. The Bajoran sense of modesty had two ways of working that Ha'kan could tell: either they were desensitized or hypersensitive.

Ha'kan fell into the former category, and he had seen everything. An alien needle punched into his intestines was hardly the worst thing that ever happened to him, and it wasn't like a modest set of trousers was going to stop it. Like the needle, he'd never gotten anywhere by resisting.

Kim… obviously hadn't had anything worse than that happen to him, and he wasn't desensitized. He looked terrified or shocked. Maybe both. "It's fine…" Kim mumbled, and gripped his pillow protectively against his chest as he stared.

He'd seen that look before. Ha'kan didn't make any sudden movements, stuffing his clothes back into the drawer to wear tomorrow. "Do you know how we're handing laundry? The reprocessing schedule on a Maquis ship—"

"I don't know."

Ha'kan turned to see Kim's voice was muffled because he'd hidden his face in the pillow. Apparently not a good day for anybody. But, then again, Ha'kan didn't have anybody waiting for him back home. Two of his best friends were here. While he certainly would have preferred to be close enough to Bajor to visit sometimes, maybe, it wasn't like that place held an abundance of pleasant nostalgia for him.

"I guess someone will tell us when they realize we're gonna need to wash these," he muttered. "It's gonna be a pretty miserable trip if they don't."

Kim nodded into his pillow.

Ha'kan climbed up onto his bunk and turned his lights off. The room was still moderately bright, with the muted glow of the replicator and comms panel in the wall responding to the ambient light level. The orange low-light from Kim's bunk below spilled onto the floor.

Ha'kan had gotten used to sleeping under just about any circumstance pretty much wherever he got tired. This mattress certainly wasn't the worst he'd ever slept on, and he was pretty sure a Starfleet roommate would respect his bodily sovereignty in a way some other roommates hadn't. He wouldn't have admitted it out loud, but there were certainly a few Maquis he wouldn't want to share a room with. Most of the Starfleet crew, on the other hand—he trusted them to at least have a set of civilized rules stamped into those brainwashed psyches. The moment he saw Kim's name next to his on the rooms roster, he knew he'd won the lottery.

Chakotay had made it clear that he was not shy of harsh punishments for any cases of assault, no matter the type, but there always had to be that one person who pushed to find out exactly what harsh meant. Exactly what assault meant.

So maybe there were three unfortunate categories Bajorans fell into: desensitized, hyper-sensitive, or… vindictive. Give up, take cover, or hit back. Sometimes the prey became predators themselves. At this point, Ha'kan would rather room with a Naussican over some Bajoran he didn't know.

But Kim wasn't that guy. Neither was Ha'kan.

Ha'kan arranged his pillow, pulled up the sheet from the side, and stretched out comfortably. The fabric was soft against his chest and the thrum of the warp core was even soothing. Having his own little space that was just his, where he could keep his things had always been appealing to him. He used to hide in a storage cabinet in the hospital as a kid, store trinkets he'd deemed pretty or interesting enough to be toys… Weird how he could be so far away and that cabinet seemed closer today than it had in years.

All things considered, the Defiant wasn't bad. It was a nice ship, relatively spacious, fast, and incredibly powerful. He was sharing a room with one guy instead of a hallway with fifteen. That he had no idea what he was doing would change. Ha'kan learned fast when he had to. His new situation didn't get in the way of his ability to fall asleep within fifteen minutes, as usual.

Ha'kan awoke maybe twenty or thirty minutes later to the sound of soft sobbing hidden in a pillow. So maybe… maybe there were some things he still couldn't sleep through.