![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nixed_simsTitle: Subject to the Requirements of the Service
Author: NixNivis
Rating: PG
Summary: The ones you love the most, can also hurt you the most.
Stories in this arc:
Hello there. It's good to see you!
If you haven't read any of my other holonovels and want to know more about the relationship between Yelena and Sellia Rosh, I recommend having a look at The Road Not Taken, but it's by no means a requirement, of the service or otherwise. You will be able to follow the story anyway, I promise.
The year is now 2374, ten years after "The Road..." and seven years before events in the USS Strangelove RPG.
Program complete - enter when ready!
~ Subject to the Requirements of the Service ~
“Cadet? Get these to the Chief Engineer right away.”
“Yes, sir!” Cadet Fourth Class Yelena Ivanova eagerly agreed as she received the three PADDs from the science officer. Delivering PADDs wasn’t exactly the most exciting job there was on a starship, but if it meant getting her down to Engineering, Yelena would happily take it. The Chief Engineer of the USS Artemis was not pleased about having a group of raw cadets assigned to him, and so he did everything he could get away with to keep them as far away from the ship’s engine room as possible – but this time, Yelena had a perfectly valid reason to enter his demesne, and she intended to make the most of it.
“Commander ch’Zaar? I was told to bring you these PADDs?”
“Uh-huh,” the Andorian Chief Engineer shrugged, looking neither at Yelena nor at the PADDs. Instead, he was intently studying what Yelena thought looked like the ship’s warp field alignment, and she couldn’t help moving a little closer to have a peek.
Now ch’Zaar did look at her, but only long enough to give her a disgusted glare.
“Do you know anything about warp field dynamics, Cadet...?”
“Ivanova, sir. And of course!”
The Chief Engineer looked extremely sceptical at that. “I mean other than ‘Engineering 101: Warp Core Breaches are Bad,’” he said flatly.
Yelena smiled. “I more or less grew up in a Galaxy-class engine room, sir.”
But ch’Zaar still looked sceptical. “Really? Whose engine room?”
“Sellia Rosh’s?”
Now the Andorian’s stern, blue visage brightened considerably. “You know Sellia? Really?” Then his eyes widened as it dawned on him: “You’re Yelena Ivanova, aren’t you? Sellia’s protégé?” He grinned when he saw the surprised look on Yelena’s face. “I’ve known Sellia since the Academy; she’s told me everything about you.” He lowered his voice a little. “Including the fact that you don’t want it widely known who your mother is. Don’t worry, Cadet,” he added with a smile, “your secret’s safe with me. Still, I think we should be able to find you something slightly more interesting to do than fetching PADDs.” He nodded towards another engineer standing a little farther away, peering at a screen on the wall. “You can start with helping Kigawe over there with the diagnostic he’s running.”
“Yes, sir!” Yelena grinned.
On her way over to Lt. Kigawe, Yelena passed one of her fellow freshmen, who was sitting with his forehead perilously resting on a computer console. Yelena couldn’t help grinning.
“Careful so you don’t eject the warp core like that, Al.”
But the other cadet didn’t stir. “I want to die!” he moaned.
Yelena grinned even wider; Cadet Alberto Pacelli believed he was God’s gift to engineering as well as to woman, and he also believed that he, by the Power of the Divine Y Chromosome, automatically knew more about everything technological than any female cadet ever could. He also believed he was born to be in space.
“You’re looking a little green around the gills,” Yelena said cheerfully. “I guess you’re spacesick again, huh? I hear it can be a real pain. A friend of mine couldn’t keep a single thing down during his first tour; he must have lost ten kilos by the time he returned to Earth.” This was a complete lie, of course, but the loud moan it invoked from Pacelli was quite satisfying. “But don’t worry,” Yelena went on, giving her fellow cadet an encouraging pat on the back, “it will pass eventually. It does for most people, anyway.”
Now Pacelli raised his head a few centimetres. “‘Most people?’” he repeated in a weak voice. “What do you mean, ‘most people?’”
But Yelena was already walking away, trying very hard not to laugh out loud.
“That was cruel, Cadet,” Lt. Kigawe observed when she reached him. He had overheard the entire thing – and he was also grinning. With his know-it-all attitude, Cadet Pacelli had managed to rub quite a few of the engineers the wrong way, especially since he stubbornly refused to admit that he in fact didn’t know it all, even when the evidence was overwhelming.
“I know,” Yelena grinned back. “Commander ch’Zaar said you needed help with a diagnostic?”
Kigawe arched an eyebrow. “You must be good, then,” he noted. “Usually, Che only lets cadets fetch-”
“-fetch PADDs, I know,” Yelena finished the sentence. “But it turns out we have a mutual acquaintance, and she’s the one who’s trained me. I sort of grew up on a starship,” she added when Kigawe looked surprised.
“Starfleet brat?” the lieutenant assumed. “Me, too; I grew up on a Miranda-class.” He smiled. “My dad was Chief Engineer, so I guess I’ve followed in his footsteps. Or try to, anyway.” He gave Yelena a curious look. “What about you? Are your parents engineers, too?”
Yelena was very relieved when her communicator chirped before she could answer.
“Cadet Ivanova,” she heard the Captain’s voice. “Report to my ready-room.”
“On my way, ma’am,” Yelena immediately acknowledged.
“Now what have you been up to, Cadet?” Kigawe grinned. “Don’t worry; unless the Captain drums you out of the service, you can still help me when you get back.”
“Thanks, sir,” Yelena said dryly. Then she hurried out.
“Cadet Ivanova, good. Come in.”
Yelena obediently did so, but when she stopped and straightened to attention, Captain Jeanne Deladier much to her surprise nodded towards the visitor’s chair. “Please, sit.”
Immediately, warning bells went off in Yelena’s head. Cadets did not sit in the Captain’s presence, and they certainly weren’t politely asked to do so – they were ordered. Now what did I do? she nervously wondered as she lowered herself into the chair.
Captain Deladier waited until Yelena was seated before she spoke. “I have bad news, Cadet. I've just learned that the USS T’Lau was caught in a Jem’Hadar ambush two days ago. They did manage to destroy the Jem’Hadar and escape, but the ship was badly damaged and they took heavy casualties. Several officers and crew were killed and many were critically wounded. Her Captain among them.”
Yelena just looked at Captain Deladier. Since the war started, she had wondered how she would react if and when she got news like this... but now that it had finally happened, she didn’t feel anything. Just... emptiness. For the Captain of the USS T’Lau was Irina Ivanova, Yelena’s mother.
Slowly, Yelena became aware that Captain Deladier obviously expected her to say something, to ask something, and after a few moments, her numb brain managed to come up with what she thought was a suitable question.
“How bad is it?”
The Captain slowly shook her head. “It’s bad. Right now, they don’t know if she’ll... well, they don’t know. She’s been taken to Starbase 515,” she went on. “They’ve got the best medical facilities in the quadrant. Your mother is in very good hands.” She gave Yelena a brief, encouraging smile. “Did you know that your mother and I have served together? It was many years ago, on the Arecibo. She was an excellent officer then, too, but she was also one of the most stubborn people I have ever met. If anybody can get through this, she can.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Yelena responded automatically, and tried to smile back. Then she frowned. “What happened? If there was a risk of an ambush, my mother never would have...”
Captain Deladier shook her head again, more briskly this time. “Bad intel. There wasn’t supposed to be any Jem’Hadar in that sector - but there were. And they thought they should take a chance and try to take out a Sovereign.” She smiled curtly. “They didn’t count on her Captain, though.”
Yelena didn’t say anything.
“Now, I’m afraid I can’t grant you a leave of absence,” the Captain went on, ”but if you’d like to take a day or two off...”
“No. No, ma’am,” Yelena repeated. “I’d prefer to work – and my mother would never want me to abandon my post on her behalf.” Her face turned hard. “The requirements of the service do not make allowances for personal difficulties.”
The Captain nodded thoughtfully. “As you wish, Cadet. But let me know if you change your mind.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Yelena paused for a moment, trying to think of something else to say but without coming up with anything useful. “May I be excused?”
The Captain nodded again. “Of course. You’re dismissed, Cadet.”
Yelena was almost at the door when Captain Deladier spoke again.
“One more thing, Cadet. The T’Lau survived because her Captain kept a cool head in a situation where many others would have panicked. Your mother will get the Pike Medal of Valour for this.”
Yelena smiled sadly. “Yes, ma’am. But it isn’t much use if it’s posthumously, is it?”
Irina Ivanova would have had the head of any cadet who responded like that, but Jeanne Deladier took it for what it was.
“Dismissed, Cadet,” she simply repeated.
Yelena slowly walked to the turbolifts that would take her back to Engineering; but when she reached them and the turbolift doors opened, she just stood there without moving, staring blankly into space. When the war began and Irina Ivanova had made her daughter leave the ship to stay in safety on Earth, Yelena had lived on the USS T’Lau for two years, ever since her mother took command of what had been one of Starfleet’s very first Sovereign-class vessels. Yelena could picture the T’Lau just as clearly as she could see the closing turbolift doors in front of her; she knew every deck, every bulkhead, every Jeffries tube... and since she had always had a knack for engineering and had grown up under Sellia Rosh's watchful engineer's eyes, she also knew where the ship was vulnerable. She could vividly imagine which sections had been damaged, and how badly – and she could imagine who had been in those sections, and who might have been injured. Who might have been killed. And no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t chase away the image of her mother being crushed under a falling bulkhead, or being burned to a crisp when a console blew, or being blown into space through a hull breach, or-
Yelena clapped her hands to her mouth, trying but failing to stifle a desperate sob. If her mother died... if Yelena never got to see her again...
The last time Yelena had spoken to her mother had been several months earlier, when the T’Lau briefly had put in to Spacedock and Irina Ivanova had visited her daughter at Starfleet Academy. The day before, Yelena had announced her choice of division – and even though it hardly could have come as a surprise, Irina had been furious.
“Engineering!” she had spat. “Are you telling me you actually are going to choose Engineering?”
“I told you I would,” Yelena had tried, but Irina hadn’t listened.
“Tomorrow morning, you are going to go to the Commandant,” she had instead told her daughter in that ice cold tone all her subordinates feared. “You will tell her that you have made a mistake, and you will ask to be transferred to the Command division; then you will-”
“No.”
For the first time in her life, Yelena had gainsaid her mother, and Irina had stared at her in utter disbelief.
“What did you say?”
“I’m not going to change divisions.” Yelena’s chin had come up. “I’m going to be an engineer.”
Irina hadn't been able to believe what she was hearing. “Are you telling me you want to become some sort of glorified janitor and spend your days tightening nuts and bolts? Is that what you want for your Starfleet career?”
“There’s a little more to engineering than that, Mother,” Yelena had pointed out.
For a moment, Irina had just stared at her. Then she had shaken her head. “All right. If this really is what you want, then by all means, go ahead. But understand this, Yelena: I wash my hands. If you do this, you’re on your own – I won’t help you.”
“I’ve never asked you to help me, Mother!” Yelena had exclaimed with exasperation in her voice. “And I’ve never expected you to, either.” Then her voice had hardened. “Because you never would have, and we both know you never will.”
She had regretted the words the moment they left her lips, but Irina had furiously turned on her heel and had left Yelena’s dorm room before Yelena could say anything, and when the T’Lau had left Spacedock a couple of days later, Irina hadn’t said good-bye to her daughter. They hadn’t spoken since, maybe because they were both too proud and too stubborn to take the first step... and now it might be too late. Now Irina Ivanova might die, still furious with her daughter – and still thinking her daughter was furious with her. And that, Yelena knew she would never be able to forgive herself.
She returned to Engineering in a daze. She didn’t notice Lt. Kigawe’s increasingly concerned look as she helped him with the diagnostic, efficiently, but without saying anything and barely responding to Kigawe’s small talk.
She also didn’t notice it when Lt. Cmdr. ch’Zaar came up behind her and motioned for Kigawe to leave them alone for a moment.
“Cadet Ivanova?”
The sudden sound of ch’Zaar’s voice made Yelena jump.
“I’m afraid I’ve got some very bad news,” the Andorian said quietly. “I’ve learned that the T’Lau has been in an ambush. Your mother got the ship out of there...”
Yelena started to say that she already knew, but ch’Zaar went on:
“...but Sellia was killed. I’m sorry.”
That couldn’t be right, Yelena thought with growing panic. It had to be some mistake.
“Sellia?” she whispered. “Are you... are you sure?”
“I’ve just seen the casualty list,” ch’Zaar said. “I’m sorry, Cadet. I’m very sorry.”
Yelena started to tremble. Irina Ivanova would say that the life and death of a Starfleet officer were subject to the requirements of the service, and that was that. Sellia Rosh, on the other hand, would say that was a load of targ manure. So for her mentor, Yelena could do what she couldn’t do for her mother: She broke down and cried.
* * *
A month later, Yelena was back on Earth. Some of her friends at the Academy thought she was a little more subdued than before, but otherwise she seemed to be back to her usual self. She was also attacking her studies with a new and quite successful frenzy, that pleased her instructors even though they believed that she sometimes was thinking a little too far outside the box.
Also back on Earth, or at least in orbit around Earth, was the USS T’Lau, that for the past two weeks had been docked at McKinley Station for repairs. She now had her Captain back on board: like her ship, Irina Ivanova was still battered and bruised and she wasn’t yet back on duty, but she was well enough that Starbase 515 had allowed her to return to the T’Lau to continue her physical rehabilitation there. And now Yelena was going to the T'Lau, to see her mother for the first time in months.
Yelena was feeling a little nervous as she approached the corridor where Irina’s new quarters were. She had no idea what physical shape her mother would be in, nor in which mood, but she did know one thing. No matter what her mother said or did, Yelena was never again going to leave her angry or upset, or with saying something she would regret once she had calmed down. From now on, everything was going to be different. She rang the doorbell.
Irina, out of uniform, was just emerging from the dining area of her quarters when Yelena entered, and she greeted her daughter with something that very closely resembled a smile.
“There’s tea for you in the replicator,” she said without preamble. “I’m afraid I can’t get it for you; my left arm still hasn’t healed fully.”
Yelena swallowed. Her mother was moving slowly, obviously still in some discomfort. She was pale and thin, and if you looked closely, you could see that she still had faint scars on her cheeks and forehead. For a brief moment, there was a flash of pain in Irina’s eyes that Yelena knew had nothing to do with any physical injuries, and she wanted to walk up to her mother, to hug her and be hugged - but she didn’t. She knew that Irina Ivanova never would forgive herself for having shown weakness, nor would she forgive her daughter for seeing it.
Even so, Yelena couldn’t keep her voice from trembling. “Mother, I’m sorry!”
Irina looked completely nonplussed. “What in the world for?”
“Before, when you came to San Francisco, and I said... I shouldn’t... I didn’t mean...”
“I didn’t raise you to say things you don’t mean, Yelena,” Irina said sharply.
Yelena’s head drooped. “No, Captain,” she whispered.
Irina hesitated. “But... maybe I shouldn’t have been so harsh with you. You were right,” she went on when Yelena looked up in surprise, “you did tell me you were going to choose Engineering. I should have listened to you.” She sighed. “But I do wish you had gone with something else.”
“Like Command?” Yelena said with a grimace as she got her cup from the replicator.
“Yes,” Irina agreed. Carefully sitting down on the sofa, she nodded for Yelena to take one of the armchairs. “Engineering is a very slow career track, you know.”
Yelena smiled into her cup; this was so like her mother, making plans for her daughter’s career before Yelena had even graduated from the Academy. Taking a sip from her cup, she looked around the room. This was her first visit to the smaller quarters Irina had switched to when Yelena had moved out. The furniture was the same, though, Yelena noticed, and the display case with her mother’s awards was in the same place it had been before. At first, Yelena’s eyes just passed over it, but then she looked at it more closely. Residing in splendid isolation below the Decoration for Gallantry and the Grankite Order of Tactics that Irina had been rewarded with earlier during the war, was an award that hadn’t been there before.
“You got the Christopher Pike Medal!” Yelena exclaimed.
“Yes,” Irina said simply.
“That’s wonderful!”
But Irina shook her head. “I lost some very good people, and I almost lost my ship,” she said sharply. “There isn’t anything ‘wonderful’ about that.”
“But still...” Yelena gave her mother a thoughtful look. “Won’t they offer you a promotion after this?”
“They already did,” Irina said matter-of-factly. “I turned it down. I can’t twiddle my thumbs in some cushy San Francisco office when my fellow officers are fighting and dying in the trenches!” she added angrily when she saw the stunned look on her daughter’s face. “It’s bad enough as it is now...”
Yelena hesitated. This almost, with a little twisting, gave her an opening to ask something she had been thinking about ever since she learned that Sellia Rosh had been killed, but she was afraid of how her mother would react – and of how she herself would react when she heard the answer. She put her cup down.
“Mother... there’s something I need to ask you.” She swallowed. “Did you order Sellia... I mean, was it you...”
“You mean, did I kill her?” Irina interrupted in a hard voice.
“Yes.” The words were hardly more than a whisper, but Yelena still forced herself to look her mother in the eye.
“No. I did not.” But for the first time, Irina was the one to look away. “We had taken heavy damage. The section Sellia was in was about to decompress, but automatic force fields were inoperative. If the section blew...”
“It would take out half the deck,” Yelena whispered.
Irina nodded. “I don't have to tell you what that would have done to structural integrity in a combat situation. I told Sellia to get out of there, but she refused – she believed she could get the force fields up in time manually. So she ordered her crew off the deck in case she failed, and she stayed behind. I did not order her to do so – but I also didn’t order her to leave.” Irina smiled, faintly and wryly. “I knew she wouldn’t have obeyed that order anyway.” For a moment, she closed her eyes, but when she looked up, her gaze was steady as she met Yelena’s eyes. “She did get the force fields up in time: the only part of the deck to decompress, was the section she was in. I did not order her to stay behind,” Irina repeated firmly. “But understand this, Yelena: If I had to, to save my ship, I would have. Make no mistake, it is the hardest order a commanding officer can ever give – but the time might come when your ship and the lives of your crew might depend on it and when that happens, you have to be able to give that order without hesitation. Do you understand that?”
Now Yelena looked away, and for what felt like an eternity, she stared out of the window and at all the little automated maintenance craft that were swarming around the T’Lau’s battered hull like bees around honey. Her heart and her soul were hurting and all she wanted was for her mother to say that she understood and that she was hurting, too... but as always, all Irina talked about, and all she cared about, was her duty.
“Do I understand,” Yelena repeated in a low voice. She turned to look at her mother. “No, I don’t. And I don’t want to become a Starfleet officer if it means I have to become a monster!”
Irina stared at her daughter. “So that’s what you think? That I’m a monster? Because I’d do my duty to my crew?”
There was that hateful word. “No,” Yelena spat, “because you’d do it without feeling anything!”
“Ah.” Looking as if Yelena had just proven a point for her, Irina leaned back in the sofa. “So that’s what this is all about. You think I don’t mourn Sellia, is that it?”
“You just said you would have ordered her to die!” Yelena almost shouted.
“If it were what I had to do to save the lives of others!” Irina bit off the words. “As usual, you only hear what you want to hear, and what you think justifies...” She broke off with a grimace. “Sellia was my friend, too,” she went on in a low, hard voice. “She was my Chief Engineer for twelve years. But hard as it might be for you to realise, my roaming the halls weeping won’t bring her back, nor would it do anything to help the rest of my crew – and my duty as captain is to those of my crew who are still alive. Not the dead. We will honour their memories, but we will do so by moving on and by doing the job they would have wanted us to continue to do – not by burying ourselves in grief and self-pity. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, Cadet, but there’s a war going on. Mourning our dead will have to wait until it is all over.”
Yelena just stared at her mother in disbelief. Had Irina just said Yelena wasn't allowed to mourn for Sellia? Who had taught Yelena everything she knew and had been more of a mother to her than Irina herself ever had?
“You know," Yelena told her mother in a hard voice, "I used to think you’d make a perfect Vulcan, but I was wrong. They have feelings, they just hide them, but you... you never feel anything. And the only thing you’ve ever loved is your precious duty.”
“I haven’t dismissed you, Cadet,” Irina’s stern voice warned as Yelena stumbled out of the armchair and towards the door. Yelena spun around.
“So court-martial me, Captain!”
Sobbing, Yelena stormed out of her mother’s quarters. She left too quickly, and was too upset, to see how Irina blinked hard a couple of times, and then closed her eyes to keep them from filling with tears.
* FINIS *
Author: NixNivis
Rating: PG
Summary: The ones you love the most, can also hurt you the most.
Stories in this arc:
- Mothers and Daughters (set in 2387)
- In the Beginning (2356)
- The Road Not Taken (2364)
- Subject to the Requirements of the Service (2374)
- Never Forget, Never Forgive (2374)
- An Unstable Element (2374)
- Fallen Star (2374)
- Deliverance (2381)
- Requested and Required (2381)
- Catharsis (2390)
Hello there. It's good to see you!
If you haven't read any of my other holonovels and want to know more about the relationship between Yelena and Sellia Rosh, I recommend having a look at The Road Not Taken, but it's by no means a requirement, of the service or otherwise. You will be able to follow the story anyway, I promise.
The year is now 2374, ten years after "The Road..." and seven years before events in the USS Strangelove RPG.
Program complete - enter when ready!
“Cadet? Get these to the Chief Engineer right away.”
“Yes, sir!” Cadet Fourth Class Yelena Ivanova eagerly agreed as she received the three PADDs from the science officer. Delivering PADDs wasn’t exactly the most exciting job there was on a starship, but if it meant getting her down to Engineering, Yelena would happily take it. The Chief Engineer of the USS Artemis was not pleased about having a group of raw cadets assigned to him, and so he did everything he could get away with to keep them as far away from the ship’s engine room as possible – but this time, Yelena had a perfectly valid reason to enter his demesne, and she intended to make the most of it.
“Commander ch’Zaar? I was told to bring you these PADDs?”
“Uh-huh,” the Andorian Chief Engineer shrugged, looking neither at Yelena nor at the PADDs. Instead, he was intently studying what Yelena thought looked like the ship’s warp field alignment, and she couldn’t help moving a little closer to have a peek.
Now ch’Zaar did look at her, but only long enough to give her a disgusted glare.
“Do you know anything about warp field dynamics, Cadet...?”
“Ivanova, sir. And of course!”
The Chief Engineer looked extremely sceptical at that. “I mean other than ‘Engineering 101: Warp Core Breaches are Bad,’” he said flatly.
Yelena smiled. “I more or less grew up in a Galaxy-class engine room, sir.”
But ch’Zaar still looked sceptical. “Really? Whose engine room?”
“Sellia Rosh’s?”
Now the Andorian’s stern, blue visage brightened considerably. “You know Sellia? Really?” Then his eyes widened as it dawned on him: “You’re Yelena Ivanova, aren’t you? Sellia’s protégé?” He grinned when he saw the surprised look on Yelena’s face. “I’ve known Sellia since the Academy; she’s told me everything about you.” He lowered his voice a little. “Including the fact that you don’t want it widely known who your mother is. Don’t worry, Cadet,” he added with a smile, “your secret’s safe with me. Still, I think we should be able to find you something slightly more interesting to do than fetching PADDs.” He nodded towards another engineer standing a little farther away, peering at a screen on the wall. “You can start with helping Kigawe over there with the diagnostic he’s running.”
“Yes, sir!” Yelena grinned.
On her way over to Lt. Kigawe, Yelena passed one of her fellow freshmen, who was sitting with his forehead perilously resting on a computer console. Yelena couldn’t help grinning.
“Careful so you don’t eject the warp core like that, Al.”
But the other cadet didn’t stir. “I want to die!” he moaned.
Yelena grinned even wider; Cadet Alberto Pacelli believed he was God’s gift to engineering as well as to woman, and he also believed that he, by the Power of the Divine Y Chromosome, automatically knew more about everything technological than any female cadet ever could. He also believed he was born to be in space.
“You’re looking a little green around the gills,” Yelena said cheerfully. “I guess you’re spacesick again, huh? I hear it can be a real pain. A friend of mine couldn’t keep a single thing down during his first tour; he must have lost ten kilos by the time he returned to Earth.” This was a complete lie, of course, but the loud moan it invoked from Pacelli was quite satisfying. “But don’t worry,” Yelena went on, giving her fellow cadet an encouraging pat on the back, “it will pass eventually. It does for most people, anyway.”
Now Pacelli raised his head a few centimetres. “‘Most people?’” he repeated in a weak voice. “What do you mean, ‘most people?’”
But Yelena was already walking away, trying very hard not to laugh out loud.
“That was cruel, Cadet,” Lt. Kigawe observed when she reached him. He had overheard the entire thing – and he was also grinning. With his know-it-all attitude, Cadet Pacelli had managed to rub quite a few of the engineers the wrong way, especially since he stubbornly refused to admit that he in fact didn’t know it all, even when the evidence was overwhelming.
“I know,” Yelena grinned back. “Commander ch’Zaar said you needed help with a diagnostic?”
Kigawe arched an eyebrow. “You must be good, then,” he noted. “Usually, Che only lets cadets fetch-”
“-fetch PADDs, I know,” Yelena finished the sentence. “But it turns out we have a mutual acquaintance, and she’s the one who’s trained me. I sort of grew up on a starship,” she added when Kigawe looked surprised.
“Starfleet brat?” the lieutenant assumed. “Me, too; I grew up on a Miranda-class.” He smiled. “My dad was Chief Engineer, so I guess I’ve followed in his footsteps. Or try to, anyway.” He gave Yelena a curious look. “What about you? Are your parents engineers, too?”
Yelena was very relieved when her communicator chirped before she could answer.
“Cadet Ivanova,” she heard the Captain’s voice. “Report to my ready-room.”
“On my way, ma’am,” Yelena immediately acknowledged.
“Now what have you been up to, Cadet?” Kigawe grinned. “Don’t worry; unless the Captain drums you out of the service, you can still help me when you get back.”
“Thanks, sir,” Yelena said dryly. Then she hurried out.
“Cadet Ivanova, good. Come in.”
Yelena obediently did so, but when she stopped and straightened to attention, Captain Jeanne Deladier much to her surprise nodded towards the visitor’s chair. “Please, sit.”
Immediately, warning bells went off in Yelena’s head. Cadets did not sit in the Captain’s presence, and they certainly weren’t politely asked to do so – they were ordered. Now what did I do? she nervously wondered as she lowered herself into the chair.
Captain Deladier waited until Yelena was seated before she spoke. “I have bad news, Cadet. I've just learned that the USS T’Lau was caught in a Jem’Hadar ambush two days ago. They did manage to destroy the Jem’Hadar and escape, but the ship was badly damaged and they took heavy casualties. Several officers and crew were killed and many were critically wounded. Her Captain among them.”
Yelena just looked at Captain Deladier. Since the war started, she had wondered how she would react if and when she got news like this... but now that it had finally happened, she didn’t feel anything. Just... emptiness. For the Captain of the USS T’Lau was Irina Ivanova, Yelena’s mother.
Slowly, Yelena became aware that Captain Deladier obviously expected her to say something, to ask something, and after a few moments, her numb brain managed to come up with what she thought was a suitable question.
“How bad is it?”
The Captain slowly shook her head. “It’s bad. Right now, they don’t know if she’ll... well, they don’t know. She’s been taken to Starbase 515,” she went on. “They’ve got the best medical facilities in the quadrant. Your mother is in very good hands.” She gave Yelena a brief, encouraging smile. “Did you know that your mother and I have served together? It was many years ago, on the Arecibo. She was an excellent officer then, too, but she was also one of the most stubborn people I have ever met. If anybody can get through this, she can.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Yelena responded automatically, and tried to smile back. Then she frowned. “What happened? If there was a risk of an ambush, my mother never would have...”
Captain Deladier shook her head again, more briskly this time. “Bad intel. There wasn’t supposed to be any Jem’Hadar in that sector - but there were. And they thought they should take a chance and try to take out a Sovereign.” She smiled curtly. “They didn’t count on her Captain, though.”
Yelena didn’t say anything.
“Now, I’m afraid I can’t grant you a leave of absence,” the Captain went on, ”but if you’d like to take a day or two off...”
“No. No, ma’am,” Yelena repeated. “I’d prefer to work – and my mother would never want me to abandon my post on her behalf.” Her face turned hard. “The requirements of the service do not make allowances for personal difficulties.”
The Captain nodded thoughtfully. “As you wish, Cadet. But let me know if you change your mind.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Yelena paused for a moment, trying to think of something else to say but without coming up with anything useful. “May I be excused?”
The Captain nodded again. “Of course. You’re dismissed, Cadet.”
Yelena was almost at the door when Captain Deladier spoke again.
“One more thing, Cadet. The T’Lau survived because her Captain kept a cool head in a situation where many others would have panicked. Your mother will get the Pike Medal of Valour for this.”
Yelena smiled sadly. “Yes, ma’am. But it isn’t much use if it’s posthumously, is it?”
Irina Ivanova would have had the head of any cadet who responded like that, but Jeanne Deladier took it for what it was.
“Dismissed, Cadet,” she simply repeated.
Yelena slowly walked to the turbolifts that would take her back to Engineering; but when she reached them and the turbolift doors opened, she just stood there without moving, staring blankly into space. When the war began and Irina Ivanova had made her daughter leave the ship to stay in safety on Earth, Yelena had lived on the USS T’Lau for two years, ever since her mother took command of what had been one of Starfleet’s very first Sovereign-class vessels. Yelena could picture the T’Lau just as clearly as she could see the closing turbolift doors in front of her; she knew every deck, every bulkhead, every Jeffries tube... and since she had always had a knack for engineering and had grown up under Sellia Rosh's watchful engineer's eyes, she also knew where the ship was vulnerable. She could vividly imagine which sections had been damaged, and how badly – and she could imagine who had been in those sections, and who might have been injured. Who might have been killed. And no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t chase away the image of her mother being crushed under a falling bulkhead, or being burned to a crisp when a console blew, or being blown into space through a hull breach, or-
Yelena clapped her hands to her mouth, trying but failing to stifle a desperate sob. If her mother died... if Yelena never got to see her again...
The last time Yelena had spoken to her mother had been several months earlier, when the T’Lau briefly had put in to Spacedock and Irina Ivanova had visited her daughter at Starfleet Academy. The day before, Yelena had announced her choice of division – and even though it hardly could have come as a surprise, Irina had been furious.
“Engineering!” she had spat. “Are you telling me you actually are going to choose Engineering?”
“I told you I would,” Yelena had tried, but Irina hadn’t listened.
“Tomorrow morning, you are going to go to the Commandant,” she had instead told her daughter in that ice cold tone all her subordinates feared. “You will tell her that you have made a mistake, and you will ask to be transferred to the Command division; then you will-”
“No.”
For the first time in her life, Yelena had gainsaid her mother, and Irina had stared at her in utter disbelief.
“What did you say?”
“I’m not going to change divisions.” Yelena’s chin had come up. “I’m going to be an engineer.”
Irina hadn't been able to believe what she was hearing. “Are you telling me you want to become some sort of glorified janitor and spend your days tightening nuts and bolts? Is that what you want for your Starfleet career?”
“There’s a little more to engineering than that, Mother,” Yelena had pointed out.
For a moment, Irina had just stared at her. Then she had shaken her head. “All right. If this really is what you want, then by all means, go ahead. But understand this, Yelena: I wash my hands. If you do this, you’re on your own – I won’t help you.”
“I’ve never asked you to help me, Mother!” Yelena had exclaimed with exasperation in her voice. “And I’ve never expected you to, either.” Then her voice had hardened. “Because you never would have, and we both know you never will.”
She had regretted the words the moment they left her lips, but Irina had furiously turned on her heel and had left Yelena’s dorm room before Yelena could say anything, and when the T’Lau had left Spacedock a couple of days later, Irina hadn’t said good-bye to her daughter. They hadn’t spoken since, maybe because they were both too proud and too stubborn to take the first step... and now it might be too late. Now Irina Ivanova might die, still furious with her daughter – and still thinking her daughter was furious with her. And that, Yelena knew she would never be able to forgive herself.
She returned to Engineering in a daze. She didn’t notice Lt. Kigawe’s increasingly concerned look as she helped him with the diagnostic, efficiently, but without saying anything and barely responding to Kigawe’s small talk.
She also didn’t notice it when Lt. Cmdr. ch’Zaar came up behind her and motioned for Kigawe to leave them alone for a moment.
“Cadet Ivanova?”
The sudden sound of ch’Zaar’s voice made Yelena jump.
“I’m afraid I’ve got some very bad news,” the Andorian said quietly. “I’ve learned that the T’Lau has been in an ambush. Your mother got the ship out of there...”
Yelena started to say that she already knew, but ch’Zaar went on:
“...but Sellia was killed. I’m sorry.”
That couldn’t be right, Yelena thought with growing panic. It had to be some mistake.
“Sellia?” she whispered. “Are you... are you sure?”
“I’ve just seen the casualty list,” ch’Zaar said. “I’m sorry, Cadet. I’m very sorry.”
Yelena started to tremble. Irina Ivanova would say that the life and death of a Starfleet officer were subject to the requirements of the service, and that was that. Sellia Rosh, on the other hand, would say that was a load of targ manure. So for her mentor, Yelena could do what she couldn’t do for her mother: She broke down and cried.
A month later, Yelena was back on Earth. Some of her friends at the Academy thought she was a little more subdued than before, but otherwise she seemed to be back to her usual self. She was also attacking her studies with a new and quite successful frenzy, that pleased her instructors even though they believed that she sometimes was thinking a little too far outside the box.
Also back on Earth, or at least in orbit around Earth, was the USS T’Lau, that for the past two weeks had been docked at McKinley Station for repairs. She now had her Captain back on board: like her ship, Irina Ivanova was still battered and bruised and she wasn’t yet back on duty, but she was well enough that Starbase 515 had allowed her to return to the T’Lau to continue her physical rehabilitation there. And now Yelena was going to the T'Lau, to see her mother for the first time in months.
Yelena was feeling a little nervous as she approached the corridor where Irina’s new quarters were. She had no idea what physical shape her mother would be in, nor in which mood, but she did know one thing. No matter what her mother said or did, Yelena was never again going to leave her angry or upset, or with saying something she would regret once she had calmed down. From now on, everything was going to be different. She rang the doorbell.
Irina, out of uniform, was just emerging from the dining area of her quarters when Yelena entered, and she greeted her daughter with something that very closely resembled a smile.
“There’s tea for you in the replicator,” she said without preamble. “I’m afraid I can’t get it for you; my left arm still hasn’t healed fully.”
Yelena swallowed. Her mother was moving slowly, obviously still in some discomfort. She was pale and thin, and if you looked closely, you could see that she still had faint scars on her cheeks and forehead. For a brief moment, there was a flash of pain in Irina’s eyes that Yelena knew had nothing to do with any physical injuries, and she wanted to walk up to her mother, to hug her and be hugged - but she didn’t. She knew that Irina Ivanova never would forgive herself for having shown weakness, nor would she forgive her daughter for seeing it.
Even so, Yelena couldn’t keep her voice from trembling. “Mother, I’m sorry!”
Irina looked completely nonplussed. “What in the world for?”
“Before, when you came to San Francisco, and I said... I shouldn’t... I didn’t mean...”
“I didn’t raise you to say things you don’t mean, Yelena,” Irina said sharply.
Yelena’s head drooped. “No, Captain,” she whispered.
Irina hesitated. “But... maybe I shouldn’t have been so harsh with you. You were right,” she went on when Yelena looked up in surprise, “you did tell me you were going to choose Engineering. I should have listened to you.” She sighed. “But I do wish you had gone with something else.”
“Like Command?” Yelena said with a grimace as she got her cup from the replicator.
“Yes,” Irina agreed. Carefully sitting down on the sofa, she nodded for Yelena to take one of the armchairs. “Engineering is a very slow career track, you know.”
Yelena smiled into her cup; this was so like her mother, making plans for her daughter’s career before Yelena had even graduated from the Academy. Taking a sip from her cup, she looked around the room. This was her first visit to the smaller quarters Irina had switched to when Yelena had moved out. The furniture was the same, though, Yelena noticed, and the display case with her mother’s awards was in the same place it had been before. At first, Yelena’s eyes just passed over it, but then she looked at it more closely. Residing in splendid isolation below the Decoration for Gallantry and the Grankite Order of Tactics that Irina had been rewarded with earlier during the war, was an award that hadn’t been there before.
“You got the Christopher Pike Medal!” Yelena exclaimed.
“Yes,” Irina said simply.
“That’s wonderful!”
But Irina shook her head. “I lost some very good people, and I almost lost my ship,” she said sharply. “There isn’t anything ‘wonderful’ about that.”
“But still...” Yelena gave her mother a thoughtful look. “Won’t they offer you a promotion after this?”
“They already did,” Irina said matter-of-factly. “I turned it down. I can’t twiddle my thumbs in some cushy San Francisco office when my fellow officers are fighting and dying in the trenches!” she added angrily when she saw the stunned look on her daughter’s face. “It’s bad enough as it is now...”
Yelena hesitated. This almost, with a little twisting, gave her an opening to ask something she had been thinking about ever since she learned that Sellia Rosh had been killed, but she was afraid of how her mother would react – and of how she herself would react when she heard the answer. She put her cup down.
“Mother... there’s something I need to ask you.” She swallowed. “Did you order Sellia... I mean, was it you...”
“You mean, did I kill her?” Irina interrupted in a hard voice.
“Yes.” The words were hardly more than a whisper, but Yelena still forced herself to look her mother in the eye.
“No. I did not.” But for the first time, Irina was the one to look away. “We had taken heavy damage. The section Sellia was in was about to decompress, but automatic force fields were inoperative. If the section blew...”
“It would take out half the deck,” Yelena whispered.
Irina nodded. “I don't have to tell you what that would have done to structural integrity in a combat situation. I told Sellia to get out of there, but she refused – she believed she could get the force fields up in time manually. So she ordered her crew off the deck in case she failed, and she stayed behind. I did not order her to do so – but I also didn’t order her to leave.” Irina smiled, faintly and wryly. “I knew she wouldn’t have obeyed that order anyway.” For a moment, she closed her eyes, but when she looked up, her gaze was steady as she met Yelena’s eyes. “She did get the force fields up in time: the only part of the deck to decompress, was the section she was in. I did not order her to stay behind,” Irina repeated firmly. “But understand this, Yelena: If I had to, to save my ship, I would have. Make no mistake, it is the hardest order a commanding officer can ever give – but the time might come when your ship and the lives of your crew might depend on it and when that happens, you have to be able to give that order without hesitation. Do you understand that?”
Now Yelena looked away, and for what felt like an eternity, she stared out of the window and at all the little automated maintenance craft that were swarming around the T’Lau’s battered hull like bees around honey. Her heart and her soul were hurting and all she wanted was for her mother to say that she understood and that she was hurting, too... but as always, all Irina talked about, and all she cared about, was her duty.
“Do I understand,” Yelena repeated in a low voice. She turned to look at her mother. “No, I don’t. And I don’t want to become a Starfleet officer if it means I have to become a monster!”
Irina stared at her daughter. “So that’s what you think? That I’m a monster? Because I’d do my duty to my crew?”
There was that hateful word. “No,” Yelena spat, “because you’d do it without feeling anything!”
“Ah.” Looking as if Yelena had just proven a point for her, Irina leaned back in the sofa. “So that’s what this is all about. You think I don’t mourn Sellia, is that it?”
“You just said you would have ordered her to die!” Yelena almost shouted.
“If it were what I had to do to save the lives of others!” Irina bit off the words. “As usual, you only hear what you want to hear, and what you think justifies...” She broke off with a grimace. “Sellia was my friend, too,” she went on in a low, hard voice. “She was my Chief Engineer for twelve years. But hard as it might be for you to realise, my roaming the halls weeping won’t bring her back, nor would it do anything to help the rest of my crew – and my duty as captain is to those of my crew who are still alive. Not the dead. We will honour their memories, but we will do so by moving on and by doing the job they would have wanted us to continue to do – not by burying ourselves in grief and self-pity. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, Cadet, but there’s a war going on. Mourning our dead will have to wait until it is all over.”
Yelena just stared at her mother in disbelief. Had Irina just said Yelena wasn't allowed to mourn for Sellia? Who had taught Yelena everything she knew and had been more of a mother to her than Irina herself ever had?
“You know," Yelena told her mother in a hard voice, "I used to think you’d make a perfect Vulcan, but I was wrong. They have feelings, they just hide them, but you... you never feel anything. And the only thing you’ve ever loved is your precious duty.”
“I haven’t dismissed you, Cadet,” Irina’s stern voice warned as Yelena stumbled out of the armchair and towards the door. Yelena spun around.
“So court-martial me, Captain!”
Sobbing, Yelena stormed out of her mother’s quarters. She left too quickly, and was too upset, to see how Irina blinked hard a couple of times, and then closed her eyes to keep them from filling with tears.
